Jennie's Threads

Here's our final installment of 'ten things about Jennie'! Block 91: Fight I've just learned that one of my best friends has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She has a hell of a fight ahead of her. It took me a long time to decide on a name for this block - it was nearly "Cancer Sucks" - too many people I know have been lost to cancer. But the thing is that other people I know have to fight against other illnesses too, so "Fight" is inclusive of them too. Block 92: Grandad Reeds This is for my maternal Grandfather - the one who called me poppet, served apple pies and was the eldest of six brothers, who went to war and all came home. His mission in retirement was to earn as much from his pension as he had from his salary. And I believe he achieved it! He passed away in 2008. Block 93: Ben This is for my husband's cousin. He is Jessica's godfather and one of the undateable - see below! Block 94: Mrs. MacBeth During...

Another finish - I promise I'll start sharing some progress posts again soon, but believe me, a lot of progress is going on to get to these finishes! For now, this has to be my favourite of the recent abundance of finishes (I was looking for a good collective noun I could use for my finishes and got very distracted - did you know that a group of Flamingos is called a flamboyance of flamingos - how good is that? If you have ten minutes to waste, try googling collective nouns!) Anway. This project started out as many do, on a bit of a whim, and became, as many do, far more involved than originally planned. I had planned to embroider the cat for Mia, who likes cats, and either make it into a cushion by itself, or frame it in a hoop. Bee Curious The pattern came from the Moda Bake shop website and is called the Bee-Utiful quilt. It was designed by Pamela Morgan. She released 20 blocks finishing at about 12" (I think). I ended up picking out the nine I liked best, an...

On a roll with the finishes at the moment! I finished this last week, but it's taken me until the weekend to combine weather and daylight to get some photographs. I tried to convince my little helper to hold the quilt, but it didn't quite work! Anyway: this is a quilt I started back in July at a wonderful workshop with Sarah Fielke hosted by the lovely ladies at Simply Solids in Huddersfield. You can read all about the workshop here - suffice to say it was the hottest day of the year in a room where the large windows didn't open! I had grand plans at the start of the day of a full quilt, but the reality was that the technique ate low volume fabric just a bit too quickly for my liking. I stuck with the single word I made on the day and knew that I was never going to get any further. I added a bit more background and quilted it up. A bit of purple binding and I have a finish. It's 36" x 12" and might end up on Jessica's bedroom wall. T...

This is a Finish Along repeat offender! But finally I can tick it off the list. I started these blocks last summer (as in summer 2015) on a whim. I had very little plan other than each block had a warm colour and cool colour - with purple muddying the water a little! I had originally thought a cushion would be a good idea, then I realised they could make a baby quilt, then I realised just how many blocks I would need to make a baby quilt, then I added in the blank alternate squares. At no point in that whole process did I love it. And at times I hated it. I finished the quilt top this summer, and hated it. So it sat on a shelf. Then my husband said two things in different conversations: firstly, two of his work colleagues were expecting babies, and secondly that he quite liked the quilt. Sorted. I found a backing in my stash, layered it up, quilted a cross hatch, bought some aqua for the binding and it was finished in just a few days. And I have to confess that now it is ...

Our penultimate trip into the crazy world of 100 things about Jennie! Block 81: Aunty Mary This is for my husband's Great Aunt, Aunty Mary. She is the sister of Aunty Margaret, whose block can be found at number 27! Block 82: Pyjama Day Because that is exactly what we had on the day of this block. Every so often, you just need to slob out for the day and not bother. It was lovely! Block 83: Grandad Tom This is for my paternal Grandfather. He was actually called Eric, but with the surname Thomas, he'd been known as Tom forever. He was the grandparent I know least about, but he loved woodworking and built us our wendy house at the bottom of the garden. Michael's Grandad was also called Thomas (his block is #74). Block 84: Sampler Quilts In case you hadn't noticed I have a bit of an addiction... the quilts I'm working on with this hashtag #100days100blocks is just the tip of the iceberg! Block 85: Princesses We're a big fan: Jasmi...

Back in the summer I finished a quilt for some friends following the Jane Austen Sampler Quilt tutorials and using Sweet Serenade by Basic Grey. That whole process went very smoothly, and our friends loved the quilt. I say smoothly. I had one little hiccup... one block. It should have measured 12" finished, instead it measured 10.5" finished. I remade it for the quilt, and the block got put with the other orphan blocks I own. The other week, I took it out, added some mitred borders (the #365quiltchallenge means I'm definitely not scared of mitres anymore!) and quilted it up. I had enough of the border print fabric from the quilt left over to back it, and I followed my favourite zipped back tutorial to finish it off . It's quite a petit cushion at 14", at least by my standards, but it will look good with the quilt. This is a Finish Along finish - you can find my original, slightly daft, list here .

There's a bit of an ugly Christmas Sweater thing going on over on Instagram. I didn't pay it much attention to start with. And then I kept seeing it pop up. I checked out the pattern. Decided I didn't love it enough to pay £5. But I kept seeing it and thinking about it. So today I happily paid my £5 and made one straight away! This is now the world's largest Christmas pincushion! The penguin fabric was something I received in a swap somewhere along the line. I didn't have much, but managed to cut out the front of the jumper, and the full backing square for the pincushion. The green for the sleeves doesn't quite much but #sewmystash2016 ! And you can't beat red polka dots, can you?  I didn't really intend to make any more of these... but it's the perfect size to add into the Splendid Sampler as a replacement for one of the blocks I'm not so keen on - perhaps not a Christmassy themed one though. And I do have a snowman print from the sam...

{following on from yesterday's post...} Our neighbour's grandson needed a quilt too. Whilst Orla, who is 3, clearly loves yellow, Hugo who isn't yet a year, hasn't yet expressed such a preference. So we took the safe option and went for blues and greens. This time we started with a backing fabric, which we picked up in Harrogate (at the back in the above photo). It was a lovely ombre fabric from light blue to dark blue, dark green and light green. I mached the fabrics for the front to these colours, and ended up with quite a small colour palette, to which I added a pop of red. I used the same setting as his sister's quilt, but the fifteen blocks are all different. The blue sashing and negative space is Kona Copen, and I used the same fabric to bind it. Here you can see both quilts together pre-binding. I quilted it with the same 30/60 degree cross hatch as the yellow quilt. Here you can see the backing, and the fundamental error I made when plannin...