Antique quilts

Quilting is still a thriving art in Canada, and no place celebrates it more than the Kitchener-Waterloo area in Ontario, ‘the quilt capital of Canada,' as it describes itself, with its seven quilting guilds and eight local quilt shops. Here, Mennonite women turn out about 250 quilts every year for the internationally famous Mennonite Relief Sale (prices for good double bed quilts run between $2,000 to $3,000) and this is where you'll also find an annual spring quilt festival that includes a juried show. The June 2002 show was a treat; Montreal quilt expert Diane Shink, a Nova Scotian by birth, displayed her collection of priceless star-patterned quilts while contemporary works by Newfoundland's Judy Cooper brightened the whole show. Next spring, the festival organizers are promising 35 events in 10 local communities, including exhibits, appraisals, workshops and sales.

But there are many other quilting centres in Canada and many other experts. I have not found a more generous one than Stratford, Ontario, textile dealer Carol Telfer, whose antique quilts are the finest I have seen in this country. Dating from the 1790s to the 1940s, the quilts are usually superb works of Amish or Mennonite work in strong colours and dramatic patterns, and the prices seem to run between about $450 to $3,000 each. Telfer works internationally, with demand for her quilts strong in the United States, especially in Houston, Texas, where she takes part in their annual international quilt show.

Just finding the quilts is the biggest challenge, Telfer says. “Crazy quilts are really popular right now, and I can find a few, but fine, graphic Mennonite quilts are almost impossible to find in Canada. They've all gone to collectors in the States.” That's why she not only sells to Americans, but buys from them: “Anything strong now would come from the States. I'm not interested in new fabrics; I look for old fabric and fine workmanship.”

Another fine dealer is Toronto's Susan Miller, whose specialty is pastel quilts in traditional patterns; she shows these off with her collections of old wicker furniture and antique porcelain. “I sell a lot of floral designs,” she says; “I have great luck with a pattern called Grandmother's Garden and I recently sold one with appliquéd baskets of sweet peas. Now I regret selling it!”

Like Carol Telfer, Miller won't buy machine-made quilts, not even when only the tops have been machine pieced. To find the old hand-done floral patterns, she has hunted through Prince Edward County in Eastern Ontario, the St. Catharines area in the southern part of the province, and in Quebec, but like every dealer she finds good quilts increasingly hard to find. Cutting into her business, as they do with all the dealers, are the new, inexpensive, Chinese-made quilts designed in traditional patterns. “The quality is awful,” Miller says bluntly.

All this talk of quilts has made me curious. I went down to the basement and rummaged around; there I found the pieces for the brown and white Bear's Paw quilt. The colours, very unfashionable for a long time, look pretty nice now. Perhaps it's time. But for the sake of my great-great-grandchildren, I'm going to have to do it all by hand.