About Us
Our Story
Our retreats offer a wonderful way to enjoy leisure, stimulating creativity whilst enjoying the company of like-minded friends.
Escaping to the countryside & enjoying the sea air provide the perfect environment to relax, develop new skills & enjoy life to the full.
The Quilt Retreat at Bunts Barn has been carefully designed in a beautiful location by a family who are delighted to share a unique place of enrichment.
The surrounding areas of Sussex & the Home Counties are of outstanding historic & tourism interest, within reasonable travel time for London, Airports and cross channel access to Europe.
Our property includes 7 acres of farm land, woodland, garden and small pond.
“We are delighted to share a unique place of enrichment.” – Julie & Michael Barnes
Julie makes Quilts as a hobby and professionally, sewing all sorts for decades from childhood and now with over 20 years’ experience in patchwork and quilting. Julie is also one of the UK’s longest providers of long arm quilting services, with an extensive pattern database. She has received some great reviews from her many clients for her creative advice and tutoring inspirations. Julie has great enthusiasm and charm, & loves sharing her knowledge.
What is a Quilters’ Clinic Service? – If you want help during your stay, The Quilt Retreat can provide you with a Personal Quilters’ clinician, whose role includes:
Sharing her extensive knowledge of many aspects of Quilting.
Inspiring you to enhance your own quilts, with ideas on design, advising on
techniques, colour and methods.
Showing you her outstanding collection of beautiful quilts to help stimulate creativity.
Demonstrating her Gammill long arm quilting machine with IQ Computer.
Providing ad hoc training & quilting services for the guests during their retreat.
Well known in Quilting circles regularly attending shows & group events in the UK & USA. Julie has a City & Guilds qualification and her hobbies include painting, scrap booking and gardening.
Michael Barnes – Michael is on hand to provide any practical support you may need – bookings, directions, local knowledge, sourcing, fixing and attending to the everyday details.
A butler is a person who manages a full array of household affairs and functions as a top-ranked household affairs manager. In The Quilt Retreat Michael will provide you with a Personal Butler service and his roles include:
Provide & manage the fine dining meal service
Act as valet
Respond to your requests for help & seek opportunities to enhance your stay
In addition to his role as the Quilters’ personal butler, Michael behind the scenes also manages high-tech systems, multiple rooms, accounting and administration, Retreat bookings, laundry/cleaning services, Marketing strategy, Advertising, direct mail and Social media.
Michael’s background is in business, with extensive experience in UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, North & South America in the personal care products and food sectors. Experienced with Eco-tourism & Reforestation.
Support Experts and Team
In addition to Julie Barnes providing her expertise to the Quilt clinic and courses, we partner with experienced experts for individual course requirements. Details of partners are provided when booking specific courses.
We also have a team of cleaners, laundry services providers, gardeners and chefs to cater to your needs.
Not just a Quilting Experience, also a Culinary Experience
Our Culinary Experience goals?
We use the phrase Culinary Experience to describe our goal to create an exciting dining experience. The experience can start with the location & the view. Our interior is often purported to be quite elegant with Quilts awash and designed in accordance with the establishments’ concept of Built for Quilters by Quilters. Our service attempts to be impeccable but not formal. Our chef benefits from a vast breadth of experience.
Establishments fitting the Culinary experience label are normally highly rated; we seek high quality with an aspiration to be considered a 5 star experience. We provide more nuanced (in our case relaxed) service & more expensive food than many restaurants.
What is the Quilters’ Culinary Experience Service?
Cindy Chin Sang, chef and owner of Nutrilicious Food has always been passionate about fantastic food and living life to the full. Her career as a private chef and event caterer has taken her to some of the most remote spots on the planet where she has been lucky enough to experience how both location and culture can influence cuisine – sometimes with delicious results, and some that demand an acquired taste…
She uses fantastic local produce whenever possible and can combine flavours that are influenced from her global travels. She is also very happy to cater for all dietary requirements.
The meals can range from classical to exotic, but always a truly delightful assault on all your senses.
Your personal Quilters’ Culinary Experience is provided by Cindy
Food Preferences?
“Great nutrition is about nourishing your body with real, whole foods so that you are consistently satisfied and energised to live life to the fullest”
When booking we try to tailor your menu to your own personal requirements. Cindy has a wealth of experience catering for special diets.
Take away the hassle of shopping, detailed menu planning and cooking – we will do all this for you.
But…….What about our famous home made cakes.
If you fancy something sweet, you do need to fret, you can have your cake and eat it. Our cakes are made from some of our orchard fruits & with the finest ingredients.
They are indulgent, made with due love and great care.
With indulgence from our delicious cakes and Cindy’s healthy options, we might have a balance……….. on the other hand you can go on a diet next week!
Partners
Most of our retreats are Do your own thing. If you wish to organise a tutor, then your group can either make the arrangements yourselves direct with your preferred tutor or ask us to facilitate the arrangements.
We have several award winning experts who have agreed to partner with us to provide Courses & Events.