From Mother and Daughter to 16 Quilt Books: What Quilting Together Has Taught Us…

September 23, 2026

Hi! We’re Pam and Nicky 😊

If you had told us when we first started working together back in 2005 that we would one day be launching our 16th quilt book, I think we would have laughed and wondered what planet you were from! But it’s true. Our latest book Layer Cake Quilts is launching soon and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

It seems extraordinary that what started out with just one book back in 2008 has led us down this path. We certainly never set out to write 16 books. What we did share, and still share to this day, is a great love and appreciation of fabric, clever design and, quite simply, making quilts.

Pam opened The Quilt Room in 1981, at a time when there was only one other quilt shop in the UK. Nicky joined the business in 2005 and from then on we worked together running the shop, teaching workshops, building up a busy mail order and launching our Gammill Statler Stitcher longarm sewing business in 2006.

When the shop first opened, Pam actually sold finished quilts (Pam pictured above). It quickly became apparent that, as much as people loved the quilts, they were using them as inspiration and wanted to learn how to make their own. So very early on, we knew our job was not just to provide gorgeous fabric, which of course we did, but also to give our customers and fellow quilters the inspiration, ideas, and know-how to use the fabric. That idea has stayed at the heart of everything we have ever designed.

Over the decades, as precuts became much more popular, we would watch people pick them up, fall in love with them, but then not quite know what to do with them. So our designing began to focus more on precuts, so we could show people just how amazing and versatile precuts are, especially those fabulous 10" squares.

In 2023, when we made the brave decision to close our shop and rethink how we wanted to work, we took everything we had learned from decades of talking to our customers. Looking back, it was probably all those countless chats and conversations with our customers that taught us the most.

Our aim has always been to create quilts that look more complex than they actually are and that can be enjoyed by quilters of all skill levels. We want quilters to look at our quilts and think, I would love to make that, and then, when they read the pattern, to feel confident and supported that they can actually make it!

When we design, we go over our patterns time and time again. Is there a better, more efficient way to make this? Are we using all the fabric? Could a beginner read our instructions and understand exactly what to do?

Pam is much more mathematically minded and loves working out all the math behind a design. Nicky is more visual and will look at a pattern and think, what if we moved this around here? Would this layout be better? How can we bring out that secondary pattern? Between the two of us, we challenge and complement each other and hopefully end up with patterns that are as clear, practical, and user-friendly as we can possibly make them.

Which leads us on to our new book Layer Cake Quilts.

We have taken everything we have learned and have designed quilts in this book which we hope will inspire you to get more out of those lovely bundles of 10" squares.

There are seven chapters in the book, each focusing on a different technique, with two complete quilt patterns in every chapter and plenty of extra ideas showing how you can take that technique and create your own quilt designs.

And, as always with our books, each pattern uses just ONE Layer Cake, plus a little border and, in some cases, background fabric. So all you have to do is pick a Layer Cake, choose a pattern, and start sewing!

So, to answer the question—what has quilting taught us? In truth, so much. But if we had to choose one thing, it would be this…

Have fun and don’t take it too seriously.

Blog post by Pam and Nicky Lintott