Quilts

Quilt of cotton hexagons, 6 form the petals of a flower with 1 in the centre. There are approximately 138 flowers in the quilt. It is all hand stitched including the edges on to deep blue backing. Wide variety of materials patterned and plain. Some were dress samples from John Wild in Wagga and some from her mother's (Betty Johnson, Wagga Wagga) dressmaking. The hexagons were stitched on papers cut from a glass template made by Celia's brother.
2370 x 2690mm

Patchwork quilt in silks and cottons, handsewn from very small fabric pieces, has 2 pieced repeat pattern blocks. The quilt centre groups 9 blocks made of squares. Surrounding them are pieced blocks featuring a star. The strips in between all blocks are made from 2 rows of squares with a diamond pattern making a lattice effect. The first border has hexagons with appliqued and embroidered cats. The second border of cream cotton has harnessed horses embroidered and appliqued. Binding is of green cotton. No padding. Backed with red cotton paisley print. Signed and dated: 'Mrs E. Keen, Junction Hotel, Fyansford, 1879'.
2660 x 2330mm

Machine made wholecloth quilt in gold satin cotton. "�...perhaps a new cover over the blue japara cotton base. Vaguely oval central medallion with floral tulip pattern in trapunto with ruching. Outside this is another trapunto pattern." [Edith Young]
The backing is gold satin cotton and the padding is quite thick, possibly down. 1720 x 1420 mm.

Utility quilt, machine pieced from mainly squares of dress materials in many different patterns. The backing is a wholecloth paisley print. The padding is pieced used clothing and materials including chenille and plush.
1950 x 1270mm

Log cabin quilt with 90mm squares in cotton materials, white (or cream), faded blacks, dark blues, reds and browns. All the strips are very narrow. No actual padding as such but the quilt is fairly thick because with such narrow strips, there is so much seam allownace. The backing is a light calico.
1715 x 1575mm

This domestic Wagga is made from an opened out jute wool bale as the padding with a woollen blanket as the backing. The top was originally curtains (brown cotton printed with daisies and dull yellow tulips) and the material has been folded over to the back for 60mm and stitched with 'Barbour's Linen Wax Thread' using running stitches about 50mm long. The whole domestic Wagga is then stitched in a large square grid.
1980 x 1730mm

"A double bedspread composed of Suffolk puffs of fine white cotton, each puff measuring 50mm in diameter. The puffs are hand stitched together, with crochet worked in the spaces in between. A deep frill of white cotton has been added to three sides of the quilt. Two matching pillow shams have been made from 30mm puffs; each sham is edged with a generous bias cut cotton frill on all four sides." [PHM]
2770 x 2560mm

Possum skin cloak. The possum skins are sewn together with vegetable fibre or kangaroo sinew. Designs are incised into the skins, some of which are decorated with ochres. 2720 x 2100mm