British Quilt Study Group - Gallery

(Private collection)

This quilt is made from cotton sateen with alternating strips of pink and gold with a floral pattern on the reverse. The strips and quilt edges have been machine stitched together.

It is full of wonderful quilting patterns all skillfully hand stitched - a lovely running feather on the central strip is followed either side by lined hammocks with a simple chain centre and a fill of square diamonds and diagonal lines. The next strips have a double row of smaller lined hammocks topped with petals. The following strips have stylized bellows of single chains and an infil of diamonds. The outer strips have small roses in between a row of curved feathers which may possibly have been marked using one of the templates shown in one of the photos below.

This quilt was made by Mary Jane Wood 1861-1940. Mary Jane Tewart was born in the mining hamlet of Dryburn in Northumberland, one of eleven children of coalminer William and his wife Mary. Several of her brothers were also coalminers and the 1881 census shows that the family had moved south to the mining village of Metal Bridge in Co. Durham possibly where more work was available.

In 1882 Mary Jane married Ralph Wood, also a coalminer and they had two children. Mary Jane acted as the village midwife and ?layer out? and made many quilts while waiting for the babies to arrive, some of her quilts being sold to raise funds for the local Methodist chapel. When her daughter became a war widow she moved back to live with her parents doing the housework and cooking so that Mary Jane could spend her time quilting and helping villagers.

There is a little more information about Mary Jane Wood in the Quilters? Guild book ?Quilt Treasures? which may be available secondhand.

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