About us

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About us2023-05-25T11:23:15+00:00

Welcome to Justhands-on.tv

We are devoted to inspiring and helping you to create beautiful projects.

We do this by providing online classes for Quilting, Embroidery, Knitting, Crochet, and Textile Art – featuring Britain’s finest tutors covering everything from beginner techniques through to advanced patterns. Best of all, you learn at your own pace, from the comfort of your home via a computer or mobile device, accessible 24/7. (see ALL VIDEOS)

We support sewing communities by providing a marketplace for local shops and artists to sell a wide range of products. (see SHOP)

And we regularly put on weekend sewing retreats for those looking to enjoy a little sewing “me time.” (see RETREATS)

Welcome to the growing justhands-on.tv community.

Who Is justhands-on.tv

Justhands-on.tv was launched in July 2009 by Valerie Nesbitt.  Prior to founding justhands-on.tv, Valerie owned her own shop, Creative Quilting, in East Molesey, a stone’s throw away from the Thames and Hampton Court Palace.

The idea for justhands-on.tv came about as the internet changed the way people shop for materials, and it become apparent that fixed class times and busy lives meant it was difficult for people to satisfy their appetite for education and inspiration.  Valerie spotted an opportunity to place education and inspiration at people’s fingertips at any time of the day or night anywhere in the world, and an opportunity to share her love of patchwork and quilting.

The first video content to be published was a series of films highlighting the work of a textile group called ‘Diversity’ who were at a show at Norden Farm in Maidenhead.  Since then the video library has grown to over 2,000 videos including full-length workshops by Britain’s finest tutors, hints & tips, interviews with artists, visits to shows & exhibitions and more.  The topics covered have grown from Patchwork & Quilting to include Embroidery, Knitting, Crochet and a wide range of Textile Art. Today, there are 1.5m views of our videos per year from 96 countries around the globe.

We are always looking for new ways to serve the crafting community. We added a SHOP to our site so that viewers can buy the fabric, patterns, and templates featured in videos.  We added weekend sewing retreats so that people could enjoy a weekend of sewing “me time” with one of their favourite tutors. And most recently, we launched the justhands-on.tv app so that it is easier for viewers to watch justhands-on.tv on the go. Download the app for free at: Apple App StoreGoogle PlayAmazon, or Roku.

Our ambition is to share our very British passion for crafting with people around the globe.

We believe that the sewing community needs a thriving network of local shops.  Our Founder, Valerie Nesbitt, owned and ran a shop in Hampton Court, so supporting shops is in our DNA.  Always has been and always will be.

That’s why justhands-on.tv sell through shops.  Not against them.  The online SHOP at www.justhands-on.tv is more of a marketplace where shops and artists list products, patterns and books that they want to sell.

We have a thriving Community section in our site where sewers can share their work and find out what inspirational ideas others are enjoying,  And there is an Events section where people can learn about upcoming retreat, shows and exhibitions.

We are committed to supporting sewing communities in the UK and around the world.

Valerie is the Creative Director.  She is in charge of charting our direction through selecting the tutors and classes that we film.  She is also responsible for facilitating relationships with contributors and shops.  It helps that she has all those contacts from her days as a shop owner.  Valerie became a bit of a YouTube celebrity recently with over 2 million views (and counting!) of her 40 minute scrap quilt workshop.

Steve is our CEO and leads the charge in terms of marketing.  He comes from the advertising and digital worlds – – having worked at places such as Ogilvy.

Matt and Dave are responsible for all things related to video productions.  They have been delivering videos for justhands-on.tv from the start, capturing all the passion of the artists.

Juliet is in charge of our Operations, Support and Tech.  She’s probably the one you’ll speak to or exchange emails with if the need arises.  It helps that she has spent most of her career teaching people (often older people) how to use computers.

Violeta is our social media expert.  She keeps herself busy posting out all the latest information and engaging with the sewing community on social media platforms.

And the Tutors.  Where would we be without all these wonderful and talented tutors.  See the section below for more details about each tutor featured on justhands-on.tv .

Meet our tutors

Jennie Rayment

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Jennie is a world renown quilt teacher, lecturer, author of nine quilt books and numerous patterns. From Houston to Qatar, Durban to Melbourne, Auckland and many other international cities, Jennie has wowed them all with her superb teaching style and hilarious lectures all laced with wit, charm and professional expertise.

Jayne Brogan

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Jayne is an expert at helping people understand what machine right for them, as well as teaching how to make innovative stitches on their sewing machine, opening up a whole new world of creativity.

Dionne Swift

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Dionne paints with stitches to create dynamic, vibrantly coloured textiles. Her needle becomes her pen and thread her ink. The scale, emotion, and energy of her landscapes are inspirational.

Vendulka Battais

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Vendulka Battais is an award winning textile artist, tutor and half of the couple running textile studio OliVen in the heart of Suffolk.

Lucy Engels

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Lucy Engels is a Modern Quilter and Visual Artist, Based in Edinburgh.

Jenny Haynes

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Jenny is a modern quilt designer and teacher known for her colourful, curvy machine pieced patterns

Anita Birtles

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Anita loves the themes of recycle, reuse and no waste which has led her to scrap piecing projects as the main focus of her work. And she is keen to improvise in making quilts, so rarely follows a pattern.

Carolyn Forster

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Carolyn is an accomplished quilt maker, teacher and author of several books and patterns. Carolyn has been sewing quilts for over 20 years and just loves using up scraps. She is constantly inspired by vintage quilt blocks she finds on her travels and she brings them up-to-date with modern construction techniques – stitch n’ flip and Quilting on the Go are two of her favourites.

Julia Gahagan

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Julia loves making miniature quilts on a variety of themes - especially small, pictorial quilts with little villages and sea sides. Her quilts have been inspired by travel in the UK & the Mediterranean. She also loves Christmas themed patchwork & quilting. This is reflected in many of her designs for wall hangings, mini quilts, garlands, tree decorations and wreaths.

Lorna Bateman

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Teaching and sharing her designs and embroidery techniques is Lorna’s passion. She loves all forms of 3-dimensional, raised and textured embroidery and tries to encompass as many of these in her designs as possible.

Linda Seward

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Linda Seward is an experienced quilter, writer, lecturer, and quilt judge.

Dawn Cameron-Dick

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A traditional quilter by nature, Dawn also uses modern products to create new techniques such as her “signature” technique, Invisible Machine Appliqué.

Nancy Adamek

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Nancy has been a keen Quilter for the last 20 years, specialising in English Paper Piecing. These high quality, pre-cut paper pieces are accurately die-cut, here in the UK, which means that not only will your patchwork be that much more accurate, but you can start sewing straight away and use them over and over again.

Rosee Woodland

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Rosee is an expert in knit/crochet/sew pattern design, with a gift for helping knitters get to grips with the basics. After cutting her teeth as editor of The Knitter and Knit Today magazines, Rosee decided it was time to fly solo! She enjoys passing on her love of all things woolly to her students, teaching knitters everything from sock knitting to how to design their own sweaters.

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