Jennie's Threads

In the past I have made the kids decorations to go on the tree. For Mia for her first Christmas, for Jess for her first Christmas (and one for Mia at the same time). I had planned to make them one every year, but last year it just didn't happen and they had shop bought decorations in their Christmas Eve boxes. When we first decorated the Christmas Tree this year, Mia pulled out the handmade ones from previous years and gave them a kiss and excitedly hung them on the tree.  When the shop bought ones came out, they showed no interest in them whatsoever: a pretty good indication that Mummy needs to make handmade ornaments! So this December some handmade felt ornaments were definitely on the to-do list. I picked a pattern that I'd saved on Pinterest ages ago: penguins - pattern by Casa Magubako I took inspiration from the colour ways in the pattern and made one in pink with a purple scarf for Jess And a grey one with a red scarf for Mia. That was me done - tick...

You all know I love a quilt along, and you probably are also aware by now that I have developed quite the enthusiasm for Tula Pink fabrics over the last 10 months. So when the Hidden Agenda pattern was released by Angela Pingle , I did think how good Tula fabrics would be for it. And then she announced a quilt-along and I was sold. This was absolutely the most fun quilt to put together. Obviously with Tula Pink, and obviously in a rainbow. There was quite a lot of laying out and rearranging to get the rainbow effect, but it was definitely good fun. I tweaked the pattern a bit and decided not to include the quarter-square triangle units, so I could display more fussy cutting, but this was one of the easiest quilts to create and I love the finished quilt top. But why isn't it already quilted? Well. While I was making it, I happened to be rummaging through my low volume stash and I though wouldn't it be great to make a low volume version. And then rather than upset th...

Back in September I started piecing a Bjorn Bear quilt for a little boy. It took me a while - not helped by forgetting to cut some pieces to take on retreat with me, but once I'd finished, I really didn't like it. And because of who it was for, I knew it had to be special. It was definitely not special. I sat on it for a month, hoping it would grow on me but it never did. I couldn't even think of a way to salvage what I had done and improve it...So in the end I resigned myself to starting again. The little boy who will get the quilt is half Japanese, so I wanted to be careful that I didn't pick colours or items that would be inappropriate - I'd already sussed out the bears, so stuck with them. Research on number told me that nine was unlucky, so I'd already planned 12 bears, and so I stuck with that. Further research told me red was lucky and white wasn't, so I give you 12 red bears! And I couldn't be happier with it - I love it so much more th...

An embroidery finish! I started this hoop in July last year. It's sat ignored for long periods, but a final push in October and it was done! The pattern is Flora Fields by Threadfolk - If you haven't come across her Instagram account @threadfolk, I can thoroughly recommend it - there are definitely some other patterns in her collection I intend to embroider! It's been a while since I did any embroidery and I really enjoyed getting back to it. It's stitched entirely in DMC 6-stranded embroidery thread, and I used two strands for most if it, with a just a few of the details on the house and the people in one strand. I changed the colours from the original to make it more summer-garden-like, but it was a bit of a gamble knowing how it would turn out! And some hoop guts for you as well - I'm always intrigued by the back of people's work! Yes - I did drag my thread fairly long distances across the back - that was really the nature of the design - If I...

If you follow me on Instagram, you will know that over the course of the last 8-10 months, I've developed a bit of a thing for Tula Pink fabrics. I've curated quite the stash of her older fabrics, loved using Spirit Animal in my Mandolin quilt, bought nearly all of the All Stars fabrics and found a love of fussy cutting. In summer this year, she released a Halloween line called De La Luna. We don't really celebrate Halloween in our house, but Mia is fascinated by it (helped along by Fireman Sam's Spooky Adventures...). And the fabric range didn't scream to me. Until I started seeing it used in Brimfield blocks. This is an English Paper Pieced, curved, block with a great opportunity for a large fussy cut in the centre. And it just so happened that I had an open order with a fabric shop in the US, and adding on a fat quarter bundle was very reasonable. My plan was to order a fat quarter bundle from the US, and then order a few extra pieces once available in the ...

Sloths and Unicorns - not a common combination.... but they happen to be my sister-in-law's two favourite things, so why not put the two together in a quilt? Especially when a favourite designer has two very good patterns! My sister-in-law, Jane, turned 30 this year - back in June, if I'm honest, but quilted gifts made by me are rarely on time! Earlier in the year, I showed her the Lisa the Unicorn pattern by Elizabeth Hartman, and some very unsubtle comments were made about how she'd love a quilt like that! I then remembered the sloths pattern and asked her which she preferred. The obvious answer was that she liked them both! She also likes pink. Pink and grey seemed a reasonably workable palette, so I give you Sloths and Unicorns in pink and grey (with a bit of glitz for the unicorn's horns)! The Elizabeth Hartman patterns are, as always, fabulous. Both of these blocks are more involved than many of her other patterns, but they finish up as 24"/26",...

You may recall that for the last two years I've participated in the Instagram-based quilt-along for Tula Pink's City Sampler hosted by Gnome Angle. The basic premise is that that you post a block a day from the book in order each day for 100 days. And of course by day 100 you have a pile of 6" blocks! The 2016 blocks remain in piles, unsashed and unfinished. However,the 2017 blocks were finished quite promptly after the end of the sew-along as Christmas quilts for Mia and Jess. The 2018 quilt-along started in July when I was feeling particularly rough with this pregnancy, but I forced myself to join in - it was the push I needed to do at least a little bit of sewing, and I figured that by the end of Summer, my energy and sewjo would be back and I would regret not joining in. My energy and sewjo are only just coming back now, as we post our final blocks, but I don't regret joining in at all. I'm glad I did some sewing over the summer! Rather than start a n...

Back in April this year, a sewing friend had a baby boy. Four of us decided that this called for a quilt! We settled on the Bjorn Bear pattern, and started by selecting a backing fabric and working with the colours from there - duck egg blue, orange and grey (to match his nursery). We split the piecing of the bears between us, Jules sashed it, I quilted it (just a cross hatch), Rose bound it, and Dona created the label! It so happened that the backing fabric we picked also comes in peach, so we bough a half meter of this colour-way and made his big sister a matching cushion! This is such a good pattern and I love the bear's glasses! I'm making a rainbow version for a different baby and I have to say, even as a rainbow lover, this quilt definitely looks better in a limited colour palette... I need to do something about the other quilt, but I haven't decided what yet... so no photo!

I have to confess that when I first wrote my Finish Along list for this quarter, I wasn't sure if this project would actually be made, let along be one of my first finishes! But here is my finished Sewing Date Traveller! I first came across the pattern at the start of the summer and mentally added it to my list of one-day-I'd-like-to-make things. Then at the Sewing Shindig, I saw a few in real life, and it was added to the list for certain. I'd already picked up some Essex Yarn Dyed Linen with this project in mind, and the Shindig weekend convinced me to use Tula Pink's Zuma for the rest of it. This can be blamed on @rosedahlia who made a beautiful Sew Together bag in Zuma over the weekend, and Olive and Flo Handcraft who had a pop up shop with, you guessed it, Zuma! The interfacing on this project scared me a bit - and was the main reason I wasn't sure it would get done. The pattern  (which is free!) calls for Pellon 65 which I couldn't source in this coun...

A promised in my Finish Along Q4 plan post, the wee braw bag is my first finish of the quarter. It was made as a swap for our North East Modern Quilt Guild Retreat, which took place last weekend. We spent the weekend in a beautiful cottage in the Northumberland countryside, sewing and eating cake. The cottage kitchen/diner was perfect for sewing with a big table, space for a few extra tables, a sofa for hand sewing and tonnes of floor space for laying out blocks. And there was a separate living room for Strictly! Everyone was very productive and the projects we were all working on were gorgeous. We won't discuss the spiders at length, suffice to say they were HUUUUUUGE! Picture stolen from @lupilotty cause I forgot to take any photos of the cottage But back to the Wee Braw Bag....I was making for Tina, who I know very well, but that didn't make it any easier to pick out fabrics. Until I remembered I had this sugar skulls fabric (it's from Michael Miller, but there was...

If you have read my previous blog post, you'll know I've recently attended the Sewing Shindig retreat in Shropshire. Part of the retreat was a swap between Room Mates. You can see what Andrea made for me in my original retreat post. So here's what I made for Andrea. We decided to keep things simple as I'm lacking in energy and she was lacking in time, so we agreed on one pouch from Aneela's Stitched Sewing Organizers book, and then a couple of little extras to go with it. I started by making the fold-up sewing folio. I wasn't sure of Andrea's tastes in fabrics, so I thought this print was inoffensive and pretty. I then went a bit bolder and paired it with lime green and a coral! I also made a matching needlecase - the pattern is from the same book. And I added some delicious chocolate truffles! I have made both of these items in the past for myself and find them very useful - I hope she does too!