Jennie's Threads

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!

I went away on retreat a few weeks ago. It was my first retreat and I wasn't sure about signing up to start with, but I am so glad I took the plunge! The retreat took place at Eaton Manor in Shropshire - literally in the middle of nowhere! It was run by the very lovely @tuppencehapennyquilts - she was a force to be reckoned with and the organisation and planning that went into the retreat were phenomenal. Her partner, Patrick, did all the cooking for us for the weekend - the only guy on site! But the food was amazing! The homemade flat bread with chicken and dips and veg and salad was fabulous, and I have never had such good sausage and mash! My room-mate for the weekend was Andrea @frustrated_crafter. I didn't know Andrea at all when the room mates were first announced, but it turns out she lives very near where we go on holiday every year, so we were able to meet for coffee over the summer and get to know each other, which was either a huge coincidence, or some very clever ...

Quarter 3 was definitely not my most productive quarter, with just one finish. It was however, a finish that took a lot of work and that I love. But by finishing it, I seem to have re-found my sewjo, so I'm writing my Q4 list with that in mind! Let's see if we can tick some things off the list, as recently I've been adding things faster than I've been completing them.... not really anything new! Bjorn Bear Quilt: a 12-block baby quilt for a little boy. Seven blocks are done already - here you can see that whilst working them on the recent Sewing Shindig retreat, I forgot to take the chin pieces, so they were square-jawed and unfinished - those 7 blocks are now finished and five more are cut waiting. Sloths and Unicorns Quilt: the quilt is pieced, the backing is pieced, the quilt is quilted. I just need to get the binding on.  Marcelle Medallion: I started this back in Spring as part of a quilt along. The quilt-along is long finished, but I have this in mind...