Wednesday 29 July 2009

Antique Australian Quilts

Time to share some more of the beautiful quilts on display at this years Craft and Quilt Fair in Melbourne. The quilts in this post are from the collection of Australian quilt historian and collector Annette Gero. The first photo is part of a Strippy Hexagon quilt made around 1860. It was constructed using the English paper piecing method and contains 9,900 one inch hexagons!

I liked this star quilt.

This is a section of the border.

More hexagons ....

a little applique .....

and hexagon flowers.


This is a wagga, made in the 1950s, from old dress fabrics. It is quilted with thick blue woollen thread.

Also made in the 1950s was this seersucker wagga 'stuffed' with children's cardigans. I'd heard of clothes and blankets being used as batting but never actually seen an example before.


Another hexagon quilt made in the 1850s. Each hexagon is only 1/2 inch and there are over 1 million stitches in the quilt.



This redwork quilt featuring children's scenes was hand embroidered and hand quilted around 1934.


This was my favourite block .... it reminded me of Molly.


Hope you enjoyed these snippets .... it was difficult to get good photos of entire quilts. Maybe I need to invest in a more powerful camera?

15 comments:

  1. There are some beautiful quilts there, I can only dream of being that good.
    Karen

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  2. Oh my gosh..love those hexagon quilts.. but the first one.. I LOVE!!!! :o)))

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  3. I just enjoyed looking at all the quilts. But I especially loved the hexagon quilts. I can definitely see the resemblance to Molly in the Redwork quilt.

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  4. How wonderful to have found Molly in a vintage quilt! As for the more powerful camera - Christmas is but 5 months away - I would be preparing my list for Santa (wink)!
    Cheers!

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  5. Those are so pretty - thank you for sharing!

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  6. the best part of going to a quilt show is seeing all the different quilts.........what others have been making.........

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  7. How stunning!! I'm so glad you took a picture of the quilt that had clothes used as batting! The stitchery quilt is adorable!

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  8. Wow Christine, they're fabulous!! I'm amazed at the childrens cardigans/jumpers being used for batting though, I've never heard of that before. What an ingenious idea.
    That last hexagon quilt is just stunning - thanks so much for sharing the piccies :o).
    Hugs,
    Joy :o)

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  9. What is a Wagga? Those hexagons quilts are beautiful.

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  10. Love all the hexagon quilts. The red work quilt is amazing! Neat to see the clothes used as batting.

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  11. these old quilts are so precious.... the redwork dog is beautiful I want one....

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  12. What amazing quilts, thankyou so much for sharing your photos....makes me want to browse Annette Gero's book.....

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  13. What an amazing show! I know these are all antiques, but with lots of interesting 'new' things for me. I have never seen clothing used as batting. And I have no idea what a wagga is. Thanks for sharing!

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  14. Wow, I have never even heard of stuffing a quilt with used clothing. How interesting. Talk about wasting nothing. It would be kind of like a time capsule wouldn't it. Years later you could open it up and out would spill years of memories. Thanks for sharing the pics of the show.

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Thanks for taking the time to comment. I appreciate your thoughts.

Christine