Quilt Creations to wow

I’ve said before that I was overwhelmed by the number of quilts I saw on my first visit to the Festival of Quilts at Birmingham’s NEC earlier this year. Since then I’ve been overwhelmed by the number of photos I took - and I didn’t (physically couldn’t!) photograph every quilt there. Though I have finally looked at the photos I did take, and there’s so many I want to share - and still to edit - but I have worked out how I’ll do that.

Usually my ‘go to method’ would be to share a selection of my favourites covering as many of the categories as possible, and then share more from the categories and displays in turn. But that’s not working for me this time round as I have so many favourites, which would make for a very long post!

So over the next however many number of weeks I’ll share my favourites from many of the categories, and if I can make enough of a decision by then to edit down my favourites then I may share my favourites from the show - but there are a lot of categories, so there’ll be plenty to see before then.

And I’m not starting with quilts as such

But they are equally as spectacular, in fact I was drawn in to this gallery section by the Liberty 150 creation, and I can’t even imagine how that came to be, but it is amazing (spoiler: they all are!) The Quilt Creations category contains clothing, wearable art or be three dimensional pieces, which leaves a lot to the imagination and it’s a category that definitely delivers.

I was absolutely wowed by the Liberty One Hundred and Fifty creation, which was by far my favourite here. In fact, so much so that I’m not sure if I saw most of the other items, though this was one of the last sections we saw so I might have been quilt-dazed.

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY @ZESTANDLAVENDER

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY @ZESTANDLAVENDER

I told you it was good didn’t I? And the 150 ties in with Liberty celebrating their 150th anniversary.

But I do have more to share, and I’d love this chair in my living room…

SHIFTING SEASONS @EMILYBODYUPHOLSTERY

It is just my colours.

I admired the work in this jacket, even though I’m not sure I’d ever have occasion to wear it. I wonder though if any of the creators have?

OUR URBAN LANDSCAPE @NORTHLONDON_STITCH AND TEXTILES

OUR URBAN LANDSCAPE @NORTHLONDON_STITCH AND TEXTILES

I can’t finish this post without sharing the winner of this category - another amazing entry, which no doubt is full of intricacies, engineering and a lot of hours of work in the show stopping kind of way that winners of this category should be.

WEAR YOUR WINGS WITH PRIDE @MATTWILDING

Seriously wow - all of them.

If you enjoyed this post from my visit to the Festival of Quilts 2025 then please do check out my other posts from the show. Even though my mind was blown by the sheer volume of quilts on display, I’m pretty sure I’ll be going again!

Interiors inspiration from Yorkshire

One of the things we enjoyed on our weekend trip to Malton was browsing around the independent shops - and there’s plenty of those. What I realised afterwards is that it’s not only the interiors store which provided interiors inspiration, so in this post I’m sharing photos from our mooch around the shops, and more.

But let’s start at the interiors shop Interiors at Nine to Eleven who had planned a ‘yard sale’ for the weekend, but had valiantly moved that inside given the weather forecast - that’s where I found my £1 fabric sample. Around the shop there was a riot of colour and pattern, and I was smitten with the green sofa pattern, MOH less so. I’m less sure about the wallpaper but the bold prints definitely do it for me.

In another section of the shop it was the black and white wallpaper that caught my eye. I think it’s too ‘tame’ for what I have half an eye out for, mainly as I think this will be an even harder sell than the patterned fabric above with MOH who already thinks our house is too white!

Heading back to the stairs and the main shop I did stop and admire the fun carpet, and I mean if you can’t have fun in an interiors shop trying out things to assert your style and brand, then when can’t you?

I kept coming back to these ‘cheeky’ plates by Yvonne Allen, as they just made me smile - and in fact I’ve since bought a set and am keeping up with my ‘making cake era’ just so we can use them, though I did resist the matching cake forks - mainly because they weren’t dishwasher safe and I can’t be doing with that kind of faff, and reminding MOH every time we use them.

Looking around the curios shops in The Shambles we found plenty of tins, too many to make a choice (or even photograph) decanters and a gorgeous wire chicken.

Our next stop was the secret whisky bar at McMillans, and there was plenty of good looking interiors there too, no really there was.

Our hotel was it seemed prepared for the weather with a selection of wellies for use in the entrance lobby, as well as chest of dreams (for me at least) which doubled up for room key storage.

We’d struck it lucky with our hotel room which had a lounge for our use - and with the weather on Saturday, that was very welcome and very much used by us. Though we still didn’t use the TV, something about being away - we just don’t, I don’t know why.

So if you’re looking for interiors inspiration and getting stuck, then think about looking in some less expected places - you never know where you’ll be inspired.

If you enjoyed this post and/or are looking to visit Malton and its surrounding area, then check out all my posts from our impromptu weekend away.

A kantha stitched landscape, and a hare too

Back at the start of August my SIL and I headed off to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC - I’ve so many photos still to edit, and posts will follow but in short so many beautiful quilts! We’d booked on a workshop, and again there were so many to choose from, so in the end I left it up to my SIL to choose which one.

And she chose well, the kantha textured mini landscape workshop by Angela Daymond. I knew little about what we’d create, but I had been to one of Angela’s workshops before at the Stitch Festival in London back in 2023. And if you go back and read that post, I’m still curious as to how the notebook will turn out as I’ve not yet ‘cooked it’ - though, I do now at least have a saucepan which I could use for this, so maybe I’ll get around to that and show the results here - but don’t hold your breath!

I was looking forward to Angela’s workshop though and was hopeful that I’d stand more chance of completing the outputs from this one, given my increased opportunities and interest in hand stitching. And I was right, but first let me show you how I got on.

A kantha stitched landscape

Unusually I didn’t take any pictures while we were in the workshop, not even of Angela’s finished piece which was a bit daft. But then again it gave me free licence to do what I wanted, and interpret the written guidance shared on the day.

This was as far as I got in the workshop.

We’d started by tracing the design using a fabric marker pen and during the workshop Angela guided the group through the different stitching methods including tips for stitching circles, and sewing with the different thickness threads, as well as how to complete the weaved effect of the whipped running stitch on the stems.

I was keen to carry on and get this finished, so the week or so after the show this became my project.

I loved how it turned out, and I’m sure that each one from the workshop will look the same but different. I decided I needed to add some glitter to mine, on the sun and in the first few circles of the sky - and then well, in for a penny, in for a pound, onto some of the red berries too.

Angela had said that to remove the blue pen you just had to go for it, if you tried to spot remove the markings then it would likely show up elsewhere in the design. So there was nothing else for it, but to plunge this into water and under the running tap.

Miraculously it disappeared. Phew!

I left it to dry on a towel, and as it was drying I began to think what I’d do with it. I decided to frame it, and as luck would have it when we were in the framing shop getting the Vogue pictures framed, I spotted some small frames made from offcuts in the sale. By now I also knew that I wanted to do another one, so I picked up two frames - and added my landscape into the pale green frame.

Designing my own version, with a hare

I’d enjoyed the kantha landscape so much I decided I would do another picture to fill the second frame I’d bought. I knew I had some ‘hare’ stamps and thought one of those might work with a similar horizon as before. In the end I flipped the background and half-traced half-drew the hare in the bottom right corner.

Then I got sewing. I used the same yellow and blue threads from the workshop - there was (and still is) plenty left. But I decided on something different for the ‘land’ and for the hare itself. I had some crochet threads from mum and thought the neutral-green-pink reel would work for the land, but also added a thin darker grey thread to this, sewing with two threads, to give it some extra texture and to keep a consistent colour throughout both ‘land’ sections.

For the hare I used another variegated thread, this time ranging from brown through to bright pink. What do you mean, you’ve never seen a bright pink hare?! Me neither, but hey, I think there may be hares out there wishing they were pink!

Once again the fabric marker pen washed out easily, and revealed the end design.

That too has been framed, this one got the gold frame - but both are now in our spare bedrooms on two of the four fabulous bedside tables, and they look great. I’ve plans for something slightly different on the two bedside tables which remain empty, but that idea yet to be started, so it may yet turn up on a ‘future stitching project’ list at some point. But in the meantime I’m going to enjoy these, and I hope our guests will too.