Edinburgh Spring Quilt Festival - photos

The show is now over and once again I've had a great time up here in Edinburgh.

I am looking forward very much to coming back to Scotland in May. I will be teaching several workshops at Kaleidoscope on the last weekend in May and returning to central Scotland the following weekend for workshops at Purely Patchwork. One of the Kaleidoscope workshops will be "Super Strips" and I will be teaching "Japanese Circles and Squares" at Purely Patchwork. These are my two most popular patchwork workshops at present. I am launching a new sashiko workshop, "Sashiko for Summer", at Purely Patchwork - combining some easy sashiko patterns with different marking techniques and a summery colour scheme, with designs including fans and kamon family crests.

I had several quilting friends helping out at this show. Pearl brought a hessian bag she customised with sashiko panels. So unique!


Fiona's folded Flying Geese in Japanese blue fabrics was displayed on the stand next door to mine. She also brought her sashiko to stitch, and has just finished the panel she started yesterday.


Everyone who helped me out ended up stitching sashiko on my demo stand. Glyn tried sashiko for the first time today. He designed and made two coasters, with this Celtic maze design - both drawn freehand by the way. He has promised to send me a drawing so we can make a kit version of these, as the designs provoked a lot of interest.


One of the interesting aspects of doing shows is the chance to see things made at my workshops or from my books. Marie, who attended a sashiko course at Denman College last year, brought the door hanging she started. I photographed it hanging over my '99 Treasures" quilt.


Ann Hill is running a block of the month programme from "Japanese Taupe Quilt Blocks" and she was using her version of the satchel handbag. She has sent me some photos of blocks being made on the course, which I'll post separately. It is always interesting to see how the designs work in different fabrics and colours, and they will make some lovely sampler quilts.