Quilt No.762PHM - Powerhouse Museum

Powerhouse Museum
Owner: 
Powerhouse Museum
Location: 
NSW Sydney
Maker
Maker: 
Elizabeth Garrett
Made in
AUSTRALIA VIC
Date: 
1901 - 1920
Description: 
"A double-sided patchwork quilt machine-pieced from plain and patterned rectangular woollen patches, each 130 x 200mm. The fabrics came from a tailor's swatchbook of men's, and possibly women.s, suiting samples and are mainly in tonings of olive green, brown, blue and cream. The two layers are bound together with a pieced border strip that forms the outside edge. There is no filling or quilting." [PHM]
2140 x 1660mm
History: 

The maker was Elizabeth Garrett , born Elizabeth Butler about 1870 and died 1946. It was made about 1910 at Box Hill Melbourne. The quilt was passed from Elizabeth Garrett to her daughter Elsie Garrett Hanna, and then to Elsie's daughter Mrs. Val Skinner of Mosman. Val Skinner gave the quilt to the Australian Costume and Textile Society and it subsequently came to the Powerhouse Museum when the ACTS collection was transferred there in 1983. It is used for research and exhibition purposes only.

Story: 

"The family landed at Portland and joined the gold rush; later they moved to James Street, Box Hill, where this quilt was made and later still moved to the bush outside Melbourne. Elizabeth was one of seven girls and one boy and was the dressmaker for the family. Elizabeth was married and had three children at the time the quilt was made, around 1910. Her first daughter Elsie was born in 1893."
"In January 1986 Val Skinner, the maker's granddaughter, said that everyone in the family used the quilt when they went camping and that later on, when they could afford to buy bed covers, it went under the bed." [PHM]

Elizabeth Garrett c.1910
Elizabeth Garrett c.1910

Related Quilts:

Nancy Dunlap
Repeat block in wedding ring pattern. All cottons with cream background and mainly pale mauve and green dressmaking prints in wedding rings. Green border and cream calico backing. The padding is cotton. 1800 x 210mm.
National Trust of Australia (QLD)
Crazy patchwork quilt with mainly patterned pieces in a wide variety of designs and colours. Backing is wholecloth patterned cotton. The quilt is edged with a checked bias binding. Machine construction.
2299 x 1449mm
National Trust of Australia (NSW)
Handsewn quilt of hexagon patches in cotton prints in 'Grandmother's Flower Garden' pattern. Each flower consists of double rows of print hexagons around a yellow centre and these are joined by 'paths' in plain green and white cotton. Backing is green cotton and there is a wool padding. There is outline quilting around all green and white hexagons and centre and first row of hexagons in flowers.
1885 x 1750mm
Mare Carter
Patchwork quilt, all cotton including cotton padding filler. The design is 'Dresden Plate' or 'Friendship Circle'. Background is white with multicoloured and patterned triangular pieces forming circles. Hand stitched and heavily quilted.
2235 x 1778mm
Muriel Thompson
Quilt in pattern known as 'double weeding ring'. All cotton, using old prints, plaids, checks and solid colours, with plain blues and red squares at the intersections of the circles. White background. Hand pieced. Padding is Hobbs Heirloom: cotton 80%, polyester 20%. Backing is cream quilted cotton. 2500 x 2100 mm.
N.S.W. Parks and Wildlife Service
Double sided quilt. Side 1 has a central patch of small rectangles and borders of half square triangles. Seamed construction. Side 2 is crazy patch in wools and cottons on to a backing material. There is one round segmented circle in the centre. Machine pieced and quilted.
2050 x 1610mm