Festival of Quilts 2026

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Festival of Quilts this year was spread across the end of July and the beginning of August and I was there for the first two days. After a couple of years with no train problems, I had hoped that the uncertainty of getting there (and back) due to possible train strikes had passed, but industrial action was announced less than two weeks before I was due to travel. Fortunately, this was cancelled in time for normal timetables to be reinstated and my journeys went as planned.

I had four “quick and easy” workshops/talks booked and unlike last year, none of them required an early start. First was an interactive hands-on session on exploring patchwork and quilting history in which we learnt about some of the quilts in the Quilters Guild collection. Some of these were over 200 years old and the session gave us the opportunity to view them close up. Next was an informative and entertaining talk on Sylko threads, which looked at the stories behind some of the names used by Sylko to describe their thread colours. My last two workshops were both practical sessions learning new-to-me techniques - quilt as you go and hand quilting. I thoroughly enjoyed all the workshops and I managed to spread them across the days which gave me breaks from shopping and looking at the quilts.

Given the number of quilts entered into the show, I’ve learnt now to focus my attention on certain categories rather than trying to see everything. I did get a sense of déjà vu at times when seeing quilts that had been entered into other shows and seeing familiar names from previous years in the winners’ gallery. My shopping was completed on the first day and I kept pretty much to my list. The Project Linus stand was again a source of some bargains - wooden cotton reels and scissors this year! I took advantage of a service offered by some stand holders to order items for collection at the show and it worked very well with me being able to get a book that was not available at the show. I’ll certainly consider it again, especially if there is something specific I need.

I’ve been going to Festival of Quilts for over 10 years now and now know what works best for me. I no longer plan to arrive for when the doors open and I don’t feel I have to see all the quilts. Time-wise and money-wise the “quick and easy” workshops are better for me than half-day or full-day academy classes. Shopping is less of a necessity than it used to be and I think the duration of future visits will be driven by the workshops available when booking opens to the general public. I won’t go as far as saying I won’t attend if there are no workshops of interest, but it would make it harder to justify the ticket and travel costs.

More teeny hexagons, sofa sewing station and preparing for Festival of Quilts

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This month has been quite productive for making teeny hexagons. After trying various options to use as a stamp, I found a thimble that was just the right size and have been using this to stamp the circles for the hexagons. It is much quicker and easier than trying to draw round a coin.

One problem with hexagons this small is that they are very easy to lose on the sofa. Fortunately I found a child’s lap tray reduced in the supermarket that could become an ideal sofa sewing station. Unlike some adult lap trays, this did not have a rim around the edge making it easier to repurpose it.

I removed the plastic insert by sliding a craft knife under the edge and removed some of the stuffing to make it more squishy. I then glued a layer of quilting batting to the top so that the original design wouldn’t show through the top fabric which I stitched to the cushion in a similar way binding is hand stitched to a quilt. Finally , I made some modular accessories for the plastic insert - a small tray for threads, two spool pins made from screws set in a foam block and covered with unshrunk heat-shrink tubing, and a small pin cushion with an elongated edge for fabric clips. I also added a fixed needle minder beneath the pin cushion.

Preparations for my trip to Festival of Quilts have also included some teeny hexagons with me making a pair of earrings using some scraps of Liberty lawn.

Something that will probably be more useful for Festival of Quilts is the new app launched this year and available for Apple and Android devices. Features include a list of exhibitors, timetable of workshops/talks (including ticket availability) and perhaps most useful for me - a floor plan.

I’ll be there for Thursday and Friday and have three workshops/talks booked for Thursday and one for Friday, but should still have plenty of time for admiring the quilts and shopping. If you spot the earrings, do say hello.

A trio of Project Linus quilts and trying teeny hexagons

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 There has been some simple sewing this month which saw three quilts for Project Linus being completed. Two were made from part of an Liverpool FC duvet cover and one was from a printed panel I bought at Waterloo Quilters de-stash event for £1.

The LFC quilts have wide sashing using fabrics I bought at British Quilt and Stitch Village show in Uttoxeter in April, and all three quilts have binding made with fabrics from Uttoxeter.

 

  

  

  

I’ve also being trying a new to me paperless method of making patchwork hexagons where each hexagon is made by folding a circle of fabric. I made by circles by drawing around coins, starting with a 5 Euro cent coin (just under 7/8"diameter, giving a hexagon with sides of approximately 5/16") and seeing how small I could go.

 I’ve decided a 1 Euro cent coin (approximately 5/8” diameter) is my limit, which gives a hexagon with sides of approximately 3/16”. Rather than drawing around a coin, I think it would be easier

Quilt and Stitch Village Show, April 2026

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Last month I had a brief visit to the Quilt and Stitch Village show at Uttoxeter racecourse, this time travelling alone by train (last year’s visit was a coach trip with Waterloo Quilters). Uttoxeter station is next to the racecourse and a gate from one of the platforms gives direct access to the racecourse - train to entrance turnstile was only a ~350m walk. I was quite amused to see that tickets bought on the day were issued as race meeting tickets. I’d not bought in advance in case there was a problem with the trains and the price difference between advance (£11 + £1 booking fee) and on-the-day (£15) individual tickets was half the 40% saving headlined in social media posts which is based on group tickets.

The first thing I did was a quick look around the stalls to get an idea of who was there and what was on offer. I wasn’t planning on getting anything at this stage, though I did get a few things that were limited stock, such as a particular colour of a magnetic needle case from Oakapple Haberdashery and one-off bargains from Project Linus.

I then headed up to see the quilts as like last year, I had entered a quilt, though not a full sized one this time. My quilt was based on the moquette used on Merseyrail class 507/508 trains at the time of their withdrawal from service in 2024, with a pieced backing representing the moquette currently in use on the new class 777 trains. Continuing with the train theme, the quilting depicted a map of the parts of the Merseyrail network on which the trains run.

The quilt is very true to what it represents in term of design and colours, but this probably didn’t work in its favour in terms of being a show quilt, especially when displayed on a black background. The comments from the judges were fair and I was very surprised to see a tick in the excellent column from one them. I can’t really take credit for the “bold colour choices” as these were chosen by the railway company!

I was quite disappointed to see all the miniature quilts squashed together on a single rail at the closed end of a display bay. These quilts, though small in size, are not small in effort and it would be nice for them to have been given a bit more space as the work involved needs to be seen close up- even having them on two rails would have been better. Quilt entries in all classes (except miniatures) were down on last year’s entries which would have suggested more space available for display this year.

After seeing the quilts, it was time for lunch and the weather was, like last year, ideal for a picnic by the parade ring.

After lunch, I headed back to the stalls, this time for a proper look around. I found some ideal red fabrics for Project Linus quilts from Carole’s Crafts (along with some turquoise fabrics to add to the stash to take advantage of the 5 metres for £40 offer) and a mini Morris magnetic needle case from Elephas to add to my earlier purchases of a larger magnetic needle case from Oakapple Haberdashery and the bag of Sylko threads and pattern from Project Linus.

(I later discovered at home that the larger needle case is big enough to hold a small pair of scissors which hopefully will stop me losing them and needles when sewing on the sofa.)

With the trains home being only every hour, I then had the difficult decision of whether to look at the embroidery entries and have quite a bit of time to wait for the next train, or head to the station for a train that would get me home before the Friday afternoon school rush. This was the only downside to visiting by train and I decided to miss the embroidery and head home.

I wasn’t too sure how this year’s visit would work out, but the direct access from the platform to the racecourse made using the train easier than it could have been and the only disadvantage was the hourly timing of my trains. Entering a miniature quilt was much easier logistically than entering a full sized quilt - quicker to remove all the cat hairs and cheaper to post! I’ve been planning to make a quilt based on Merseyrail seats for some time, and now I can tick it off my list. I’ll be sticking with miniature for any future quilt show entries, but will let the judges’ comments and potential display area guide the colours, design and quilting.

An upcycling project and famous last words

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 Last year at Festival of Quilts, I attended a talk about Sylko threads and since then I have been on the look out for the wooden reels. The original shop cabinets can be quite expensive and so I've been searching for something that would be a bit nicer than the current cardboard boxes in which my reels are currently stored, but more affordable than the vintage cabinets.

I spotted a wooden box in charity shop for only £2 that had potential. It had a logo and some paint stains, but these could be removed by sanding. I found an image of the Sylko logo online which I was able to adapt to make it a suitable size and colour for the box. Adding a £1 bottle of glue, a £1.50 can of spray varnish and a couple of hours of my time resulted in a more stylish storage solution for at least some of my Sylko reels.

I said last month that I had finished all the machine pieced blocks for my Wonderland sampler quilt and only had to applique the EPP shapes onto the background square - this turned out not to be the case. After completing the applique, I went to layout the blocks and realised I was four short for my on point layout.

I was originally planning a 8x8 square layout and so had chosen 64 blocks to make from the book. However, I changed my mind and decided to set the blocks on point which required 68 blocks, but I had not updated my notes. After looking through the book for inspiration, I made 2 extra machine pieced blocks and 2 extra EPP blocks. One bonus of not being able to count, was that I was able to include some hidden cats in one of the extra blocks.

The next stage is to decide on a layout and check my calculations for the triangles at the ends of each row.

More news on the Wonderland sampler quilt

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This month I have mainly been sewing blocks for the Wonderland sampler quilt and have now completed all the machine pieced blocks that I will be making.

This set of blocks include the “diamond in a square” which I pieced using self-drafted foundation paper patterns and some flying geese blocks.

Some template blocks were pieced using the templates supplied in the book, but the nine patch based blocks used FPP for some of the components.

The final part of sewing the block is to applique the English paper piecing shapes to the background squares. I had thought I would do these by machine, but I preferred the hand stitched look and am quite enjoying a bit of hand stitching.

A renovation project and some Wonderland quilt progress

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Last month I mentioned a vintage sewing basket and contents that I bought off Ebay. The basket has now been renovated and put to use.

"After"

"Before"

Some of the wicker work was in worse condition than I first realised so I “lined” the basket with cardboard. For the main section of the basket, I made a box shaped lining from grey/lilac canvas fabric that was lightly quilted to some headlining and glued this to the cardboard. For the basket lid, I again lined it with cardboard to which I glued a panel made using six of the “origami style” blocks made last year at a Jennie Rayment workshop hosted by Waterloo Quiters. I’m pleased to have found a use for these blocks and I think they are in keeping with some of the ornate satin linings seen on the lids of vintage sewing baskets.

Good progress has also been made on the machine pieced blocks for my Wonderland sampler quilt with 18 more blocks being completed. These all included half and quarter square triangles which I cut using Sizzix dies rather than using the instructions in the book. The blocks went together well and minimal trimming was required, though I did have to make one block oversized due to the size of the dies I had, but it was easily cut to the correct size.

The next set of blocks use “diamond in a square” for which I will be using foundation paper piecing templates.