Jennie's Threads

As promised on Saturday morning, here is a final update of the bank holiday weekend. It is now bedtime, and this is the last thing I'm going to do before sleeping. On the birthday card front, I have not succeeded. Although I have made excellent progress with Aunty Margaret's birthday card, it is, as yet, unfinished. I should get it done this week, as there's not a lot of cross stitch still to go and the backstitch is fairly simple. That is where failure ends! As already reported, huge progress has been made on the cupcake quilt: it is now fully pieced and tacked to the batting. I have also quilted round four panels in running stitch in DMC 3863 (mid brown). I haven't done any more of it today, and I'm not going to post a photoof it till it is complete. I hope to call in at the shop in Burrandon one night this week to pick up some extra fabric for the binding, if they still have it in stock. As proven with yesterday's photos, my mobile phone has a snug ne...

Well, here's another update. Last night saw a lot of progress on Aunty Margaret's birthday card - still not finished, but a lot closer than before Eurovision. This morning I started off with the mobile phone case. The first attempt was not entirely successful - the layers of fabric were perhaps a little too much for the sewing machine, and the magnetic closer made the case a funny shape and had too much potential to scratch the screen. However, like England, I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with the assitance of a large pair of scissors and some rather fiddly hand stitching, I am quite pleased with the result. More by luck than judgement, the case is sufficiently tight to the mobile to mean that I don't need any kind of closing mechanism. Here's the front. The fabrics are some of the leftovers from the cupcake quilt. (The green strip around the top was the fiddly hand stitching that rescued the project). The blanket stitch is in Anchor thread no. 42. Here'...

It's just gone six o'clock and we've tidied the patio, tidied the puppies' room, been to the tip, been to Asda and, most importantly, the quilt is now fully pieced. And bigger than expected. And Cross Stitch Gold arrived in the post this morning, which I hadn't been expecting. Now for Eurovision and an evening of more stitching.

So, it's the verys start of the bank holiday weekend. I want to get a lot done.... so If I post here, what I want to do, I'll come back to you on Monday evening and let you know how I've managed. There are a lot of birthday's coming up in June, and I said to myself at the start of May that I would like to get all of those birthday cards completed by the end of May. So, I have one left. It's already started, and is probably another few hours to complete..... Last weekend Linda and I went to a patchwork course at Just Quilting in Burradon. We made nine 8inch blocks of crazy patchwork using five different fat quartes. In the centre of each block we appliqued a cupcake using a mixture of the same five fat quarters. I also managed to cut all of the sashing and borders, and draw on the pattern that is embroidered on the border - the cupcake recipe! I also used bondaweb to attach the words "Cup Cake" to the top border. I also cut out key squares in another of t...

To bring you right up to date here are the pieces I have completed since the start of the year. In previous years you'll have seen that the majority of my pieces are in cross stitch. Since January I have been learning some new techniques and I hope to show that here. This was the second time that I stitched this Anchor Classic Pooh design (the other one is shown further down this post). A work colleague asked me to stitch it for her niece in New York. It was stitched to a bit of a deadline, and I completed the cross stitch and the quilt within two days. The first time I stitched I substituted the 16hpi fabric in the kit for 32hpi evenweave. For this one, I used the 16hpi - the backstitch was made far easier with a sharp crewel needle. I was also able to do all cross stitch with the threads left over from the first time round. The red fabric came from a patchwork/quilting shop in Barton-le-Clay, Bedfordshire. This was only the second time I had made a piece up using th...

So, in order to show more designs that I have completed thus far, I have added a slide show (towards the top left of this page). If you click on this it will link through to the album, where you can see the captions attached to the pictures. I'm hoping to add more information here as well, particular which magazines the designs came from and the materials I used. These projects are mostly cards and small projects, so in today's blog I'm going to share with you some of my larger projects: This is a Margaret Sherry design from an issue of Cross Stitcher. I've stitched it on mottled blue evenweave in DMC threads. It's not often that I stitch something just for me, but I fell in love with these mice. Unfortunately, a lack of urgency, means that I haven't yet finished it off, but I have bought some beautiul mottled blue fabric, so I may make it up into a small quilt. These tiffany irises came from an old issue of Cross Stitch Crazy. I think it's des...

So, here are some photos of the larger pieces I have completed over the last few years. This is a map of Northumberland. The pattern comes from Heritage Stitchcraft: DMC threads, 28hpi ivory evenweave, black and white chart. I love doing these maps and you'll see a few that I've done, once I get round to posting them. I stitched this one for my Mother and Father-in-law, Linda and John, for their Silver Wedding Anniversary in July 2007. This picture of Tinkerbell came from a 2009 issue of Cross Stitcher magazine. I stitched it for my (kind of) sister-in-law, Jane's, 21st Birthday This wedding sampler comes from designer Michael Powell. I stitcher it for Linda's cousin's wedding in 2009. I wasn' intending to use any mount, but the red card proved useful in covering a slight grubby mark where I had had the fabric on a roller frame.... I think it has added to the design, rather than looking like I'm hiding something. Neverthl...

So, the main purpose of this blog is to keep my mum updated with what I'm creating at the moment. But, if you're reading this and you're not my Mum, that's great too. Hopefully some of the things I post will inspire you, or even just make you smile. I want to use this blog to keep a record of all the things I am making - cross stitch, quilting, patchwork, embroidery and sewing. For the record, I cannot knit or crochet, despite my mother-in-laws attempts to teach me. I started stitching when I was very young, inspired by my Grandmother who was a fantastic needlewoman, and encouraged by my Mum, who, if I remember rightly, always seemed to indulge my hobby. My first cross stitch magazine was Cross Stitcher from summer/autumn 1995, when I was 10. I've done so many pictures and cards over the years, most of which I've given away, with no record of what I've done. I still give away most of what I stitch, but now I take photographs! Last December I went to a...