Midsomer Quilting of Chilcompton - Quilting & Patchwork exhibition at Radstock Museum

Radstock Museum
Waterloo Road
Radstock
BA3 3EP

Tel: +44 (0)1761 437722

E-mail: info@radstockmuseum.co.uk

Patchwork & Quilting

1st February until 31st May 2012

"Probably one of the finest Patchwork and Quilting exhibitions in Europe."

Throughout the Spring, Radstock Museum will be hosting the third major exhibition of Patchwork and Quilting staged by Midsomer Quilting of Chilcompton. This spectacular display will include 200 quilts, representing 170 years of the craft in this locality and beyond.

The exhibition will include several antique quilts together with scores that have been made to the highest standard by Midsomer Quilting’s customers, locally and from around the World, as well as the work of a number of internationally known quilters who teach there.

There are small quilts and there are huge ones; several are 12” square and there are others more than 80 square feet each.  One particularly prized exhibit will be a quilt made in the 1850s by Anna Maria Cradock at Foxcote Farm, less than three miles from the Museum. This quilt consists of tiny silk hexagons as fresh and vibrant today as when it was made. Unfortunately Anna Maria died young and her quilt remained locked in a wooden chest for 130 years, together with her wedding dress, which will also be shown with her family bible.

Every quilt has been carefully selected for the exhibition by Midsomer Quilting and will include 14 that together make up a panoramic view of Weston-super-Mare, as well as one made by fifteen Chinese children as a test piece before their grandmother would allow them to progress to larger pieces.

The overall standard of quilting is once again exceptionally high and has been compared favourably with work shown at national exhibitions, both here and abroad:  “. . . designs and workmanship to rival quilts seen at NEC and Houston”.


The exhibition runs from 1st February until 31st May, 2012. More than 5000 visitors came to the last exhibition in 2009 and the Museum is very confident that this total will be exceeded this year. The reputation of these exhibitions has spread far and wide and this time the Museum is aware of visitors coming from as far afield as the USA and Australia. On the evidence of Midsomer Quilting’s previous exhibitions it’s easy to see why.