Louisa Goult talks to quilter and textile artist Abigail Booth, half of the crafts partnership Forest + Found.
How and when did you get into quilting?
I started quilting about two years ago. Even though I had studied colour and sculptural art at college, I hadn’t really touched on textiles as such. When Max and I booked our first craft fair, I decided I needed to make a quilt to sell, even though I had never made one before and really had no idea about piecing or quilt construction. This first effort was somewhat bodged, there were no matching points, and certainly none of the accuracy that many quilters aspire to. My mum ended up buying it to keep it in the family – it still hangs on their wall at home. When Max bought me a book on American Patchwork, I did learn to piece and quilt accurately, but this didn’t interest me for long. I kept going back to the freedom of that first quilt, of not having a pre-set idea of the finished item. I feel this original naivety of knowledge that made me just get stuck in and have a go is what guides my work today, I have now regressed to that improvisational style and find the best results are when mistakes happen, or when materials react in an unexpected or strange way.
Where do you work from?
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Handy Hints For Project Success
If you are new to Popular Patchwork or sewing in general, following a pattern can be confusing. We want you to enjoy making the projects in the magazine, so to help you here are some questions we regularly get asked.
Block Of The Month - Point Squares
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Novel Stitching
This spring, Jane Austen’s House Museum will unveil a very special quilt to commemorate Jane Austin’s life at Chawton in an exhibition entitled: Piecing Together Jane Austen. Elizabeth Betts describes a year in the making.
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Abigail Booth of Forest + Found
Louisa Goult talks to quilter and textile artist Abigail Booth, half of the crafts partnership Forest + Found.
Down By The Riverside Competition
Back in May we launched a group design competition, in partnership with Lewis and Irene. Each group who entered was given a 10m length of the stunning ‘Down by the Riverside’ border print and the brief was to design a quilt to incorporate it. The entries were a varied and gorgeous mix of designs and choosing the winning quilts was a challenge. However, judging by the overwhelming response from visitors to the Popular Patchwork stand at The Festival of Quilts, we are confident in our final choice. Here we talk to the finalists about their experience of working as a group for this design challenge.
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Q&A Amy Butler
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Orange Peel
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