On The Edge and Round the Bend

By Carolyn Gibbs

Wholecloth quilts have been made in the UK for several hundred years. These have no patchwork but create beautiful and varied designs simply with the light and shadow created by lines of hand quilting.

After winning the Quilters’ Guild Amy Emms Bursary in 2016, Carolyn has been studying how quilters in the past designed quilting patterns for border corners – after discovering in her own quilting how challenging it is to make a border design turn the corner perfectly.

She discovered that they had other, simpler tactics which were used far more often. In this talk, you can see how corners were ignored, avoided, fudged and mastered- illustrated with examples from Carolyn’s extensive collection of antique wholecloth quilts alongside her own work.

Watch video lecture

About the speaker

Carolyn Gibbs

Carolyn has been developing and teaching her own patchwork and quilting designs for over twenty years from her base in Sheffield. Originally just working on the sewing machine, in more recent years, she has grown to love hand quilting, and through this has become more interested in the history of the craft, particularly wholecloth quilts.  She now has an extensive collection of antique quilts which she loves to share.

In her “other life” she teaches Chemistry – and this mathematical and technical interest is perhaps why she loves the geometry and precision of traditional patchwork. Precision cutting and matching striped fabrics is a challenge which she enjoys, and she also specialises in developing quick pieced methods, with a particular emphasis on pressing the seams in the best direction to ensure a perfect line-up. For quilters who want to design a cable or running feather border which exactly fits the quilt, she has worked out drafting methods which makes this process much easier.

Tips and guidance, including YouTube videos are now available on her website, along with patterns and technique packs available by PDF download.

carolyngibbsquilts.co.uk

Facebook.com/CarolynGibbsQuilts 

Carolyn’s YouTube channel

Carolyn Gibbs_image 3