Our Instructors
NIKKI FOLEY, Ireland
Nikki Foley is a quilt judge, author, designer and teacher. Owner of The Sewing Shed in Castlemaine, Ireland, she has plenty of beautiful inspiration to create projects for her students and visitors. Frequently noted as Ireland’s favorite quilt teacher, Nikki has been sewing, making quilts, creating textile art and writing books for the last twenty years. Nikki has a love for Celtic design and Irish Mythology and frequently uses Celtic inspiration in her patterns, kits and projects.
ILARIA PADOVANI – United Kingdom
ILARIA PADOVANI
Ilaria Padovani grew up in Italy, where sewing, knitting and crocheting were part of her life since the age of four. Thanks to her grandmother, she learned very fast to get things right. If the work was not done the right way, it had to be undone and remade until perfect.
Since leaving Italy in 1999, Ilaria has been living in many different countries – including the US, Ireland and the UK. However, it was in 2003, while in State College, PA that she become fascinated with quilt making, owing to a guild of traditional quilters who took her under their wing. During those formative years, Ilaria developed a passion for hand sewn projects – hand appliqué, English Paper Piecing and Foundation Paper Piecing – which are still her preferred techniques.
In 2014, while living in Bristol where she still resides, it was Ilaria’s love for color and eye for perfection that led her to being recruited to work for Kaffe Fassett, making and coordinating his sample quilts for his popular Patchwork and
Quilting’ books.
As a passionate quilter, maker and traveler, Ilaria loves sharing her expertise through teaching, making her ambition to inspire creativity in others on her art, and loves to travel and meet new people.
HILDE HOOGWAERTS, The Netherlands
Born and raised in The Netherlands, Hilde first caught the quilting bug in Marietta (Georgia, USA) over 30 years ago. Since then, she has lived in 11 countries across 4 different continents. While living and travelling around the world she got the chance to explore different techniques, styles and textiles: North American, Asian, South American, Mediterranean and West African. Her quilts have been exhibited internationally.
“Sharing my love for African textiles with those who want to learn something new and who are, like me, passionate about the vibrant colours is one of my goals”
Hilde started making boxes with acid free grey cardboard / binder board (French cartonnage) when she lived in Singapore. Soon she started teaching with a friend and discovered she loved teaching and sharing her passion for colours and textile crafts. This is when she started her small business Geckoboxes, which she continued in the countries that followed, with the craft connecting her to new friends and inspiration.
From 2015 until 2018 she resided in Accra, Ghana. When relocating there, Hilde decided not to bring any of her own materials with her as she wanted to work only with those available at the local markets, such as Makola market, and the various stalls along the streets. Hilde became fascinated by the women draping their bodies with different fabrics in such vibrant combinations of colors she would never have thought of. This is where her journey of bringing together the bold prints and colours of the African fabrics in her quilts started.
In Accra she hosted workshops focusing on how to make boxes in different shapes and sizes. For those who couldn’t sew but wanted to do something with the widely available fabrics this was a great skill to take on. She also collaborated with small local entrepreneurs and showed them how to make gift boxes for their own businesses.
After 3 years in Ghana, Hilde and her husband returned to the Netherlands with a supply of African fabrics big enough to continue making quilts and boxes for many more years.
Hilde has continued teaching workshops. During the Covid-19 pandemic she has also started online courses, allowing her to continue to connect with friends old and new across the world.