I have just returned home from a very enjoyable visit to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham. I arrived on Saturday afternoon and had the whole of Sunday at the Festival. Here are some assorted highlights, items of note that caught my attention during my visit.
First of all, I’d like to share with you the two quilts that I entered into the competition. This is ‘On the Beach’ which was on show in the ‘Miniature’ category. I live by the seaside in Kent and spend time every day on the beach or walking next to it, so I enjoyed choosing suitably coloured Liberty Lawn prints to make this little piece. It measures seven and a half inches.
Second, I entered ‘Lapwings at Pegwell Bay’. A late autumn walk in Pegwell Bay Nature Reserve, Kent was interrupted by the sight of a cloud of wheeling birds which turned out to be lapwings. The quilt captured this moment.
The birds are produced with lino-cut prints and the top section of the quilt is hand-quilted with regular sewing thread.
The hand-quilting on the areas of ‘sea’ and of ‘land’ is done with cotton a broder and large-stitch quilting.
The sparse vegetation at the bottom of the quilt is free-machine quilted. All the fabrics (cotton for the ‘sky’ and the ‘land’, silk for the ‘sea’) are hand-dyed.
As a member of The Quilters’ Guild, I have always tried to enter quilts for the Festival. Without quilts, there is no Festival! So I am already thinking about next year…
Among the other quilts in the various categories in the competition, here are some which caught my eye. The quilt below was entered in the Young Quilters 5-9 years category. What a joyous, celebratory piece it is!
This quilt in the ‘Sustainable’ category, by Victoria Nowell made very clever use of stripes from recycled shirt fabric:
Here is a detail of the quilt:
Among the quilts in the ‘Joy of Sharing’ category, I loved looking at the charming, colourful and exuberant collection of fabrics in Tracy Aplin’s ‘My Boardwalk quilt, designed by Emma Di Stefano, Treehouse Textiles.
I was impressed by this quilt in the ‘Two-Person quilt’ category, not least because I had just spent a week away in Yorkshire with very dear friends. The quilt is called ‘Friendship is a Sheltering Tree’ and was made by Amanda Simmons and Penny Maclean and designed by Amanda Simmons and Penny Maclean
Of course, there were also delights to be found in the various displays elsewhere in the exhibition halls. I enjoyed seeing more of Luke Haynes work, which included several self-portraits like this one, which included pieced vintage quilts and appliqué.
![[On My Bed #14] The Keg Stand 2025 by Luke Haynes](https://amandajanetextiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/wp-17857907368201720517006944601428.jpg)
This will have to stand as the end of Part 1 and I shall continue the account of my discoveries at the Festival in Part 2 next Monday. See you then!
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