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On my travels round Wales I sometimes come across old welsh textiles that I simply cannot bare to part with . I have a growing collection of narrow loom blankets , mainly from Ceredigion , a few flannel quilts too.

 

It is the social history of welsh textiles that fascinate me and sends me to far out of the way cottages , farms and busy towns in search of their stories.

 

On a recent trip to llansamlet in Swansea , I came across a lovely lady ; Eleanor Thomas , who proudly showed me the quilts that her mother had made . One of which , I bought from her .

 

Eleanors mother Gwen Lewis made this beautiful quilt . One of eight sisters ; the family lived on the top of Mynydd Farteg , Ystrad Gynlais . a tiny white cottage in the middle of nowhere . Gwen was born in 1915 and according to Eleanor  this quilt would have been made by her from the age of about 8 years old.

 

                        " well there was nothing else to do there !"

 

The family had a clothes business & Gwens` mother would carry the clothes down the mountain on her back to sell in Ystrad Gynlais. No doubt , this quilt is made up of scraps of material from the business as well as from their own clothing.

 

A patchwork quilt made up of triangular pieces similar in construction to Pennsylvanian quilts with bowties in the corners. Rectangular pieces were used on the reverse. Florals & striped cottons & shirting flannels . A fabulous record  of early Twentieth Century fabrics.

 

Gwen went on to emmigrate to Pennsylvania in the 1930s and on her return , some years later ; produced some fabulous quilts in the American Applique styles of the day. But it is this one , that holds the magic for me . Hand sewn by a little girl high in the mountains " with nothing else to do ".