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We are starting the month off with our visit to the Textiles in Focus exhibition that was held in Cottenham village back in February (dates for 2014 are 21/22/23 February) where we met up with Camilla from Outward Images;  Sharon Osborne and the Art Van Go stand and Jamie Malden from Colouricious;   plus  a lovely demonstration from the organiser Pauline Verrinder who shows us how to make 3D items such as seed heads with old scrim.

Message from Ann Hill: Hampden park in Glasgow was covered  with 5012 quilts to raise awareness of Alzheimer's.  Thank you to everyone who helped make my crazy dream come true. Photos at Alzheimer Scotland   and if you want to see what the pictch looked like click here

The 12ft (3.6m) diameter "spider web" was seen hanging under Stapleton Road railway bridge by Gail Boyle as she drove into work . click here to learn more   Thanks to Paul for finding this - great fun

Car is loaded with quilts and fabric  and ready to go - just need to pack the suitcase;  Dunford House (our venue in Midhurst - find out more in the classified ads) is full to bursting;  Jennie will be teaching her Superstar Medallion quilt;  Myfanwy will be showing her students how to use the embellisher (and we have one to play with for the rest of us with the opportunity of getting a Janome embellisher  of our own at a VERY GOOD price - exclusive to Justhands-on.tv) plus bringing her Winifrid Cottage shop of goodies: Val will be making quick quilts with her students using up Fat 1/4s;  and Wendy will be making sure it all runs smoothly for us.

For those of you interested in competing here are the details of the competitions and the dates of the events:   Authors of the topics for 2014 are members of the traditional patchwork club BPK.   The artist collection (this time Embroidered Surfaces) will be replaced with MOTHER NATURE, the technique is not limited. The traditional patchwork compe-tition will be featuring APPLICA-TION as one of the basic tech-niques in every basic workshop.

Well the big day is nearly here (Saturday 8th June) ;  if you sent a quilt in then you can see it on the website (!) just a simple search with your name will do. https://www.annhillquilter.co.uk Here is the latest update from Ann Hill: 10am laying the quilts begins.   We have reached our target! Many football celebrities have signed the quilts I made for them and they will be auctioned off later in the year.   The 5,000 quilts made by our quilters will go on sale tomorrow at Hampden Park after the event.

We start the month off with re-visiting the Sunbury Millenium Embroidery at Sunbury on Thames;  this is such an inspirational piece of work – not only visually but because it enlisted the help of the whole village in the making of it and then on fundraising for the housing of it;  it is now in a purpose built building in the walled garden within the village.

We have a wide variety of videos that are free to registered viewers dotted through the interviews, tips, techniques and workshops on the site. BUT you can access them all now through a new page 'What's New' which is located on far rh side of the green menu bar when you hover over  'videos'. or click here One of our most popular workshops has been the 40 minute scrap quilt - why not take a look.

This was a question posed to us by Sandra: and here is my answer:   The easiest way to do this layered flower is to put the first piece down - i.e. the largest, and sew all the way round; turn the work over and trim away the excess fabric (i.e. the background fabric) from beneath the flower leaving approx 1/4"  (if you watch the tip for the grandmother's fan you will see what I mean;)click here:

then add the second, smaller flower, turn the work over and again trim away the excess fabric;   and you then repeat for each of the layers - that way you keep the fabric from being very bulky and it is easier to quilt through - even by hand.

I don't know whether to feel inspired or depressed but they are VERY good. Hand embroidery by Cayce Zavaglia. Interestingly she thinks of these embroidered portraits as paintings - what do you think?
https://www.caycezavaglia.com/

I see that Sarah Soward (of Pauline's Patchwork in Poundbury Dorset) is busy giving a Bargello quilt workshop;   Quilts UK is being held at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern and I am off to join Jennie (Rayment) and Wendy (Gardiner) at their Sewing Getaway in Dunford House, Midhurst. I am joining a class with Jenni Stuart-Anderson and she is going to help us all make Raggy Bags and Eco Rugs;  I have LOTS of scraps so am hoping she will be able to show me how to make good use of them.

Well we have 5 Friday’s in this month so lots to enjoy and we start off with Part two of the visit we made to the Great Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate back in 2012;  this time we are enjoying meeting some of the traders and catching up with what they have to offer as well as a very enjoyable interview with Susan Briscoe who is well known for her Japanese quilts.