wip thursday - mrs vigors' english medallion

Another look into Kate's Works in Progress cupboard (there are lots in there!)

This quilt-in-progress was inspired by Mrs Vigors' circa 1820 medallion quilt, published in Enduring Grace - Quilts from the Shelburne Museum Collection (1997). From memory, my quilt was started around 2000 or 2001.


At the time I wasn't taken with the borders of the original so I winged it with other borders. Now looking back at the original I quite like Mrs Vigors' borders (oh so fickle)!

I rarely purchase patterns but rather, tend to work from photographs and draft the patterns and blocks myself. The book gave dimensions of the original (96.5" x 104"), so it was easy to calculate the size of the centre medallion, then work everything out from there. The piecing and appliqué is all hand done.

A few years after the top was completed quilting ideas started to surface. The original is not quilted, but being an English-style medallion, my ideas were based on traditional English and Welsh quilting designs.

With nothing available commercially that was just right, I cut my own quilt template for the centre medallion, copied from an antique Welsh quilt. Like many older English and Welsh quilts the quilting pattern doesn't necessarily follow the pieced pattern.


The first border and quarter circles are traditional quilting symbols taken from a very useful book (Horton, Marjorie (1999) Welsh Quilting Pattern & Design Book. Self-published by the author, Rainier, WA.)


This is the best, but you'll have to search for it. Mine is bound with a plastic comb. It has wonderful diagrams.

Currently, quilting has stalled on the wide yellow border, a French Provencal print that I fell in love with...one of the very first times yellow has featured so prominently in my quilts). The quilting in this border features crossed tulips and Welsh bent leaves with a mini clamshell background.

Other quilting design resources I've used are:
Jenkins and Claridge (2005) Making Welsh Quilts: The Textile Tradition That Inspired the Amish? KP Books, Iola, WI. Nice colour pictures, history, plenty of good diagrams.
Rae, Janet (1987) The Quilts of the British Isles. Bellow Publishing Co. Ltd., London. Don't skip the old books, they are real treasures! This one has only average quality photos but gives good quilting sketches and a wider history and difference among the styles.
Osler, Dorothy (1996) The Quilting Design Sourcebook. That Patchwork Place, Bothell, WA. Excellent traditional patterns with instructions on how to enlarge them to fit particular block sizes (ie enlarge by 125% to fit an 11.5" block).

If (read when) I quilt another quilt of this style (Jane Temperley Hope is next) I would use a plain backing. With Mrs Vigors I've used a busy pillar print, and although gorgeous it doesn't show up the quilting well.

And finally - to see some beautiful antique Welsh quilts visit Jen Jones' website.

With quilting now completed on Ben's quilt, perhaps Mrs. Vigors' will get some more attention :)