Patchwork & Quilting UK – August 2019

42 British Patchwork & Quilting AUGUST 2019

You may be interested to know that Beartown is actually a town called Congleton, Cheshire. The

story goes that sometime in the 1600s, when the holiday Wakes Week was approaching, the town

bear died. The bear was a great attraction so the town had to make some decisions about how to

replace it. There was a fund available to buy a new town bible and it was agreed to loan this money

to purchase a new bear. I know... not at all politically correct by today’s standards but obviously

seen as a worthy purchase in those days. Congleton has been known as Beartown ever since.

Beartown Patchwork

& Quilters

BY RUTH GARNER

Thirty five years ago a quilter put an advert in a local shop

to find people interested in forming a patchwork/quilting

group and four or five people came forward. And that was

the start of the Beartown Patchwork & Quilting Group. We

have grown quite a lot since then and now have over fifty

members (including two or three founder members) who

meet every other week for talks, sewing projects, charitable

makes and social activities. The group organises exhibitions

every two or three years but this year was special because of

our Jade Anniversary.

The exhibition was held in the Town Hall, a beautiful building.

Members were invited to enter one or two quilts and thirty

seven of them rose to the challenge. We had sixty exhibits

in total and we didn’t turn anyone away – a good decision

on our part because they were all so beautiful. The quilts

demonstrated a wealth of skills, expertise and techniques from

traditional, modern, contemporary and textile art. There were

too many lovely quilts to show here, so to give you a flavour,

a few have been highlighted. Christine Davidson is the current

Chair of the group and her quilt ‘Butterflies for Ebony’ was a

View of the exhibition from the gallery. At the centre back is part of a group project facilitated by Ruth Axson, textile artist. This exhibit

is a replica of the Town Hall windows and each member made one of the glass circles out of fabric scraps which were then attached to a

Lutradur ‘window’.

FEATURE // beartown patchwork & quilters