Strippy Quilts

This type of quilt was a very popular way of using up strips of fabric left over from making plain wholecloth quilts. The strips were generally 10-12" wide on large quilts, but could vary in width within a quilt and also from quilt to quilt depending on its size. Usually a strippy would be comprised of an odd number of strips in two colour ways, giving balance to the finished quilt. However, this was not a hard and fast rule and in reality quilts were made of any number of strips and in a variety of widths or even colours. This was particularly true in Wales where symmetry was not considered essential. In the North East of England quilting patterns always followed the length of the fabric strips and were confined within them, but in Wales a more relaxed attitude was adopted. Some quilting patterns did follow the strips (although they were not necessarily contained within them) but many more did not. Mrs Thomas's quilt and the Swansea quilt illustrated here are typical examples of this, having designs that ignore the strips entirely and follow the layout commonly used for patchwork and wholecloth quilt design.