Throughout the Spring, Radstock Museum will be hosting the third major exhibition of Patchwork and Quilting staged by Midsomer Quilting of Chilcompton. This spectacular display will include 200 quilts, representing 170 years of the craft in this locality and beyond.
The exhibition will include several antique quilts together with scores that have been made to the highest standard by Midsomer Quilting’s customers, locally and from around the world, as well as the work of a number of internationally known quilters who teach there.
There are small quilts and there are huge ones; several are 12” square and there are others more than 80 square feet each. One particularly prized exhibit will be a quilt made in the 1850s by Anna Maria Cradock at Foxcote Farm, less than three miles from the Museum. This quilt consists of tiny silk hexagons as fresh and vibrant today as when it was made. Unfortunately Anna Maria died young and her quilt remained locked in a wooden chest for 130 years, together with her wedding dress, which will also be shown with her family bible.
Every quilt has been carefully selected for the exhibition by Midsomer Quilting and will include 14 that together make up a panoramic view of Weston-super-Mare, as well as one made by fifteen Chinese children as a test piece before their grandmother would allow them to progress to larger pieces.
The exhibition runs from 1st February until 31st May, 2012.
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