Nov 20

Nov 20 An Archive of Mouldy Patches

A large, lurid green box of patchwork pieces and bags of scraps, sitting in a skip.

Unfathomably, amongst the patchwork flowers drying on newspaper in my kitchen is a miniature copy of “Quotations - Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.” It’s red, of course.

Also amongst the patchwork flowers in my kitchen is an upturned plastic cup. A spider is beneath it. It was safely removed from the house.

Parts of an English Paper Pieced Patchwork

English paper piecing is a traditional quilting and patchwork technique. It involves hand-sewing shapes together with the help of paper templates. Because hand piecing enables quilt-makers to sew small or fiddly shapes together, paper pieced patterns can be very intricate or complicated, making use of lots of different shapes to create amazing geometric effects over an entire quilt-top.

However, many people prefer to solely use hexagons, and even by just using this one shape, a quilter can make various patterns, or, depending on the purpose of the quilt, no pattern at all.

The work begins with a pile of hexagonal paper templates, all perfectly precise and identical. They can be cut from anything (letters and envelopes, political or philosophical tracts, seed and wine catalogues, company statements), though pre-cut shapes can be bought online. Roughly hexagonal pieces of fabric (at least half an inch to two centimetres bigger than the template) are then folded around the templates and ironed in place. To keep the fabric and template firmly together, a basting stitch (also called tacking, this is sewing long, easily removable stitches) is used to ensure the folds are secure.

Once there are enough basted, fabric hexagons, two are placed right side together and sewn along one edge, right at the top, taking care to avoid sewing through the paper. Whip stitch or feather stitch are most commonly used to avoid the stitch showing on the top side. More and more hexagons are sewn together (to make larger ‘blocks’, if there is a pattern), with every side attached to another. The basting stitch and the paper from a hexagon is only removed when that patch is completely surrounded by other hexagons.

Obviously, this work takes hundreds of hours to complete. Once you have a quilt top, you still need to quilt it to a quilt bottom (with a layer of wadding in between), and then finish the edges. This is why hand-made quilts are so precious or (if made professionally) so expensive. Keep them safe and dry, away from moisture or rodents.

Click on images in galleries to see larger versions and captions.

A hand drawn number 3 on a piece of scrap paper

Parts of the patchwork process - a scrap of fabric ready to be folded around a template, and some basted hexagons, three of which are very rotten and discoloured.

The underside of a flower, showing delicate stitching but also some mould spores.

A Gallery of Patchwork Flowers

Click a flower to enlarge.

A Beautiful Quilt Top of Flowers

A beautiful quilt top. It seems that most of the patchworked flowers were to be added to this top, with flowers separated from each other by a border of white hexagons. Some of these have not yet been fully attached, showing it was truly a work in p

A closer view shows the onset of mould, especially visible on the white borders around the flowers.

A closer view of one edge, showing the pieces yet to be fully sewn.

A lovely flower, fully sewn in and surrounded, but sadly also bordered by mouldy pieces.

The black mould on the edge of this part of the quilt top is substantial.

A close-up of the smaller hexagons and the mould afflicting them.

Another flower, bordered by mouldy pieces.

The reverse of the beautiful quilt-top, showing lots of templates cut from paper with printed and handwritten content.

A closer view of the underside, showing some templates and basting has been removed, but many templates remain.

Details of handwriting on the templates.

Further details of handwriting and printed material on the templates.

These templates show the onset of mould very clearly.

The backside of this flower shows the neatness of the work now the templates have been removed, but the mould is encroaching in the hexagons around.

A Blanket of Scraps

The top-side of a quilt top made of scrap hexagons. They are of all sorts of colours and patterns.

This is a sad picture, showing advanced stages of disintegration due to mould and mildew, which has caused the thread to fall away and for pieces to fall apart.

Here, the hexagons seem torn from each other.

A close up of some of the fabrics at the edge, many marked by mould.

The back of the quilt top. It’s a messier affair than the previous quilt top.

A closer view of the reverse, showing templates from all eras of printed material.

A close up of the templates. One says “Early Tulips”.

The templates are from all sorts of materials.

Whereas these templates seem to all be about economics.

This part of the quilt seems to have been torn away, or else something has chomped through hexagons to leave it hanging on.

Post Script

I’d already taken the pictures of the quilt tops and had returned them to their lurid green box in the skip where I’d found them (as in that state of decay, I wanted them out of my home as quickly as possible). I had only a few more pictures to take of individual paper pieced flowers when I heard the distant sound of heavy machinery. ‘That'll be the truck removing the skip,’ I thought, and it turned out to be true. The mouldy flowers were binned quickly after the photos were taken, too, but I hope you like this record of them.

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