Jennie's Threads

So, it's another week and I have more Farmer's Wife blocks to share with you. I seem to be going through them farily quickly at the moment - helped by a bank holiday weekend. Here are this weeks contributions - 22 down, 89 to go: Basket Weave: This has to be one of the easiest: just 12 pieces that went together really quickly. I changed to colour placement a little and I'm really happy with the result, as I wasn't sure how the black would work. Honey's Choice: I thought I'd have a go at one of the fiddly ones - by which I mean one with lots of tiny half square triangles. I didn't dislike it and most of my points match up, so I would now be quite happy to tackle some of the other blocks with lots of HSTs. Contrary Wife: My husband would call this block "appropriate"! I really like this and I really like the colours I chose. I keep picking the light turquoise (that doesn't photograph well) because it really lightens t...

There is no way my Farmer can possibly still be feeling neglected. Since my last post I have been doing a block a day. Here they are: The first one was Shooting Star. I got a bit grumpy with all of the random triangles - I'd pin them on, flip them over and they would be going the wrong way, so I'd unpin them, repin them, and they would still be the wrong way. But I got there in the end: some of the seams get a bit chunky, but I like the end result. After the Shooting Star, I wanted something a bit easier, so I tried Puss in the Corner: really quick and really pretty (and more purple than it looks in the photo!). Next I did Waterwheel. This is one of my favourites so far and I would love to see it across a complete quilt top. It makes me think of jigsaws. And finally I did Cups and Saucers in a whacky green and pink batik. I was getting quite concerned about the amount of fabric I was wasting through foundation piecing. Somewhere on the F...

Back in July I joined the Farmer's Wife Quilt-along on Flickr. I picked my fabrics: black and batiks. I bought the book. I printed off the paper piecing patterns, and I made my first five blocks. As part of my Nikki Tinkler Sampler Quilt we had made a Mariner's Compass block at the Fat Quarters: instead of messing about with tiny templates, Kim introduced us to Paper foundation piecing. I loved it - I have grown to hate templates and this was a way of avoiding them and getting neater seams, so I decided to do the Farmer's Wife quilt using this technique. I raided my stash, which is still in its infancy, and pulled out seven blue batiks and one pinky-red one. I added a few from the Fat Quarters and successfully pieced my first five. You can see these in some of my earlier posts. For my sixth block I chose block number 24 "Country Patch". I don't know whether it was the number of small pieces or my colour choice or the two combined, but...

This summer is the summer of finishing projects (and if the last few weeks are anything to go by, also the the summer of buying fabric). The first project I decided to concentrate on is now finished! This is my finished Wilding Angels Quilt. The colour hasn't come out very well, but it's a dark, rich red and the thread matches this. I bought all the patterns and materials on my 25th birthday. 18 months later and the quilt is now hanging in our dining room. I had a few issues on route - I was so enjoying the stitcheries that I didn't want to do them too quickly, so I took a break, then when I cam to stitch the central panel, the calico I had bought to stitch it on had faded in the sun, so I had tobuy some new fabric - luckily it's fairly standard. Lesson learnt: store things away from direct sunlight. Then I cam to make up the final quilt and there was a problem with the pieces I have cut - I don't know what happened, but I ended up needing some more...

Mum, Dad, me, Michael, Linda, Roy and Jan We are back from our holiday! We had a fantastic time! We spent the first day with my parents in Bedforshire and as well as going to see the new Harry Potter film (which was excellent), we went to Threads and Patches in Milton Keynes. I bought some batik fabrics for my (much neglected) Farmer's Wife Quilt. And Mum found some fabrics in turquoise and lemon that she liked for a double bed quilt in what use to be my bedroom. Linda also got some very nice fabrics. We drove to Sidmouth on the Friday for Sidmouth Folk Week . It was a fantastic week of concerts, workshops, morris men, shopping and eating. And...oh dear.... we found another patchwork shop.... Maisie Daisy . I have never seen a smaller patchwork shop - no bolts, just fat quarters, fat eights and fat sixteenths, but Pauline was so friendly that we spent quite a while with her at various times during the week. It was fantastic because I could buy lots of different fabrics ...