Black History Month: West-African fabrics

It goes without saying that we quilters love fabrics! Fabric manufacturers are constantly developing new prints and colour combinations to entice us to buy yet a few more fat quarters, despite the stash of fabrics already at home. Today we're going to take a look at West-African fabrics, starting with wax prints. These are primarily …

VE Day!

Victory in Europe Day marks the day in 1945 when Britain and its allies accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, marking the end of the war in Europe. To celebrate VE Day the Curator of The Guild Museum Collection, Heather Audin, has created a Youtube video for you to watch! Join her and explore …

Votes for Women: PROCESSIONS 2018

We hope you had an empowering International women's day on Sunday. Collectively, each one of us can help create a gender equal world! Continuing the theme from Sunday we thought we'd share an interesting project that The Guild took part in in 2018.    The Quilters’ Guild supported  PROCESSIONS, a mass participation artwork that marked …

Stitching how you feel: Lorina Bulwer

This month, we are focussing on sewing and well-being. Today, we shine a light on the work of Lorina Bulwer (1838-1912), a woman who, having been denied her freedom and power of expression, used her needlework to give vent to her feelings and thoughts. image by Norfolk Museums Collection Born in Suffolk, after the death …

Patience

Our word of the day is 'patience'. Patience with ourselves, with others and also our quilting!  Being patient and kind to ourselves is really important to our well being. In a busy world that never stops and the fast pace of technology, sometimes we need to take a moment to ourselves and have some 'me' …

Interesting read! Sewing for Wellbeing

Check out this interesting article on The Guardian website exploring sewing and wellbeing. Did you know about the calming effects of sewing? And how it can help people express and heal themselves? Click here for the full story... The lovely illustration above is by Eva Bee

Meet Emma Wilkinson: Designer, Embroiderer and Kiltmaker

We first saw Emma's work on show at the Knitting and Stitching show in November 2019 and we were mesmerised! Today we are lucky to have Emma join us for an exclusive interview about her experiences and her beautiful work.  Please tell us a bit about yourself, how you got into textiles and sewing – …

Recycling fabrics: Pauline Mills

This beautiful quilt was made by quilter and Guild member Pauline Mills. Pauline is totally committed to using recycled fabrics, this piece is made entirely from striped shirts! We are now living in ‘a throw away society. The UK now sends many thousands of tonnes of clothing to landfill every year!’ We hope this has …

Natural dyeing

I was so excited to be assigned this topic, because I've been immersing myself (not literally, obviously, haha) in natural dyeing over the past year, and it's been so much fun that I'm dying to tell you all about it (see what I did there? I'll stop with the silly jokes now). Firstly, what is …

Troubleshooting – hints and tips

So – you’ve sat down, ready for a relaxing sewing session, but your machine just isn’t having it!  The fabric is rucking-up, threads are tangling, or your machine just won’t sew at all.  What do you do?  Give up and hope it feels better tomorrow??  Here’s a list of trouble-shooting suggestions to try and sort …