This project began its life as a class kit for Mistress Christian de Holacomb’s class on period quilting at the West Arts and Sciences Tournament in 2004. She based her project on a design from the Noin Ula quilted floor covering, which was made somewhere between the first century BC and the second century AD. It was found on the floor of a tomb in Noin Ula (south of Lake Baikal) where it was preserved by permafrost. A repeating spiral pattern fills the center of the quilt, while the edges are bordered with trees, animals and other shapes. She transposed the earlier spiral pattern onto a cap commonly used in the Mamluk period of the 14th century southern Mediterranean. Such caps were quilted, usually with geometric designs and words.

All of the above information is from Christian’s articles in the Spring 2004 issue of Filum Aurem, the West Kingdom Needleworkers Guild’s newsletter.

After doing some web searching of my own, I discovered that the original quilt/floor covering is currently in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Detailed descriptions of the burial site and the findings therein can be found on this website. Of particular interest to me are pictures of the quilt, which include color photos and close-ups. There are, however, numerous other pictures of embroidered goods found in the burial site, some of which are remarkably well-preserved. I really like the little fighting beasties that are also on the floor covering; to me, they are begging to be made into an appliqued cushion or ouch cover!

Christian’s project is made up of three layers, the outer dark blue linen, the middle cotton batting, and the inner white linen. We had transferred the pattern onto the blue linen in the class then stitched through all three layers with white quilting thread in a running stitch. I remember choosing white thread because it was more challenging than the blue, and I certainly got what I wanted. This is my first quilting project, and it is very difficult to keep the quilting stitches even and straight. Or rather, pointing towards the next stitch, as there are no straight lines in a spiral (or there shouldn’t be!). So while the white stitching looks really cool on the blue, it also shows every single mistake I make.

I had finished all four sides of the cap and had begun on the cap rim before I put it away in favor of other projects. I have, however, picked it back up in the interim as something different to work on. I'll continue to post pictures as I get more done.

The pictures on this page were taken by myself on 9/21/2006.