Vintage quilts made using recycled fabrics to form next Llanidloes exhibition

The Quilt Association’s annual summer exhibition in Llanidloes, showcases items from its collection of antique and vintage quilts that have been made using recycled fabrics.
 
From old clothes to flour sacks, drapers’ sample books to ‘cigarette silks’, they are all represented in Thrifty Quilters.  The exhibition will be open from 10.30am to 4.30pm, with free admission, at the Minerva Arts Centre in Llanidloes on Saturday, July 24 and thereafter every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, plus August Bank Holiday Sunday and Monday until August 30.
 
The making of a quilt was often something that grew out of the necessity to keep warm, and they were often worked on at the end of a long day, by candlelight, in a cold room. 
 
Those quilts were often made from all sorts of fabrics – offcuts, samples, recycled clothing.  In more recent times, thrifty sewers made quilts from cast-off clothing or odd bits of leftover fabric.
 
The quilts in the collection are mostly donated by families who can’t bear to throw them away because they are a precious link with late family members.  Many were made in Wales with connections to local families. 
 
There will also be an exhibition of work by Gwyneth Rose, a textile artist based in Rhayader, entitled Curious Creatures.