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.

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.

2025 Sewing Summary

This year seems to have been quite light on completed projects, with sewing being replaced by trips to quilting shows and/or trying new techniques in workshops.

 

Completed projects and activities include:

• One quilt for a show 
• Pattern testing for a zipped boxy pouch
• 34 syringe driver bags
• 16 paediatric ICU sheets for Project Linus
• One sewing machine mat
• 13 mini felt microbes for a public engagement event at work
• One quilt for Project Linus
• Three shows visited (Uttoxeter Quilt and Stitch Village Show, Festival of Quilts, Knit+ Stitch Harrogate)
• Five workshops trying new techniques at shows and/or Waterloo Quilters
  
  

There has also been a lot of preparation and finally some sewing for the Wonderland Sampler Sampler quilt.

 Hopefully I will make better progress with this in 2026.

 

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Wonderland sampler progress and a trip to Harrogate

This month has seen a little progress on the Wonderland Sampler quilt and a slightly unexpected trip to the Knit+Stitch show in Harrogate.

I’ve completed seven more of the EPP blocks for Wonderland Sampler quilt and a couple more (not shown) have been partly completed in that the EPP part is done, but they require an additional part to be appliqued.

These blocks gave me the chance to try some fussy cutting and, as with the first three blocks I completed, I have tried to keep to the same or similar fabrics as in the book. Again, I have made some minor changes to the shapes to reduce the number of hexagon shaped blocks.

Looking back at the blog, I think it has been 5 years since I last went to the Knitting and Stitching (now renamed Knit+ Stitch) show in Harrogate. This show can be difficult for me to get to by train but one of the sewing/quilting groups had late availability on a coach trip and I took the opportunity to go.

As usual, I didn’t particularly “need” anything, but I did manage to find some bargain items that will be useful and I was able to get some Schmetz Super Universal non-stick needles for projects involving bondaweb etc. One thing I did need to get was something for the quilting group Secret Santa and after much looking I finally found something that I hope will be well received (not shown in the photo just in case anyone relevant is reading this!).

As the show also covers embroidery and yarn crafts, it does mean that once I’ve looked at the sewing/quilting stands, there is time to go into Harrogate and get some cakes from Betty’s to bring home. This year’s choice was a mocha torte and two fat rascals.

 Going as a group makes the ticket prices reasonable and I think with this show, I regard it more as trip to Harrogate with the added bonus of a small sewing show on the side.

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If it’s August, it must be Festival of Quilts

This month started with a trip to Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. Unlike last year when none of the workshops or talks appealed to me, this year I booked two quick and easy workshops (one at 8.30 am!) and one talk which meant a two day trip and an overnight stay in Birmingham.

My first workshop was a no-sew introduction to Bargello in which double-sided fusible stabilizer was used to create strip set and arrange them into a panel. Making a Bargello quilt is on my wish list and this was a great way of understanding the process and seeing how the patterns can develop.

The second workshop was early morning which meant an early departure from the hotel in central Birmingham, but had the advantage of being able to go straight from the workshop to the exhibition halls for the start of the show. This workshop was for making earrings from Dorset buttons and we were able to complete one earring during the workshop. I now need to make another earring while I can remember how.

My final activity was a talk on the history of Sylko threads and how they now have collectable status. This was interesting and amusing (how many shades of pink can there be?) and, after hearing how much some of the rarer colours can fetch, I should really check my few Sylko reels to see if any could fund next year’s trip!

I get the feeling I only took in a fraction of the quilts on display. After many years of going, I still find the quantity of quilts overwhelming, though one quilt in the 5-9 age group in particular did make me smile. The theme was “My Hero” and from a distance it made sense, but then I saw the title - the hero is not Godzilla!

Fortunately someone with a show guide was able to share the description which explains the link between Godzilla and Grandma.

As usual, I didn’t come away empty handed and my purchases this year saw bargains from the Project Linus stand (including So Fine Thread for just £1 per reel); 3m of interfacing to give a tana lawn quilt some oomph if needed (from Lady Sew and Sew) and some rings for Dorset buttons; an ombré remnant and a cat panel from Allison’s craft emporium; a free bag and some other goodies from Aurifil.

The rest of the August had been mostly sorting and preparing fabrics for my Wonderland Sampler quilt, though sewing has yet to start on it. I did manage a bit of sewing at Waterloo Quilters where we tried the Accuquilt Qube system to make some 12”blocks. It was great for cutting half square triangles as no trimming was required, though cutting squares is probably just as easy with a ruler and rotary cutter.

Trying the Accuquilt system reminded me to check my Sizzix dies and it looks as though I have the correct size dies for half square triangles and quarter square triangles that might be suitable for a few of the blocks in the Wonderland Sampler. Hopefully this weekend will see the last of the preparation and next month sewing can start.

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My quilt show conundrum

Last month I visited the British Quilt and Stitch Village show which is held at Uttoxeter race course. This is the closest show for me to attend, though Festival of Quilts is easier to get to by public transport. It is a very “manageable” show and everything can easily be seen in one day. It has exhibits and competition for both quilting and embroidery, various workshops, a good range of traders and a free show guide!

After have a quick look around to determine what I would have time to do (I had a fixed departure time as I was on a coach trip with my local quilting group) I realised I would have time to do a workshop and booked an embroidery workshop with Sew Thimble Wood. It is long time since I did any embroidery and this was an hour long workshop to introduce tips and hints for embroidering on sheer fabrics. Everything we needed was provided and we made good progress in the hour and were given enough supplies to finish the project at home (which I have yet to do).

Even though an hour was spent in the workshop, I still had ample time for shopping and added to my stash with some Aurifil thread from Oakapple Haberdashery, some continuous zips and pulls from Ooh LaLa Crafts, a bobbin storage ring and seam marker from Quilteez and a little log cabin book from the Project Linus stand.

I think my favourite quilts were to be found in an exhibition by Wombourne Quilters which celebrated their Ruby anniversary. This comprised 15 “round robin” medallion quilts, all in ruby and cream, though each lap quilts was very different. Each quilter made their own centre block and the borders were add by other members of the group. Some quilters wanted a limited range of fabrics and provided these, whereas others left the choice of fabrics open.

My conundrum comes from the quilt show and competition part of the show. I last visited the Uttoxeter show 10 years ago when I first entered a quilt into a show and until now, I had not entered any other quilts into shows. Our quilt group was encouraged to support this show by entering quilts and seeing as I had a quilt in progress that would be finished in time thanks to the extended dead line, I was persuaded to enter it. My tiny nine patch quilt had been an on going project last year which I was plodding on with at my own pace and not being too concerned about mismatching seams, etc. However, I noticed that once the entry forms had been sent, I stopped enjoying making this quilt and started worrying about (and unpicking) misaligned seams, wonky borders, uneven quilting and such.

This was not intended to be a show quilt when I started it and I knew the borders were the weakest part of the quilt, but there was a difference of opinion from the judges with one scoring them “very good” and the other scoring them “satisfactory” with an additional comment that began with “What a shame …”. It was also a bit disheartening looking back on my entries from 10 years ago to discover that I had gone from mostly “very good” to mostly “good” this year. I do realise that judging quilts can be very difficult, especially when a show class encompasses all abilities and techniques.

When talking about supporting quilt shows, not everyone can support them by attending the show and buying from the traders and entering a quilt into the competition. There are signs that the quilt shows are recognising the barriers that people might encounter when thinking of entering a quilt into a show.

Costs such as entry fee and getting the quilt to/from the show can soon mount up and I’ve had a look at costs for this year for some of the main UK shows that have a competition element to their show and have tried to summarise them in the table below. The entry fees for a single full sized quilt (up to ~60” or 2 kg) range from £10 to £22 and then you have to consider getting the quilt to and from the show. If you live close to the venue or logistic agent, delivery in person may be the cheapest way to deliver your quilt, but this still comes with transport costs and even administration costs in some cases. The cost of posting your quilt will depend on the size/weight of your quilt and which service and level of compensation you chose but with the Royal Mail this is approximately £8 for 48 h delivery or £14 for next day delivery. If you are unable to collect your quilt in person at the end of the show, return delivery costs range from £10 to £23. The shows do offer some options to reduce the total cost, such as free in person delivery or collection, a free show ticket or, in the case of Festival of Quilts, a limited number of bursaries, though these cover the entry fee only.

Show	Entry Fee	Delivery in Person	Return (Collection)	Return (Posted)
Festival of Quilts	£22	£8-£10	Free - show ticket for last day included	£23
British Quilt & Stitch Village	£10	Free	Free – show ticket required	£15
Scottish Quilting Show	£15	Free	Free – show ticket for all 3 days included	£10
Quilts UK (Doncaster, costs may  be similar for Malvern)	£12	Free	Free – show ticket required	£13

The competition element may also be a barrier for some to support a quilt show by entering a quilt. The lists of winners and quilts for the shows can feature the same names and same quilts and knowing that you could be in the same category as previous winners could be off putting, however, this may be being recognised and addressed by some of the quilt shows. For example, Festival of Quilts have a “Joy of Sharing” category which is not judged and the Scottish Quilting Show has a Professional Maker category which includes any persons who have won an award in a major national or international competition.

As I mentioned before, quilt shows need our support if they are to continue, but what makes a good quilt show – is it the number and variety of quilts on show, the types of traders attending or having workshops on offer? If we go to a show and buy from the traders but not enter a quilt, is it the case that, in the words of Meatloaf (!), two out of three ain’t bad?

My experience this year has just confirmed that entering a full sized quilt into a competitive quilt show is not for me and perhaps I need to see if there are other ways I can support the show part of a quilt show. I’ll end this longer than usual blog post with a photo of my tiny nine patch quilt drying on the washing line. I’m much happier seeing it hanging there freshly washed and crinkly ready to use than seeing it hanging as a competition entry.

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April – a busier than usual month

This month has seen quite a lot of sewing and sewing-related activity.

First of all was the arrival of the new Millefiori book by Willyne Hammerstein. This book is published by Quiltshop Leur in the Netherlands and I was wondering how Brexit would affect things. I'm pleased to say the whole process went very smoothly -  it was shipped on a Saturday and arrived the following Friday. I received an email from the Royal Mail to say that the parcel had been posted in the Netherlands, another when it arrived in the UK, and a final one with the expected delivery date and time. I was expecting to have to pay a customs charge, but was pleasantly surprised when one was not required. I’ve yet to make any of the Millefiori quilts, but now I’ve another book from which to choose when I do start one!

Next was lots of satisfying sewing over the Easter break making syringe driver bags to be distributed by Waterloo Quilters to local hospices. This was a great opportunity to use up fabrics from my stash that were not really suitable for the quilts I make, such as poplins and embroidered cottons. We had been told that football-related bags were very popular and I managed to find an LFC single duvet cover on eBay which had enough fabric to make 9 bags. (My search for Everton fabric was not as successful, but someone else in the group found some Everton curtains for making bags, so the red and blue sides of Liverpool will be covered.) In total I was able to make 34 bags and used over 10 meters of fabric from my stash.

Finally, I finished my tiny nine patch quilt and sent it off to the British Quilt and Stitch Village show. When I started this quilt last year, I didn’t intend to send it to a show and it was only entered due to encouragement from fellow quilters and an extended deadline. The quilt has over 500 tiny nine patches made from half inch squares (finished size) sent on point, and the inner border is made from individual half inch squares also set on point. The backing is a Liberty print made for the V&A museum and has been in my stash for at least 10 years.

I’ll write more about my trip to the show in another post.

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2024 Sewing Summary

This year has been much more productive than last year with quite a few items sewn for charity, for online challenges or as activities at the meetings of Waterloo Quilters.

 

• Three quilts and an advent calendar for Project Linus
• Comfort cushions and syringe driver bags for a local hospice
• Mini quilts for online challenges
• Tree decoration, organiser bag and travel tote made at/for Waterloo Quilters
• Two mini iron caddies repurposed from a full-sized iron caddy

 There has also been a lot of sewing of tiny nine patches for the Tiny Nine Patch Challenge. Approximately 550 tiny nine patches have been stitched and trimmed and 424 setting squares cut for the first part of assembling these into larger nine patches.

Hopefully it won’t be too long into 2025 before I have an update on this project.

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Summer sporting sewing (and a trip to Festival of Quilts)

This month has seen a couple of projects completed for an informal challenge on a online sewing forum. The challenge was to sew a garment or accessory which relates to any sport or the country of France and I took inspiration from the Tour de France and the 2024 Olympics.

My first entry was a set of four mug rugs inspired by the Tour de France which was taking place during the early weeks of the challenge. In the race, cyclists are awarded different coloured jerseys for four different classifications. The most famous is the yellow for the overall leader, but there are three other jerseys - green for points, polka dot for mountains and white for young rider.

I found a line drawing of a cycling jersey via Google and adapted it to make more suitable for a machine appliqué shape. The jerseys were machine appliqued and a "zip" added using a narrow zig-zag. Once layered with backing and wading, I echo-quilted around each jersey using red, white and blue threads. If you look closely, you'll see I had to go over the white quilting a second time so that it had the similar prominence as the red and blue quilting. The backing was the nearest I could find to bikes and I like to think it suggests bicycle wheels.

The second project was a mini quilt inspired by the design on the hoardings at some Olympic venues. I tracked down the official “Paris 2024 look” and reduced four of the elements to basic outlines for English paper piecing (EPP).

Preparing and stitching the pieces was a bit more challenging than my usual EPP projects as there were several curved pieces, but tacking through the papers helped to make these manageable.

Each of the four elements were ~4” square so I added sashing and borders to make a mini quilt that finishes at ~10.5” square.

Seeing as some of the fabrics included gold or silver highlights, I quilted in the ditch within the four elements and around each of them using a bronze metallic thread so that the quilt reflected all three Olympic medals.

As it is August, this month’s post wouldn’t be complete without mention of Festival of Quilts. There were no workshops or talks that caught my attention this year, so I only went for the day and accepted that I wouldn’t see everything. While changing trains at Wolverhampton, I unexpectedly met someone from Waterloo Quilters and we decided that we would look at the quilts together before parting ways at lunchtime. It has been a while since I wandered round the quilts with someone and it was nice to be able to see what caught their eye and to look at quilts that I may have walked past. This year I had some shopping that I needed to do for the sporting challenge and I was able to find the fabrics I needed, along with a few extra items as well.

(A new cutting mat from Siesta Frames, two spotty half metres from The Fabric Townhouse, two FQs from Shoppers Planet, Aso Oke fabric and a Noodlehead pattern from Urbanstax, a half metre of ombré fabric from The Crafty Quilter, and an impulse purchase of a FQ bundle of Tilda chambray from Kaleidoscope.)

I’ve tried various options for visiting Festival of Quilts over the last few years – overnight stays, two day trips and now visiting for just a single day and I’m still not sure what works best for me. Given the price of train tickets, show tickets and workshop/talk tickets, and that images of the quilts are now available online, it can be an expensive outing and I am finding it difficult to justify the cost on the basis of shopping opportunities alone.

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