UK Quilters
I don’t hand sew if I can help it. I’ve never been very dextrous and in recent years arthritis has not been helping. However – I have quite a few books on hand quilting. This is partly because when I first started doing patchwork I thought it all had to be done by hand. I…
Normally I would have spent the last few months teaching classes at my local quilt shop (The Corner Patch) and preparing for those classes. In between I might have gardened and played (sorry – ‘worked’) with Electric Quilt – perhaps designing next year’s Block of the Month classes for the shop. I would be making…
When it comes to designing a quilt it can sometimes help to go with a theme – especially for a sampler or a block of the month – such as ‘seaside’, ‘houses’, ‘trees’. You then have the entertaining task of finding blocks that fit the theme, that ‘go’ together, that perhaps make use of different…
Many quilters are also gardeners. Have you ever wondered why this is? I was pondering on it as I wandered round the garden taking photos of progress (or lack of) while thinking that I really ought to be getting on with the Block of the Month quilt and taking photos of its progress (or lack…
Right now we are wondering how to use up all our fabric bits so we can keep sewing even if we can’t go to the shows and shops to buy more (although, don’t forget though that most shops are doing mail order via the web or phone). But it is also that time of year…
So the advice is to stay at home and socially isolate; only go out if necessary and stay at least 2m away from anyone else. I come from a family of introverts. We are happiest behind our computers and other screens. We communicate largely by text not phone as (heavens!) we might have to actually…
Having decided to make a quilt using blocks how do you choose which block (or blocks) to use? Do you find a theme (stars for instance) or look for a name that appeals (how about Cats and Mice?). Perhaps you want to use just one block many times or two blocks alternating but then you…
I thought I would start off this journey through some of my quilting book collection by looking at some of my general how-to books. These are the ones I first bought when starting out on this hobby of ours and the ones I continued to buy when I thought they might help my students and/or…
I like books! I collect books – all sorts of books, not just quilting books. I probably have more gardening books than quilting ones and if you add in the books about plants in general then I have way too many (is there such a thing as ‘too many books’?). I also have magazines. In…
It’s that time of year again – Christmas is looming, presents still to be bought/made, decorations to be found in the loft, rooms tidied away ready for visiting relatives and seemingly vast quantities of food to be bought, prepared, and eaten. So – yet again, I’m doing a runner! Seriously? Well, not quite. I teach…
Why do we put borders on quilts? I think it all depends on the quilt itself and where it is going to live when finished. As mentioned before – the border doesn’t have to be the same all the way round the quilt either, sometimes a border is used simply to make the quilt large…
There is to be a Quilt Show in the little market town where I teach (Eccleshall in Staffordshire) and for months I have been (nagging) encouraging my students to get their quilts finished so that they can be displayed. Its all in a good cause, I tell them, its raising money for the upkeep of…
