Jennie's Threads

Back when I first saw Carolyn Friedlander's Collection Quilt, I knew I wanted to make it. It took a while to arrive in the UK, but back in December, Simply Solids announced their block of the month programme for it: the pattern plus all the fabric you need. This was perfect for me - I simply couldn't justify the cost of the pattern and all the fabrics all at once, as some other shops were offering. I signed up straight away. Received my first envelope and made the first block. The whole quilt is made with hand applique - not a technique I have a lot of experience with. The first block was straight lines. The instructions were to bast 1/4" from the edge of the fabric, then needle-turn to this basted line. I basted on the machine. Easy peasy. Except when I took the basting stitches out, there were a few holes in the fabric that didn't want to go away. Then life got in the way, as life has a habit of doing. I'm going to blame pregnancy - it's a good excuse...

I've sucessfully got through the first ten days of the #100days100blocks sew along over on Instagram. One of the lovely things about the book is that Tula gives you the opportunity to name the blocks yourself, so that the blocks tell your story. I named the blocks when I first made them to tell my story in 2013. Now in 2016, my story is a bit different, so I've changed the names in some places. So here's my 2016 story: Block 1: Temptation I'm always tempted with sew-alongs and blocks of the day/week/month.... Block 2: Ellie-Jo This one is for my neice - she's just 11 months older than Mia and these girls are "best friends"! I love how these two blocks looks together. They will go into two different quilts, but I'm having to use every ounce of self control not to start a quilt just of this block - wouldn't it look amazing? OK - I gave in. I ordered more of the greys and I'm excited for this one! Block 3: Rolling Three...

2016 is the year of the block. Of the day, of the week, of the month - I'm not really fussed. That doesn't mean to say I'm up to date with any of them... #365quilt challenge (daily): I'm 45 blocks behind Splendid Sampler (bi-weekly): 24 blocks behind plus a few bonus blocks still to make Zodiac BOM (monthly): 5 behind Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt (weekly): God knows how many behind - I haven't touched this in quite a few months... 35-40 maybe? Summer Sampler (weekly): 7 behind. Can you see a pattern developing? But you know what - it's not stopping me starting something new. Unless you've been living under a rock or aren't on Instagram, you will have likely stumbled across the #100days100blocks hashtag. It's been organized by @gnomeangel, @ sunflowerquilting and @sweetlittlepretties and the idea is that each day for 100 days you sew and post the blocks from Tula Pink's City Sampler book. It starts tomorrow. I've already...

Last Christmas I confessed my absolute disinterest in Star Wars and shared the Darth Vader cushion I made for a young man who does not share that disinterest! That same young man turned seven a month ago. This time I picked Yoda. The pattern is by Quiet Play and is available free on Craftsy . It's foundation pieced, and despite appearances, it's a straightforward block to make - it took just a few hours start to finish, including "help" from a certain small person: "Can I do the scissors, Mummy?" There are many advantages to having a scissor function on a machine. Your two-year-old learning what the button does is not one of them! But it involves her and interests her in sewing in a safe manner, so I try and let her when she asks. She set up her own sewing area yesterday complete with sewing machine, iron and fabric scraps! The pattern doesn't include the eyes, but I felt I needed to add them - the black is machine raw-edge appliqued a...

Rewind 16 weeks. I was 41 weeks and 4 days pregnant. Too pregnant. Huge. Fed up. I was booked in for induction. Call the maternity ward at 1pm to check if you can go in at 2pm as planned. Lunch at Weatherspoons. Home and on the phone. "Sorry, we're really busy this afternoon and don't have room for you. Call back at 5pm". I think 'disappointed' best described my emotions. So I had four hours to kill. I decided to pull down my scrap basket and do some mindless piecing. I cut little pieces 2"x 1" and pieced them into sets of three without much more thought than colours together. It was what I needed. By the time I called the maternity ward back at 5 I had a nice little pile of them. The maternity ward told me to leave it half an hour then come in, but they couldn't guarantee I would be seen quickly. In the end my waters weren't broken until 5.30am the next morning. Jessica arrived just 11 hours later. A few days later, the first sewin...

It's that time of year again - we take a week out to enjoy some fabulous music and good company - all with very poor phone signal and practially no internet! This year was my 27th festival, Michael's 13th festival (I think), Mia's 3rd festival and Jessica's 1st festival! We spent a week at my parent's house first which was lovely and relaxing before the slightly less relaxing festival week. We spent a few days in the garden with the paddling pool, we went to the zoo and we just stopped and relaxed and enjoyed spending time together as a family. Walking like the elephants - trunks holding tails! Sidmouth festival is slightly more manic - there are something like 60 events each day: concerts, workshops, sessions, children's events, dances... even the most energetic festival goer only gets to a small portion of the events and with two small children in tow we saw relatively few. But what we did see was fantastic: first up the concerts - John McCuske...

Lots has happened this month! Notably I think I have blogged more. And that's down to planning: at the start of the month, I sat down and planned some blog posts, and in the most part I have stuck to that plan! I'll try it again for August and see if I can keep it up. So what was I actually sewing? Well, for starters, my monthly block count is 70! A total mix of projects! Zippy pouches. Lots of zippy pouches. I shared two here : a boxy zippy for my perle threads, and an open wide pouch for taking stuff when I go out and sew. Followed by a C&S black and white pouch for my black and white EPP project, and a blue and pink number for a travel play set for Mia. A bit of a thing for black, white, grey and bright pink going on. I finished two quilts: a baby quilt - Quasar II And a whopper - Jane Austen Family Album I had a ball at a workshop with Sarah Fielke I did a bit of charity stitching And I made good progress on both the Splendid Sampler and...