During this project I chose to respond to the wellington quilt (1834). The quilt itself celebrates the victory of the Duke of Wellingtons in the battle of Waterloo.

However, the commemoration of the battle is not the message or purpose I would like to focus on. As I have a love of surface pattern and textiles, I was provided with a wide variety of designs to play with that striking, and adaptable. I decided to delve deeper into the history and respond to the quilt with something that I aim to create in the future for my own branding. In the 1800’s started to become a widely favoured form of greetings. I wanted to merge both the history of the greetings with the wellington quilt, playing hand in hand and showcasing some of the stunning designs included within the quilt both traditional and still modern. I enjoyed the repeat pattern concepts most as it meant I could potentially create a series of cards that worked individually but also as a series, demonstrating cohesiveness and identity through all. I used the main motif of the quilt but aiming to change the purpose to a joyful one separate from the commemorations of the original quilt. As I was aiming at a mid-older age demographic, I felt the flowers and colour pallet was applicable for this also. I played with adding a subtle lined background to also give a nod to other fabrics in the quilt.

As of a wide range and inclusive the quilt was, there are extremely limited photos that include a relatively decent quality of images of the quilt. Most photos focus within the centre on the larger motif with a limited surface area coverage of the surrounded triangles that show some of the patterns. This made it extremely hard to respond to the favourable sections at the time due to having to guess or not be able to determine a clear motif from the fabrics. However, this wasn’t an entirely bad thing as we were asked to respond to and not to carbon copy. I wish I could have pushed my designs more in the sense I do feel they are simple, however, I wanted to stick true to what appealed to me most and that was the repeat pattern aspects of the fabrics.