Jennie's Threads

It's just as well February has 29 days this year: As with last month, I am leaving the completion of this month's FMQ Challenge from SewCalGal till the last minute. Entries close tonight. There is a reason for this: I read the tutorial/watch the video early in the month and then keep thinking it through in my head. By the time I come to stitch it I know the design well and know how I'm going to do it. Then I just go for it. I didn't consider last month's leaves to be particularly successful, though my Mum thought they were lovely. This month it's feathers - slightly scary. But I found it a lot easier than the leaves - maybe because I've had a bit more general FMQ with Linda's quilt and because of some of the tips on speed that were in the tutorial. This has helped improve the consistency of my stitch length too. So here are my feathers: I had a few issues with tension, but they aren't too obvious and I eventually got it sorted. I think I would still...

I may have been surfing a bit this week. I may have been tempted a few times. I may have given in to temptation a few times. Make that three times! Firstly the New York Beauty blocks. There's a quilt-along brewing... and plenty of time still to join in. These blocks are foundation pieced, which I really enjoy, but involve curved seams, which I've done before but need lots of practice. It's split into ten tutorials for ten different NYB blocks between the start of March and beginning of May. I don't think I'll make them all, but I can't quite decide. I do love this one , but I also love some of these . Check out the Flickr group here . And then there are the Granny Squares - have you seen these popping up all over blog land? At first I could see the attraction, and then I saw some of the blocks and changed my mind entirely. Again - take a look the Flickr group ! There are some fantastic blocks with beautiful modern and colourful fabrics (the kind I couldn...

So have you seen the Modern Mini Challenge hosted by Jennifer at Ellison Lane Quilts around blog land? I've been following the blog-hop and thinking.... it's not like I haven't signed up to enough already this year..... but have you seen some of the wonderful inspiration in the blog hop? And have you seen the prizes? Click on the button and check it out. So then yesterday I thought I might..... and today I came home from work and didn't fancy playing with any of my current projects. I read some blogs and I've been totally inspired by some of the fantastic modern colourful fabrics that people are using. So I pulled my stash out. And got totally disheartened. Turns out I don't have much modern colourful fabric.... I pulled out everything that nearly ticked that box and found some purples and greens that fit the bill and I've started playing. I don't know quite how it will end up yet.... the fabrics are Moda (purple and green woodprint, pattern fabric) and ...

That sums up my weekend really. I have spent most of it sat at my sewing machine. Though I did go out for a lovely dinner last night (mmmm seafood risotto with fish from the fishquay at Tynemouth...mmm...). I have made 2 more Farmer's Wife blocks, bringing me to a total of 68 (I think). Both were rotary cut, rather than foundation pieced. First up is Homeward Bound. Although simple I really love this block and I think I might shrink it down to half size and try amini quilt to see what it would look like across a whole quilt. And then Railroad. I made another Swoon block. This is my fifth 24" block from the Happy Mochi Yum Yum fabric - just four more to go. This isn't my favourite colour combo, but I think it will look good once all the blocks are together. And then I got on with my Oh My Stars quilt . All of the tutorials have now been posted, so I just have to finish stitching them. I made 28 blocks this weekend: Plaid Stars, Chequerboard stars, Quattro Stagione Stars an...

Back at the beginning fo February I had an idea for a bit of a linky party called Relegation Rescue. You can find the original post here . All you have to do to join in is rescue a project from falling off of your WIP list and onto your UFO list by showing it a but of TLC, then write a blog post about the project - why you started it, why you stopped. You never know - you may fall back in love with it. And you absolutely do not have to have finished something to join in - just a few stitches counts as "rescued"! Once you've posted, or if you're just visiting, please go and visit some others (here's hoping there's more than just me playing) and give them some encouragement with their old project. My "rescued" project this month is my Vignette quilt. I love this quilt and I adore the fabrics I picked (Lily and Will). It's a mystery block of the month quilt by Leanne Beasley (and Leanne has now shared 10 blocks - that's how far behind...

.... there was a froggy called Fergie. Fergie lived with his mammy and daddy and was a good little froggy until one day. Fergie got up in the morning and felt like being a naughty froggy. He wriggled and squirmed when mammy froggy tried to get him dressed; he threw his cereal on the floor at breakfast; when they went out for a walk he lay down in a puddle and at bedtime he refused to go to bed. What a naughty froggy. What Fergie didn't know was that all his bad behaviour was being watched by the Wicked Witch. Once mammy and daddy froggy had gone downstairs and left Fergie alone in his room, the Wicked Witch appeared. She was going to punish Fergie for his bad behaviour. She got a giant paair of scissors and cut him in half and took out his stuffing. Then she disappeared as quickly as she had come. Fergie was very scared and cried. He wished he hadn't been so naughty. A good fairy heard his crying and felt sorry for him. Fergie had been very naughty but the punishment was very ...

It's Farmer's Wife time! I'm bored of titles that say "Farmer's Wife" so I'm going for the name of one of the blocks this week! Since the start of the year I've been practicing my rotary cutting and piecing, and this week I was comfortable to move away from foundation piecing (which I've used for the first 63 blocks) and try measuring and accurate piecing! I started of with some half-square-triangle blocks. Block #38: Four Winds. I think this block is the block with the most pieces in the whole Farmer's Wife quilt. And block #64 Peace and Plenty (fewer pieces in this block). I picked a brown batik. I'm not 100% sure I like it, but it's pretty well pieced and I have used it in anotherblock. Maybe once the blocks are all together it'll be fine.

Back in January I decided to take part in the Tango Challenge. I decided on a beautifully garish colour combination of orange and pink. The "design process" has been a little haphazard and has changed every ten minutes, right up until I finally attached the binding this morning. At one point I had decided to do an applique flower with a border made up of 1" squares in all different orange fabrics. It turns out I have a remarkably large collection of oranges in my stash. So I started making nine-patches. I fell in love with nine-patches, so gave up on the idea of applique and borders. I was always going to use black as my neutral colour, so had an idea of orange nine patches and another-colour nine patches in a lap quilt. But I've really fallen in love with nine-patches and have an idea in my head of a rainbow quilt (not in the rules of the Tango challenge). So I reduced my plans again. I wanted a table topper for the glass table in our living room. Orange an...

Yesterday evening was Friday night sew in . I had planned to work on a project that needed some TLC, but the attention-seeking Swoon won over. Last weekend I completed the final of four 12" blocks and I had planned what I wanted to do with the sashing so it was time to pull everything together. It took a bit longer than I had planned but here it is: The centre brown square in each of the Swoon blocks is 31/2", so I cut my sashing to the same width and used the blue fabrics to make stars in each of the corner stones, mirroring the stars in the centre of each swoon block. Once I've decided how to quilt it (maybe something like this ), I'll finish it off with the brown fabric as binding, which I hope will frame it (it's going to be a wall hanging). You can't see it well from the photo, but the blue in the centre of each side is striped, and the same fabric is in the botttom left block. If I can get stripes to work with Swoon, I should be able to use stripes in a...

When it comes to buying birthday cards I really struggle. Most cards seem twee and unimaginative or grossly overpriced. My Mum celebrates a "significant birthday" on Friday, so I wanted a special card. I used to make all of my birthday cards when I did a lot of cross stitch, but the last one I made was in June last year (it was also the last time I did any cross stitch). I decided to resurrect the tradition, even if it's only a one-off (and not cross stitch). I designed this embroidery myself. I love hearts as a design shape, and I've just filled it with all things pretty and interesting (which I can draw). If you look carefully you can also find all the letters of the alphabet - they are all there - I checked a few times! I was going to mount it on a piece of card, but my card-making skills aren't as good as my quilt-making skills, so I used an off-cut of wadding from the Melrose quilt I finished last weekend, and found a beautiful dark blue batik fabric in my s...

I have two projects on the go with the Swoon pattern from Camille Roskelly. One making the 24" blocks in Happy Mochi Yum Yum and a red background and a 12" version in browns and duck egg blues. One bright and cheerful, the other elegant and subtle (my middle names!). This weekend I completed my fourth 24" block in white and green. This is my favourite colour combo so far. And this is the fourth (and final) of the 12" blocks. I've got some ideas for sashing and then this will be a wall hanging for our bedroom. Earlier this week, Katie, who got me into this Swoony mess with her Flickr group announced some ideas for the next quilt along. There are two options, both patterns by Camille : On a Whim or Hopscotch . On a Whim uses fat quarters, Hopscotch uses a jelly roll. I think I'll do both. But first I really need to finish my Swoony projects!

Back in January I finished piecing the front of the Melrose quilt . It's called that, because that's the name of the fabric line from Red Rooster fabrics. The pattern is the free one that came with the range. On Friday I finally layered up the quilt. Yesterday I quilted it. I had planned on wavy lines, like on my Christmas quilt , but a comment Kim made about free motion quilting not being too difficult and looking lovely kept nagging me. So I had a go. I did random circles and swirls in the gaps between the main blocks. The quilting is quite tight, so that the panels with the large print really pop. I then did straight lines round those panels and all the way round the edge. Although the lighting on this photo isn't great, it does show the quilting. The quilting isn't perfect, but I'm really chuffed with how good it is for a first real attempt on a quilt top. So free motion quilting was the first of my firsts. Here's a bigger shot of the back - Look at Charli...

The Farmer's Wife quilt along is back in action this week, so I thought I would use this post to catch you all up on the blocks I've made during the time off, show off the two blocks I've made this evening and show you a group picture of all 64 - yes 64 - blocks. Yes - I am ahead of schedule! So first of all, here are the blocks I've made since the beginning of December: First up #76 Sawtooth and #101 Wedding Ring. I had these blocks prepared before the break, and just didn't get them put together due to Christmas stitching. Once all the Christmassy-ness was over I pieced them so I didn't lose any pieces. I was having a bit of a citrus-sy night when I chose the fabrics! I love the green fabric - it makes me think of jigsaws. Mum hates it! So this quilt is safe with me... While Mum was here over Christmas we got all the blocks out - it was amazing to see them all together. But some blocks didn't work. I will be redoing three blocks in t...

well - maybe more like just a constellation! Today I made another 12 blocks for the Oh My Stars Quilt Along - here they are: I made four Patchwork Stars. For some reason I made a conscious decisions not to make a 12" version. I can no longer remember why.... so I may go back and make another. I made three Chevron Stars, which were really easy and pretty. I made two woven stars... little buggers. Firstly, it's taken me about five attempts to get this tutorial printed. In ran out, paper ran out. Wireless network went down.... The green one has dreadful seams. I was ready to give up. But I'd already cut the pieces for the blue one. The seams on the blue one are far better. But I've put the colours in the wrong place - no - a different place to what I had intended. I still looks ok, but I don't think I'll be making any more of this block. And then three nested stars. I really like these, and the design (and the patchwork blocks) have given me...