Lilian Hedley's North Country Quilt residential course

Lilian Hedley, who is well known as the UK's number one North Country traditional quilter, is teaching a retreat soon at The Royal, Bridlington, at the end of March.  We went on her course there two years ago and it was brilliant!  Apparently there are a few places still available, so if you are interested, contact Fiona at The Royal asap.  Lilian learned how to design in the North Country traditional from some of the 'old school' quilters, including Amy Emms, so this is a unique opportunity to learn from a living tradition.

 

  

Quilting Sidmouth Revisited

I am hand quilting Sidmouth Revisited at the moment.  A big job - it is 96in square.  The photo above was taken several days ago.  Although I've taken inspiration from the original quilt for the designs, I have resized the quilting frames that don't quite match up with the piecing on the original so they have a more sympathetic relationship to the patchwork frames. Most of the quilting motifs are Welsh and will include beech leaves, hearts etc.

The centre will feature a feather circle which is more typical of North Country designs, although used in the manner of the 'coin' circle centre seen on Welsh quilts.  Lilian Hedley drafted it for me on last autumn's course at The Royal, Bridlington.  This is a 24in square quilt she made with a smaller version of the feather circle in the centre.

 

The circle in the middle of the original coverlet is more like a chevron pattern than feathers, but nevertheless has a rather Neo Classical look.

Sidmouth revisited - progress

I have been pushing ahead with Sidmouth Revisited recently, as I need to get it finished now so it can appear in Today's Quilter's Christmas issue.  The photo above shows me tracing the feather circle in the centre, before the last four borders were added.  I have an A2 slimline lightbox which is so useful for work like this.  

Lilian Hedley drew this wonderful feather circle/wreath for me when we did her North Country design course at The Royal, Bridlington, last October.

The original Sidmouth Quilt has a central circle motif which is almost but not quite a true feather circle - more like a double circle with slanting lines.  But as I am not making a replica quilt and I'm only using the original's quilting designs as a starting point, I wanted to have a proper feather circle in the centre instead.  Yesterday I called at Just Sew in Penrith and bought a rather lovely cream cotton sateen for the backing, because I want the quilting design to show really nicely on the back, rather than being somewhat camouflaged by a print.  It should show very well on the cotton sateen. The back of the original Sidmouth Quilt is shown below.

Mary Jenkins has written several recent blog posts about the Mary Lloyd quilt in the collection at St Fagan's museum - about the quilting and about the applique and patchwork.  This quilt uses the same centre panel as the Sidmouth Quilt. There are also some similarities in the quilting, notably in the extensive use of cross hatching or square diamonds, which Mary had mentioned being more typical of the early C20th in Wales and not seen much before.  I wonder if the Sidmouth Quilt is originally from Wales?