Festival of Quilts 2010 Academy Programme

Described as "the largest, most eagerly anticipated event in the patchwork and quilting calendar anywhere in Europe", the "Festival of Quilts" takes place at the NEC in Birmingham during August.

While Quilters who have previously visited know that it provides huge inspiration, with the Victoria and Albert Museum (see previous post) showcasing some of their quilt collection this year in Quilts 1700-2010, we hope that the "Festival of Quilts" also tempts those who don't aspire to necessarily make quilts but for those for whom the art and artistry of quilts, the history or the beauty and colour or texture is enough reason to visit. Last year over 30,000 people visited the NEC from over fifty countries - it certainly felt like it as someone who could not get from one end of the stand to the other!

So if your diary is handy - the dates are:

19th to 22nd August 2010

Opening Hours: 10.00am to 5.30pm (closes 5pm Sun)

For those who want to get on with the "making", one of the highlights is the collection of teachers whose workshops and lectures provide that inspiration to extend knowledge and techniques into new areas.

While the organisers Twisted Thread are able to show the Quick and Easy Workshops programme on their literature The Academy Programme is now so vast that the easiest way to view it is online. We thought we'd give a taster of some of the masterclasses, lectures and workshops that you can sign up for on the Twisted Thread site.
Non Quilters Guild members can start booking from today!

Marti Michell


We are delighted that Marti Michell together with her husband Richard Michell (and seen here with their daughter Stacey who runs Shades Hand Dyed Fabrics) will be joining us on The Cotton Patch stand for demonstrations of her templates and advice on how to Machine Quilt in sections, make a real log cabin...I mean make a Log Cabin Quilt and lots more!



Marti will be reaching for the stars with A Constellation of Star Quilts (Reference 271)

You won’t want to miss Marti’s star studded trunk show. It is full of tips
and tricks for making Evening Stars, Feathered Stars, Kaleido-Stars and
stars you might not think are stars, even Seven Sis-stars. Oh my stars, you’ll be star-struck!
Lecture (1 hour)
Saturday 21st August 10.00am to11.00am

Machine Quilting in Sections / Quilting As You Piece (Reference 294)
You’ll learn the difference, the similarity and how both methods can help you finish your quilts on your home sewing machine! If manoeuvring a big quilt through that little opening in your sewing machine is overwhelming, this lecture has answers! There are always new quilts and tips.
Lecture (1 hour)
Sunday 22nd August 10.00am to 11.00am

Why Use 8 Fabrics When You Could Use 80? (Reference 249)
Who knows whether you have lots of fabric because you love to make scrap quilts or you love to make scrap quilts because you have lots of fabric? It doesn’t matter, you’ll love Marti’s scrap quilt trunk show. Plus Marti will review the top 10 reasons why you need more fabric!!!
Lecture (1 hour)
Friday 20th August 4.00pm to 5.00pm

Kaffe Fassett

Kaffe Fassett - what can you say about a man who has contributed so much to pushing the boundaries of colour within the traditional designs of patchwork that hasn't already been said? So often people know that the colour in their quilt is not quite right but
don't know what to do to make it so...Kaffe Fassett has that talent (as we discover when we try and substitute a fabric in his quilts and find it quite tricky!).

Kaffe is shown (below) with Nik from The Cotton Patch signing books on the stand at the Festival of Quilts in 2009 - Kaffe has his own stand this year but will also be doing book signings on The Cotton Patch stand.

Kaffe is also doing a Soup Supper talk entitled Concentrate on Colourwhich is designed to inspire and motivate. The presentationhighlights works from his latest projects, these include his patchworkquilt, fabric, needlepoint, mosaic, painting and knitting designs. For more details and how to book please visit the Twisted Thread site.

The Kaffe Fassett lecture is designed to inspire and motivate. This year Kaffe will be talking about Diamonds...could be a girl's best friend...

Diamonds (Reference 258)
Kaffe Fassett
Play with colour in design from a Kaffe Fassett quilt structure under the supervision of Kaffe and his assistant Brandon Mably. Most class time will be spent teaching the arrangement of fabrics to develop each student’s own personal colour palette in making one of Kaffe’s original designs. Students will need to bring lots of fabric to play with! Although Kaffe and Brandon teach the same principles of colour, the class structure will be different and you will come away with two totally different wall-size hanging quilt arrangements.
You will be arranging your work on a piece of flannel that you will just fold up at the end of the workshop, ready to take home and sew.
You may elect to keep your projects wall sized or expand them to full size once you return home. The quilts are primarily scrappy so the workshops are for scrappy quilts done in fairly low contrast. Kaffe and Brandon will be taking you through the same process they use for designing their quilts.
1 Day Masterclass
Any Level
Saturday 21st August 9.30am to 4.30pm

Amy Butler

Last but by no means least....Amy's influence on the world of design just keeps on growing. We recently saw that Amy has teamed up with Graham and Brown who manufacture the most gorgeous wallpapers so your next quilt may match your wallpaper! Amy showed some of the rugs she has designed at the Soup Supper at last year's Festival of Quilts - they are a perfect foil for her designs. Wow! So now its quilt, bedding, wallpaper, rugs.... find out what inspires her and her creative process at her lecture. She'll also be available and will be signing her books on The Cotton Patch stand. Below is one of the rugs from her collection -

Inspirations with Amy Butler
(Reference 244 and 274)

Spend an hour chatting, laughing and getting inspired with American fabric and interiors designer Amy Butler. Get an inside look at some fun, behind the scenes imagery and stories chronicling Amy's latest creative adventures through her travels and studio life.

Lecture (1 hour)

Friday 20th and Saturday 21st August

1.00pm to 2.00pm

One of Amy's beautiful handmade 100% New Zealand wool rugs.

2009 Roundup

A dramatic start to 2010 - a blanket of snow covers most of the UK and for those of us who have a sizeable commute to work that means enforced incarceration at home! A good opportunity to do those things I don't have time to do when I'm at the office then such as a roundup of 2009 and postings of some of the photos that never made it even as far as the editing room let alone the metaphorical editing room floor (digital photography has eradicated such terms...it would have to be consigned to bits and bytes of the recycle bin I guess).

And what a year it has been - lots happened at The Cotton Patch with more people joining us. We took on Alison, in late 2008, to help with the backoffice and stock. Bucking the trend of the rest of retail in 2009, craft and especially patchwork and quilting, has just continued to grow in popularity. The media picked up on the "Make do and Mend" theme and Kirsty Alsopp's program "A Handmade Home" became very popular, sparking an increase in interest on the web and our blogs. We took on Rob in October 2009 whose job focuses on warehousing, stock and fabric cutting which eased things as the busy season really took off in November and on the run up to Christmas. It doesn't seem to have stopped since September. We're looking forward to our newest member of staff, Lorraine, starting with us - she begins in January 2010 on web order processing.

The Festival of Quilts just gets bigger and better and this year was definitely busy - moving around the stand on the first day was certainly a challenge! Amy Butler, Kaffe Fassett and Marti Michell all proved as popular as ever and with the addition of Sandy Chandler who demo'd the Curvemaster foot it definitely drew the crowds. Hopefully curved piecing no longer holds its traditional fear. Drunkards Path could be winding its way through to a quilt show near you soon!

In October we visited Houston for the Quilt Market - the show for retailers which precedes the Quilt Festival (equivalent to our Festival of Quilts). The great thing is that the quilts for Festival are hanging in the same hall so if we have time we get to see all the wonderful exhibits - this year we managed to stay on the Sunday night after the show. There were some wonderful ones and here are a few of my favourites.

The information provided on this quilt - The Lone Star is by an unknown quilter from around 1845. It is hand pieced, appliqued and quilted. Inset panel prints surround pieced diamonds. The panel prints from around 1815 have been cut in half diagonally and reassembled without interruption of the design. The diamonds of the design include many rainbow prints, French and English chintz, Indiennes prints and other prints typical of that era. The centre is fussy cut.

The connection to the internet out in the sticks is notoriously slow (the words broadband and internet superhighway hardly fit here!) so I'll load some more tomorrow as the weather still looks bad for tomorrow.

Further Tales from the Festival of Quilts

For our final installment of our blog about Festival we've a few more photos of various people on The Cotton Patch stand.
All photos courtesy of Liz Hingley.



Amy and David Butler, Marti and Richard Michell and Kaffe Fassett signing his latest book "Kaffe Fassett's quilt romance".


There are a few blog posts around the net you might like to check out on the Festival of Quilts - one I loved is the Henhouse Blog Great photos and what a fantastic collection of fabrics and goodies to drool over - her choice of book "Material Obsession" seems particularly apt!

Having fun at Amy's class..






All those lovely Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler packets, fat quarters and packs...!











Sandy Chandler going non-stop with curved piecing! She could have made a large King-sized quilt with all those pieces!

More Tales from The Festival of Quilts

It may only be a week and a half since we returned from the Festival of Quilts but already it seems like much longer. Maybe its something to do with the more autumnal weather we're having right now whereas the setup day on the 18th August was so hot we were in shorts!
Here are some more images from the show that we thought we should share.

All photos were taken by Liz Hingley.

Amy Butler signing her latest books and chatting with customers.

Kaffe Fassett, Brandon Mably and David Butler (Amy's Husband) with Geoff Sewell from The Cotton Patch.

Marti Michell who always demonstrates the Perfect Patchwork templates and rulers with her unique and entertaining style.

Sandy Chandler demonstrated her Curvemaster Patchwork foot to hundreds of people during the four days of the show - showing that no one need be afraid of curved piecing - you just need the Curvemaster, long tweezers and seam roller for perfect results!

Sandy's entertaining and informative style drew the crowds...

Festival of Quilts at the NEC - A Riot of Colour

Few who attended the Festival of Quilts last week could fail to have left inspired and brimming with ideas. Attendance was in excess of all expectations and the quilting community certainly came out en masse to view a fabulous collection of quilts, works, classes, workshops and shops.




Accents from all over Europe and North America could be heard every day. So thank you to everyone who visited The Cotton Patch stands - we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and we look forward to seeing you again next year!


We were fortunate to have the photographer Liz Hingley on the stand on Friday to capture some of the essence of the atmosphere of the show. It was Liz's first Festival and like so many first-time visitors was amazed and inspired by it. Over the next few days we'll be posting some of her images... For those of you unable to make it we hope it gives you the motivation to join us next year!

Anne, Ellie and Nikki helped with cutting the fabrics, setting up the stands (and dismantling them!) and were pretty invaluable on the Rowan stand.

Geoff demonstrated the Little Gracie II, Pinnacle and the new Bernina 8 Series Quilting frame to hundreds of people during the show. Here, one customer is testing out her stippling technique on the Little Gracie II.

More photos will follow. For those of you into social networking you might like to join the Festival of Quilts Facebook group - just follow this link.

Festival of Quilts 2009 - Amy Butler, Kaffe Fassett et al

Preparations are well underway for the Festival of Quilts at the NEC from 20th to 23rd August. We are delighted that Amy Butler, Kaffe Fassett and Marti Michell will all be joining us again. We also have Sandy Chandler from the States who will be demonstrating the Curve Master, tweezers and seam roller.

Amy and Kaffe will be able to sign copies of their books at the following times. They may be on the stand at other times as well if they are not doing classes and lectures so please stop by on our stand at B25 - we'll have lots of fabrics by the metre, packs and books. There will be some great Show Special Offers so it will be well worth a visit.

Amy's Book Signing Times

Thursday 10:30 - 12:00 and 4:45 - 5:15
Friday 10:30 - 12:00 and 4:45 - 5:15
Saturday 10:30 - 12:30 and 2:00 - 3:00
Sunday 10.00 - 11.00

Kaffe's Book Signing Times

Thursday 11:00 - 1:00 and 2:30 - 4:00.
Friday 11:00 - 1:00 and 2:30 - 4:00.

Our main Cotton Patch stand is just across from Amy and Kaffe at C19 and our demonstrations of hand and machine quilting frames (including the new Bernina frame) will be at B21.

Don't forget that our shop is only 1/2 hour drive away from the NEC so please do visit while you are in the area. The shop is open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday (20-22 August) from 10am to 5pm. To give you an extra incentive to visit, if you spend over £35 on any of those days get a free copy of one of the following books! (Offer is limited to one copy per customer per day.) For directions to the shop please click here.

The Quilt Road by Kaffe Fassett (Ref 4259, normally £15.95)

A collection of 20 projects to suit all skill levels by:- Kaffe Fassett, Janet Bolton, Keiko Goke, Roberta Horton, Mary Mashuta, Liza Prior Lucy, Pauline Smith, Betsy Mennesson, Brandon Mably and Hilde Aanerud Krohg.
This Rowan Patchwork & Quilting book is styled by Kaffe Fassett and photographed by Debbie Patterson in the dramatic Pennine landscape of Yorkshire, amongst the barns and lichen encrusted mossy dry-stone walls that are so characteristic of the roadside scene in this part of Northern England.

The Impatient Patchworker by Jane Emerson (Ref 4395, normally £12.99)

If you like the idea of giving your home an individual touch, but lack of time, the experience or the ideas, then The Impatient Patchworker is just what you need. Jayne Emerson has created a range of 20 quick-to-make patchwork projects that will transform your home in a matter of a few hours. She includes wonderful mixtures of patterns and colours to create eye-catching but simple textiles, including cushions, shopping bags and purses, table runners, cloths and napkins.

Seven Easy Pieces by Kaffe Fassett (Ref 4057, normally £7.95)

A collection of 7 cool and contemporary projects with beginners in mind. The projects use just 10 Kaffe Fassett fabrics so, if there is any left over from one project you can use it to start the next!

We hope you can visit the NEC in August and if you do, we look forward to seeing you there!

Bag Envy

Have you ever seen a friend's bag and thought "I'd like a bag just like that". Well this has happened to me on many occasions but today I was happily in bag heaven (or its earthly equivalent) when I had to forcibly remove my bag from the shoulder of someone else at The Cotton Patch who had taken rather a shine to it.

Not that my bag will appeal to everyone of course but its kinda funky and quirky and that's the kind of bag that works for me. We saw the fabric by Echino at a show in February and could not resist it (the fabric is on our website with other fabrics by Echino as well as some embellishing tape, some of the fabrics are even more quirky and funky!). The fabric is great for bags being a linen/cotton mix. The pattern is the Swing Bag by Amy Butler which if you've never made a bag before is a great starting point - its not that difficult and in total took 3 hours to make (including a substantial amount of checking it looked good in a mirror and taking some photos so really about 2.5 hours)

To give it stability I used Duck Cloth 10oz which is what Amy recommends in her pattern.

The green fabrics has a design that runs from selvedge to selvedge so it would also make a great blind. Watch out for these fabrics on our website soon!

So a great project for an evening when you can't get in the garden due to torrential rain :-) and its reversible too!

Amy Butler Gum Drop Pillows Sewathon

At the Festival of Quilts in August in the true tradition of family businesses Nik's daughter Ellie (and her sister Anna) worked at the show on the Amy Butler stand. The style of fabrics with their contemporary twist really capitivated them and with having met Amy as well, they were all fired up to make something.

Ellie is off to her first year of University this weekend so with Gum Drop Pillows pattern and Amy's Nigella wider furnishing fabric in hand she came over to my house last night and we had a Sewathon.

Amy had said it was a good pattern to do because it is quick and she was right - from start to finish (but not stuffed) took us 2 1/2 hours.

This included showing Ellie how to use the sewing machine, rotary cutting out the pieces and pinning them together. Oh, and plus a bit of time unjamming the machine (fortunately I didn't ban Ellie at this point, unlike her experience at school when having created a birds nest in the bobbin case she was banned from using the sewing machines ever again - not a very positive experience!)

Ellie did really well, even without much experience of sewing - the pattern is pretty easy to follow, the tricky bit of aligning the intersection of eight pieces at the top of the pillow is covered by an octahedron which is top-stitched in place (hiding any unsightly joins, ahem). The sewing is mostly straight stitching. I just did the more tricky sewing the two halves together bits but she did most of the rest.

Ellie went home to stuff it - Amy recommended bulking out the stuffing with plastic bags and then using soft polyester filler around the edges - you do need quite a lot of filler otherwise - I thought this was a great use for old bags!

I would definitely recommend it as a good project to get someone into sewing - and you get to sit on it when you're done!

Amy Butler at the Festival of Quilts

It was great to meet Amy Butler on The Cotton Patch stand at the Festival of Quilts the week before last (it only seems like yesterday...!) She was able to chat to customers, sign books and inspired a few people who don't sew yet to do so (excuse the pun).

Her relaxed approach in her book "Midwest Modern" is quite inspiring with beautiful photography illustrating examples of how she and her husband David have used fabrics to great effect in their own home. As part of the post-Festival de-stress I spent part of an evening reading the books and can hardly wait to work out which projects I'm going to do from one of her other books "In Stitches".

Plans have been formulated for a few evenings with the sewing machine at my house with my niece Elllie who, together with her sister Anna, suddenly want to make pillows, throws and bags. If Amy can inspire teenagers to sew then this has to be good for the future.

We hope that Amy is able to make a return visit next year and if you didn't manage to see her at the Festival this year we suggest you make a date in your diary for mid-August next year when the Festival of Quilts returns.

Festival of Quilts at the NEC - Setup Day

Well its been a long day (and not over yet) but we are pretty much there in terms of setup for the Festival of Quilts!

We hope many of our customers will be able to make it to the show. Here is a sneak preview of the gorgeous Kaffe Fassett/Amy Butler Rowan stand. Kaffe and Amy will both be signing their books (including their new ones) at stand D20.

Meanwhile across the aisle on stand E20 we have Marti Michell who returns to the Festival of Quilts to give demontrations on the stand when she isn't teaching lectures - there are still spaces on her Stripping lecture on Sunday.

Ricky Tims will be signing his books, DVDs and CDs on stand E20 too so if you would like to meet Ricky who is not only a talented musician and quilter but is utterly charming as well! Please visit stand E20 where we will have lots of his books, DVDs and CDs and a schedule of when he will be on the stand.

We've only had chance for a quick look at some of the quilt galleries. It looks like this year will surpass all previous shows and we thought that last year!

We look forward to seeing you soon...

Apron Patterns

We've always loved Barbara Brandenburg's style - she has done some great books under the Cabbage Rose label. Her sisters are artistic and into quilting too. Teri Christopherson publishes under the Black Mountain quilts label and whenever we've got their books in stock we're almost guaranteed a few sales amongst Cotton Patch staff!

Mooching around on the web I found the link to Barbara's blog which is worth a look at the following link. We particularly liked the aprons she's done - they would look great in Amy Butler fabrics, as would her bags! A lovely site with some lovely photography.