Happy New Year to you all: through the wonders of modern technology this is being processed from my holiday location – sunny Lanzarote – having left hubby at home in charge of the house and rubbish. What a difference a bit of sun makes (as well as lighter evenings) but thoughts still turn to quilting – there is an active quilting group here on the island (and one lady won one of Gail Lawther’s patterns in the last prize draw) and I now understand there is a shop – so maybe more of that later in the month!

Prize Mettlar threads draw

Talking of Prize draws, the winners of the ‘Be a Star’ competition who won a Janome TXL607 machine, Satchel of Aurifil Threads and the bundle of books have all been notified; many thanks to all of you who made blocks for the charity/competition draw and sorry you didn’t win, but the blocks will be put to good use in being made up into quilts for ‘Momentum’ ; again more of than later as the quilts progress; we had over 150 entries(!)

Our thanks to Mettler threads for their their donation of packs of threads for our latest prize draw:

If you would like to enter, this draw is open to subscribed members and all you need to do is send us an email to justhandsontvcomp@gmail.com with the title Threads; the draw will take place on 14th Feb – Valentine’s day.

With Christmas and New Year (including 12th Night) behind us, and the decorations safely stored for another year, hopefully you will now be able to put some sewing time on the agenda. Last week and this we loaded up the video where Jennie shows you how to make a simple fused box

and how to set the modern machines to sew the accurate ¼” seam;

Prague Patchwork Meeting exhibition

we also gave you a tour of the Lace Exhibition by the Prague Patchwork Meeting which was on show last year at the Festival of Quilts in August at the Birmingham NEC.

And today you get to enjoy a delightful little project with Kim Shaw, called Standing Stones, which uses braids of scraps together with some interesting background fabric PLUS a fun brad maker that I came across usually used by crafters.

Slice of Quilt Art Exhibition

And there is more inspiration from A Slice of Quilt Art – a group of 21 members who were challenged to make small quilts rather than their usual large wallhangings.

Our Block of the Month, Rosebud Fayre, continues and this month we are working on the star corners –there is an easy option (which I made) and a more challenging option (which Jennie made!)! Both look really good on the quilt and we hope that you are now at the stage where you can join these all onto the centre medallion (but if you’re not, don’t panic – just make up all the component parts ready for assembly later.)

Crazy Template with Jennie Rayment

Later in the month we will be working with a new Crazy template that Jennie has been working with

as well as a simple tip to make fusible appliqué pictures so very much easier.

Country Life at the Castle

Finally we are going to take you on a wander round the show held at Hever Castle in Kent last year (and due again this year) ‘Country Life at the Castle’ which included patchwork traders, a marquee full of textile crafts, as well as other Country Living style artisans and of course a great quilt show by the local Region 2.

3 Fabric Quilts

The Book of the Month that has been chosen is called ‘3 Fabric Quilts’ and it does what it says on the cover; there are 12 easy and yet varied projects and the instructions (and yardages) come in two sizes for each.

Selecting fabric and making great quilts has never been easier – just 3 fabrics!
Leni Levenson Wiener gives you the tools to make twelve fantastic quilts that each require only three fabrics. With each quilt composed of geometric squares, rectangles and strips, cutting and piecing have never been so fast and simple.

And there is free p&p in the UK for the month of January.

We have had lots of new registrations during this month so for their benefit I thought I would repeat that to get the most from the Justhands-on.tv website you do need to be a subscribed member. This allows you to enjoy the full workshops and films and you can now purchase your membership monthly through the site by going to the Members Page and it is managed by Paypal, and we now offer you the opportunity of purchasing 3 month, 6 month and a year’s membership through the shopping pages.

As an additional incentive to join us, we put together a promotion offer of a Membership plus a gift pack;

As this has proved to be enormously popular so we have left the promotion running for as long as stocks last(!)

Happy Sewing
Valerie & Jennie