Jennie's Threads

We're another ten blocks into the #100days100blocks project so here is another round up of ten-things-about-me! Block 31: James This one is for my nephew. The first time I made this quilt, I made this block in his favourite colour: green so it didn't look quite as girly! Block 32: Jessica Violet And for my youngest daughter. The quilts I've made from this book will always be associated with my children. Block 33: Breakfast Church My mother-in-law is very involved in the local Methodist Church and they've started running Breakfast Church one Sunday a month. We finally made it this week, spurred on by the promise of bacon sandwiches. It was a lovely, family oriented service, and a great way to introduce a toddler to church. Block 34: Alnwick Gardens We live about half an hour away from Alnick and have a year's membership to the garden. It's a great place for Mia to run and let off some energy. The water features are beautiful and the gardens...

I started the Splendid Sampler with the idea of making just a few blocks - the ones I really loved, with no pressure. The thing is that I like most of the blocks. I particularly love the variety of techniques involved: basic piecing, foundation pieces, applique, embroidery... I'm not attaching any pressure to this and I've not even made half of the blocks that have been published so far, but I'm enjoying making a few every so often and it's been a couple of months since I shared any here. Snug as a Bug: this was one of the early blocks that I went back to and loved stitcing up: I was so pleased with the yellow detail to the bedspread. Sew South Stitch in the Garden: I really have enjoyed the embroidery blocks: I adapted some of the fillers from another project for the largest thread reel. Lemonade Dashing By Chocolate Simple Surprises: so simple but I really love it - might be that Alison Glass background! Flights of Friendship Pencils: I...

I couldn't decide which quilt to enter in the Bloggers Quilt Festival this time round, so luckily we can enter two. You can read all about my Pixelated Heart Quilt here , but the second quilt I'm entering is Jessica's quilt: Our second daughter, Jessica, was born in April this year, and I was determined she would have a quilt when she arrived. She kept us waiting - I was 12 days overdue when she finally make an appearance, but she came home to her very own quilt. The idea for this came from a quilt by Lee from Freshly Pieced, but as I live in the EU (for now, at least) I was unable to purchase the pattern at the time, and so drafted my own paper piecing template. I'd been inspired by the colours of a sunrise for months, and it seemed appropriate for a baby quilt so I put the two together and came up with this. Apart from the background fabric, all of the fabrics were straight from my stash and there are a few fabrics which appear not only in this quilt, b...

It's Bloggers Quilt Festival time again. I love looking at all of the pretties and finding new people to follow and inspiration to pin. This year I'm entering a quilt in the rainbow category . This is my pixelated heart quilt. I signed up to a workshop with Katy "I'm a Ginger Monkey" Jones in summer 2015 to make the pixelated heart pattern that had appeared in one of the early (maybe the first) issues of Quilt Now. The pattern calls for, I think, seven fabrics and a background and in some cases more than a fat quarter. Unfortunately my stash consists mostly of fat quarters, so I was struggling to find fabric for this quilt without buying more. Then I had one of those stupid brainwaves: one week before the class, I decided to go rainbow scrappy and cut from all of my fat quarters: a rainbow heart and a low volume background. I multi-tasked and cut the sky for My Small world quilt at the same time - I haven't finished that yet! Piecing this q...

Ever since Jess was born I have been behind on this project, I knew it would happen: any sensible person would not have chosen a year in which a new baby was expected, to do a block of the day challenge. But I've been determined to catch up... At its worst I was about 84 blocks behind and the catch up has been incremental: I would have a spurt and make 15 blocks in a day, but then not make anymore for ten days, so the reality was I had only caught up five blocks! A block every day is absolutely unrelenting! It's been a while since I shared the journey here on my blog so I thought it was about time I did: April,  May and June could not have been a worse time for falling behind. We moved on from the 3" blocks: whilst some of the three inch blocks were truly ridiculous in terms of number and size of pieces, this was nothing compared to some of the 6" blocks that were to come! July and August brought respite: or so I thought... back to the 3" blocks. I ha...

Please don't ask why, but all of a sudden I've got a plan to make fruit quilts.... Here's the first,  a mini quilt pieced entirely from scraps. There's a lot of pineapples about at the moment, but this is my own layout. The size will be repeated for a few more mini quilts so watch this space. I find it amazing that I've pieced a mini quilt from scraps that are small enough that most people I know simply throw them away. It's like free fabric! The thing is, that I seem to have rather a lot of it, and this little quilt didn't make so much as a dent in it! Linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday.

I love this project. I love making the blocks - they are beautifully simple compared to other projects I'm working on, so go together very quickly, resulting in almost instant gratificaton. Also, check out the hashtag on instagram for some gorgeous blocks, mostly far better photographed than mine. Here's my round-up of the next ten blocks: Block 21: Motherhood The way that central piece of fabric is cocooned in the outer fabric made me think of motherhood back when I was pregnant with Mia. Block 22: Six Brothers My maternal Grandfather was one of six brothers: Harry, Walt, Gordon, Frank, Eddie and Ken. All six joined up: two in the navy, two in the airforce and two in the army. All six went to war in the 1940s and all six came home. I thought that should be celebrated. Block 23: Harrogate Each year we go to a quilt show in Harrogate to be inspired and spend lots of money on fabric! This year was no exception. I came home with a light purse, heavy bags a...

Back to this project and a little bit of "ten things about me"...again! Block 11: Tall Ships Blyth was hosting the Tall Ships Regatta this past bank-holiday weekend: it was fantastic and deserved to be remembered in these blocks! Block 12: Michael This one's for my husband, Michael. Block 13: Finish Along The Finish Along led by a group of global hosts is a really important feature of my sewing. It really encourages me to finish, as well as start, projects and has pushed me to finish those projects over the years which could truly have become long-term ignored! I imagine the quilts from this project will eventually end up on one of these lists. Block 14: Mum Doesn't take much explanation. This one's for my Mum. Block 15: Driver and Navigator When I met Michael's family I got drawn into an annual family holiday: The Berwick Classic. This is a classic car rally which takes place in and around Berwick Upon Tweed a...