Visitors' Choice at Icknield Quilters' Exhibition

'Giant Dahlia Quilt', Rose Corbett

I was delighted to sponsor the Visitors' Choice award at my quilt group's exhibition recently. Icknield Quilters have been meeting for thirty years now and this was celebrated this year with their pearl exhibition that was held at the Free Church in Letchworth Garden City on 21 May. The winner was announced at the July group meeting which was also the group's summer party meeting. There had been several recounts of the voting slips as it was such a close contest!

Winning the Visitors' Choice award is always a prestigious award to win and the quilt that gained the most votes was made by Rose Corbett and her 'Giant Dahlia Quilt'. Rose had raided her precious collection of oriental prints she'd been curating for over 20 years to make the quilt after being inspired by another version of this quilt she'd seen at a recent Mimram Quilters' Exhibition.

Rose had pieced and appliqued the bias strips using one of her vintage sewing machines, a Singer 201K. Although not the rarest of machines; Rose's machine, which was 'born' on 12 May 1936, was one of 20,000 registered that day, Rose describes it as an almost industrial machine, but built for the home and has used it on many different weight fabrics, not just for her patchwork.

Rose's Singer 201K machine

Rose quilted her dahlia quilt on her Janome Horizon 15000 with its bigger throat space. Each round of petals was quilted with a different quilting pattern.

Rose's prize was a bundle of ombre fabrics from Moda and she says a reverse applique Delft-style quilt design is calling to her to use them for. I can't wait to see it!

Joanna

Quercus Quilters Exhibition

It was nice to be able to visit a local quilt group's exhibition last weekend. Quercus Quilters are based in Sevenoaks in Kent and their biennial exhibition was held at Walthamstow Hall School in Sevenoaks on Saturday 26 March.

It was a beautiful spring day and the car park was pretty much full when we arrived mid morning; always a good sign.

There were over seventy quilts on display showcasing a mixture of styles together with some challenge quilts. Five traders were also there with their wares.

Here are a few of my favourites.

My personal favourites and the quilt voted as the Visitors' Choice was this stunning quilt by Helen Horobin. 

Called 'Meeting Point', it was her own simple design using striped fabrics in quarter square triangles. She had quilted the quilt in the ditch before adding decorative stitches from her Bernina along each stripe, with each stripe being individually quilted!

The group's 2019 challenge had been to create a 3D quilted piece and first place in the challenge went to Nicola Adamson with her gloriously textured lion and 'Roar. I loved him!

A few more quilts which caught my eye were 'Sunset' by Janine Pound. This quilt was made following a zoom workshop with Lisa Walton and featured blocks where all the pieces were fused with bondaweb before being freemotion quilted once all the blocks were joined together.

I also liked Barbara Taylor's 'Japanese Bowls' mini quilt, also made as a result of a zoom workshop with Lisa Walton.

'Feathered Stars' by Lyn Howell was a delicate traditional quilt.

And a final favourite was 'Singing the Blues' by Susan Fenn. This lovely quilt was mainly hand appliqued and quilted during lockdown. It featured many of her favourites things such as Willow pattern china and musical symbols of two sentimental songs.

 

So all in all a lovely visit to a small exhibition. Do visit these smaller group exhibitions as there are always a few gems to discover, and cake. There are always excellent cakes on offer!

Joanna

Quilt Show Recap - The Malvern Autumn Quilt Festival

Amazingly I am remembering to do this post shortly after the event itself and not months later when it's become a bit irrelevant!

The Autumn Quilt Festival in Malvern is held at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern, the same location as Quilts UK in early summer (spring?). It's not a competition show as such like Quilts UK and as a result is a lot smaller. And because it's a smaller show, it isn't as busy. The weather is also mixed for this show; it's been really warm a couple of times and others, typical autumn weather.

This year was an autumn weather one I think you could say! The drive over on setting up day on Thursday was quite horrible with very heavy rain and poor visibility on the motorways. It was still raining when we arrived, so Tom and I had our lunch in the van first in the hope it might stop. Not quite the usual view of the hills though!

What hills?!

The unloading and setting up went fairly smoothly. This was the first time at the Malvern shows when we've had a smaller stand space as my mum wasn't trading there too, so it is always a bit of 'fun' working out if the tables and shelving will fit in the space as you had planned them in your head!

Friday was the first day of trading and as is usual was the best day for visitor numbers and sales. Storm Brian blew in Friday evening and Saturday which may have kept a few visitors away that day but overall it was a really good show for me; well up on last year!

And the show's bestsellers? Probably the shaded prints from the Effervescence collection from Robert Kaufman. I suspect a couple of these will sell out at this week's show at Duxford so you need to get in quick if you want some! They can be ordered from the website here if you aren't going to the show.

And so onto the last event of the year, the Quilt Festival at Duxford, my 'local' one. I can be home within half an hour which is great, although it does mean cooking dinners and washing up!

 

Quilt Show Recap - Quilts UK 2017

The first of the big, must-visit shows of the year is Quilts UK at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern, Worcestershire. The showground has the wonderful Malvern Hills as it's backdrop. It's a beautiful setting and one of the reasons why the show is as popular as ever. And this year's show was no different.

My recap of the show is going to be a little sketchy though as I was only able to be there for a couple of days for personal reasons, namely my son starting his GCSEs. It's not easy knowing you need to be in two places at the same time when there is only you.

My parents did a great job as usual setting the stand up.

The quilts on display at the back were my Very Hungry Caterpillar and Galaxy Stars quilts, both of which have been projects in P&Q and my ever popular Ombre Squares quilt. The fabrics and kits for this quilt were probably the best sellers at the show, so much so that there are maybe only five or six kits left now.

So, for the days I was there; Thursday and Saturday, the show was very busy. Lots of visitors from near and far enjoying the lovely weather (in between the heavy showers) as well as the wonderful quilts on display. As my time at the show was brief and busy, I didn't get the chance to look at the quilts other than the Championship Quilt, 'Latin for Quilters' by Moira Neal. It was a quirky quilt but I loved some of the detail in it.

The quilt also won first place in the Theme category which this year was Gardener's World and the award for Fabric Painting

The only other quilt I managed to take a look at was 'Peony Ring' by Sally Bramald. This was stunningly quilted by Sally, as usual.

Peony Ring also came first in the Bed Quilt category.

Such was my time and the show so busy, that I didn't get the chance to go back to take flat shots of each quilt!

A week after the event now and I think I can say the show was my best ever at Quilts UK. Next up is the National Quilt Championships at the Sandown Racecourse in Esher, Surrey.

See you there?

End of Term Report - 2014

So, another year has just zoomed by! More than a dozen quilt shows and group visits all over the country from Ardingly in West Sussex to Northumberland, Llangollen in Wales and Edinburgh in Scotland! It's been great seeing so many familiar faces throughout the year too.

 

There have been some really wonderful fabrics delivered this year; my fave being Terra Australis direct from Australia. I'm still the only shop stocking it in the UK, available by the metre or in fat quarter bundles.

 

 

Outback                                      Eucalyptus

 

And just delivered this week are the latest Bali pre-cuts from Hoffman. Super yummy as usual; my fave is Cockatiel I think

 

 


I have these as 2.5" Pops, 10" Crackers and 5" Snaps and they are already on the website.

 

Another pre-cut collection was released at Quilt Market in Houston featuring the 1895 collection of batiks in lovely colour combos. I may just have to order these.........

 

Looking forward to next year, I have some big plans that I am working on. Having dithered about them all this year I think 2015 is the year to be decisive and do them, so keep an eye out for news on this!

 

Joanna

 

 

Introducing...........Terra Australis!

So.........it's about time I did a blog post again! Really should try and do one every month!

 

It's 10 days since the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham (which was a busy as ever) and I think I have finally caught up with myself and can now tell you about this exciting collection of fabrics I have imported from Australia.

 

 

It's very exciting as currently I am the only quilt shop in the UK stocking these wonderful fabrics. They are designed by a lady called Emma Jean Jansen.. She has some great patterns and inspiration for the collection on her website.

 

There are thirty two fabrics in the collection and I've got all of them! There are two colourways: Eucalyptus and Outback. I still haven't decided which one I like the best.....

 

Here's the Eucalyptus colourway:

 

 

And this is the Outback colourway:

 

 

The main print is based on the warratah flower and there are other Australian symbols in the other fabrics like kangaroos, gum trees and the harbour bridge.

 

There's  also a second collection newly released called Terra Australis 2........I may just have to order this one too and what's great is both collections work together!

 

I've made a quick quilt using fabrics from the collection. Must try and take a decent photo of it!

 

The fabrics are £10.60 a metre and you can also buy fat quarter bundles of each colourway, all available on the website.

 

Joanna

Ardingly Quilt Show

Finally found a bit of time to report on the first quilt show proper of the year at the South of England Showground in Ardingly, West Sussex. It's always a great feeling getting back out there and meeting customers again!

This show is also a difficult one though because the access for traders on setting up day and breakdown after the show is via about eight steps, especially for me as I don't feel I am strong or tall enough to try and push or pull a laden trolley down them! So this means carrying things down the stairs which all adds to the time it takes to unload and load again.

 

However it's a great show and there were some great quilts on display. I particularly loved this year's journal quilts with the theme 'Little Landscapes'. Some of them are truly wonderful!

 

 

The show was as successful as usual and I'll be back next year. The Bali pre-cuts were especially popular (well they are lovely colours) but I think it helped having the quilts hanging behind the stand.

 

Also excited to tell you the Peacock colour way of the Lumina Ribbon panel arrived in stock this week.............and its super yummy!



 

The other two colours almost sold out at the show, so get them while you can!

 

Joanna

Flash Giveaway!

I've been so busy the last few weeks getting ready for the Festival of Quilts. Life has been a little bit hectic!

 

I have lots of new things to show you if you stop by my booth G42.

New fabrics...........New patterns.........and lots more!

 

I've just remembered I have five pairs of free tickets to giveaway to the show

 

 

For your chance to win a pair of tickets to this year's show, simply leave a comment on this post telling me what's top of your shopping list when visiting the show. You will also need to leave your email address.
This has to be a quick giveaway so I'm going to close it tomorrow, 6 August at 8pm, which gives you just over 24 hours.

I will pick five winners tomorrow night and assuming you get back to me with your addresses straightaway, the tickets will be in the post by first class post on Wednesday morning.
Due to time constraints it isn't going to be possible to send tickets abroad so please bear that in mind

Good luck folks!

 

And see you at the show.......G42!!