Jennie's Threads

After all that waiting she's here. Jessica Violet arrived at 16.55 on 20th April weighing 8lb 11oz. We stayed in hospital overnight and had a handmade homecoming courtesy of Gran. Mia is totally in love with her little sister! And Jessica hasn't yet thrown up on her new quilt!

Just a week into Q2 of the 2016 Finish Aling and I have a finish! And it's not the baby... not yet. I've made this quilt twice now: Firstly as a mini quilt to swap in the UK Mini Swap on Instagram - that quilt now lives in Sweden with @Birchandbirdsong. But as I was cutting it, I knew I would struggle to give it away if I didn't make myself one too. I raided my scraps for the slivers, but couldn't quite squeeze the low volumes from what I had in my scrap boxes, so they came from stash! The layout of the two quilts is slightly different as I didn't reference the first when piecing the second and there was the odd fabric I only had enough of for one sliver. The quilting is dense matchstick quilting, echoing the direction of the sliver. I quilted a lap quilt yesterday in an all over stipple (just add binding and it's another finish....) and used nearly as much thread to quilt the lap quilt as this cushion. At the moment the cushion cover definitely...

Yesterday, as Baby has not yet put in an appearance, I spent the day sewing. To start with I stitched up the four 6" corner blocks that go around the very centre of this medallion quilt. These were pretty monstrous if I'm honest. Lots of pieces and fiddly piecing. The purple one is very different from the original which I really didn't like, but the other three are as designed. Yes - there were sneaky Y-seams too. I used my seam ripper way more than usual and considered calling it a day on all sewing until baby brain wears off. If that ever happens! And then I had eight 3" blocks to catch up with for the dark border. These were blissfully straightforward compared to the 6" blocks. Although I probably overdid it, I had a great sense of achievement getting back up to date. This morning I sat down to check my colour spread. I have a plan, and I've been trying to keep track of how many blocks of each colour I've completed, but I'd lost track som...

Sometimes there is no logic involved in why I put a project down and ignore it for a few months and just as little logic as to why I pick it up again. It's been months since I really worked on my La Passacaglia quilt but this weekend I picked it up again. My large rosette made entirely with fabric from Carolyn Friedlander's Architextures range (one of my all time favourite fabric ranges, now greatly diminished in my stash) was so close to being finished I have no idea why I didn't. On Saturday I got it finished and it only took a few hours! I love it. And a huge thanks must go to the oodles of people over on Instagram who made my weekend by liking it! On a roll, and I finally went back to one of the smaller rosettes. I had cut enough star pieces to make this with 8 stars, but after piecing 3 of those last summer I decided I didn't like the contrast and stopped at a much smaller rosette. In the intervening months it's grown on me, and yesterday I finally ad...

Yesterday I cut out fabric for three one-hour baskets. I also picked out fabric ready to cut for a new La Passacaglia rosette. That was my plan whilst Mia is at the child minders today. But all I wanted to do was play with scraps. So that is what I did. I have a scrap basket on my desk which is overflowing so I tipped it upside down. I made two panels using any piece that I fancied in any order, piecing and trimming for a good few hours. And I even had a purpose. I've been using this zippy to carry around my La Pas sewing since last summer. It's a wash bag that cost me 50p from a charity shop. It's worked well, but I can do prettier! So I turned those two panels into a dumpy little zippy pouch which I'm calling my Preggosaurus Pouch. I cut my exterior and interior panels at 11.5" x 8.5", added zipper tabs to both ends of that fabulous lime green zip and then boxed the corners at a generous 2.5" to create a rotund little number perf...

You may consider me foolish to even attempt a finish this quarter...  I know I won't get much opportunity to sew in Baby's first few months, but I'm hopeful for the odd hour of Daddy time when I'm awake enough to safely operate a sewing machine. I have no idea what project I'll want to work on if I do get the chance, so I'll list everything. Again. But the first project I'm listing is new to the FAL list: it's Mia's big girl quilt. For the first 5-6 months, Baby will sleep in our bedroom, but after that she will move into the nursery and Mia will move into her new bedroom and a full size single bed. Which means Mia needs a big-girl quilt for her big-girl bed in her big-girl bedroom. I have two blocks finished, and lots more to make. Another new project is one that I cut out just this week: It's a while since I fell head over heels in love with a fabric line, but Paperie from Art Gallery really did get me. It's not at all my normal choi...

Anyone who has a little girl must be able to relate to my problem: hair clips. You start with matching pairs. In a pot. In the bedroom. And within just a few days you end up with no matching pairs and clips scattered throughout the house, in the car, in pockets. In fact, everywhere. Mia loves her clips and bobbles. I'm not such a fan, so I started hunting on Pinterest (read, wasting time on Pinterest) looking for a tutorial to make some kind of pretty hair clip pouch thing. I found loads, but it was often from the same non-existent source. Or they were for sale rather than providing a tutorial. That was a couple of months ago. I even picked out some pretty fabrics. Yesterday I got a sudden urge to get my arse in gear and actually make it. And after all of the procrastination it took just a couple of hours. Briefly, this is what I did: Fabric and cutting: Exterior fabric: 6" x 16.5" Interior fabric: 6" x 16.5" Wadding: approx 7" x 18...

In my previous blog post I said that maybe I would piece more #365 blocks or maybe I would go into labour. To update that, neither happened. People have asked me recently if I am nesting in anticipation of the baby.... the short answer is no. I'm no domestic goddess. Mum came last week - she nested on my behalf. I quilt. And so today I have a very unexpected finish to share with you. This time last year I started a baby quilt. Grey and yellow half square triangles. I did all the hard work, piecing, pressing and trimming the HST units back in July, and then never put it together. It took me just three hours yesterday morning to complete the quilt top, I basted it at our local quilt group yesterday evening, quilted it this morning, bound it this afternoon and photographed it before Mia went to bed. "Want to sleep, Mummy" Why oh why do we leave things for so long that are so quick to finish? We've decided to keep this quilt, rather than gift it as origi...

Two days, two epic piecing sessions: I'd fallen behind on the block-a-day #365 Quilt Challenge blocks this month. It was inevitable really...  I didn't make any blocks  the week of 14th March - the time I had set aside to catch up I spent in hospital... and I didn't make any from Easter till the end of March as we had guests. But I printed off all the instructions, picked out loads of fabric and spent a fair few hours cutting it up. Then onto the piecing. I knew that the first missing week was about mitres. Or in other words Y-seams. Not my favourite but I am able to do them. I was very chuffed with this block on day one! And then this block on day two. But if I never see another mitred seam again it will be too soon. Here are my newly-pieced 6" blocks: And my latest 3" blocks. I apologise for the really bad indoor nighttime photos.... but this is as much energy as I have at the moment.... maybe at some point I'll take som...