Roxanne from Hannah's Room

Wednesday 1st November might have been a wet and windy afternoon but at Cosby Quilters we were treated to a colourful meeting.

Roxanne, from Hannah's Room, brought a huge selection of Indonesian hand dyed batiks. We saw the long labour intensive process needed to produce these stunning fabrics.

In addition we learnt how Roxanne designs scenes using them to great effect and prepares her kits.  There was a terrific range of packs to encourage us, especially as most of them had worked examples.  I'm sure many of us give in to temptation!

Kathy Francis

November Meeting

The November meeting will be in the afternoon and Roxanne from Hannah's Room will be giving us a talk entitled "Creations and Procraftinations".

Roxanna is the owner of Hannah's Room, which is named after her elder sister.  When she her sister left home in 1999 her bedroom became their mother's sewing room and eventually the base for a fabric business, specialising in Batik fabrics. Since then Hannah's Room has grown and grown.  Roxanne took over from her mother eight years ago.  She juggles a busy family life, as she is the mother of 4 children, with running Hannah's Room.  She is keen to show her children the pride in working hard as well as the value of quality time together.

She is passionate about Hannah's Room and all that the business does.  They only stock the best quality of Indonesian Batik Fabrics.  

She is keen to constantly improve the experience for her customers whether that is online, at shows, talks and workshops.

 

October Meeting

We had an enjoyable evening listening to Pascale's talk and she advised us that although she did not use her artistic skills for her occupation, she has always painted in her leisure time.   About five years ago she acquired a sewing machine and taught herself how to use it and started making quilts and small hangings.  She tried lots of different techniques and fabrics and eventually decided that she liked silk fabric best as when it was painted the results were very vibrant.  She has incorporated her artistic skills, used for painting, into her designs for her quilted pieces. Once the design is created she then uses quilting to enhance her work.

She showed us a number of pieces of work that she has made over the last few years and the detail of the quilting is beautiful and definitely needs closer examination.  At the end of the talk she encouraged us to look her work and was quite happy to let us touch and examine it.

Some photos of her work are shown below.

October Speaker

Our speaker for October is Pascale Michalski and her talk is entitled "Moral Fibre"  

Pascale Michalski is 38 years old, and while she’s originally from Luxembourg, she has lived in London/United Kingdom for 19 years now. Since the start of her quilting journey five years ago, she has created many award-winning art quilts, exhibited across Europe and the Middle East, and contributed to many quilt festivals. Her quilt Meet Me Today has been awarded Excellence in Machine Quilting at the Festival of Quilts 2021 in Birmingham, UK. By getting involved in events, she doesn’t just support her quilting community; she also supports the craft she loves so much. 

Examples of her work

September Meeeting

 Janet and Kathy from Traverse brought some interesting, unusual and colourful work along to the September meeting.  

Traverse is a well established group of mixed media textile artists who create and display their work at a professional exhibition level.  

They pieces displayed were made using a variety of techniques and materials, including stitch, felting, yarns, metallic elements to name but a few. 

They encouraged members to take a closer look at the work and many ladies did so. 

We hope to book the group for a future workshop as there seems to be sufficient interest. 

Gina Cooke

Examples of their work

September Speakers

Our speakers in September are Janet and Kate from Traverse and the title of their talk is "Looking Sideways".

Traverse is a well established group of mixed media artists.   They are set up to create work, often using diverse themes as a starting point, with a view to seeking out opportunities to exhibit at a professional and exhibition level.  They use a variety of techniques including stitch, felting, painting, yarns, metallic elements etc and have exhibited at the NEC and the Big Textile Show, as well as locally.  All the members of the group use some form of textiles in their work.

July Meeting

Our July speaker, Suzie Duncan, began her story tracing her career, working on micro biology. She described her progress through association with several well known fabric developers and designers.  As a child, like so many of us, she had sewn and she gradually became more involved with textiles.

Suzie is currently known as a presenter on Sewing Street.  She brought many work samples but says she doesn't really own many actual quilts.  She is really keen on bags and matching accessories and makes items to showcase new fabric ranges.  Suzie ended with a really hard quiz but in the end we all had a reward.  Thank you.

Kathy Francis