Hidden Depths by AitchBee at the Newark Quilt Show

The quilts I’m sharing today from this year’s Newark Quilt Show include the maker’s love of typefaces and letter forms, as well of their fondness for 3D imagery. It won’t be a surprise that AitchBee trained as a graphic designer, but now thinks of themselves as one who works in cloth, enjoying the precise imagery that comes with foundation paper piecing (FPP), which is something I’ve not tried myself yet.

All of the quilts are amazing, and one is my all time favourite from this year’s show. I like its cleverness and spent a fair while looking at it, before I really saw it - and then looking at it through my phone’s camera lens made it so much easier to see, and then you wonder why you never saw it before.

The quilt is called Negative Space, which again is clever and did more than raise a smile.

NEGATIVE SPACE

I’m not sure how well it translates on a screen, so read down each column of letters and hopefully you’ll get it - if not, think of the quilt’s name, and then it should materialise. And of course, then you’ll realise that there isn’t any negative space at all!

It’s subtle, beautiful and yes, I’d happily have this one anywhere in my house.

But there were more quilts too, the one below at first you see the cubes, then you look more deeply - and the more you look, the more you see.

NEW PERSPECTIVES

Those small blocks are 1 1/2 versions - now that’s small, and no doubt fiddly.

I’m also a fan of how these are quilted, with multiple vertical lines and it’s something that I hope to replicate on my Essex Linen kisses quilt, but there’s a way to go on that yet though!

OCEAN STAR MIDNIGHT

I love the colours on this one, and it includes FPP blocks ranging from 1 inch to 16 inches across so that’s a good reminder that not all blocks need to be the same size, though of course that makes it a lot easier.

The final quilt I’m sharing from AitchBee is full of colour, and couldn’t be further from the first one in this post colour-wise, but it’s an expansion on that, and includes the whole alphabet.

BLOCK CAPS

This one is an expansion on the Negative Space quilt, and includes the whole alphabet. It was interesting to read that they got stuck on the letter ‘B’ needing to enlist help with it, and a lot of coffee and cake before it looked right. Reassuring too, as it’s good to hear that even quilts which end up looking up as good as this aren’t always plain sailing.

So much inspiration here, and in a completely different way to the other quilts I’ve shared from the show. It almost makes me want to try Foundation Paper Piecing, but I know I really shouldn’t add more to my list, well just yet anyway!

A mostly repurposed vintage star quilt

I’ve made another quilt as part of my quilting ‘stretch’ project this time using the February block from Sherri at A Quilting Life’s mystery block a month. As I said then I don’t know if I’ll manage to make a quilt a month, but I won’t really know unless I try…

I already suspect that the warmer months may be more challenging, what with adding in some time to garden as well as going out and exploring the area around where we live, but that’s the point of a challenge right.

My fourth donation quilt

When I pulled the fabrics from my stash I had no intention of making this vintage star block in blues and greens, but there you go, those are the fabrics that called to me and so that’s what I’ve got. Unlike last month I don’t have a silly name that makes me smile, but I’m pleased to have repurposed quite a few old clothes in this one.

And when I say quite a few I’ve used material from old cropped trousers of mine (from three pairs), an old shirt of MOH’s, a blouse of mine and even some from Hawaiian swimming trunks. In fact the only piece that’s remotely new is the navy and white flowered material, which I bought in Newark whilst I was collecting additional material for the flying geese quilt, before I changed my mind.

But onto the blocks

I found this block centre more challenging, right from the off - but entirely because I misread the instructions. Instead of making HSTs (half square triangles) from the smaller squares I used the larger ones and of course they didn’t come out right. So with more squares cut, and my first learning under my belt I was back on track.

My second learning came on trimming the HSTs - the rotary cutting mat made life a lot easier, as did using the small square template.

But it was still trickier than it looks. My seams were, shall we say variable, and didn’t always meet where they should. And once I’d sorted one seam’s placement another misbehaved, but I did get my four blocks (with variable seams) done, and I’m happy enough with them.

And so with the four centres complete I added the log cabin borders. My original plan had been to add a dark border but not only was I concerned it would be too dark, I also didn’t have enough of the plain blue fabric left, so I needed another plan.

I used the relatively new flowery fabric to add a border to brighten the quilt overall, and realised that there was plenty of the green spotty material (I’m sure this was a 1990s impulse buy from IKEA) to add a final border. This also brought a learning, and tested my patience, with its tendency to slip about with its own free will. But I got there.

For the backing I cut into an old duvet cover, and I think the grey and white zig zags really work - it’s definitely super soft, that’s for sure.

Once again I added my usual scrappy border, using up the majority of strips I’d cut for the quilt top. Looking at those central blocks now, I’m not looking at the wonky seams (well not so much) I’m looking at the quilt as a whole, so I’m glad it all worked out.

As I’m using these quilts to practice and refine my quilting making skills, I was keen to try something a little different with the quilting. It’s still straight(ish) lines, but instead of ‘stitching in the ditch’ I’ve gone bolder and stitched down the middle of the log cabin strip, using a navy thread - a bold move on the pale green fabric, less so on the plain navy strips!

I think it works, and overall I’m happy with how this one turned out. And as it’s been so nice I took my quilt outside for its own photoshoot in the garden! The block for my next quilt is out already, and it’s another cute one - but first I have to make my own block for my mystery block of the month quilt, all being well I’ll share that here later in the week.

You can see my other quilts which I’ve made to donate to Project Linus - a charity whose mission is to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children, who are sick, disabled, disadvantaged or distressed through the donation of new, homemade, washable quilts and blankets, including those that are part of this ‘stretch’ project in earlier posts. I’m aiming to publish an update on my progress in the last week of each month for the remainder of 2025.

Traditional Quilts by Hopkin Rees at the Newark Quilt Show

I’m sharing some more quilts from this year’s Newark Quilt Show and the first few really did make me go wow - and it’s unusual for me to be so taken by the quilting alone, but it really is a work of art.

These whole cloth quilts really are beautiful, and the skill level really is in the quilting rather than the piecing, and then the quilting as the other quilts I’ve shared have been. What I also noticed is that the colour really does make a difference to its impact. By far my favourite was this mustard version, but I’ve also included a green quilt and a grey one - which are equally as detailed, and taking nothing away from them, but for me the impact is less. Take a look and let me know what you think.

But first let me share a little more about the maker, Hopkin Rees who says that craftmanship has been central to their upbringing, and that in their eighty-four years they have had several incarnations of which quilting is the latest.

They’ve been an English teacher specialising in children’s literature, a night school instructor in cabinet-making, a librarian, a marquetarian and a dressmaker. Which is quite a mix!

MUSTARD SCALLOPED NORTHUMBRIAN, HOPKIN REES

They had been expected to go to art college whilst at school, but their father was not in favour, instead preferring going to university with their art being something they could do ‘on the side’, so that’s what happened.

It wasn’t until they married, when they were encouraged by their seamstress mother-in-law who taught them sewing when they expressed an interest, and the happy couple received a sewing machine as a wedding present with ‘which I made clothes for my wife and the children’.

MID-GREEN WELSH WHOLECLOTH, HOPKIN REES

In the show notes they said they couldn’t explain where their urge for quilting came from, but once it started they became addicted and learnt from YouTube and books. In the last ten years they have produced over two hundred quilt items, and latterly have ‘finally been able to express [their] early interest in art and design’ producing amongst other items these traditional wholecloth Welsh and Durham quilts.

GREY SCALLOPED DURHAM, HOPKIN REES

The whole cloth colour totally changes the feel (or vibe if you will) of the quilt - you may not be able to tell from the photo above, but it’s not a plain grey cloth, it’s covered with small white polka dots.

And if you pick up on the fact that the green quilt above has feathers and is also Welsh then the maker says that they’ve included feathers because they love them, even though traditional Welsh quilts rare feature them, if at all. And I think that’s fair enough, your quilt - your rules!

I’ve also included two colourways of the Dahlia quilt, which I think are more my normal go to quilt designs, but even these aren’t straight forward as they had to work out how to extend the Dahlia design to make this into a rectangular quilt by enlarging and echoing the out petals of the template, taking the well known method of ‘hit and miss’ until they got it right - and isn’t it wonderful that they did?

RED DAHLIA, HOPKIN REES

BLUE DAHLIA, HOPKIN REES

The blue dahlia was made first, and blue was chosen as blue dahlias do not exist in nature - I’m sure that if they did, they’d look just as good as this one, and it was great to get the opportunity to view these quilts from a very talented, and versatile maker.