Festival of Quilts: virtual tour
We're officially in mourning that this summer's The Festival of Quilts won't be going ahead this summer. If you're already missing your annual hit of high-impact quilt goodness, fear not! Dive into our virtual tour of last year's winning quilts to top us up until we're all allowed to go out and fondle other people's quilts (with our eyes at least) in public again.

If you want to spark true debate at Gathered towers, just ask us which is our favourite category of quilt in The Festival of Quilts competitions, then stand back and watch the fireworks. Some of us LOVE the complete magic of the mini quilts (hands up here, as how do they make them so wee?!), others are in awe of the traditional quilt galleries, steeped in the quilting heritage that we learnt from the generations before us. Then there's the camp that can be found gazing for hours, lost in the eye-tricks of the pictorial quilts.
Being such complete devotees of the UK's best-loved quilting event, it's with great sadness that we learned that this year we'll be missing out on our annual trip to the NEC to get our quilt on and immerse ourselves in the galleries (let alone snaffle ALL THE FABRIC at the shopping stands). We also happen to work alongside the hard-working and creative team at Upper Street Events who throw this biggest UK quilt event of the year each summer, so we know how much work had gone on behind the scenes on this year's exhibitions.
Enter the 2020 Festival of Quilts Virtual Quilt Competition
Oh yes, you heard us right! While this Summer's Festival has been sadly postponed, you can still enter your quilts in the event's virtual quilt competitions – entries are open now at www.thefestivalofquilts.co.ukCheck out their awesome plans for a Virtual Quilt Competition this year (above) and then dive into the complete comfort viewing that is this visual tour of the quilts that captivated us and won the judges' hearts last year.
Festival of Quilts, we are all the heart eyes for you and we cannot WAIT to see you in 2021.
*Pencil in 29th July – 1st August 2021 in your diaries now people!
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Head to our Craft Events page for more news of crafty get togethers (even if they are virtual at the time of writing).
A round of applause for the 2019 winning quilters
Best Traditional Quilt
- Gwenfai Rees Griffiths
- Robyn Fahy
- Lynda Jackson
Best Modern Quilt
- Robyn Fahy
- Rachelle Denneny
- Marina Kontsevava
Best Group Quilt
- Cowslip Workshops
- The Mood Swingers
- Exe Valley Contemporary Quilt Group
Best Two Person Quilt
- Mary Palmer & Anne Kiely
- Julia Mcleod & Sue Fox
- Chris Harvey & Jennifer Harvey
Best Pictorial Quilt
- Juana Castañeda Romera
- María Eugenia Corbella
- Marjolijn van Wijk
Best Miniature Quilt
- Sandra Newton
- Mari-Carmen Pujante
- Roberta Le Poidevin
Creations
- Lynne Barker
- Amanda Whewell
- Caroline Nixon
The Vlieseline Fine Art Quilt Masters
- Winner: Ann Goddard
- Runner up: Marilyn Rathbone
The Quilters’ Guild Challenge
- Kate Dowty
- Pippa Wardman
- Sheena J Norquay
Best Novice Quilt
- Katarzyna Plesniak
- Pascale Michalski
- Jill Farrell
Best Art Quilt
- Betty Busby
- Sandra Newton
- Jo Coombes
Best Contemporary Quilt
- Claudia Pfeil
- Jane Osborne
- Anne Lillholm Jorgensen
Best Young Person's Quilt – Age 5-9 years
- Beatrice Varley
- Emily Martin
- Rebecca Connor
Best Young Person's Quilt – Age 10–13 years
- Naroay Nahia Sevilla
- Lillia Bowsher
- Eloise Fossey
Best Young Person's Quilt – Age 14–18years
- Kyle Long
- Abigail Fossey
- Hannah Errington
Best Primary School Quilt
- Shenley Brook End School
- Belmont Grosvenor School
- Hazzlegrove Prep
Best Secondary School Quilt
- Atelier de Couture Magique
- JETS Oswestry Embroiderers’ Guild
- Burgess Hill Girls
Best in Show
Congratulations to Mary Palmer & Anne Kiely
It's never an easy decision to choose one winner from such a superb collection of quilts but the judges managed it, awarding the top spot for "a harmonious blending of skills from two people." They highlighted tha, "there are so many intricate techniques within this quilt, which carries a powerful social message."

BA Bursary
Brooke Wakeman
City & Guilds
Julie Pywell
Hand Quilting:
Andrea Stracke
Longarm Quilting
Mary Palmer & Anne Kiely
Authors

Zoe is the launch Editor of Gathered.how. She has over a decade of craft publishing experience under her belt. She's a quilter and sewist who works with the UK’s best-selling craft magazines including Today’s Quilter, Love Patchwork & Quilting, Simply Sewing and The World of Cross Stitching. Zoe loves being immersed in Gathered’s quilting content, tweaking our tutorials and publishing new patterns. Zoe has previously written for radiotimes.com, Simply Knitting and The World of Cross Stitching and was previously Deputy Editor of Papercraft inspirations magazine. She has guest-lectured at Bath Spa University. She’s a keen quilter with 5 projects in progress at any one time and another 12 or so planned.
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