Harrogate Spring Quilt Festival, 2018

As I sit and write this, the snow is falling yet again as the UK comes to its usual standstill during a wintery deluge. I'm only glad we're not doing Harrogate Quilt show this weekend! We had a great time at this bi-annual show last weekend, and the stand looked more colourful than ever. This was also my first chance to show off my Curve Motion Medallion quilt in real life, and it attracted some lovely comments, so thank you! For more on this glorious hand sewing block-of-the-month project, click here.

Another quilt which attracted a lot of attention was my new Mosaic Garden quilt kit, mainly due to Bryony's amazing long arm quilting (North Star Quilting), I know I mentioned this last week, I just couldn't resist showing it off again! The kit is now available in the Sewmotion Shop, priced at £68, though if you sign up and receive today's Newsletter, you can get 15% off! Click here to subscribe today. 

I love to wander through the collection of quilts on display  at these shows and always find something that sparks my imagination. The overall feeling of this exhibition was a wonderful abundance of colour! Greta and Mike Fitchett's work caught my eye with it's strong lines and graphic illustrations, Greta's work is inspired by architectural pattern found on her travels around the world and I thought her Reflection Quilts were so clever and striking in their use of colour.

Birmingham Post Office Tower, and Cologne Cathedral, Greta Fitchett

Designer and engineering illustrator Mike's pieces are inspired by vintage travel posters, a style I love myself, and it was great to see similar designs in quilt form. Coming from a graphics background, Mike's use of bold colour and simple shapes really appealed to me.

Heart of the Alps, and What a Shambles, Mike Fitchett

Another wonderful display of colour was to be found in "Interchange Appliqué Quilts' by Gillian Travis. These beautiful pieces are made using an innovative appliqué technique with batiks which are fused together. I'm a big fan of repetitive pattern and found these designs so happily satisfying!

Clockwise from top left: Circles 2, Notan Leaves 2, Turkish Carpets , Hawaiian Interchange, Circles 1 - Gillian Travis

These quilts are on a travelling exhibition with Grosvenor Shows, so if you get the chance to visit an event, go and explore this explosion of awesome colour!

I was so happy to meet a fellow UKQU member, Vendulka Battais, owner of Oliven quilt shop and queen of the Cathedral window! As well as demoing and teaching her stunning painting technique, Vendulka also had some of her beautiful quilts on display.

Cathedral Windows, Vendulka Battais, Oliven

Linking up with Midweek Makers and Needle & Thread Thursday

Quilt Show preparation, a new kit and North Star Quilting

For the past few weeks I've been cutting, folding, glueing, and pricing like a mad woman, in preparation for my first show of the year, the Spring Quilt Festival at the Great Yorkshire Showground in Harrogate. This 3-day event is held in a smaller hall than the one in Autumn, which I must say does make for a more much relaxed show. Talking to visitors last year, many commented on how nice it was to wander around the stalls at a leisurely pace, have time for some lunch before having a second look around and actually remembering where they saw that something that caught their eye!

As you can see, I've added some lovely individual fat quarters to my show stock, these boxes look so inviting don't they! And I've a few new kits not taken to shows before, including this gorgeous new Mosaic Garden Quilt Kit in Michael Miller's Wildflower fabrics.

You may recognise this quilt from a pervious Pre-Cut Party pattern, I've increased the number of blocks to thirty to make this double-sized quilt finish at approx. 67" x 80". The kit includes 120 pre-cut 5" squares, 3.10m of Makower's Ivory and eight binding strips, plus thread and full instructions. This new kit will be available in the Sewmotion shop early next week, priced at £68.00.

Did you notice the beautiful quilting on my new quilt above? Most of the time I love to quilt my own tops, but this quilt begged for something special, so I decided to give it to my friend Bryony Liddle to longarm. Bryony and her husband Luke run North Star Quilting, a longarm quilting service up here in the North East of England. I let her have free reign on my quilt, and she didn't disappoint! Keeping with the grid-like pattern of the patchwork, Bryony went to town with some truly stunning quilt designs in block formation. Fine Art trained, Bryony is a joy to work with, incredibly enthusiastic about her work and is very talented indeed! For more details on North Star Quilting's services, including prices, click here. 

Linking up with Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers & Needle & Thread Thursday.