A Not-So-Serious Interview with Kaffe Fassett

Kaffe Fassett is creativity through and through. Even when signing his new books for slightly star struck quilters at the Festival of Quilts, he keeps his embroidery in hand, expertly crafting his new designs seemingly without having to look.

After bugging him for a quick interview I was delighted to distract him for a few moments with my less than serious, not-your-usual-quilting-interview-questions and had good chuckle at some of his responses. Here’s how it went...

[Anna]  You’re the newest colour in the crayola box, what colour would you be?

[Kaffe] Grey.

[Anna] Interesting, any particular reason why?

[Kaffe] In a world of so many different colours, sometimes you need a bit of grey. Plus it has more tones than any other colour.

[Anna] Deep. I need to write that one down. What’s your top jam for stitch and chill?

(Translate: what music do you enjoy listening to whilst you’re having a relaxing afternoon of stitching?)

[Kaffe] Oh I see! I love listening to Gregorian chants.

[Anna] *Nodding thoughtfully whilst trying to think of any Gregorian chant* If you could be any animal what would it be?

[Kaffe] A Jack Russell; i’d like to be small and cute for a change!

[Anna] What clique were you in at high school?

[Kaffe] The nerdy art kids, mostly surrounded by very flamboyant girls. *Winks*

[Anna] Oh ey. Tell me something I don’t know.

[Kaffe] I was born on Pearl Harbor day, but maybe you knew that already.

[Anna]  Nope, didn’t, so that’ll work. What’s your party trick?

[Kaffe] Falling asleep at the dinner table.

*Queue chuckles from the small gathering of quilters around the table*

[Anna] What’s your ultimate pizza topping

[Kaffe] I like good, classic pizza, with pepperoni or salami. None of this pineapple nonsense.

[Anna] People have very strong opinions regarding pineapple on pizza. For the sake of good journalism, let’s throw in a couple of quilty questions. What’s your favourite ever quilt?

[Kaffe] That’s like asking who’s your favourite child! I don’t have a favourite quilt, but I can tell you that my favourite contributors quilt from the new book is Maple Leaf Medallion by Liza Lucy. The colouring is so subtle, it works beautifully.

[Anna] That’s my mum’s favourite too, which is a pretty big deal. What was your favourite location from your book shoots?

[Kaffe] Oh that’s a tough one. We have been to some really special places, but it would have to be Portugal, or maybe Malta. Actually one of my favourite shoots was in Portmeirion for Quilt Romance, that is a really magical place.

[Anna] You’re often sporting a shirt made from your woven stripes collection. Which is your favourite stripe?

[Kaffe] My favourite design is the Roman Stripe.

(Which happens to be the stripe he was rocking that day)

[Anna] Alright lets wrap this up with one more question. What’s your ultimate colour combination?

[Kaffe] I really couldn’t say, it changes depending on how i’m feeling at that moment but right now it’s 50 shades of grey.

*It takes a couple of minutes for us to collect ourselves. I must admit that reference caught me off guard coming from Kaffe Fassett*

[Kaffe] Seriously though I am genuinely annoyed that that woman got the title first. I always loved talking about how you can use different shades of grey to compliment colours in my talks but now i can’t bring it up without triggering a room full of sniggers!

**********

That wraps up our little interview, thank you so much to Kaffe for being such a good sport, what a great guy! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading, here’s a picture of me and my new BFF having a giggle…

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Festival of Quilts - What To See Part 2

From 10th - 13th August, thousands of you will be joining us at the NEC in Birmingham for the biggest quilt show of the year, Festival of Quilts.

Welcome to Part 2 of What To See, where you can find out exactly what will be happening on our stands in this years show.

If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.

New Product Launch -  Needcraft

 

These new kits from NeedCraft are genius. We have lamp making kits in 3 different sizes, plus a table lamp, waste paper basket and clock, so that you can customise every room in the house! Check out this blog post to see just how easy it is to make a waste paper basket in your favourite fabric.

We will also be stocking a new selection double sided, foldable and rotating cutting mats in exciting shades of blue, pink and green!

Introducing the Compact Quilting Frame

New from Grace and exclusive to the Cotton Patch in Europe is the Compact Quilting Frame. Sizing up at just 5 foot long by 3 foot it really does live up to it’s name! This frame is the perfect solution for anyone who is on a budget and a bit short on space.

You don’t have to sacrifice the size of your quilts however, the innovative system means that you can still finish up those king sized quilts to absolute perfection! If this sounds like it’s exactly what you are looking for, swing by stand C20 for a demo and have a try for yourself.

Another Very Special Guest - Stuart Hillard

We are very very excited to announce that our favourite Sewing Bee hero, Stuart Hillard, will be on our stand signing his brand new book ‘Use Scraps, Sew blocks, Make 100 Quilts’.

We will be selling the book for the fantastic price of £20.00  (RRP £22.95). Stuart will be with us every day from 11-12pm so come along, have a chat and get your book signed. Find out more about Stuarts new book here

 

Click & Collect

Make sure you have your essentials ready and waiting for you by pre-ordering for Festival of Quilts. You can choose to collect your goods on any day by selecting your preferred day from the postage menu and, of course, it's free.

Plus, if you pre-order goods worth £20 or more we will include a £2 voucher for you to use at the show against any product (minimum spend £2) and that includes anything that is already on special offer! So, if you have a favourite wadding, notion or fabric that you need this is your opportunity to ensure that you get it.

Our Best Giveaway Yet

A big congratulations to the 9 people who won our Festival tickets giveaway, they are now on their way to you! Commiserations to everyone else who took part but didn’t win this time, we hope you will still be joining us next week at the NEC. Thank you to everyone who voted and we can announce that the most popular quilts were Whirling Stripes, Shadow Play and Road to Ireland.

If you don’t already; follow us on Facebook and Instagram to make sure you hear about our next giveaway.

We cannot wait to see all you amazing creators next week and really hope you will love everything we have to show you! See you there!

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Everything You Need To Know About Westalee

Westalee Rulers are an innovative system of foot & ruler that allow you to achieve the creative quilting you’ve always dreamed of from your very own domestic sewing machine. It opens up design possibilities that are normally the reserve of long-arm machine quilters.

In today’s post we are going to take a look into how the Westalee Ruler sets work and what you can achieve by using them.

For even more details and to see all of the templates we have on offer, head over to our Westalee Rulers e-book or visit our website.

Free-Motion Quilting For Everyone!

The Westalee Ruler Foot is different from any other foot on the market and has been designed to work specifically with the Westalee Quilting Templates.

The ruler foot is designed to float just above the quilt sandwich and has no hopping mechanism which would get in the way of your hands and impede your vision. This also allows for more control and greater ease of movement.

The ruler foot is exactly ½” in diameter. This means that when you move the foot around a template your machine will always stitch a consistent ¼” away from the edge of the template, which is a huge help when you plan and quilt your designs. It enables you to use your ruler from all sides and work inside and outside the templates, plus there is no flat spot in your quilting caused by the cut out at the front of the foot.

Check out this video below to see exactly what can be achieved with the Westalee Ruler Foot.

What’s Your Shank?

Leonie West, the Australian designer of Westalee products set out with the aim of making these rulers as accessible to as many domestic machine users as possible. The result means that there are four different types of foot available to cover the many different makes of sewing machine available on the market, including Pfaff, Janome, Brother, Juki, Singer and more!

The four types of foot are High Shank, Low Shank, Medium Shank and High Shank Special.

Here’s a handy guide to figure out what shank your machine is in case you’re not sure;

There are a few machines that require a Medium or High Shank Special which are listed below;

For more information about which shank ruler foot you should use, plus a fairly comprehensive list, see our e-book.

A New World of Quilting Possibilities!

The essence of the Westalee Ruler concept is that it enables you to free motion quilt, but in a controlled way. If you would love to give free motion quilting a go but have always shied away from it then Westalee Rulers are here to guide you.

There are so many different templates on offer, so let’s take a look at what you could actually achieve!

All of the templates above are included in Sampler Template Set 1, which is a great starting point for discovering Westalee. As you can see, it offers many different design options to get your creative juices flowing.

The videos below demonstrate how two of the templates in Set 1 are used to create a quilt design.

Like what you’re seeing? These samplers are made using some of the templates that we have in stock.

And if you’re still not convinced that these rulers are a game changer, here’s what your fellow creators have to say;

So, are your fingers itching to try? Take a browse of our range on the Cotton Patch website to see what catches your eye, though if you are brand new to Westalee then we would highly recommend beginning with the Ruler Foot Starter Set which includes the Westalee Ruler Foot, the 12" Arc template, an adjustment guide and stable tape. 

If you fancy taking a class our good friend Angela runs beginner courses in the Solihull/Birmingham area. You can find details on her etsy page here

Westalee For Teachers

Do you teach patchwork and quilting? Would you be interested in teaching how to use the Westalee Ruler Foot and Templates to your local students?

If the answer is “YES”, drop us an email at mailorder@cottonpatch.co.uk with ‘Westalee For Teachers’ as the subject line and we will send you details of how we support teachers.

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Our Best Giveaway Yet! ***Giveaway Now Closed***

Festival of Quilts 2017 Tickets Giveaway

This is not one to miss out on.

We have 9 pairs of tickets for the Festival of Quilts 2017 to give away, so tell all your creative buddies and get entering!

All you have to do to enter is vote for your favourite quilt from Kaffe Fassett’s new book ‘Quilts in Ireland’, enter your details and boom, you’re in!

Entries for the giveaway close at 12pm on Friday 28th July and we will be announcing the winners on Facebook, so be sure to like our page to be in the know.

Share with all of your creative friends and even if you don’t win, maybe one of them will get lucky and take you along!

Click here to enter the giveaway

Don’t forget to sign up to our email newsletter whilst you’re there to receive exclusive deals and hear about all our new product first.

If you are LOVING the quilts you are seeing from Kaffe’s new book, find out more about how you can pre-order the book and save on quilt kits here!

If you’ve already got your tickets to Festival, read this post for all the details on what to see on the Cotton Patch stand.

Good luck!

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Festival of Quilts - What To See Part 1

Festival of Quilts 2017 - What To See Part 1

It is nearly that time of year again. We’ve all been saving our pennies, writing our lists and preparing our best me-made bags. At the shop, metres and metres of fabric are being chopped off the bolts and folded into pretty packages. Quilts are piling up and the stock room is filling as we prepare for the biggest show of the year. It must be Festival of Quilts!

Here’s the lowdown on everything that’s happening on the Cotton Patch stand this year.

Kaffe Fassett's Quilts In Ireland

This year, like every year before, we’ll be launching Kaffe Fassett’s latest book hot off the press. We’ll be hanging a display of some of Kaffe’s new quilts on stand B21, plus the man himself will be on our stand for book signings, see times below.

Thursday 10th August - 2.15-2.45pm

Friday 11th August - 2.00-3.00pm

Saturday 12th August  - 2.00-3.00pm

You can pick up your signed copy of Quilts in Ireland for just £21.49 (RRP £23.99), and as a special treat, each book will include a £10 voucher to use against any of our Quilts in Ireland Quilt Kits. So don’t miss out!

If you're not attending Festival, you don't have to miss out as Quilts in Ireland is now available to pre-order (until 31st July) and you will still benefit from the £10 discount off any quilt kit ordered at the same time. Read this post for more information about pre-ordering Quilts in Ireland or click here to go directly to our website.

Westalee Quilting Rulers

Angela Attwood will be on our C21 stand demonstrating the fantastic Westalee Ruler Foot and Templates. If you’ve not seen the rulers in action before, definitely come on over and prepare to be impressed. If you’re considering buying a ruler set, take a look at our ebook first to see the full range and find out whether you machine is high shank or low shank (very important knowledge to have!). Please make sure you also know the make and model of your machine - you would be surprised at how many people don't!

Accents Quilts

Last month we released our new range of Accent Quilt Kits and you loved them! If you missed out, check out this blog post to see exactly what the kits are all about.

We are very excited to announce that we will be launching even more designs at Festival, there really is one for every taste! They will be adorning our stand so come over for a look and be prepared to be inspired.

Sizzix

Sizzix pro Angela Southey will once again be on our stand to tempt you with all the possibilities of the Sizzix Big Shot die cutting machines. We have a huge range of dies available for patchwork, embroidery, paper crafts and more. Plus for every die you buy you get to walk away with a free 5” strip - the perfect stash builder!

Victoria Findlay-Wolfe (sizzix die designer) will be giving a lecture on 'Creativity and Play' on Thursday 10th, and we will be stocking a great selection of her dies so come and have a look!

Fabric

As always we will be taking along all the best of our Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics, plus a host of other Free Spirit designers. This year includes Tula Pink’s hugely popular Tabby Road collection, Tim Holtz’s fantastic range of Eclectic Elements, brand new Neptune and the Mermaid from Tokyo Milk (definitely one to see!) plus beautiful collections from Shell Rummel and Tina Givens.

Alongside the fabrics we will have a great range of quilt kits, charm packs, patchwork palettes and fat quarters packs with some excellent deals happening.

Threads

At this years show we are bringing an irresistible collection of threads from Presencia, Coats and Cotty at bargain prices. We will also have our rainbow stand of Glide Threads, a favourite among quilters.

And still there’s more…

Yo yo’s, fusibles, ribbons and even fragrances courtesy of Heathcote & Ivory. Plus, we will be launching a brand new quilting frame which allows you to quilt up to king size in just 5ft! More details to follow in part 2.

Each year we try our best to put on a great show for you and we really think you’re going to be impressed! So come and visit us on stands B21, C20 & C21; be inspired by our quilt displays, have a go on our longarm quilting machine, let Westalee and Sizzix revolutionise your craft and make the most of our great show deals.

Look out for our 'What To See Part 2' (coming soon) to find out about our quilting machines, click and collect, new product launches plus a very special guest!

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