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/

Quilt Sandwich at Summer Quilt Shows

Quilt Sandwich has the largest collection of extra wide fabrics in the UK.  Most extra wide fabrics are 108 inches wide and this makes them superb to use as quilt backings as there is no need to join fabric. This also means that they are much better value.  All our fabrics are 100% cotton and can also be used for standard patchwork, dressmaking, bags and indeed many other projects.

We also have a range of extra wide traditional Indonesian Batiks which we have had specially made for us.

Standard width batik is usually made on tight woven fabric called 50s. This is a little too tight for quilt backs and not recommenced. All our batiks are made on 40s fabric which is perfect.

So how much extra wide fabric do I need?

If you are having your quilt top longarmed, normally at least 4 extra inches are needed around the quilt top, so measure your top in both directions and add on 8 inches.  If not then you still need some extra wiggle room.

As a quick guide a king size quilt would normally require 3m, a double 2.5m and a single 2m.  There are 39 inches in a metre for those who are calculating.

Quilt Sandwich also offers a longarm quilting service and a discounted rate is also available when backing fabric and wadding is purchased.  For full details click here to visit our website -
 www.quiltsandwich.co.uk.

This year we have been invited to take our fabrics to a couple of local shows.

On 9th June 2018 we will be at Clifford Village Hall, LS23 6HY  and 13-15th July 2018 at Whitby Quilt Show.

We will also be at Festival of Quilts at the NEC 9-12th August 2018.

So don't forget your fabric swatches to match up for a beautiful quilt back.

Festival of Quilts at the NEC  - here is a link to their website https://www.thefestivalofquilts.co.uk/

If you want tickets - use the code EX18 which will give you a discount.

Charity Quilt Show 2016

We at Quilt Sandwich held our second Charity Quilt Show on the 11th & 12th March 2016 at The Royal Bridlington.

This time our chosen charities were - The Yorkshire Air Ambulance, The Childrens Hospital Sheffield who are raising money to purchase a special scanner which will allow them to operate and scan at the same time - this will be one of only 2 in the world & East Riding Domestic Violence and Abuse Partnership for their safe houses.

Quilters from all over the UK donated fabrics, UFO's, Orphan blocks & quilt tops and volunteers came along for a Quiltathon and made quilt tops in return for a free lunch and refreshment throughout the two days.

Lorraine Hall who works at Peter Duffys asked her work colleagues for unwanted Xmas Presents to donate to our raffle and she came with a heap of goodies including Beautiful George - a massive Teddy Bear. Thank you Lorraine - it was a great idea.

Lots of quilt tops were made and this resulted in Tim & myself giving up our annual holidays and quilting over 70 of these on our longarm. Many thanks to Carol Barrow, Barbara Hall & Chris Sunderland who hand sewed the bindings. We had over 80 quilts on display.

We also made a couple of quilts to go online and raffle and we did this via Just Giving.

Scrappy Happy Stars was raffled for The Air Ambulance and this quilt raised £509

Scrappy Happy Houses was made for the Childrens Hospital and this quilt raised £281.53.
The ladies who volunteered their time to come to the quiltathon were asked to make houses and tree blocks and these were beautifully put together by a local lady - Jackie Woolford. Thank you Jackie you did a wonderful job with this quilt.

On the open days we served refreshments and sandwiches to those who came along and were very grateful for Diane Davison volunteering her services in the kitchen. We also had a tombola, raffle, sales stall and cake stall. All the quilt s were for sale by negotiation and those left will be donated to the charities.

Despite a very poor show from local quilters and quilt groups we managed to raise over £2,500 for the Charities and those that did come travelled from far and wide and many have sent emails of thanks.

We would like to thank all those who came along to the quiltathon in January and all the volunteers who helped on the days of the quilt show - your assistance was very much appreciated.

A special thanks to Rowena Smith who also helped on both the days, but also helped us putting up the quilts.

On Saturday, we were delighted to welcome The Mayor of Bridlington - Cllr John Copsey.

So for all those who missed the event here are some of the wonderful quilts which we managed to create -

This lego quilt was made to show that even small scraps can be used.  Running workshops and retreats here at The Royal Bridlington, it never ceases to amaze us how much good fabric is put in the bin.  These 1.5 inch pieces were sewed together into 12 inch blocks from some of this fabric then sashed.

Thanks also to all those who donated and to all the volunteers who assisted & our supporters -
Bridlington Sewing Centre, Janome, Lloyd Dowsons, Richardsons Greengrocers, Peter Duffy Ltd, Bidvest, Hopwells, Yorkshire Coast Radio, BBC Radio Humberside, Bridlington Free Press, Wimborne Fabrics (Moda), Patchwork Promotions, Popular Patchwork, Quilting For you, Todays Quilter, British Patchwork, Pelenna Patchworks.


Extra Wide backing fabrics, workshops and retreats and details of longarm quilting can be found here - www.QuiltSandwich.co.uk