Jennie's Threads

I am definitely getting my money's worth out of Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Forest Pattern. This year I think I've made 6 separate quilts using the pattern or parts of the pattern, and I haven't made the big full size one yet - that's for 2018! This is yet another quilt using the Allie Owl block. Back when I made an Allie Owl baby quilt using just 3 owl blocks, not-so-subtle hints were made by my mother-in-law that she would like one. And then I found the absolute perfect fabric. It's called Feathers and Letters and is by Indigo Fabrics. It's not a make of fabric I'd ever come across before or since, but it was just so perfect that I trusted the shop that was selling it and ordered 3 metres. In our family, a feather symbolises my late father-in-law, and the colours in this fabric were just so.... Linda! I selected the fabrics for the owls based on the colours in this print. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a bundle of Shot Cottons seemed to mat...

This is a quilt that was a year in the making. Last December, improv Christmas Trees were all over Instagram - a tutorial by @diaryofaquilter and I couldn't resist joining in. I made six blocks using the smaller sizes provided. I thought they'd make a nice cushion. Then I made a few more blocks, and then some more and then I had 76 small Christmas Tree blocks. And then it was Christmas. Those 76 blocks helped push me over my target of 1000 blocks in 2016. But once Christmas is over, the last thing I wanted to do was make them into something, so they have sat in my bedroom all year. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them! In the last few months, I finally got round to ordering the minky I wanted to put on the back - red, of course. I pieced the blocks into a usable panel. And I bought some red for some wide uneven borders. It only took me an hour to get a finished quilt top. Then the fun started. This was my first time playing with minky and it.is. slippy! I ch...

There is nothing quite like an impending deadline to get a project finished, and that was certainly the case with this finish. Advent starts on 1st December (in terms of advent calendars, anyway) and Jessica needed an advent calendar. It might have been better if I'd started it earlier... the first challenge was picking out a design. Like Mia's I wanted there to be a central embroidery, surrounded by the pockets, but I could not find an embroidery that fitted the bill. It wasn't until I changed my search to "Christmas Line Drawings" that an absolute gem popped up . It's a Christmas card design and it's perfect. Jessica loves standing on the sofa looking out of the window, and she loves dogs! I needed to make it bigger, so I added some words and then my mother-in-law had a brainwave - I could add the side of a Christmas tree and the final pocket could be a present under it! Perfect! Challenge number 2 was picking a colour scheme. In the end I went with...

So looking back through my blog history, it would seem that I haven't mentioned this project here before, so let me explain. Ever since I saw this quilt, I've wanted to make it, but getting hold of the pattern in the UK seemed impossible. Earlier this year I won a $25 voucher to a Canadian fabric shop, and they had it in stock. They were able to do me a good deal on the postage and so it seemed like a very good use of my voucher. And then @Gnomeangel announced that it would be a quilt along starting in August and ending in December. I decided that this would be the perfect quilt for an Alison Glass rainbow so I started stock-piling fat quarters - such a pretty rainbow! You can just about see the background print at the bottom there, too. The quilt along started just before a number of other quilt alongs finished, and just a day before we went on our summer holiday. I worked really hard before the holidays getting a couple of quilts finished, and I came back with a lul...