Jennie's Threads

Like an actual hat. One I can wear in public. I only have phone selfies to prove it though... I wore it out an about today. The pattern is from Love Patchwork and Quilting Magazine (the latest issue) and I knew as soon as I saw it, that I would be making one. I ordered bias tape. And it took 2 weeks to arrive. But it did arrive yesterday ad by bedtime I had a finished hat. I used a grey Art Gallery print for the outside, and a bright pink texty/dressmaking fabric for the lining! It went together much easier than I expected: the parts that took longest were cutting it out using templates (yuck - templates) and hand stitching down the bias tape to finish it off. The biggest challenges were trying to press the seams - impossible! And attaching the self-cover button. I made the medium sized hat having measured my head, but it was way too big, so I added a small pleat to the back panel - it looks fine, though is still a bit loose. I bought fabric today to make another one - ...

February was a month for slow sewing. My weekends have been very busy and in the evenings I'm more inclined to sit with some hand sewing than sit at my sewing machine. I also felt pretty uninspired by most of the items on my Finish Along list, which is normally the basis for my ALYOF goal. With just a few hours before the end of the link-up I picked Trellis, which was pieced and basted. Theoretically, quilting wouldn't take long.... And once I sat down and did it, it didn't take long, and I now have a finished baby quilt ready to gift to its little owner (who is now a few months old). The idea for the quilt came from a fat quarter bundle (Flo's Garden from Makower) I'd forgotten I'd bought and a block I saw on Instagram. I can't remember now who had posted it, but it was someone in Australia. I loved the secondary pattern created by repeating the blocks, so worked out the measurements, raided my stash for some coordinating solids and within a very sho...

I have seen and pinned many raw edge applique designs recently - the kind where you stick your fabric down, then set your machine to free motion quilting (without the quilt) and stitch round the edges and add details free-hand. At least that's how I figured it worked. Last Friday I drummed up the courage to have a go. Pencils: minimal colour/shape decisions for the fabrics (and using some scraps), and simple shapes to outline. And I have to say, I'm pretty chuffed with this first attempt. Just as soon as I get some bright coloured zips, this will become a pencil case for my nephew (who last weekend was pretty put out that his sister's crayons were in the same pencil case as his pencils...) Tonight none of my existing projects appealed so I announced I was going to have a play, pulled whatever fabrics were to hand and had another go: a tea cup was floating round in my head and my new Cotton and Steel fabric makes a very nice one, I think. I showed it to my mothe...

Three more blocks complete and I am now totally loving this project after somewhat uncertain beginnings. This block may be my favourite so far. I really love using the charcoal scribble print from Art Gallery. I only had a fat quarter but picked up another half-meter on sale at Fluffy Sheep Quilting yesterday, so this will definitely continue to appear in my blocks! I'm being much more conscious of my colour choices and how they will look against the black sashing I'm going to use, so the white text print on the right of this block should stand out nicely in the final quilt. And the final block. I wish I had more fussy cut-able black/white/grey neutrals like the butterflies - it would definitely have improved this block... The yellow fabrics are Kona Buttercup, Pearl Bracelets, Gleeful by Sew Caroline and Dreamin' Vintage by Jeni Baker (both Art Gallery). I added a bit more Mama Said Sew, a print from Red Rooster's Melrose, Sketch in black and a coupl...

We went away last weekend to celebrate my mother-in-law's 60th Birthday. Fourteen of us descended on an unsuspecting country house hotel near the Scottish border and had a great weekend. We ate well, some of us drank well (there was no WKD Blue left after my sister-in-law had finished drinking cheeky Vimtos...). We spent Saturday at Bamburgh Castle and were so lucky with the weather - I could cope with this view from my living room! Who said the North Sea is grey? Mia seemed to enjoy herself too - look at that grin! And we topped off the weekend with Cards Against Humanity - not an appropriate game for Aunty Barbara, but a big hit with Uncle Gordon! Two days away from my sewing machine, and I was getting severe withdrawal, so Sunday afternoon when we got back home, Michael and Mia napped together on the sofa, I sewed up her new bibs, and then I cut the fabrics for the next set of Patchwork City blocks: curry. But it was only tonight that I got to put them together. ...

I know it's Sunday, but I've only just got to sit at my sewing machine today, and I've had the idea of this project swimming round my head all weekend. Why is it that when you simply cannot sew you have more ideas than ever? Pinterest is a dangerous place, and I've pinned quite a few home-sewn baby bibs recently. I've been busy sorting my scraps by colour, because the longer-term scrap projects I have all need scraps by colour, but for these baby bibs I raided the unsorted scraps for a riot of colour. Part of me worries that once all my scraps are sorted by colour, this type of project will be harder. The reality is that there's a slim chance all my scraps will ever be fully sorted! I used a template I found via Pinterest (from the Nana Company). I used my scraps for the front, and bought a meter of toweling fabric off Ebay for the backs (plenty of fabric for lots of bibs). It took me longest to sew all the scraps together - actually making the bib was ver...

Life is mostly about hand sewing at the moment. February has turned into quite the busy little month and in the evenings I'm finding I would rather sit with hand sewing on the sofa than at my machine. Of course, a lack of sewing times means I have hundreds of ideas swimming around inside my head, desperate to get out! But back to the hand sewing - I have three EPP projects on the go at the moment - some hexies left over from a project I worked on in 2013, some trapies blocks I started at Christmas and some clamshells. I order the paper pieces months (if not years) ago and carefully put them in the box for "one day". Rachel over at Stitched in Color kicked off a Clambake quilt-along a few weeks ago and Anne and Adrianne kicked off the Pantone Colour challenge at about the same time, so I decided to play along with both and pulled out those paper pieces. Turns out that they are quite small - just 2" across the width, and it also turns out that sewing them togeth...

We are moving house. Just five minutes round the corner. It seems like there is tonnes to do, so of course I'm focussing on the important stuff... in the new house, Mia will have a much (much) larger nursery and a bigger room means more wall space. I've decided I'd like to fill it with embroidery hoops, much like this pin. And Michael is happy to go along with it. http://www.purlbee.com/2007/03/02/liberty-of-london-swatch-portraits/ I've spent far too long on Pinterest gathering ideas - you can find my inspiration board here , and this week I've finally started. The plan is that a lot of the hoops will have embroidery, or applique or even small piecing, but I'm also on the look out for some pretty fabrics which would be a focal in themselves, unadulterated by me. This isn't the type of fabric I tend to stash, so I'm keeping my eyes peeled as I go fabric shopping - any excuse! This was the first hoop I completed: no particular reason or special ...

Last weekend I pieced the set of teal blocks for Patchwork City, using Kona Emerald. This block used templates - argh! Not my favourite thing (in case you weren't aware). But by using freezer paper and rotary cutting I managed to get pretty good accuracy and I really like the finished block. This block was just basic rotary cutting - lovely! Though the contrast between some pieces is perhaps not strong enough. And I really like this one too. For the "hourglass" piecing in the centre I foundation pieced the stripes and the side triangles, rather than piecing the stripes traditionally and using templates for the sides. And here are all three together The Teal fabrics I've used are Cotton + Steel; Steel Netorious,  Pearl Bracelets, Art Gallery Oval Elements, Koa Strip (Molakai) and Alison Glass Bike Path. The low volume prints I can identify are Sew Mama Sew by Sweetwater, Indelible from Art Gallery, Pearl Bracelets, a few Stoff prints, Minimalista fro...

Well this BOM is going better than some others... it's month two and I have made the block during the month! I've got this far before - next month will be the real test of it! Curves this month, but just one block, rather than two. I love how this turned out. I did my curves following Leanne's curves video . I've used this in the past and it is brilliant, but it had been a while since I've sewn a curve so I needed a refresher. I didn't use a single pin on the curves and my mothe-in-law declared she hated me - so Linda, if you read this, follow the link above to learn the secret for yourself! Whilst curves were conquered, basic piecing was more an issue - spot the deliberate mistake...which I kind of like and won't be fixing!

I am feeling totally out of this week - life is pretty hectic, but not necessarily in a bad way! We're preparing to move houses, so there is a lot to do - trips to the tip, to the charity shop, to the mortgage advisor... calls for insurance, solicitors, removal company, builder... I don't understand how people can do this every few years - I am never moving again! It's also been hectic because I've had dinner out a number of times  this week - I'm not confessing to how many. lets just say that once we're moved and settled the next thing up is a diet! I briefly tried whilst juggling the move and regular life and it just didn't work, but I've been pinning some appealing recipes in anticipation. But the downside to all of this is I've had very little sewing time. Where I have had a couple of hours I've been had sewing so there has been very little progress. I have no lunch dates for the rest of the week, so hopefully can spend some time relaxi...

Yesterday I was busy working on a baby quilt - Preppy the Whale to be precise. I was on a roll. I gave Mia her bottle and put her down for a nap and went into my own room to pick up the baby monitor, and my eyes fell on a bag of towels I had picked up. Mia has outgrown her baby towels, so I'd bought a few adult bath towels in the Asda sale along with some coordinating flannels with the intention of making some hooded towels.  My eyes also fell on a random piece of flannel left over from blankets I made earlier in the year. There was a match. So rather than carry on making whales, I grabbed towel and flannel, and made a hooded towel. I don't know why I'd been procrastinating (both were clearly on view for the last few weeks in my room). It took a full half an hour. I winged it a bit: I cut the flannel (face cloth) in half diagonally, and sewed it wrong sides together with a triangle of flannel (brushed cotton?) the same size along the longest side, then turned it th...

I love the start of a new year: there are lots of new projects popping up and I feel no guilt in joining them like I do the rest of the year (normally because I joined so many in January). And because of that there aren't too many finishes to share this month: Two mug rugs: one for the Whimsical Woodland Mug Rug Swap - have you noticed my addiction for Urban Threads recently? Another for me using a Lucky Stars pattern and some morning sky inspiration for my colour palette. I finished off a mini quilt to send to my partner in the Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap. I made two 2-in-1 zippy pouches to go with the swap parcels. And my final finish was the Essential Sampler Quilt - my oldest WIP. You can read al about how important this quilt is to me in this post. At the time of writing this, the Schnitzel and Book mini quilt has been received by @nwquiltedcat, but the mug rug is still in transit. I, however, have been very lucky with both of my packages. A fabulous parcel f...