About me

Name: Judith

Location: Kew/United Kingdom

I live in the leafy Kew in the UK which belongs to Greater London but if one is really honest it is already in Surrey. I moved to the UK in 1989 from Germany and feel very much at home here now. Kew is of course home to the amazing Botanical Garden. The river is close and so is Richmond Park. How can one not love the area.

From an early age on I knitted. My mother taught me how to and one could always find me working on a jumper. I could not and still can't sit in front of the television or on a long train journey without having some needlework in my hands.

As a teenager I got into sewing and for a while made my own clothes. I fancied becoming a fashion designer however this was difficult to realize as I lived in a very rural area. I gave up doing my clothes eventually, partly because I had a job and it was too time consuming but mostly because it sort of stressed me out. Knitting was and is more relaxing.

Then I came to the UK for a holiday and saw a quilt in a craft shop in St.Ives in Cornwall and I absolutely fell in love with it. I could not afford to buy it but decided there and then that I would one day make a quilt. Sadly it took me until 2010 to realise this plan. In April of that year I went to the Quilt exhibition at the V&A museum and took that opportunity to make my first quilt. Little did I know that this was going to turn into an obsession. I love everything about quilts; the buying and feeling of the fabric, the planning, the cutting, the sewing, the basting (that not so much) and the quilting itself.  For about a year I hand quilted most of my quilts which is why my output was rather on the slow side as I do have a full time job to attend to (well that does afford me all the lovely fabric). However in November 2010 I bought a new sewing machine (Janome Horizon ) that allowed me to machine quilt and I haven't looked back since. I have turned into a fanatic of straight line and circular quilting since I have my Horizon and am very happy with it.

My other great passion is fine art photography and I publish my images on this site  http://www.judithdahmen.com/.

Contact:

Please e-mail me on: judith@needlesandlemons.com
Flickr : needles and lemons 
Facebook: facebook.com/needlesandlemons
Twitter: twitter.com/needlesandlemon
Instagram: instagram.com/needlesandlemons
shop: etsy.com/uk/shop/needlesandlemons