UK Quilters
It is a chilly early October day – well, it feels chilly to me as I’m sat here on my chaise longue in my sewing room, surrounded by fabric. That sounds very exotic and posh doesn’t it? I’m going to let you carry on imagining it, rather than showing you a photo, as the photo…
Hexagons are the easiest shape to use for patchwork using the English Paper Piecing (or mosaic patchwork) method. There are many ways hexagons can be combined into different patterns, but the most common is the double rosette set into a background path, known as “Grandmother’s Flower Garden”. As shown here, one hexagon at the centre…
In the next (long awaited) instalment of the ‘Sew a Fine Seam’ series from Strictly Quilting, I thought we would look at one of the basic pieces of equipment we need – the humble scissor. It is believed that scissors probably originated in ancient Egypt. Earliest examples in existence come from Mesopotamia and date from…
In a previous post I looked at some of the queries that have popped up on the UKQU Facebook feed about blocks and quilts and where to find patterns or sizes. I thought I would take this a step further (and also back) and look and the basic building bricks behind our patchwork quilt –…
The final block for the Puzzle Quilt is called Hartford Hope and is a variation of the Hope of Hartford block. It has quarter-square triangle units (which we have come across in several of the previous blocks) and squares. However it has a slightly different construction technique which involves a partial seam. This is an…
I don’t know about you, but when I see places or things named after a person, I like to know who it is. When I started working at a campus at work, one of the wings is named after a man, but no one can tell me who it is and why he was important…
I need to confess that Modern quilts don’t normally do it for me. I’m a traditional girl really but I think, if a quilt sparks an inspiration, an idea that you need to start or leaves you feeling that you might be wrong in your understanding of a quilting discipline, then it must be special.…
Wow….. wow…..and again, wow. Some quilts just grab your attention when you first see them and you can’t help saying wow. The Best in Show at the Festival of Quilts should be one that does this and this year, it certainly did. ‘Our Ladies’, Oliver and Vendulka Battis Vendulka Battais and her husband Oliver set…
Entering the first large sized quilt I ever made into the Festival of Quilts 2019 was an experience. As a newbie quilter, I think if I had realised the grandeur and the prestige of the competition and the enormity of the event, I might have been too intimidated to enter it. Luckily, ignorance is bliss…
This is the penultimate block in the Puzzle Quilt series and is another nine-patch block. This one is called Rolling Stone and features strip-pieced units (we made similar units for Block 4, London Roads) and a new unit: – the Square-in-a-Square, sometimes called Diamond-in-a-Square. I will show you two methods for making these units. As…
A query that frequently crops up on UKQU Facebook posts is ‘What is this . . . block/quilt design called?’ and is usually followed by ‘Where can I find the pattern?’ or ‘How can I make it?’. Sometimes these queries are answered in the comments, sometimes not – or (occasionally) perhaps not as helpfully as…
Block 6 of the Puzzle Quilt has arrived. This month’s block, called In A Spin, introduces another unit – Flying Geese. But first a few words of apology and explanation. Last month I said there might be a random extra post and it was intended to look at quilts to make with last month’s block.…
Christine Hutchins
Carolyn Gibbs
Helen Kent
Chris Franses
Jane Galley
Katherine Elizabeth Clark