Show Notes
A number of very special quilts have been arriving in North America over the past few weeks. A collection of more than 40 are being returned to Canada, 85 years after they were made in communities all over the country.
Most of them are tattered and deeply worn but they have an extraordinary story to tell. They are the last evidence we have of an astonishing operation that saw Canadian women and children make over 400,000 quilts during the Second World War. These were sent, largely, to Britain to comfort children orphaned in the conflict, families bombed out of their houses, soldiers convalescing, land girls in hostels far from home and a myriad of other uses.
In Britain, the Canadian wartime quilts were often loved and cherished. But gradually, as the years passed they faded from memory. A few hundred have survived and many museums in the UK hold them. In Canada they were completely forgotten. Now it is hoped that with the return of this major collection a new generation will come to understand the work of their grandmothers and great grandmothers. The aim is that there will be a permanent exhibit of the entire collection to stand as a memorial, not just to the women of Canada, but to all those around the world who use their textile skills in times of conflict to bring comfort, compassion and care.
If you would liket o see pictures of the quilts of read a transcript of this podcast then please follow the link to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/
More from Haptic & Hue
The first group of people in the world to be called refugees were deeply tied up with the production of luxury cloth. In the 17th and 18th century a small corner of east London became a byword for some of the best woven silk in the world.
In a few day's time the Bayeux Tapestry goes on show at the British Museum in London. The famous embroidery that depicts the Norman conquest of England has returned to the country where it was stitched for the first since it was made almost a thousand years ago. It was created by defeated Anglo-Saxon women, commissioned by their Norman conquerors, and they stitched it to serve a very particular political purpose. We will never know their names but they made one of the most extraordinary works of art to survive from early medieval Europe. Down the centuries it has exerted a powerful hold over many imaginations: it was taken to Paris by Napoleon to rally his troops as he planned to invade Britain, and later eyed by Hitler for the same reason. But the Tapestry is much more than a beautiful object. It is a brilliant piece of communication and in this episode, with the help of Michael Lewis, Curator of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum, we look at the labour behind it and the story it was designed to tell. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/ And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/
This month's episode is a little different: as many of you know we run a second podcast for Friends of Haptic & Hue called Travels with Textiles, in which we explore all kinds of textile topics that crop up in the news or that we come across in our travels and that we don't get the chance to talk about in the main podcast. Once a year we give you a special taste of what Friends of Haptic & Hue sounds like and invite you to join us.
This summer marks the 250th anniversary of America's founding as nation, born in a successful rebellion from the British crown. Events and politics tell us one tale, but textiles always give us another view. Much of the textile history of America is deeply painful – a story of enslavement and hardship in Victorian mills and garment sweatshops. But there is another side to this, because creating textiles for the home has always involved community, and throughout the two and half centuries America has been in existence, quilting, knitting, sewing and mending have been deeply social activities.
There is a little mannequin which has played a hidden role in history. We admire the portraits of the great men and women of the past dressed in the height of fashion. But how, in an age without cameras or magazines, did they know what was in style?