Jennie's Threads

2011 was the year that my quiting habit really took on a life of it's own! For years I had done Cross Stitch. This year I have barely touched it. Back in January I started an Essential Sampler Quilt - this taught me so much and got me hooked. It seems customary to create a collage of the year's successes, so here are mine: 1. Count Down to Christmas Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt : my first ever quilt 2. Ambrosia Quilt (a WIP for 2012) 3. Medallion Log Cabin block - the centre of my Essential Sampler Qui lt (another WIP for 2012) 4. Vignette block 1 (a third WIP for 2012) 5. Apple Mug Rug 6. Farmer's Wife Mug Rugs for Mum's Christmas present 7. Farmer's Wife block (the Farmer's Wife Quilt is another WIP) 8. Wilding Angels Quilt : my first ever quilt - completed 9. Farmer's Wife block 10. Michael's Kindle Case made from his favourite, but awful, hoodie. 11. Christmas Table topper 12. Calendar Girlie : Miss October 13....

It feels like months ago that I signed up for the Chasing Chevrons quilt along with That Girl That Quilt . Now that Christmas has come and gone, and all presents (except one) are completed and given, I have time to think about it again. I knew I wouldn't be able to start it till after Christmas, but I had been thinking about possible fabric choices. On Wednesday I made my decision: I had originally picked up some very masculine fabrics - I ended up using these for my Dad's Christmas present mug rug . I needed a couple more fabrics to go with them, but I did buy all the background fabric I needed. Then I couldn't find any fabrics to go with the three I had. Back to the drawing board. I pulled out the fabrics I bought in Sidmouth - they are all Pat Bravo (I think) but from different lines. I'm not 100% certain they all go together, but even if the colours and patterns don't quite pull together, my memories of the fabrics and where I bought them will. So I'll give ...

So the big day has come and gone. We had 14 sit down for a roast turkey Christmas dinner and then about 30 people for tea. All in a three bed semi! Not forgetting the two dogs. Everything went very smoothly and we are now eating our way through the left overs. We are now sitting, watching match of the day and Newcastle's win against Bolton. It all got a bit too much for the doggies at the end of the day - here we are sitting on Daddy's lap surrounded by Christmas presents on the kitchen floor! I was very lucky with my presents: I got lots of quilty books, two jelly rolls, three black work kits, four of the Quilt Aid kits and lovely personalised calendar. And all the home made gifts that I have spent the last few months making were very well received. As everyone has opened their presents, so I can now share a few more of my finishes with you. First up is a mug rug I made for my Dad. My Dad is a morris dancer and I am a quilter and I wanted to combine the two. A...

The house is tidy, my parents and brother have arrived, the presents are wrapped (except one mini quilt that I still have to finish binding - ooops) and we have just watched the Muppet Christmas Carol - it is definitely Christmas time! Merry Christmas to everybody and by boxing day everyone will have received their gifts, so I will have some more photos of finishes to share. Have a wonderful day tomorrow!

Another mug rug - this one went in the post yesterday complete with mug and some choccies and will hopefully arrive before Christmas! I love the fabrics more and more each time I get them out. The flowery ones are Durham fabrics and Icould be tempted to buy some more and make a quilt.... because I really need more projects.... I drafted the Dresden petals myself then appliqued them on very carefully with the machine. I did the hand embroidery then quilted it on the machine and added the binding. Most of my Christmas presents are finished (but not wrapped) - I just have a pile of mug rugs and mini-quits, all of which need the binding stitching down by hand! And today I have to put my sewing machine away for Christmas.... A final photo: Archie loves my Christmas quilt!

I won a giveaway on the Sew Mama Sew giveaway day/week! I won a fat quarter bundle of Candid Paparazzi - I'd never seen it before but I love the combination of red, white and black. Check out The Twilight Quilter's blog here . Thanks Shannon

I have dragged my project back from the precipice of disaster , and I am now ready to share it with you all. It's a Christmas present for my Mum - I've already told her not to look at my blog for the next week. @Mum: If you have ignored my warnings, this is the post you need to skip! [gap to give her chance to change her mind] Here it is: a bag. She is a parish councillor and needs to take big folders to meetings. On our summer holidays she was looking for a bag that would do the job, but nothing seemed to be both big enough and strong enough. With that in mind, I decided to use two of the blocks I made at the Jennie Rayment class back in May (which I know she loves - she has a thing for black and batiks at the moment) and finish them off and craft them into a bag. This was a bit of a challenge for me, No tutorial. Just me and my little brain. And some help from Kim and Margaret at the Fat Quarters . I made the bag as a box without a top. Each...

I'm not sharing anything with you yet. I worked really hard on my project all last night and again all today. And then everything went wrong at the final step. Hopefully I can salvage it tomorrow, but I need to go to Newcastle City Centre, successfully park, and hope John Lewis can help.... if everything goes well, I'll share a finished project with you tomorrow. If it doesn't, I think I might cry. But please come back, because I may be desperately asking for help :(

Last week I blogged some photos of a mug rug for my manager. It didn't turn quite as expected - not really right for my manager, but perfect for Sheila. So back to the drawing board and the Farmer's Wife provided the answer: This is block 19 Chequerboard with some chintzy fabrics. I'm really pleased with the result. I foundation pieced the block, hand quilted it with embroidery thread (I didn't have the right colour perle cotton) and then bound.

I had great plans about how much I would achieve this weekend. A beautful new (large) mug rug inspired by some wonderful blogs was not part of this plan.... Here is my new mug rug. I made trees (triangles) using a tutorial on Leanne's blog and the leftovers from my Countdown to Christmas quilt. I was fully intending to make them into tree ornaments as she had done, but then noticed that my newly cleared glass table in our living room looked very empty without the normal junk on it and wouldn't it look nice if I had a table topper/large mug rug for Christmas. So, inspired by this table runner , I found some black fabric in my stash and did a little more raw edge applique and some fussy cutting for the little circles and I now have my mug rug! I did finish one of the mug rugs I started on Friday. Here is the apple mug rug for my secret santa with its matching mug. I have made progress on the other mug rugs. The one for my manager didn't turn out quite as expected so another...

Last night was Friay Night Sew In . My Friday night sew in was shared with Linda, Buster (11 month old puppy), James (4 year old nephew), Steph and Jonny. I got some done before everyone arrived and I carried on once they'd gone home and stayed up quite late to make some progress on Christmas presents: I started by finishing of a project I began last weekend at a class. It's a die-cut applique design of reindeers, bells and snowflakes and this was the first time that I have tried the blanket stitch on my new sewing machine - my old one didn't do blanket stitch! I was really slow, cause I was determined to be accurate, but I sped up as I went along. I wasn't planning on finishing the applique last night but the machine was threaded up and the applique foot was on so I went for it. I now need to layer it up and quilt it - I have bought some fine perle cotton and I'm going to hand quilt. Then I can make it up into a cushion. And I have the negative pieces from the die-...

This weekend I finished two quilts. These are very special quilts. I have made lots of very small quilts, mostly made to frame embroidery or cross stitch. I've finished two larger quilts both to hang on the wall. But this weekend I finished two quilts, both of which are for snuggling under on the sofa and neither of which have any embroidery . And both are machine quilted by me! It's really important for me to learn how to quilt my own quilts. I'm never going to be able to afford to send my quilts out to be long-arm quilted, so if I can't do it myself, I might as well stop buying fabric right now - this is why I am so excited! (And this is how I justified my new sewing machine)! First off is the animal quilt. This is a small quilt for a little boy called Aidan. It's six pre-printed panels with complementary fabric. Not rocket science. But it is the first quilt I have machine quilted on my new machine. To keep it simple I quilted round the printed lines...

I got some lovely fabric.... all fat quarters for a number of Christmas projects, including some of the pinks in this foundation pieces cushion quarter. Aunty Barbara got some fabric for sashing her mystery BOM blocks. We did a class, and I learnt how to do blanket stitch applique on my new machine. Linda got a dog. This is Buster. The owner of our local quilt shop, Kim, wanted to keep him, but her dog had other ideas, so Buster was looking for a new home and Linda has provided it. Isn't he gorgeous? And just in case Archie and Charlie get jealous: here is Charlie And here is Archie playing Fireman Sam on the Nintendo DS with Michael and James! There'll be some more stitchy posts later this week!

Another project! Quilt aid was developed by Australian quilters a few years ago. 12 designers (including Lynette Anderson, Natalie Lymer....) each designed a block, and money raised goes to charity. This spread to the USA and this year Europe is allowed to join the fun. My local quilt shop, the Fat Quarters is the only shop in the UK to host blocks: they have two of the blocks and shops in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany have the other 10. Each shop then designs their own finishing pattern, and you can pick from any of them. (Separate shops in the US and Australia are also hosting blocks. ) The blocks come as complete kits (threads to buy separately) and the fabrics are all Ruby from Moda. I'm in. Check out the website to find out more! And even better - when your husband comes in and says "how much fabric do you need?" you can reply that this project is for charity!!!!

There are just two hours of November left and I am throughly enjoying the challene of all the things I want to get made for Christmas, but I've started to look ahead to next year, prompted by some of the quilt-a-longs I've signed up for. Firstly there's the Chasing Chevrons Quilt from That Girl... that Quilt. I've signed up but not moved much further forward, due to the manic Christmas stitching. I thought I had picked my fabrics, using some fat quarters from my stash and a light brown fabric that was on sale at my LQS. But then I thought about it some more. Because so little of the contrast fabric is used against a lot of background fabric, this is the perfect design for some very special fat eights/fat sixteenths/fat quarters that I bought on my last summer holiday to Sidmouth. The fabrics are all Pat Bravo fabrics and I hadn't seen them before, but of course, you can get them in a fair few places (just not my LQS). They are special because I bought them in Sidmou...

I've been really excited to show you this finish! Two thirds of it were finished at the weekend but I wanted to finish the final third before I photographed it. I've even set up a photo shoot - partly so when I give it as a Christmas present the recipient knows what to do with it! I'm not sure my husbands Great Aunts are au fait with mug rugs! The set is made up of two mug rugs and, in very British fashion, a "teapot rug" - if it were a mug rug, I would need one hell of a large treat to go with my mug! The teapot rug 14 x 9.5" and is made up of a central panel with a stitchery design from Issue 4 of Vignette from Leanne Beasley, which I've adapted slightly so it can be used in a landscape orientation, rather than the original portrait. It's surrounded by a contrasting border with a third fabric in the corners. The teapot rug is then hand quilted with Anchor perle cotton number 12 in white - unfortunately you can't see it well in the photos, but ...

I've been working on loads of projects this weekend and so many are really nearly finished. I have had a thread issue - I ran out of the cream that I've been using to quilt, so my Countdown to Christmas Quilt is mostly quilted - just four more wavy lines to do; my Merry Cushion is nearly finished - just some top stitching on the back; and my animal quilt is nearly finished - just the binding to finish. Some of the Christmas presents I've been working on are also NEARLY finished - some I won't be able to share until after Christmas, but others I'll share as soon as I finish them. As such, it has been quite a frustrating weekend, but I have moved a lot of projects further forward, if not finished them. So my only finish to report is the first of my December Calendar Girlies: designed by Debbie from Letters Tied with Blue , this is the final design in the set of 12. I've stitched 6 of each design each month for 2011 as the Christmas presents for 6 special pe...

I've completed two more Farmer's Wife blocks today. I looked at photos of all the blocks I've completed so far and realised that I was lacking in blue, but had loads of orange (which isn't normal for me), so both of today's blocks are blue-y. #90 Storm Signal: I like this one and I like the finished result, but the contrast could have been better. #17 Cats and Mice: the light bright blue hasn't photographed well! I have been working on other projects this week, and I finished quilting the animal quilt. Hopefully I'll get the binding finished tonight and be able to share it tomorrow. My Countdown to Christmas Quilt would also have been finished if I hadn't run out of thread. More is on order! I hope to post again tomorrow to share some more finishes!

I have finished my first ever mug rug! It's not very big - approximately 4.5x7". The fabrics came from a shop in Sidmouth and are Art Gallery Fabrics from the Bazaar Range . I only bought fat sixteenths, so I shall use them sparingly - it was the first time I had seen these fabrics and I fell in love! The embroidery is based on a Picasso sketch, and stitched in DMC threads in back stitch. The dark coloured binding is actually purple.The quilting on this mug rug was the first quilting I did on my new machine. I quite like the wobbly lines. My free motion quilting isn't going particularly well (I know - practice practice practice) so I might use the same wavy line technique on my Countdown to Christmas quilt - I want to get it finished before Christmas, but I'm not sure my free motion quilting will be up to scratch by then.... Any comments would be welcome!

I don't normally name things, and my Janome sewing machine never had a name. But yesterday I picked up my new Husqvarna Viking. And she is so pretty that she deserves a name. So my new sewing machine is called Peggy. Here she is quilting my Merry Cushion. I'm teaching myself to free motion quilt on her: I found some fantastic video here . My first and second attempts were disastrous, then I found the videos above. My third attempt was far far far better. My fourth and fifth attempts were quite good, all things considered. I have now layered up my Animal quilt top and my Countdown to Christmas Sampler quilt and I am ready to practice practice practice. This afternoon I introduced Peggy to the Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt, with two more blocks: #14 Butterfly at the Cross Roads: I love this batik, but it looks much better in larger areas where you can see the variation between pink, green and blue. # 26 Country Farm: I love this one. It's so straightforward but really pr...

So, yesterday was Friday Night Sew In. I spent the evening working on my Countdown to Christmas quilt - it's a Jelly Roll sampler quilt and I had finished all the blocks and did most of the piecing last weekend. Last night I finished it off by adding the borders and made a start on piecing the back. This morning I worked solidly on the back and finally finished that too. I like it so much it's almost sad to call it the back! Here's the front And here's the back (I've had to find a new "glamourous Assistant" as Michael is away for the weekend - thanks Nicola). And now for the most exciting part of my day: I have just been and picked up my brand new Husqvarna Viking sewing machine: New machine Sad machine Now I'm off to unpack it and play with it.