A MAJOR exhibition tracing the tradition of quilt making in the North of England is enjoying huge success at the Bowes museum near Barnard Castle.

On show until January 7, it has already been viewed by several thousand visitors since the start of August and can be said to have an international appeal as many have come from America, even Australia. It has also attracted coachloads of quilters from all parts of Britain.

The lecture room was full on Saturday for a talk by Mrs Dorothy Osler, a leading authority on the subject, who spoke about some of the personalities that the craft has produced over the last 250 years, including the late Mrs Amy Emms, of St John's Chapel, one of the best-known northern quilters of the last century, who was awarded the MBE for services to the craft that she did so much to perpetuate. One of the pieces on show is the stunning cream satin wedding dress she made for her daughter in 1957, designed with practicality in mind as well as beauty so that the flowing skirt could later be used as a circular bedspread.

The title of the exhibition which Mrs Osler organised, Legend to Living Tradition, well sums it up as the pieces on show range from the early 1800s to the "art quilts" produced in the last few years, not so much for utilitarian purposes as bedcovers, but as wall-hangings created as works of art in their own right.

Mrs Osler spoke about the decline of interest in quilting which followed the Second World War, and its revival towards the end of the 20th century which has led to it being firmly restored as a "living" tradition.

By far the greatest number of quilters have been women; many in this region were the wives of lead miners working to bring in a few extra shillings, but it was interesting to learn that one of the earliest recorded was a man, Joseph Hedley, a tailor by trade who lived in Northumberland between 1750 and 1826.

Feminists in America during the last few decades have embraced quilting as a symbol for women's creativity, and several contemporary artists and writers have developed this idea. This may be one reason why the exhibition is proving such a success, and drawing visitors from the US, though questions raised after Mrs Osler's talk had nothing to do with feminist ideology, being rather more down-to-earth and about such matters as the thickness of thread used in bygone days.

Though she did not touch on this wider area of debate, the fact that there is so much more to these beautiful quilts than simple sewing expertise could add to female weaponry - a needle point, one might say - in that perennial chestnut about why women down the centuries never produced works of art. They did, of course, and some are on show at the Bowes, disguised as useful domestic items.

l The second of two one-day quilting workshops with Lilian Hedley is tomorrow (11am-5pm); at the time of going to press, there were still a couple of places left. Mrs Osler takes a two-day workshop on November 2-3, 11am-5pm, instructing in the techniques of planning and marking out a whole cloth quilt top