Jennie's Threads

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.

I have a finished quilt top!!!!! Ok - so the blocks are panels.... but it's still pretty cool. The panel (I think it's Robert Kaufmann) was going cheap in my local shop: it must have been the end of the bolt and two of the eight panels were incomplete, so I got it for only £2. Then I spent far more getting the sashing and borders, and the turquoise was from my stash. Hopefully this quilt top will be one of the first that I quilt on my new machine that I will be picking up next weekend. I'll trim down the two panels that were incomplete and use them in the backing somehow. This quilt is a Christmas present for a little boy called Aidan. (My glamorous assistant refused to take his Xbox headset off while holding my quilt so I've cropped him out). Another piece that will be quilted on my new machine is this cushion front that I made yesterday at a class. It's from the Nancy Halvorsen book Jingle all the Way and the fabric is Moda Countdown to Christmas - s...

Check out this Children in Need mug rug kit from The Fat Quarters : This is my brand new Pudsey mug rug (for the non-Brits out there,click on the link above to find out more about Children in Need - Pudsey is the bear who helps raise money for disadvantaged children). Kits are available from the Fat Quarters here . The kit includes all fabric and the pattern and a button for his eye. I've added some DMC threads and ta-da! It's £3.50 and £1.75 goes to Children in Need. Children in Need 2011 is 18th November 2011 - next Friday! Good luck to anyone fundraising.

I have been very busy this weekend, and unusually, I have stuck to one project all weekend: my Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt in the Moda Countdown to Christmas fabrics. I started this last month as a class at our local shop and we concentrated on blocks with flying geese units. I had completed the first four and was ready for the half square triangles. Yesterday in the class we did block#1 Tulip to introduce us to half square triangles while still doing some flying geese units. I am loving this quilt - it's so straight forward after the Farmer's Wife Blocks and the Nikki Tinkler blocks. I got mine finished just after lunch so made a start on block #3 Star Choice. The challenge of a Jelly Roll Quilt is when a bock requires two light coloured strips for the background and you don't have two strips of the same fabric. It makes me think out of the box a bit, and how I can place different fabrics to get the effect I want. In this block I used the cream fabrics with stripes: black...

So yesterday was a Y-Seams day. Totally unintentionally. I hate Y-Seams - I first did them a year ago as a beginner - I didn't enjoy it and it wasn't particularly successful. So for a year I have ignored their existence and avoided them.Then yesterday it all caught up with me. I got home from work, and instead of doing some hand embroidery as I had planned, the Famer's Wife book was calling to me. And I could not resist temptation... I opened up my progress chart, closed my eyes and pointed at a block: #100 Weathervane. Lovely. Fabric chosen and cut, patterns traced. Bugger. Y-Seams. Do I abandon the block in favour of something more straightfoward (i.e. any other block) or do I persevere and overcome my demons. In a rare moment of fortitude I went for it. Half way through piecing the first section I saw how I could have avoided Y-Seams entirely with a small tweak to the pattern. Double bugger. Here is my finished block. Despite my dislike of and inability to do Y-S...