And Sew To Bed

 After all our recent discussion of nightwear, I suddenly realised I had not blogged about all the amazing bedspreads and quilts I saw at Norwich Castle a couple of weeks ago. 

I'd been wanting to visit this for months, I finally got there just before it ends.

I was delighted to attend a superb informative webinar the night before, led by Ruth Battersby Tooke, the curator of costume and textiles for Norfolk Museums. It made my visit even better!

Here is a quilt made by an engaged couple in 1891 - under the watchful eye of a chaperone they sat and stitched together - Herbert did the appliqué and Charlotte did the embroidery

The items are the sort of things that mattered to them - domestic items [kettle, chair, mirror] local views- a wherry on the Broads - favourite phrases - and "in jokes". Herbert was butcher, and there is a beautiful little kidney stitched into the quilt beside a teacup. It was made over the Christmas period, so seasonal items- and the centre square looks bizarrely like a 1940s comic illustration

The next quilt was made 70 years later- by patients in a hospital in Shrewsbury, as a gift for their therapist Jenny, who was marrying and moving to Norfolk. Each patient embroidered a square- and many similar domestic items were included - cup, kettle, mirror, houseplants etc

This 1860 quilt was made by a soldier, from scraps of uniform fabric. It is displayed over a mirror, so the viewer can see that the underside is perfectly stitched. Did this piece work bring peace to his soul in battle, and his faith sustain him as he remembered his loved ones back at home?

David Shenton's 1984 piece "Duvet of Love" is made entirely of pin badges on a black cloth, in memory of friends who died of AIDS.

The Costume And Textiles Association launched the Coronaquilt Project in the first lockdown. I saw this on display in the Forum last year. This time, I actually met one of the women who worked on it!

There were loads of other items from the museum collections, I cannot show them all here - but I learned a lot about how and why people made these bedspreads, and how the changing world  them inspired their stitching.

During the pandemic, two friends in North Norfolk sent a printed cloth panel back and forth by post, each adding stitching. It was an apron, with ties and pocket - but their embroidery made it much more than that. "To stitch together" represents a visual conversation, the apron representing domesticity, it is a map, a textile landscape, a record of shared creative decisions 

Finally, an embroidered facemask. Round the edge, delicate representations of the coronavirus. In the centre three words "Dum Spiro Spero" - meaning "While I breathe, I hope"  A very positive attitude to the pandemic imho

All in all, a superb exhibition with much to see, many things to consider and think about. Afterwards I went off to the Forum Library to borrow some books on embroidery. I can feel an itch to stitch coming on...