Many Hands Make Light Work: Patchwork Quilt Collaboration
A perk of being the Archivist at Warner & Sons in the 1980s, was that you had access to purchase textiles at reduced prices, only available to staff, that had not made it through the company’s rigorous quality control checks to be sold to clients. Mary Schoeser was the Archivist at Warner & Sons throughout the 1980s and her time there offered her the opportunity to collect several bolts of fabric for her own personal projects. Her home at the time was fashionably decorated with black lacquered furniture, and Mary decided that a patchwork quilt made from bold black, pink and green printed chintz textiles she had bought would add interest to her existing decorating scheme.
While hosting friends over the years Mary would ask each person to create a patchwork block in the log cabin style that could be added to her growing collection of completed blocks intended to eventually make up the finished patchwork quilted bedspread. Unfortunately, as is often the case with largescale patchwork projects, the completed blocks were tucked in a drawer and forgotten for many years as the pressures of work and life eclipsed the wish to finish the bedspread.
Chris Helm assesses textiles to be used for the patchwork project.
In 2025, Mary rediscovered the nine finished patchwork blocks and wondered whether they could be constructed into the patchwork quilt she had envisaged 40 years previously. Since the blocks were made largely from faulty Warner & Sons textiles, she approached the Warner Textile Archive to see if the collections volunteer team might be able to interpret her vision and finish the project.
Volunteers and students join Chris Helm and Mary Schoeser to celebrate the official completion of the patchwork in August 2026, and hear about the project.
Luckily, Chris Helm works within the team and is an accomplished patchwork quilter, who took on the challenge to see if something could be made from the hand-stitched blocks. To pick up someone else’s creative project is a daunting prospect, particularly one with sentimental connections, but Chris sensitively approached the task and used her skills to plan a layout and complete the stitching.
Over the course of 92 hours, Chris cut the fabric strips and arranged the patterns and colours, machine-stitched and hand embroidered the blocks, stitched together the top panel, wadding and backing, machine and hand-stitched the quilting, added small strips of fabric to the edges and created a border edge for the bedspread. She embroidered a small Warner & Sons logo in one corner, and embroidered her name and Mary’s name on the reverse to record the work that had been completed. Once presented as a small bundle of blocks; through determination, commitment and skill, the pieces were transformed into a vivid double bedspread.
The textiles chosen for the quilt, picked out by Mary in the 1980s, form a sort of time capsule to illustrate the types of designs that were being printed and sold during that era. What is also interesting is that because these textiles were not of appropriate quality to sell to customers, the designs show signs of printing errors and glazing issues that are not ordinarily recorded in the collection, due to the impetus to retain good examples of patterns for future usage. Through this project we are able to capture many stories about textile trends of the 1980s, textile printing production methods, and life as a Warner & Sons employee.
Mary Schoeser and Chris Helm with the finished patchwork quilt.
The quilt is a reminder that through perseverance you can make something spectacular, and that it is never too late to revive a creative project you thought would remain in fragments. The patchwork quilt is now part of the Warner Textile Archive, and serves as a beacon of what can be achieved through collaboration, dedication and creativity.