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Overview
This silk patchwork quilt was made by Annie Eliza Ellis (1839-1891) on the family farm at Taotaoroa, near Cambridge, Waikato, New Zealand. She assembled it from scraps of fabric worn and used by the family over the previous years.
Black silk velvet ribbon is used to define a large rectangular field filled with six-pointed stars. The stars are highlighted by a simple yet dynamic device of separating each of them from its neighbour with black velvet lozenge-shaped pieces. The deep border is made from simple squares of the same silks and velvets with the same black velvet ribbon providing definition. Larger squares edge the quilt which is finished with a wine-coloured silk fringe. The quilt is backed with glazed cotton in a plain dusky pink colour.
The original paper templates appear to be still in place. The quilt is stitched mainly by hand and there is no surface quilting.
Annie Eliza Ellis
When Annie was 25 years old, she left the United Kingdom in 1864 with her husband George (a chemist). They arrived in Brisbane, Queensland, on 5 January 1865, onboard the Golden City. They travelled inland to the mining town of Roma where they settled briefly before deciding to travel to New Zealand. They first settled at Taotaoroa in the Waikato where they farmed for a while. It was here where Annie made this quilt.
The farm was not as successful as they hoped. George became interested in the copra trade through John Arundel, an English relative of Annie's. George began to learn the business from Arundel, whose company prospected and mined the once phosphate-rich guano Pacific islands of Raine, Howland, Hull, Sydney, Canton and Baker islands.
When their four sons (James, George, Albert and Ernest) decided to join their father's line of work, they gave up the farm and travelled together as a family. Their life on the islands was itinerant and makeshift, but it appears that Annie enjoyed it. She lived on Baker Island, then Howland Island, then Raine Island, near the entrance of Torres Strait. She continued to visit Auckland on occasion, and made it back to England at least once.
After a short illness, Annie died on Raine Island in 1891, aged 52.