Jennie's Threads

Every year since 2016 I've joined in with @gnomeangel and her sew along to sew 100 blocks in 100 days and each time it has been great fun. The first three years we used the Tula Pink City Sampler pattern. Some of the blocks I made are now finished quilts, but not all of them. That did not stop me joining in again this year. A new pattern, designed by @gnomeangel and @skyberries called the Kinship Fusion Sampler: a mix of 8"x 8" and 8" x 4" blocks. I started with plans to make two quilts: one rainbow one using my stash and one batik one. The batik one is still very much in progress and I wasn't able to keep up with a block a day for this quilt. But the rainbow one is now all together as a quilt top. Now I need to decide on a backing and get it basted, quilted and finished!

If you're on Instagram you might have seen a flurry of teeny tiny pincushions recently.... there's been a bit of a party, and I couldn't help but join in! I took the opportunity to make some tiny pincushions for my guild buddies for our recent retreat (more on that to come!). Here are most of the pinnies all together, but the hexagon one below was made a bit later so missed the group show. It's made from a tutorial by @cloudtori and uses some Zuma fabric and Tula Pink Designer Solids. This scrap of Alison Glass fabric was begging for some embroidery and I know just the person who loves green I couldn't resist this little frog so made him into a teeny tiny polaroid block A scrap of Liberty left over from my Summer Sampler cobined with some really lovely Essex Linen and the cutest pink button. A pineapple. Of course. He's a little but wonky.... This is one of two tiny embroidered pinnies each finishing at 1.5" square. The den...

...there was a duck! Obviously! As you saw in my last post, I had an absolute ball at Sewing Shindig back in September. It was such a good weekend! On the Sunday morning I did a class with  Mrs Moog a.k.a. Lesley . She makes the most amazing pouches from recycled fabrics and free motion embroidery. I love the puffins! Her class was on free motion embroidery. It's a technique I've done in the past and enjoyed, but not for a long time. I had a plan of what I wanted to make, but we had to start off with practice practice practice. Lesley provided scraps and off we went. I started off with some words... my sister-in-law's favourite saying. Then I tried some doodling - this is the duck I used to doodle at school - It's pretty much the only thing I can draw. It went pretty well... I added some words... I was quite please.... I added some leaves. Not bad. In fact I was pleased enough with it that I wanted to do something with it. Instead of carrying on free motion...

Two weeks ago I had just got home from a really fabulous weekend. It was full of laughter, sewing, amazing food, very generous gifts and some of the most amazing people! I spent the weekend in the middle of nowhere near Church Stretton in Shropshire for the Sewing Shindig. Two and a half days of nothing but sewing and eating! It was lovely to meet, or catch up with some of the lovely people I chat to online every day! Not my photo - Pennie's! There was the option of taking two classes: I decided not to do the full day class and instead worked on my Fancy Forest Owls - here they are all together - one is a little sheepish - we were talking too much and I had a bit of a whoopsie. But he's so cute, and resulted in such laughter that I couldn't bring myself to unpick him! I also worked on my Kinship quilt, my penguin parade quilt, my tall tales quilt... on the second day I took part in a brilliant class with @mrs_moog - more on that in another blog post. I saw so many ...

Are you ready for what is potentially my most epic list ever??? No, neither am I. But a girl can dream of being this productive! First up are the things I *need* to finish this year... well before Christmas really. 1. Joshua needs an advent calendar: Jess and Mia didn't get theirs until their second Christmas, but Joshua will be nearly one by Christmas and I think Jess and Mia will ask why he doesn't have one. I've found some fabulous reindeer line drawings on Pinterest - it's a dead link, so no idea what the source is, but I think I can make them work. 2-4. Every year, with one exception, I've made the girls a new Christmas Tree decoration each. They love pulling them out from previous years and proudly hanging them on the tree, so it's a tradition I'd like to keep up. I've bought an embroidery pattern from Threadfolk to make a couple for the girls and I'm on the lookout for one for Josh. 5. And Josh needs a Santa Sack (like a stocking, but ...

Well, it has certainly not been my most productive quarter! My original list contained a mere 17 items, but apparently I need lists of far more in order to be productive! I have just three finishes - the final of which is this hoop. And I cannot beleive it is only now being added to the list of finishes! I made this EPP block way back at the start of the year: it was a trial block for the Alexandria quilt designed by Jodie @talesofcloth. I trialled Zuma fabrics by Tula Pink and didn't feel it would work for the whole quilt, so I started again. But this little centre remained, unloved. I took about half an hour to applique it the background fabric, which is Tula Pink Designer Solids in Cajun. That was several months ago. And you know what, it took a whole 15 minutes to put it in a hoop and call it done! Also finished this month was the moth pouch: I changed my plans a few times with this, but eventually decided that done was better than perfect, and I love the result! Mostl...

I finished this quilt a few weeks ago - even though I'm not blogging very regularly, I am sewing lots still, and even finishing a few things! This is Lisa the Unicorn pattern by Elizabeth Hartman. I started it over a year ago... but ignored it for long periods of time. I got the quilt top finished towards the end of my maternity leave, then ignored it some more, until a few weeks ago when I finally got round to basting it and quilting it. The manes are all selected from my stash and the faces are made from Dashwood Twist in either gold on white or silver on white. When it came to quilting, I free motioned pebbles on the unicorns face, match-stitcks on the manes, spirals on the horns and a large scale stipple on the background, all in matching threads. This is now squirreled away in a cupboard until Christmas when it will be Jessica's. If I get a quilt for Mia finished between now and then! This is a Finish Along finish. You can find my original list here . ...

I love a good pouch! They can be quick to make, or embellished with piecing and embroidery and hand quilting. I've got a few patterns I turn to again and again. One of those is the Speedy Vinyl Pouch pattern by Aneela Hoey. I've taken part in a swap recently (I'll blog more about that soon), but one of the extras was "a notion": I picked up some of my favourite hand piecing threads and needles, and made a tiny pincushion, but decided to make a pouch to put them all in. I picked Liberty as my focus fabric, and lined it with some denim from an old pair of jeans. This is the medium sized pouch and perfectly held the bits and bobs. While I was making one pouch, I thought I'd make two. I love the way I store my threads in my All in One Box Pouch (also by Aneela) but I have just a few too many threads for the front pocket. So I downsized the medium Speedy Vinyl Pouch (not all the way to the small size - just enough so it fits inside the all in one pou...