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September 9th, 2024: Welsh Cushion Pattern

I am making a cushion pattern I designed for Michael Oakshott of Oakshott Fabrics available as a free download.
Sadly, Michael died recently. He was a lovely man, and his fabrics were fabulous.

He was passionate about a charity which cares for orphaned and destitute children, and he hoped to build them a house.
There is no obligation, of course, but it would be lovely if you could make a small donation to Reaching the Unreached as a ‘thank you’ for the pattern, and so help Michael’s dream come true.

August 30th, 2024: The Great Yorkshire (previously Northern) Quilt Show

My double bed-sized wholecloth quilt, Tiwlip, won the hand-quilting and wholecloth categories at the Great Yorkshire Quilt Show in Doncaster. Picture to follow...!

Aug 2024: Quilters' Guild Calendar, 2025

My hand-appliquéd quilt, Autumn Pride, features in the 2025 edition of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles calendar. The calendar can be purchased here.

Aug 2024: The Festival of Quilts, NEC

I entered my two most recent hand-appliquéd quilts to this year's festival.
Autumn Pride won the overlay award for hand-quilting and was placed third in the traditional category; Kentucky Rose was shortlisted for the traditional category.

May 2024: Cot Quilt Prize - Quilts UK, Malvern

August 1st-4th 2024: Festival of Quilts Visitors' Choice Retrospective Gallery

This year's Festival of Quilts (the largest quilt show in Europe, which takes place at the NEC in Birmingham) builds on last year's Winning Quilt Retrospective Gallery with a Visitors' Choice Retrospective Gallery.
Once again I'm super-excited that one of my quilts, Pearl Princess, has been selected to be part of the retrospective gallery. The double bed-sized wholecloth quilt won second place in the Traditional category as well as Visitors' Choice in 2016; it is embellished with beadwork and also colonial knotwork in addition to the hand-quilting. If you are planning to visit Festival this year, please see the news item below for information on how to obtain a discount on your ticket.

April 2024: Discount on Festival of Quilts tickets, 1st-4th August, 2024

I've had two galleries at the Festival of Quilts, NEC, Birmingham over a decade or so and, this year, anyone can use the voucher code SANDIELUSH to save £2* at checkout.
FoQ remains Europe's biggest quilt show. You can stock up on quality craft supplies from over 200 exhibitors, explore Textile Galleries featuring world-renowned textile artists, meet leading international quilt artists, and be inspired by over 1200 quilts from across the globe!

*Save £2.00 on adult and concession tickets. Not valid on Thursday 1st August, VIP, Two-Day or group tickets. To purchase tickets visit www.thefestivalofquilts.co.uk. £3.50 transaction fee applies per e-ticket order. T&Cs apply. Discount expires 11:59pm 28th July 2024.

Sept 2023: Cot Quilt Prize - Great Northern Quilt Show, Harrogate

August 3rd-6th 2023: Festival of Quilts

This year sees the 20th anniversary of the largest quilt show in Europe, the Festival of Quilts, which takes place at the NEC in Birmingham.
To help celebrate this milestone, there will be a Winning Quilt Retrospective Gallery featuring 36 quilts from the large number of winning quilts over the last two decades.
I'm super-excited that one of my quilts, Crystal Dreams, has been selected to be part of that exhibition. That double bed-sized wholecloth quilt won both the Traditional and Hand-Quilting categories in 2007; it is embellished with beadwork and also colonial knotwork in addition to the hand-quilting.

July 2023: Oakshott Fabric Pattern

I recently fell in love with the colours of Oakshott Fabric’s new Alpine range. As Oakshott fabric is lovely to hand quilt, I decided to make something with a fat ⅛ths bundle but ended up getting additional fabric to extend the design into a cot quilt.

Designs and fabric packs for this quilt or its accompanying cushion can be found at the bottom of my "friends" page on the Oakshott website.

April 2023: @SandieLush YouTube Channel

I have started to put up quilt-making videos on my YouTube Channel
They are also accessible via the Quilting Videos link in the menu bar above.

Mar - Oct 2023: Flannel Quilt at Welsh Quilt Centre

This year's exhibition at the Welsh Quilt Centre of antique quilts from Jen Jone's collection is amazing, but unfortunately it is the last.
However, the Centre will continue its conservation/restoration work, so I have made a traditional, hand-quilted, Welsh flannel cot quilt for them to raffle in support of that important activity. An hour-long video detailing the making of the flannel quilt is being shown at the centre, and raffle tickets are on sale there.

Jan - Oct 2023: Paisley Paradise Exhibitions

Many of my paisley-themed quilts (up to 43 depending on the size of the venue) are currently appearing at a number of UK quilt shows organised by Grosvenor Shows, including QuiltsUK in Malvern.
Check out their website for further details.

Mar - Nov 2022: Paisley Pageant Exhibition

My third exhibition of paisley-themed cot quilts took place in 2022 at the Welsh Quilt Centre in Lampeter, West Wales. The exhibition comprised 25 cot quilts, 17 of them new designs, and was accompanied by videos showing in detail how one of them was made (those videos can now be seen here on my website, either via the Quilting Videos link in the above navigation-bar, or via this link).

In addition, you can see a video of a quick, 3 min tour around my gallery by clicking this Play button...

(NB the design animations playing on the TV in the video are available for each quilt in the exhibition via the My Quilts > Paisley Collections > Paisley Pageant links at the top of the page).

Sept 2022: The Great Northern Quilt Show, Harrogate

I don't like entering quilts into shows at which I'm judging, so I haven't entered many in recent years. However, the opportunity arose to enter a couple of my recent quilts into the Harrogate show in 2022, and I was fortunate enough to win in a number of categories...