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Liberate your ‘little bits of nothing’ - making a modern quilt

Living in Yorkshire and owning an ­88-acre farm are factors, Stuart Hillard admits, that often have people assuming his quilts are created in a 16th-century tithe barn. In fact, we’re in a small block of business units near the centre of Goole, “beside a used car lot and a sauna,” he says with glee.

It’s a chuckle many will remember from the first series of The Great British Sewing Bee which, adhering to that highly addictive Love Productions formula, saw amateur sewers complete ever-more-taxing dressmaking tasks under the scrutiny of industry experts Patrick Grant and May Martin. The eight savvy stitchers were asked to construct an A-line skirt, radically alter a dress with pleats and piping, and fashion a pair of men’s trousers complete with confounding zip fly. Hillard made it to the semi-final (having been encouraged to enter the competition by a friend), despite a critical lack of experience in dressmaking or tailoring.

“Originally, the programme was going to focus on home décor, upholstery, patchwork and quilting,” he tells me, and so with 25 years’ experience in making soft furnishings he was all set. When the focus shifted to collared jackets and made-to-measure blouses, he vowed “to take a leap” nevertheless. “I thought, I can’t compete with everyone’s dressmaking skills so I’ve just got to be different, more creative.”

For someone who would dearly love to be let loose on the Sewing Bee’s haberdashery supplies, a visit to Hillard’s small studio is heavenly. Bolts of cottons line a dresser, and piles of folded fabrics, plains and prints, have been pleasingly colour-coordinated. Quilts hang on every wall. “If I were in the middle of something you’d find things strewn all over the floor,” he says.

QUILTING LINGO
QUILTING LINGO

There is plenty more “software” stashed at home (where Hillard and his partner own that farm), but this is where he works daily on commissioned projects, designs for craft magazines and websites, and for the quilting workshops he runs around the country. Hillard was taught by his mother to knit at the age of three, practised patchwork, crochet and macramé at school (“there were plant holders aplenty in our house”), then made cushions and curtains to fit out his first house.

Quilting, though, has always been his favourite discipline. “I had seen a quilt in Laura Ashley and thought, ‘I’m not paying for that, I could make my own; I’ve got a whole bag of scraps’. Without any real clue I just started to sew bits of fabric together. I was hooked.” What Hillard loves most about quilting – that “little bits of nothing” put together can become something desirable, deserving of wall space or a bed – also appeals to most novices, especially magpie collectors of cotton swatches or offcuts.

quilt
Stuart shows Amy a quilt being made on a Handi Quilter long arm

Many early handmade quilts comprised of dressmaking scraps; only as people had more disposable income – and leisure time – were fabrics purchased especially for the task. Traditional block patterns, which are repeated to form more complex arrangements, can be traced back centuries, and bear names that describe shapes (eight-point star), patterns (pinwheel), or fanciful ideas – such as Toad in a Puddle – whose origins have been long forgotten. In the late 1800s, crazy quilting was all the rage: intricate designs of random shapes sewn together and embellished with ribbon work, beading and stitched motifs.

In Hillard’s quilting workshops and in his new book, Use Scraps, Sew Blocks, Make 100 Quilts, novices are encouraged to “liberate their scraps” and be adventurous with colour. Inspired, I set to work on a 16-square patch, the first design in the book, which proves how clashing colours and prints can elevate the simplest pattern. “Sewing squares together is a traditional approach but can look very modern,” he says – simply go bold and go bright. Machine-stitching 2½in squares (placed “right sides together” so that the seam is invisible when the pieces are pressed apart), I quickly assemble a collection of jazzy pairs, to be joined in ever larger blocks.

Quilting has an addictive quality. You can work on small areas at a time

“Quilting has an additive quality. You don’t have to think about the whole, but can work on small areas at a time. They build up bit by bit.” We ­partner the 16-square patch with a Kiss block – four Indian Hatchet shapes in plain fabric, their pointed ends squared off with patterned triangles. “It’s ­always good to lay out your designs before you sew them,” Hillard advises, “and take a snap on your phone so you don’t forget the arrangement.” We use his design wall (simply a flannel-covered board that holds the cotton in place) to settle on a position for the blocks.

Despite sewing regularly at home, I learn new tricks under Hillard’s tutelage – scoring the seams open with a fingernail saves having to iron them flat at every stage; keeping the thread intact between paired squares does the job of a pin to hold pieces together; don’t move the iron around, simply press down to set your seams and tighten the stitching. With more scraps these patches will grow and grow, to be set over a layer of batting or wadding (the soft filling) and backed by a single piece of fabric. Once the three-layer sandwich has been embroidered, the quilt is born – “as dramatic as your imagination allows”.

Hillard himself finds inspiration for designs in the spines of a pile of books, his mother’s nail-polish bottles, and platforms on the London Underground, saying: “I jumped off early at Covent Garden just to take a photo of the tiles.” They all made it into his book, among many more traditional designs.

Sewing squares together is traditional but can look very modern

Many of the quilters that he teaches – first-timers and old-timers – start out as he did, by following other people’s patterns. “That’s the wonderful heritage of quilting,” he says. These days, Instagram is an excellent source of ideas, and fabric companies produce specially cut pieces (called fat quarters, charm packs and jelly rolls, depending on their size) for the craft.

The hardest thing, Hillard finds, is actually keeping hold of a finished quilt. “Even if I intended to make one to stay at home, I look at the finished product and think, ‘I want to share it’.”

 

Use Scraps, Sew Blocks, Make 100 Quilts, by Stuart Hillard, is published by Pavilion (£22.95)