The quilting machines specialist
Putting creativity in your hands
Meet The Team
Liz Holpin
Business Owner
Engineer and Installer
Growing up we were always making things, drawing, going to pottery workshops and painting airfix models. We were all creative. In 1990 my parents, Jean and Geoff Sewell started The Cotton Patch. After teaching scuba diving in the Cayman Islands for a few years, I returned to the UK and joined the business. My main focus was developing the in-house computer system (which is still used today), buying miscellaneous stock, and selling the longarm and domestic machines. I worked there for over 20 years. In 2017 Pete and I set up a separate business to just sell Handi Quilter longarms and Pinhole Quilting was born. It's my dream job! I get to work with creative people pursuing their own interests and developing their talents. I'm proud to have been a part of the development of longarm quilting in the UK.
Favourite Film - Blade Runner
Favourite Hobby - Snorkelling
Surprising Fact - In 1988 I drove 27,000 miles around Australia
Pauine Jamieson
Customer Service
I am a retired teacher who after 40 years of working and living in London, moved to Worcestershire. I was astounded to find that we had moved to a tiny village only 10 minutes from the Pinhole Quilting showroom. . . . It was meant to be!
I first met Liz and Pete when I bought my Amara in 2018 and just 3 years later I was working for them, helping out with the online orders, processing stock, cutting fabric and loading the frames ready for the growing number of workshops.
When not at Pinhole, I can be found in my sewing room or quilting room. My husband thinks I’m obsessive . . . he could be right! I have always been fascinated with sewing, even getting the needle of my mother’s old treadle singer machine through my finger at the age of five!
I consider myself enormously lucky to be living in this part of the world as I’m only a stone’s throwfrom the NEC in Birmingham and the Three Counties Show Ground in Malvern where two of thebest quilting shows are held.
I am a member of The Comberton Quilters who meet monthly at my house to make beautiful quilts to raise money for charity. I’m enormously proud of this group who have been winners at FOQ, Malvern and more recently at the Glasgow show.
Katie Boath
Customer Service and
Customer Accounts Support
I started sewing at just eight years old, crafting doll clothes on my mum’s hand-crank Singer. That sparked a lifelong love for all things crafty. Naturally, after completing my A-Level in Fashion and Textiles, I took the obvious next step: I became a maths teacher! While teaching, my stitching shifted from dressmaking to soft furnishings and costumes. Years later, I decided to try quilting. After wrestling just one quilt through my domestic sewing machine, I knew my back couldn’t handle another. I attended a "Try Before You Buy" open day at Pinhole Quilting to find a better way - and walked out with a job offer!
I left the classroom behind and now thoroughly enjoy working with the amazing staff and customers at Pinhole Quilting. My current pride and joy is my Handi Quilter Amara 20 with Pro-Stitcher.
Favourite Hobby: Anything crafty (of course!).
Favourite Film: Absolutely anything starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
Funny Fact: I was once introduced to a guy named Pete, and it took me several days to realize I had just met rock legend Peter Gabriel!
Cherry McDaniel and Simon Hodgson
Service Engineers and Installers
'Hello I'm Cherry, my partner Simon and I joined the Pinhole team in late July 2025. I was taught how to quilt in 2018 after many years of sewing and taking commissions for free-motion embroidery work. In late 2020 I met Liz & Pete when I decided to set up my own quilting business at home and bought a Handi Quilter Infinity to do so. I've quilted hundreds of quilts since I learnt how to. Now Simon and I install Handi Quilter machines for other quilters.
Outside of sewing and quilting, I love books and reading. I am a prolific audiobook listener which means I can sew and read at the same time, woo!
I love film, TV, and theatre. I love a gritty TV series (Severance), comedy (Taskmaster), or a captivating documentary. My family and I try to go to the theatre often, and I'm a partial to a musical, especially if they're funny or dark (more Rocky Horror and Six, less Hairspray and Grease). My favourite film is The Lion King, but don't let my love of Disney movies, musicals and pretty quilts fool you, I absolutely love a horror movie!
Simon and I live with my daughter Mel and our four naughty cats Nala, Peach, Daisy and Jiji.'
Pete Holpin
Business Owner
Engineer and Installer
Pete is a qualified Accountant who always preferred the buzz of business to numbers alone. He spent the bulk of his career in the automotive industry, including 17 years with a Michelin subsidiary, rising from Trainee Accountant to Group Finance Director of a £400m business, and 8 years with a German automotive firm. In 2017, he co-founded Pinhole Quilting with his partner, Liz, proudly growing it into an industry market leader.
A lifelong sports enthusiast, Pete spent his younger years playing football and cricket. Today, he still bowls for his village cricket team, relying on a style he describes as "boring accuracy" that gets slower by the year. Liz also introduced him to a variety of thrill-seeking pursuits, including scuba diving, sailing, skiing, and cycling. (Buy him a drink and he might tell you how she nearly led to his demise during several of them!) Thanks to his Italian mother, he is also a major foodie with a serious weakness for cake and biscuits.
While Pete always considered his management style to be fairly relaxed, his former staff felt otherwise. On his leaving day, they revealed his nickname was "The Milky Bar Kid" - partly due to his youthful looks, but mostly because of the classic ad slogan: "Only the best is good enough!"
Mark Walker
Operations Manager
For the majority of my working career I have held management roles. Starting on the bottom rung in an office based customer facing service support role for an IT company, progressing over twelve years to manage their UK field service engineering team. After a brief spell working for a logistics company, I joined an IT asset disposal company as Warehouse and Logistics Manager where I worked for twenty years.
During this time I met Pete and Liz on a cricket field on a sunny day in Flyford Flavell not too far from Pinhole Quilting's showroom. Little did I know that years later I would be working with them. After a brief discussion with Pete at a cricket social event in 2022 I decided to take up a new challenge with Pinhole Quilting which I am still enjoying to this day.
I am quite a sporty person and have played a decent level of football and cricket and also represented Worcestershire at cross country running at junior level. I just stick to football and cricket these days!
If I'm not on a sports field it's likely you'll find me either in the crowd at a music gig or holidaying somewhere abroad!
One quirky fact about myself is that although I am right handed, I eat left handed!
Derek Weir
Senior engineer and Installer
Derek has a degree in engineering and has extensive experience working on technical projects. His wife has an Avante and and Amara with Pro-Stitcher. Over the years he has developed an impressive quilting knowledge since he trained as a Handi Quilter engineer in 2017. He covers Northern Ireland, Ireland, Scotland and Northern England.
Michelle Pullen
Service Engineer
Michelle retired from her Industrial Engineering career and took up quilting as a hobby and a way of making new friends in her retirement.
After purchasing a longarm from Pinhole Quilting she was coaxed out of retirement to hone her engineering skills as a Service Technician at Pinhole.
Michelle also carries out machine checks prior to installation and assists with technical solutions in Customer Support.
She still gets time to enjoy using her longam and quilts a lot for Charity.
Tony Hewitt
Service Engineer and Installer
A Chartered Engineer living near Glasgow, Tony’s involvement with Handi Quilter stemmed directly from helping his wife Anne with her Amara and Pro-Stitcher. Following one intervention, Anne suggested contacting Liz and Pete Holpin at Pinhole Quilting regarding any support they needed for installations and servicing in Scotland and Northern England, once retired.
Tony retired in late 2025, is now a Certified HQ Technician and Installer for all the HQ machines including Pro-Stitcher. He covers Scotland and North of England.