More about Laura

Laura Ashley is one of my heroines. The fabrics produced by her company has had an profound effect on my work and I still collect them. I have seen her collection of old Welsh quilts and was aware that they had a strong influence on her designs but I didn't realise how big a part patchwork had played in the formation of the business.

This bedroom, decorated with Laura Ashley wallpaper,

has on the bed the type of quilt that Laura
collected and which I love because they are so unpretentious.

Last week BBC Wales TV ran a documentary about her in their series "Welsh Greats".  In it was an old interview given by Laura and more recent ones with her son Nick and some of her former employees from the factory in Mid Wales.  In her interview Laura said that it was seeing an exhibition of patchwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum that began it all.

Laura had worked for the W.I., as well as taking some of their classes.  She was familiar with patchwork and quilting as her grandmother and aunts in Wales were quilters.  So in 1952 when the W.I. put on an exhibition of handicrafts at the V&A, seeing the patchwork there brought it all back and she decided that she wanted to do some herself.

However, in the early 50s suitable fabric was impossible to buy as there was still war rationing, so she thought that she would print her own.  Laura laughed at this point and said that when she mentioned making a screen print, her husband, Bernard decided to take over as he thought that he could do a better job!  This, literally was the beginning of their global business.

 This is part of a quilt that inspired

Laura's designs. If you look closely

  you might recognise some patterns!

In the excellent biography written by Ann Sebba, the story is told that when the business was booming and there was so much surplus fabric from clothes manufacturing, Laura decided that it should be bagged and sold very cheaply as " Patchwork Pieces".  This was not popular within the company, as it was so uneconomic and Bernard wanted to drop it or at least raise the price. However, Laura would not be moved and said that as it was patchwork that started their business this was the least they could do.

I immediately picked up on something her  former pattern engraver said in his interview;  Mrs. Ashley, he said, really didn't like her designs to be perfect.  She liked to see flaws in them and sometimes she would add a flaw because she wanted her fabrics to look as if they had been hand printed.

I was delighted to hear this, because as you may have gathered, I am not keen on perfection in the textile world at least!  I am so glad that Laura Ashley felt the same way!

Laura Ashley - part of Welsh textile history

Laura Ashley was born in Merthyr Tydfil here in Wales but though she moved away for a few years she returned with her husband and children to set up a small fabric printing business in Mid Wales.

It became phenomenally successful with shops and factories across the world, but with their main factory and headquarters in Carno, in Mid Wales.  So from 1961 until 1998, when the family sold the majority of its shares, it was a Welsh company with its production base in the heart of Wales.

I have always used Laura Ashley fabric because when I began making patchwork in the late 70s, it was the fabric that was popular and available at the time. Now I use it because I have amassed a large collection over the years and feel that it gives my quilts a Welsh dimension. Of course this fabric is now classed as vintage, but I'm happy with that and I am still able to buy it on eBay.

 When I first heard the expression "sampler quilt" I thought it had to be a quilt that looked like a sampler, not a collection of blocks.  The penny eventually dropped but then I thought why not follow that first idea - so I made a few.  The three here are made almost exclusively in LA fabric,  the one below as an advertisement for the class I was teaching a very long time ago.  The house is an interpretation of the house I was living in at the time -

 
Laura Ashley  fabric was and still is very suitable for patchwork because Laura collected old quilts, many of them Welsh and it is said that they inspired her fabric designs.  This quilt collection was obviously a valued asset because when the Ashley family sold the company the quilt collection was part of the deal.

Now that the company is no longer Welsh I worry that this part of our textile history is not yet being recognised for what it was.  Eventually I sure it will be, but then many of  the quilts made with the fabric will be long gone.  Or if there is an archive and I am not sure if there is, it will be lost to us.  I worry, but I don't know what to do about it except keep adding to my stash and telling people about it as I am doing now!