Quilting Around the World – Featuring Lynne

Quilting Around The World

Today I have the extreme pleasure of sharing with you one of my absolute favorite people in the quilting world!  Lynne has been a sliver of delightful nonsense and a whole bunch of fun ever since she came on my radar screen just over a year ago! (Has it only been that long?!)  She inspires me with all of her complex geometric creations and unabashed enthusiasm for sharing her craft.  I haven’t seen her do anything that I dislike even if she thinks something is “rubbish”.  I also like to pretend that I’m British myself sometimes now and try to incorporate words like rubbish and poppet and other wonderful words.  So sit back and let Lynne inspire you and make you laugh all at once.  It’s a wonderful gift she has!

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

Hi, I’m Lynne, a UK quilter. I blog at Lily’s Quilts and you can also find me on Flickr occasionally I also pop into Twitter. I’ve been sewing all my life and discovered the terrible addiction that is quilting last year. I have a penchant for union jacks and also for fussy fiddly paper pieced geometric blocks – oh and of course for English paper piecing. Poor Angela has had me stalking her for some time – she’d love to be in an online bee without me but, any bee she’s in, I just muscle right on in there too. Seriously though, Angela and I have become very good friends through the online Flickr and blogland community and often go to each other for advice and ideas when we get stuck, she is so talented and always extremely generous with her ideas and praise.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

Questions:

Where in the World are You?

I am in the UK, in England, slap bang in the middle of the country. We’re always the first to get the snow in England and live in the middle of nowhere so tend to get cut off for days at a time. I was born and brought up near London and we moved up to the countryside a few years ago. From living in London, we now live in the middle of nowhere, a mile from a tiny village.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

How long have you been sewing/quilting? How did you become interested in quilting?

I have been sewing since I was little. Then about 15 years ago, I fell in love with what we in the UK would call American Quilts, on a series of business trips to Washington and had a go at making one or two but there were no decent books, no modern quilting fabrics, no inspiration and it was all a bit lonely and sad.

Then last February, I popped round to a friend’s house (Mandy of Simply Solids) to pick my kids up from a play date and she was sitting at her machine making a quilt. I got chatting to her about quilts, she showed me what she’d made, then showed me her blog and that was it, I was completely hooked. Within a month, I had made two quilts from Moda Bake Shop and then there was no stopping me. Mandy then went on to open the UK’s first online solids shop and there I had my very own shop, right in my little English village. Mandy and I often stand at the school gates chatting about quilts and quilting.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

Is quilting common in your area or are you a lone crafter?

Quilting is relatively unusual in the UK although I have my mate Mandy to share the hobby with – she often comes round for quilting days. Through the internet, I have also met Trudi Quilting Prolifically, Justine, Sew Justine Sew, Brioni Flossy Blossy, and Katy I’m a Ginger Monkey who have all been to my house for sewing days.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

Do you find it difficult to get quilting supplies and fabric in your area?

I have two local fabric shops – one has a really extensive selection but I rarely go there as the people who run it are quite unfriendly. The other has a smaller selection but I am a regular there and I love it – it is everything an LQS should be – friendly, fun, Ann, the owner knows, me, knows my kids, knows my husband – we’re practically family! Her shop is called Quiltessential and is in a beautifully restored watermill in Cromford, Derbyshire. If you’re ever in the area, you will receive a very warm welcome from Ann – her shop is the best. Whilst it is easy to get hold of quilting supplies and fabrics in the UK, they are much more expensive than in the US. Charm packs cost $15, layer cakes $45, solids are $14 per yd, and prints $17 per yard. We can of course have fabrics shipped from the US but, together with the shipping costs, we can also get customs charges which make the fabrics as expensive as if they were ordered in the UK.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

What designer/designs are you exposed to the most as a result of living where you do?

I think the designers and designs I am exposed to come exclusively from the internet with the exception of whatever fabrics Mandy and Ann have in stock which catch my eye. I guess I would add to that though that it has been incredibly exciting to watch the success of Aneela Hoey’s lines for Moda given that she’s a British quilter and fabric designer.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

What is your favorite part about the international nature of the online quilting community?

I love everything about it – the mutual support, the friendships, the humor and fun, the quilting inspiration, and the fact that I now have friends all around the world. I love that you can go online at any time of the day or night and find people who are happy to chat, give advice and help out with tricky decisions about where to go next on a project.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

How good are you at filling out customs forms for the postal service?

Oh, I now have stocks of these at home, I use them so often!

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

If you could own any fabric at all in the world, what would it be?

Well when I happened upon Happy Zombie’s Happy Mochi Yum Yum, I had to have that immediately but I have since found out that she had an earlier line, Holiday Happy, which I would love to have made a holiday quilt from – the palette and scale of her prints fit perfectly with the things I like to make.

But can I also mention two British fabric designers – Aneela Hoey’s fabrics have been a complete breath of fresh air and burst onto the quilting community like a whirlwind. When I saw Sherbert Pips, I immediately had to design a quilt based on that line – it really inspired me. It completely captured for me the experience of raising kids in the UK – taking them to the park, swinging on the swings, scooting on their scooters, dogs running around in the park. The other British designer fabrics I love are Lu Summers’ beautiful home-printed fabrics. If you have not seen any of these in her quilts, you will be blown away by her creativity. I would love to make a quilt from her fabrics.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

What sewing machine do you own? Do you love it or hate it?!

When my Grandpa died 30 years ago, he left me £100 and I bought a sewing machine with it and loved it. That sewing machine lasted years and years but, soon after starting quilting, it really couldn’t cope with the demands being placed on it so I upgraded to a Janome Horizon. I absolutely adore every single thing about it. I asked around before buying the machine and it was the one I kept coming back to although it was out of my price range. Mandy and I decided to drive to Birmingham to a big sewing machine shop there on my birthday. The day before, I phoned them and asked whether they had a Horizon in the shop I could try out. He said that they did and that Janome had a £500 discount on the machine that week. That was it – Mandy and I spent the day in the shop trying the machine out and I’ve been happy as Larry ever since.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

What does a typical sewing session look like for you?

Typical would be me sitting in the dining room (which is now my sewing room) with piles and piles of mess all around me. I sew most when the kids are at school and relish the peace and quiet. My favorite sewing sessions however would be when I have someone else over sewing too. Mandy and I quite often have sewing days where we sit and chat mostly and sew a little bit. I have an enormous dining room table so she also brings all her quilts over to mine and we baste them together. Trudi Quilting Prolifically has been over for the day to sew with us and we had a sewing weekend with Katy Ginger Monkey, Brioni Flossy Blossy, and Justine Sew Justine Sew where I confess we didn’t manage an enormous amount of sewing.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

Anything else that you want the world to know about you?

I like to speak to myself in different accents – Irish, Liverpudlian, Dolly Parton, Scottish, Somerset. I love Country Music which is quite unusual in the UK and extremely uncool. I love dancing, especially at weddings, even though my kids tell me my dancing is really embarrassing.

Quilting Around The World Featuring Lynne

Thank you Lynne for sharing all of that with us!  I think one of the things that tickles me the most about you is knowing that you talk to yourself…and not just that, but you use different accents.  I’d love to be a fly on the wall of your home!  Someday I hope to at least meet you in person!

39 thoughts on “Quilting Around the World – Featuring Lynne”

  1. Lynne is a genius and only quilting one year! No wonder all my work looks like rubbish next to hers, she's a full grown prodigy. At least I have Lynne to inspire me and also make me laugh!

  2. Oh h!!! I email her! I kinda know her! Just like I kinda know you!!! You girls are my heroes!
    I can't believe how expensive he fabric is over there. I'm not complaining again!

  3. It’s my first time visit to your blog and it’s so fun to see an interview with Lynne. She always makes me laugh and she’s so talented. Glad to know she talks to herself, cause I do as well. We love to watch TV series from the UK and I always try to immitate the accents.

    Hope to be back to enjoy more of your blog Angela!

  4. Wow, Lynne. Seeing all of your amazing quilts in one post (and two of them right here on my wall!!) leaves me in awe of what you've achieved in less than two years. Jeez Nigel.

  5. What Lynne failed to mention is that she started up Brit Quilt on Flickr and that got lots of British quilters together. Where many of us were isolated in our quilting endeavours before we now have a big, supportive and hysterically funny online community. So many thanks to Lynne for that!

  6. I also follow Lynne, thanks for sharing Lynne I loved reading all about you, I have the same problem with fabric in France, it's mega expensive and Quilt shops are few and far between. So we have another thing in common I like country music too!! Linda

  7. A lovely read about the lovely Lynne- a huge motivating force in British quilting- her ability to enthuse and get people together is unparalleled. And as for the quilts- *****there can't be enough stars!

  8. Yes, Lynnes probably been the single most influential person on British Quilting in recent years. She got us altogether for Brit Quilt and it feels like their is a big strong community of British sewers happily out their sewing away!

  9. Lovely post … Lynne has so brilliantly herded all of us stray Brit Quilters into a well-behaved ladylike group … LOL … But seriously, I think I will be forever indebted for all the lovely people I've 'met' through her flickr groups …

  10. Angela, thanks for helping us learn more about Lynne. I am already a big fan of Lynne's after a pretty short time from following her…but reading all this further justifies my warm fuzzy feelings towards her and her art. Around the world is a great idea!!!

  11. Whoa awesome quilts!! Thanks for the giggles this morning. I needed them. And bonus: I just found a new blog to follow. 🙂

  12. Great post….Lynne is a favorite of mine. She really knows how to pull people together and is encouraging and helpful to the extreme, plus she'll have you falling off your sewing chair with laughter.

  13. Lynne has a sense of humor that is rarely matched. Not too many bloggers can make me laugh out loud here.

    The quilt of hers that I love best is the one with the Penguin books – just unbelievable. I think that's the first time I really tuned in to her.

  14. Really wonderful to learn more about lynne- I discovered her blog just a month or so ago, and it's definitely one of my favourites 🙂

    She is far to self-depreciating, though- her work is invariably fantastic (and quite jealousy inducing!)!

  15. Great post! I'd like to second all the other UK quilters who named Lynne as hugely influential in the UK quilting world – she's managed to gather us all together in Flickr and blogland and is exceptionally supportive and encouraging to all (and is a huge supporter of new bloggers!) as well as being exceptionally talented (and she's lovely and very funny with it!!) – thanks, Lynne, I'm so pleased I discovered your blog all those months ago!

  16. I absolutely love Lynne's style of quilting, and would like to make everything she makes!
    It is so fun to get to know her better. Thanks for the feature.

  17. This Lynne girl is so sweet–I love everything she does. I didn't know she had only been quilting for a year!! I think I like the accent thing too while talking to herself;)lol! Friends all over the world—ah so wonderful.

  18. This is the Lynne fan club right? Add my name to the list then! Such a lot you have accomplished in such a short intensive time! Makes us all look perfectly slovenly by comparison! Hehee!

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