Jennie's Threads

Yesterday I finally showed you a finished quilt top - Cosmos Dust for Baby was ready for the next stage! So last night I started the quilting. I'm using a peach no.16 perle thread to go round each of the 24 stars and then around the narrow border. I've done some work on some other projects today too - the ones I'm trying to get done before Baby arrives: having finished this EPP project I've been cutting the pieces for my next EPP project on the basis that if it's prepared I may be able to pick it up every so often between nappies and feeds, but I won't have time for mammoth cutting sessions - so that was this afternoon! Linking up with WIP Wednesday !

My Cosmos Dust Quilt top is now fully pieced and ready to be layered up. I'm still planning on hand quilting with a lovely peach perle cotton. I'm looking forward to snuggling up with this over the next few evenings. And an update to yesterday's post - the sashing for the City Sampler quilt is now cut!

I have felt energetic today! I've been shopping for the last few things I need for Baby, and a few bits for me too - I found a great background cream-ish fabric on sale at Hobby Craft for £3/meter. Good quality, usable colour. Hobby Craft is a hellish place but every so often you can find a bargain (my background fabric for Cosmos Dust was bought in the same way) - I bought all 3 metres that were left. I decided to spend some time this afternoon laying out and sashing my City Sampler. So the blocks were sorted as per the layout in the book.... And then I laid them all out looking for the sore thumbs. This is the layout exactly as it is in the book. There were only a couple of blocks that really needed moving, and one was because I had used the same fabric in two adjoining blocks. Given that I didn't once glance at which block would be next to which block, I'm really pleased that nearly all of them worked - some even worked better than if I had been thinking... bu...

In my last post you may have noticed that the pile of scraps I was playing with did not just contain green and orange, which I used for my Kindle case, but also purple, pink, grey and turquoise.... these had a different purpose. More improv piecing, but more controlled - I did this before I did the green and orange as a gentle introduction for non-improv brain. I made two panels. and trimmed to 4.5" x 6" and using the instructions for the prettified pincushion (am I the only one who thinks it says petrified ever time I look at it?) from the Patchwork Please book I made myself a new pincushion. The top and bottom are all scraps and the sides are a text  print from Architextures. My corners aren't perfect but I'm pretty pleased with the finished item. It's ticked a lot of boxes - scraps, new pincushion, pretty, text print.... This is my favourite side! This evening is about finishing piecing the baby quilt - all of the blocks are pieced and I now ju...

I used to read a lot when I was younger - nothing could beat Enid Blyton! Now I'm older I find I read less, though Enid Blyton still crops up occasionally! But I figured with Baby on the way, reading would be something I could do perhaps whilst breast feeding, or when I'm too tired to sew. So for my birthday I got a Kindle (one handed reading!). Every Kindle needs a case so I started hunting the internet and found this tutorial, which seemed to hit the spot. I decided to combine it with another plan for the year. Sarah from Fairy Face Designs is leading a year of using up scraps . Over Christmas when I sorted out my sewing stuff, it turned out I have far more scraps than I thought - I tend to keep anything that can make a 1/4" hexagon upwards! Sarah's goal is also to make practical things for the house. All of this seems like a good idea, and a Kindle case using some scraps felt like the perfect thing to start with. This was yesterday lunchtime. My comf...

My current WIP is the Baby quilt I'm making for my Baby. I'd better get a move on really - because that WIP could come to an end any day now...(the sooner the better to be honest). The plan is for 12 blocks (pieced by hand) and three borders (not pieced by hand). And I'm still planning on hand quilting... The top half of the quilt pictured above is all joined together - the bottom four blocks are still individual blocks ready to be put together once the final two blocks are pieced. 10 blocks done, and an evening in front of the TV tonight. Watch this space! Linking up with WIP Wednesday .

It's just been one of those weeks. I felt great on Tuesday! The first day in over a week when I hadn't had morning sickness. I whipped up four blocks for a baby quilt, working from nothing more than a photo. Wednesday was pretty good too. And Thursday started pretty well. I managed to add sashing to the blocks I'd made and then we visited a new-to-us patchwork shop. Of course it would have been rude not to buy anything! We had lunch out. I got home and had a nap. Then we had parenting class... by this point I was feeling very uncomfortable... I didn't eat much tea. At 1.30am, still very uncomfortable and getting pains, I threw up. Apparently one of the early signs of labour. Hmmm.... was I? Wasn't I? A question easily answered when my husband started throwing up too - he certainly wasn't in labour. I guess it was just a sickness bug! Despite still being pregnant, it got me thinking - there are a number of things I/we really need to get done before Madam d...

We are getting there! Today I can share the November block with you. By this time the colour wheel and I were struggling to pick out the next colour for a month, so I went for brown. This isn't always the most popular colour but I really like it - it can be a really warm neutral and can bring out the other colours in a quilt beautifully - I used it in my Rhubarb and Custard quilt and loved how it brought out the warmth in the pinks and yellows. And because of that it gets a whole month to itself - and appropriately, November, when nature is losing it's spring and summer colours and becoming increasingly brown (and on bad days, grey). This month's block also includes one of my favourite motifs from the year. I have a bad habit of sticking to backstitch and then adding some more backstitch, and then a bit more backstitch.... I am capable of other stitches, but backstitch requires less thought. The thistle, representing Scotland for St Andrew's Day is another od...

I started another quilt today. I have three reasons for making this quilt: back in September we went to the quilt show at Harrogate with some friends. Liz was looking for inspiration for her next project and as we were walking around the fantastic quilts on display she saw this one.... I didn't take a photo of the label, but I'm pretty sure it didn't say the source of the quilt pattern. So I know nothing about this quilt - if anyone reading this knows the maker of the quilt, or the pattern the quilt came from I would be fascinated to hear about it. Liz really fell for it and as there was no information about the source of the pattern, I said I'd have a go at drafting it for her. I promptly forgot, and so did she. Until just after Christmas when she came with us to buy some more fabric for it. We set a date for some sewing for Thursday this week. I pulled out the photos and started making some notes. Then we changed the sewing date to tomorrow.... If this had...

A new year means new projects and yesterday I started two! Both are sampler quilts. Let me explain... About 18 months ago I decided to make a quilt for my Uncle. He had seen my Farmer's Wife quilt top and spent ages looking at it in great detail. When someone shows that much interest in a quilt it's not a hard decision to want to make one for them. Add in the fact that he has a habit of falling asleep on the sofa and it's easy. While he was there we worked out what size quilt he would need, and for Christmas I asked for the book of Sylvia's Bridal Sampler - I wanted to stick to 6" blocks and he really liked the jewel colours you get from using batiks but I was bored of the Farmer's Wife by this point. In February 2013 I bought the black batik background. And then I ignored it. Other projects took priority. Meanwhile I fell in love with a range of fabrics this time last year - Architextures by Caroline Friedlander. So much so that after ordering and playin...