Jennie's Threads

Isn't it absolutely gorgeous? This is from Cori at Let's Eat Grandpa and it is fantastic! I don't think I would have picked this colour scheme myself, but I love it - it's so happy and bright and the embroidery is beautiful - she's hit the nail on the head, because I would love to take a hot air balloon flight. Every time I look at it, it makes me smile, so it's hanging above my sewing desk. And I got some fabric and ribbon too - how lucky am I!

...EPP I've just knocked up this little pincushion to take to Budapest with me using some EPP diamonds and some fabric I picked up this afternoon. The greens are from Red Rooster (Hugs and Holly) and the text fabric is Maude Asbury "Crabtastic". P.S. If you're looking for my FNSI results, just scroll down to the next post!

I had planned to work on my Mod Pop quilt last night. I did for a bit and I sewed all of the curves. I still haven't pressed them all. Half way through the evening I took the dogs out for a walk and had a thought.... I love my earrings..... big ones....lots of them (and hats and scarves and shoes but this isn't that blog post). My earrings live on my dressing table in a tin: As you can see, they are very rarely actually in the tin because I can't find the ones I want. I have a plan for an earring tidy, but for the next two weeks I will be away in Budapest for work (so things may go a bit quiet round here for a while) - so what I needed was some kind of earring travel tidy thingy. By the time I got home with the boys I had a plan. It was a plan that involved fabric I knew my local quilt shop still had in stock in case it went totally wrong! Ambrosia (it's really the leftovers from this quilt ). And just three hours later I had a finished earring tidy.

Did you see the new button on the top left of my screen? I signed up to Threadbias about two weeks ago. It's a great place to show your projects and keep tabs on which are finished and which are still in progress. It's also a great place to check out everyone else's projects for inspiration! My Star Place mats are a feature project this week. There are some swaps running on Threadbias and a new one popped up earlier this week - a Christmas Ornament swap. Now really I don't have any time, but I just can't resist, so I signed up. I haven't found out who my partner is yet, but I have had some ideas. It's a secret partner swap, so I can share what I'm working on here and on Threadbias. Check out my Studio here and have a look round. Tonight is Friday Night Sew In and Children in Need so I'm off to sew!

In my last post I may have mentioned a slight mathematical error when creating the strips for the back of the place mats for the Modern She Made Swap - in hindsight it was glaringly obvious. But it does mean that I had a brightly coloured rainbow of strips of fabric begging to be used... So, I made a few extras for my partner. The obvious companion to four place mats is four coasters, right! And then I've seen loads of fabric baskets around blogland but never had the guts to try one - they look tricky! I found Ayumi's tutorial and wow - how straightforward. I whipped this little guy up in just a couple of hours after a horrific day at work - there will definitely be many more of these to come. Lining fabric I hope to get all of this in the post at the weekend (possibly with some chocolate)! I'll be back later in the week to confess to my next swap!

It all got a bit hairy yesterday! I was finishing off the place mats for the Modern She Made Swap round 2, and there were a few moments where I was just inches from disaster. But I pulled it out of the bag and I now have four finished place mats ready to send to my partner. And if she doesn't like them, that's fine - I'll keep them right here :) It doesn't all quite line up, but I'm not far off. Due to some fairly appalling mathematics on my part, I have some bits of fabric left over, so I'm hoping to put together some coasters before I send the package off next week. I used heat resistant wadding for the place place mats - it's fully washable and you use it exactly like regular wadding, but it rustles a bit. Hopefully after a couple of washes, that will stop. The back of the place mats Linking up to Sew Modern Monday with Megan

I've been a bit quiet over the last couple of weeks - I've been doing a lot of hand stitching - my Hoop La La swap and also my Modern She Made Swap project. But  tonight I have finished the place mat tops. I still have the quilting to go - I'm planning on dense straight line quilting in the patchwork part and no quilting in the embroidery/applique sections and I have Insul-Bright heat-resistant wadding to use. DMC Threads: back stitch, running stitch, satin stitch, chain stitch, double whipped running stitch, cross stitch and tiny EPP hexies I'm going to "bag" the place mats to avoid binding, so that the points of the stars go right to the edge of the place plat. DMC Threads: satin stitch, running stitch, back stitch, chain stitch, french knots, cross stitch and tiny EPP hexies I still need to make the backs as well, but they will be quite simple in comparison to the front. I have some great feedback on these place mats over in the Flickr

How organised am I! It's only 7th November and my stash bee blocks for November are DONE! Jess asked for blocks in yellow, orange and aqua and gave us the tutorial for these blocks . I didn't think I had much in my stash for these colours - turns out I was wrong - I cut a strip from each fabric and ended up with double what I needed - so I'll be sending that to Jess too - hopefully she'll be able to put it to good use! Very straightforward and great fun - the finished quilt is going to be a stunner!

Do you remember my lonely little sewing machine made with quarter inch hexies? It's found some bigger hexies to look after it! This hoop is for my partner in the Hoop La La swap . It took me ages to get an idea for what to do. We were in a local quilt shop and I saw a little pack of quarter-inch hexy papers - they cost more than regular size hexies - I'm called it a stupid tax. When we first saw them we laughed that anyone would be daft enough to try them. But I couldn't stop thinking about them. And a week later I was back and picked up a pack. The shop owner asked me if I felt ok and offered me a chair to sit down! My mother-in-law thinks I'm mad. My own mother couldn't believe I really wanted to do something so fiddly. But they are just SO CUTE! They weren't too bad to sew with either - the worst part was removing the papers once I'd finished. As soon as I had the idea of the sewing machine I knew how I wanted my finished hoop to look a

Already! I've been playing with hexagons a lot this month. That little sewing machine is made from quarter inch hexagons and is part of my Hoop La La swap . I'm still working on the final piece. I started a new quilt (very unlike me!) in pinks and greys. I still need to add some borders and then it may be a Christmas present if I get the time to finish it. I was Queen Bee for Stash Bee and have received some beautiful blocks - these were my original ones. I've made another two incubator quilts to be donated to local baby units - if you'd like to contribute, there's more information here . I made a Christmassy wall hanging as part of the Tula Pink Sew Along - this was my first project using just solids and I love it. I also love the quilting - copied almost exactly from Tula's model. One day I would love to make the whole ABC quilt. I have been working on my swap item for the Modern She Made Swap - two of the place mats are ready for quilt