As you know we were all at the Festival of Quilts in August and we have a truly great time – getting some wonderful interviews and quilts on camera; we managed to talk to Christina Henri who gave us the background information on her exhibition ‘Roses from the Heart’ – bonnets made as a tribute to approx 25,000 women and children who were shipped to Tasmania and ‘ports unknown’ to become the backbone of contemporary Australian society; SAQA were also on our list with their newest travelling exhibition ‘Art meets Science’; and we stopped by the exhibition by an international group of textile artists who are celebrating 25 years of being together and filmed their exhibition called ‘A Slice of Quilt Art’ ; these are just a few of the treats still to come.   We also have a fascinating interview with Prague Patchwork Meeting and their exhibition (alol the way from Prague) using rust dyed fabrics.

The highlight of the evening entertainment schedule had to be the fashion show; Fashion Sans Frontiers – the Russians challenging the Brits; here is our Jennie

 

and you can see a couple more of the stills on our blog of the sort of outfits that she produced.

All the girls had a range of wonderful outfits and while our Russian was sadly non-existant, the language of design and colour shone through and it was a truly spectacular event which we will be sharing with you soon.

What wonderful videos and workshops do we have in store for you this month? Well you will be able to wander round more of the Evolve, Evoke,Expand exhibition by Prism Textiles enjoying work from Sheila Cahn, Maria-Teresa Fernandes, Julieanne Long, Anna Granberg, Jackie Langfeld and Julie Triston; Julie stood on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London for an hour in her Bra-Ra dress to raise awareness for Breast Cancer.

We also have an interview with Wendy Gardiner, editor of Sewing World; Wendy is well known for her instructional DVD’s released under the Sew Easy title, plus she is very involved in the Creative Sewing getaways held at Dunford House, nr Midhurst in W.Sussex.(details on our Quilt Retreats Small Ads page) https://www.justhands-on.tv/small-ads/category/3/

Lesley Brankin is letting us join us in her secret passion of Japanese Folded patchwork and as this patchwork technique is double sided, Lesley makes very good use by creating two different patterns, so the projects really are reversible.

Helen Deighan gives a wonderfully explicit workshop on how to make Japanese braids showing her amazingly simple techniques with the special templates she imports. This is a full length video for all our members not just the 2 minute quickie we had before at the Ardingly show so you will learn and see so much more – not to be missed. Lee Brown shares with us her colouring of fabric with markel pens- if you think you have no design ability – just watch this – Lee is such a good demonstrator and takes you through each stage in great detail. Creating beautifully coloured flowers and leaves to embroider and embellish your work is such a lovely idea.

Plus Jennie makes the fastest possible flat bottomed bag, which is also great for a kids workshop – so definitely one to catch. Ideal for last minute gifts – anyone can do this. It takes about 10 minutes from start to finish, even faster if you use the overlocker (serger for those overseas).

And do you despair of every layering up that big quilt? Well the girls at Midsomer Quilting have come up with a great idea which uses tennis rackets (or similar) – a must to watch!

We know we have lots of new members to the site, so just a reminder that to get the most from the site you do need to be a subscribed member; just £6/month and all the details are on the Members page of the site (and if you don’t like Paypal we will accept cheques; just get in touch through the contact us button). And Friday’s are the day that new videos get loaded onto the site.

Back to our days at the Festival of Quilts (see the blog for a little more detail and we understand Festival was busier than ever); hubby (Stuart) was manning Jennie’s stand on Sunday while I was filming and Jennie was teaching and he was most entertained by a group of friends who acted as unpaid agents for us – saying what fun they have deciding which of the show videos and/or workshops to watch each week; a huge thankyou – but he failed to get your names, girls, so if you recognise yourself, get in touch.

I did get a chance to do a bit of wandering myself and managed to fill my bag full of goodies, including some wonderful threads from the Aurifil stand – thank you Alex. And I found this pattern on the Daisy Chain stand which I wanted to share with you

https://justhands-on.tv/product-category/shop/patterns/

Only a Quilter says, “I really don’t need another project,” then offers to make a quilt for a friend.

Happy Sewing
Valerie & Jennie
www.Justhands-on.tv