Jennie's Threads

 You know me and a good sew along.... so when the Cariad Modern Quilt Guild organised a Plaidish Quilt sew along, I got drawn in! But it's been a brilliant decision and made a massive difference to lock-down for me!  The Plaidish Quilt pattern is by Kitchen Table Quilting and is all squares and rectangles. The hardest part is selecting your fabrics and sorting them into lights, mediums and darks - if you get that right, you get the plaidish look!   Using a black and white filter on your camera is a really good way of checking the values of your fabrics - There were some fabrics I had originally picked out which really didn't work once I'd done this check... and even once I'd got to this point, I was worried that there wasn't enough contrast between my mediums and lights! I used only fabrics from my stash - purples, pinks, aquas, peaches and low volume. It was a lot of cutting, but once you've got that out of the way, the construction is split into three types o...

 I made another two pouches in the last couple of months. If you've ever come across the pouches designed by Aneela Hoey , you'll know how amazing they are, and as soon as she released the patterns for the Flip Pocket Folio and the Four Pocket Case they went on my list! The biggest struggle was deciding what fabric to use on the outsides. I started with the Flip Pocket Folio and decided to use a pattern by Berene Campbell (designer of the Hello friend block I used for a cushion and a pouch ) - I love the Stitch On banner pattern but to make it fit I had to shrink it to 50% - that made from pretty tiny piecing, but the pattern is so good that it went together beautifully! Lots of pink on the inside and this is the perfect pouch for all my hand sewing threads. Aneela's instructions are very clear and the vinyl sewing went without a hitch - though I can recommend  a teflon foot! For the second pouch, the Four Pocket Case , I used a mini charm pack of Tilda fabrics from The C...

It's a well known fact that Alison Glass designs the best fabrics - turns out she runs pretty good sew alongs too. Last year was the Trinket Sew Along and this year was the Mini Series sew along . I was a bit on the fence to start with... the cost of the patterns was a little high... but in the end I couldn't resist. There were nine patterns sewn over 9 weeks each made up of the tiniest foundation piecing. And in order to complete the sew along, all nine had to be made into finished objects - that was the challenge. I pieced four of the blocks using a rainbow of fabrics and a black background from speckled which has a copper fleck. These four became canvases for Joshua's bedroom wall. The flying geese were paired with the Love pattern from @quietplay, released earlier this year to raise money for those affected by the Australian bush fires. I made these into my first Retreat Pouch which was a gift for Linda. The crossed geese pattern was the block I struggled with the most...

Lockdown has proved to be a busy time for us: whilst my mother-in-law moved in and has been a huge support in home-schooling the girls and Joshua-wrangling, work hasn't let up - no furlough for me! I've worked on a few bigger projects during this time, but I have mostly been ddrawn to either hand-sewing on the sofa whilst watching Vera and Death in Paradise, or smaller projects for quick finishes. Pouches definitely tick that box! I've made a fair few retreat pouches - these are made using a free pattern by @emmalinebags and are slightly different from a regular zippy pouch because you create a channel just under the zip and add wire frames. And it totally transforms the pouch into something amazing. I've made two large and two small ones so far - here is one of the large ones - a foundation pieced pair of scissors on one side (pattern by @quietplay) and some lovely Tula Pink fabric on the back. And here's one of the smaller one - made with Liberty and hand quilted...

Early on in lock-down, Berene Campbell of Happy Sew Lucky released a new pattern - Hello Friend. She originally released it through a select number of fabric shops, as a way for them to raise some money in lock-down. Our guild, North East Modern Quilt Guild, decided to support this and arranged a swap - each member who wanted to join in had to buy the pattern and then make the block in colours and fabrics they felt reflected them as a quilter. We then swapped the finished blocks amongst the participants and each recipient chose to finish their block in their own way. This is the version I made - it had to be a rainbow didn't it, really? And I loved the black rainbow sprinkle fabric for the background. My finished block went to Jules @juleskerry_s And I received this beautiful block from Dona @creativeaccountant - I love it and it's a totally different colour scheme to what I would pick for myself - a really citrussy yellow and turquoise. I decided to hand quilt it and added a ...