Lots of Changes

Its been a while since I last posted and there have been lots of major changes to update you with.

Earlier this year, we made the decision to move the fabric out of the Royal Bridlington.  Our Extra wide fabrics had taken over every possible available space and we had run out of room!

So In May, we manage to secure a local industrial unit with great natural light and plenty of parking and we began to design our new space.  This involved the purchase and building of lots more shelving, electrical work to install sockets, alarm system and cctv.

Gradually we began to move our stock in and of course order some more too -lol so we can cover all your patchwork and quilting requirements. 

We now also have a range of standard width fabric to - many at a great price of just £8 per metre, Precuts, tools, thread, notions, patterns, waddings etc 

The unit is now open a couple of days a week and as always appointments can be made for other times to suit.

It is also planned to move the longarm to the unit and when this happens, the opening times will increase.

We are really enjoying our new space and we are grateful to all the lovely people who have already visited us there.

Retreats

Here is the Update we have published on our Facebook page today.

The End of an Era…..

Sadly we have made the decision to stop doing retreats.

There are many reasons why –

Ever rising costs – food, staff, heating, power and overheads are spiralling out of control. Realistically the only way to be able to provide a reasonably priced retreat is now to increase the numbers of students dramatically and more space and bedrooms would be needed.

We originally built the retreats to provide much needed work out of season for our staff, but now in reality we end up doing the majority of the work. We have had some lovely staff over the years who have also benefited from this out of season work but more recently and now for several years now, we have struggled with the reliability of some of the local staff.

Our increasing age – we are no longer spring chickens! And when staff let us down we end up having to jump in. This undoubtedly causes great stress. Working from 7am to 11pm every day doing breakfast, morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner plus all our other jobs is now just far too much.

During Covid, many tutors took their teaching on line and other also rethought their plans and retired. Also there was a reluctance to socialise to the extent needed on a retreat for several years after covid and numbers certainly took a drop with both residential students and locals.

Over the last 20 years here at the Royal Bridlington, we have brought in many famous tutors from all over the world to come and teach and students too have come from all over the world to attend. These retreats have also been open for locals to attend on a daily workshop basis. We have learnt lots and had some great laughs along the way and made some lovely friendships too. We have also provided facilities for groups to come along and do their own retreats and we have had many groups from all over the country to come and stay. We have also organised and run two quilt shows which raised many hundreds of pounds for local charities. Its such a shame it cannot continue, but our health and well being now needs to take priority.

We are certain that the local shops will also miss our students who over the years have spent considerable sums on supplies during their stays.

We will of course be continuing to provide bed and breakfast at the Royal Bridlington, and Self catering in our DaisyChainholidays bungalows in Sewerby. We will be moving our Longarm to our new unit and this will mean the opening times will increase. Along with the biggest range of extra wide fabrics in the UK we now also stock a range of standard width fabrics – most being just £8 per metre! Precuts, waddings, tools, patterns, thread etc etc. Opening times can be found on our facebook page and Quilt Sandwich website.

We would like to wish all our retreaters and our tutors the very best for the future and we look forward to seeing you at our new unit or at one of the many shows we attend.

xx

Our new Unit is located at -

Unit 6C Carnaby Industrial Estate

Lancaster Road

Bridlington

YO15 3QY

What Three Words - Songbird, Teadrop, Luxury.

Drive past John Bull Rock Factory and another couple of blocks and you will see a sign for Carnaby Tyres on the left. Drive into that compound and we are on the opposite side.

Opening times - check our Quilt Sandwich website  here -

https://www.quiltsandwich.co.uk/contact

or our Facebook page here -https://www.facebook.com/QuiltSandwich/

Our self catering properties can be found on our website here -

https://www.daisychainholidays.co.uk/

The largest Range of Extra Wide Fabrics in the UK!

Did you know.....Quilt Sandwich has the largest range of extra wide fabrics in the UK!

These are ideal for quilt backs, patchwork, dressmaking, table cloths and many other items.  Most are 108 inches wide - that's 2.75metres. Some are even wider at 115-118 inches.

The minimum cut is half a metre which is 2 units on our website and then by the quarter metre, for example 10 units is 2.5 metres and 9 units is 2.25m.  

You can also order a fat quarter of most of them which is ideal for matching colours and patterns before purchasing the whole amount.  

We stock fabrics from well known manufacturers including Moda, Windham, Benartex, Studio E, FreeSpirit, Timeless Treasures, Lewis & Irene, Nutex, V & A, Riley Blake, Dear Stella, Ruby Star, Kaufman etc 

We also have our own extra wide batik especially manufactured in the traditional way for us.  These are done on a slightly less dense fabric than most standard width batiks and so are ideal for quilt backs and many other items too.  Of course, a standard width batik should not be used as a quilt back as the weave is usually too tight and bearding and holes can occur.

Along with our couple of thousand bolts of extra wide fabrics we also stock a good range of layer cakes, charm packs and Moda scrap bags.

All these can be purchased from our website and, although you can use Paypal to check out, if you select to check out as guest the system then allows you to use a credit or debit card of your choice for payment.

We take a selection of our fabrics to many quilt shows around the UK and also Northern Ireland, but we have so many we cannot take them all!  If you are visiting a show and want to see any of our fabrics - just message or email us before hand and we will
endeavour to pack them in the van - who is called "Eggypops"!

Our extra wide selection was never a plan - it just happened.  We had been running workshops and retreats at our hotel in Bridlington for several years and like most people, I thought I would just quilt my tops myself under my domestic machine.  I only had to attempt one large quilt to realise how hard this is on your eyes, shoulders and back and how difficult it is to manoeuvre.  Over 11 years ago now, we investigated longarm machines and  decided that if we were going to take the gamble of buying one, we had better buy the best possible and so we settled on an ABM Innova 26 inch throat, will lots of extras and Auto pilot for computer guiding.  

We flew out to Utah for a weeks intensive course and ten the year after to Virginia Beach for master classes with well know USA Quilters. 

When we got back from Utah, we began to build our machine and then Matt from ABM flew over from Texas to help install the computer system as my machine was the very first computerised one in the UK.  We christened our machine Rodney and Del Boy - Dell being the computer.

Coincidentally, we had planned a charity quilt show at our hotel and had already had a couple of 'sewathons' before we left for the states and by the time we got set up, lots of quilt tops were being donated for the event which needed to be quilted.

We set off practicing on these and by the time we had done them all - we had quilted over 70 tops and felt really quite confident that we could do a good job on someone's top - their pride and joy!

After the Charity Quilt Show, customers tops started arriving in and I soon learnt that extra wide fabric was hard to get hold of at that stage, so I started stocking a few.  Again tops kept arriving and the need for more and more backings was becoming clear and so my collection grew and grew.

I have now been long arming for over 11 years and I have never been without a queue.

I take on quilt from quilters of all levels - from beginners to tutors.  When problem tops appear, that's when true experience show through. 

Over recent years the UK market has been flooded with a certain domestic style of longarm and many of the people who have bought one have set up long arming for customers.  Some of these people are charging by the inch probably in order to confuse the customer and cover up their high rates and over charging. So remember when choosing a  longarmer its important to compare eggs with eggs and take into account the experience each has gained.