The Huddersfield quilt maker taking his street-wise designs across the pond to QuiltCon

Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English tells Stephanie Smith how the hobby he started just six years ago has become a passion. Pictures by Tony Johnson.
Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English.  Picture Tony JohnsonHuddersfield quilt maker Chris English.  Picture Tony Johnson
Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English. Picture Tony Johnson

Quilting has taken Chris English to places he might otherwise never have seen. Like Austin, Texas, which he visited in February this year for QuiltCon, the annual modern quilting convention, building a 10-day holiday around the event, so he could take in some of the finest contemporary quilts the world has to offer.

“I had an amazing time, not just seeing all the beautiful quilts but also experiencing the food and drink – discovering Mezcal was interesting – and the amazing street art,” he says.

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Chris, who lives in Huddersfield, now works all the colours and excitement he finds on his travels into his own quilts. He made his first one six years ago. “I found this book, The Liberty Book of Home Sewing. I’ve always loved Liberty prints,” he says. “I found this really simple brick pattern quilt. I loved it because I could do everything myself. Looking back now, it was very naive.”

Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English at the skate park with one of his quilts. . Picture Tony JohnsonHuddersfield quilt maker Chris English at the skate park with one of his quilts. . Picture Tony Johnson
Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English at the skate park with one of his quilts. . Picture Tony Johnson

It took months he says, to make, but eventually he finished it and gave it to a good friend and his wife, who had just had a baby.

Chris mainly makes quilts as gifts or simply for himself. He always has one or two on his bed in winter, and in summer, he reckons they are better than a duvet to sleep beneath. “I like the fact that they are practical but they look amazing,” he says. “It’s a finished product that somebody can use and benefit from. It can become part of their family, something that sits on the couch, and they can use it at Christmas if it’s cold or the baby can have it and as it grows it will stay with them, and become an heirloom.

“My teenage son, Bailey, always gets one for Christmas, despite perhaps wanting other stuff.”

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Chris takes a modern approach to the traditional art of quilting, creating pieces with unusual, striking designs and colours, often with a cool, urban look. He chose the Skate Park at Greenhead Park in Huddersfield as the backdrop to display them for this photo-shoot.

Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English features in a new quilting book. Picture Tony JohnsonHuddersfield quilt maker Chris English features in a new quilting book. Picture Tony Johnson
Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English features in a new quilting book. Picture Tony Johnson

The word “quilt” is thought to have come via the Latin word “culcita”, meaning a cushion. The history of quilting began in Medieval times, with quilts mentioned in household inventories, and passed down through generations. The V&A has early examples including the Tristan Quilt from 13th-century Sicily, depicting scenes from the legend of Tristan and Isolde. It is one of the earliest surviving examples of “trapunto” or stuffed quilting.

To qualify as a quilt, the piece, usually a bed covering, needs a top (the front), wadding (the middle) and a back, all stitched together by hand or machine in a process called quilting. Chris uses a Bernina sewing machine. “Patchwork is the process of making the quilt top; it only becomes a quilt when all three layers are joined,” he says.

Several of Chris’s quilts feature in a book called Quilted, published last year by Uppercase, and he is delighted to appear alongside “quilting royalty”. Influenced by travel, street art and vintage quilts, he specialises in what is known as improvisational quilting, designing as he works, using fabric from charity shops, flea markets, car boots and colleagues who bring him their old clothes to be recycled. He likes mixing different prints and patterns to create unique quilts, blending hand and machine quilting to add texture and colour.

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Born in Essex, Chris drew as a child and was inspired by his mother’s love of sewing and colour. He studied textile design in the mid 90s at Liverpool University and went to London, “in search of my fortune, and didn’t find it,” he says, but he did find work as a studio assistant at a sign manufacturer. He worked there for a few years until the Millennium, when the internet boom was in its infancy, and he decided he ought to study something that would give him commercial, useful skills, such as learning how to build a website. So he did a degree in Graphic Design at the University of Huddersfield and after graduating got a job at Asda in Leeds. He still works there, managing a grocery home shopping website team.

Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English is looking forward to being able to travel to the US again. Picture Tony JohnsonHuddersfield quilt maker Chris English is looking forward to being able to travel to the US again. Picture Tony Johnson
Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English is looking forward to being able to travel to the US again. Picture Tony Johnson

Quilting is his passion. “It helps to keep me balanced and I love doing it,” he says. “I make them for myself as a way to express myself,” he says. “After a busy week at work I find it very levelling. With the quilts, if I like it, I like it, and that’s how it’s staying.”

It is a hobby, yes, but much more. Chris teaches quilting and hopes to teach at Quiltcon in the future. “I’m quite deadline-driven so if I have an exhibition that I’m going to submit a quilt to, that sharpens the mind. Otherwise, I have several projects on the go at the same time.”

The big quilting show in the UK is the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham every August. (not this year, of course). “It covers every different genre because there are loads of different types of quilting – traditional, contemporary, modern,” he says. “Lots of exhibitions in the States are juried so people choose if your quilt can go in or not, but the Festival of Quilts lets everybody in, so you can submit a quilt and then go and see it hanging up, which is brilliant. I’ve taught there and I love it. You have different relationships with people on Instagram from across the world but then you get the opportunity to meet up. You can look at the quilts and talk about them, have a drink. One of the things that people like most about quilting is the community and the friendships they make.”

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Most towns and cities in the UK have at least one or two quilting groups and there are plenty across Yorkshire, Chris says. But it is a female-dominated world.

One of Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English's streetwise quilts . Picture Tony JohnsonOne of Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English's streetwise quilts . Picture Tony Johnson
One of Huddersfield quilt maker Chris English's streetwise quilts . Picture Tony Johnson

“There are some amazing male quilters but not many,” he says. “The ratio must be 1-1000 or higher. At shows, people think I’m a husband that’s been dragged along or that I work there.”

He owns at least 30 quilts and is always hunting for fabrics. “I love a flea market. If I like the print and the colour, I’ll use it,” he says, adding that Huddersfield open market is a good place to look.

His favourite quilter is Sherri Lynn Wood. “She’s all about the process and the improvisational approach to quilting,” he says. Last year, QuiltCon was staged in Nashville, and he met and chatted with her there.

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A member of the Quilters’ Guild, Chris is doing Zoom lessons and workshops for individuals or groups who would like to learn quilting. He is now working on some new quilts planned to form part of an exhibition next year. He aims one day to have his own quilting book and to take a road trip across the US, teaching quilting as he goes.

The next QuiltCon he hopes to attend will be in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2022, and he has already applied to teach there. “I’ve got to go to a couple 
of places that I probably wouldn’t have gone 
to if I hadn’t been quilting,” he says, looking forward to another new US city to explore and inspire.

Find out more about Chris English on his Instagram @afullenglish or his website 
www.chrisenglishquilts.com

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