Jennie's Threads

Well, this has possibly been my most productive quarter ever! But before we get into the nitty-gritty of the original list , here's a final finish: The mermaid embroidery panel is by @aimee_littledear and I've bought it twice now. The first one I have lost. It is somewhere in the house, all prepared for embroidery. One day I will find it... for now, this one is the replacement! Aimee's designs are beautiful ( all available in her Etsy shop ), and the instructions are so clear. Postage is a bit pricey to the UK, but if you happen to have a friend who would bring you a little something back in their suitcase, then the panel itself is very reasonable! This is the second I've embroidered. The first and third will get a mention below. And I might have ordered a few more panels.... thanks @moomimomma for holidaying in the US! So on to the rest of the quarter and the 10 finishes! Five of those were lap quilts! Here they are: Hidden Agenda - a rainbowfied Tula...

I started this quilt five years ago. My plan was a sampler quilt of 6" blocks from a variety of sources using fat quarter bundles of Architextures and Botanics, the first two fabric lines from Carolyn Friedlander, along with coordinating Kona solids.  I made 20 blocks then moved on to other projects. Fast forward to 2018 and I was looking for a fabric plan for the final instalment of 100 days 100 blocks quilt-along hosted by @gnomeangle using Tula Pink's City Sampler book. Having made it a few times I was out of ideas for new colour palettes. It was a logical step, therefore, to pick up the Architextures and Botanics blocks and finally make enough for a finished quilt. In the intervening years, Carolyn had released a few more fabric ranges so I added in what I had from Doe, Carkai, Friedlander and Gleaned, as well as the newly released colours of some of her classic Architextures prints. I found out that I was pregnant with Joshua just before the quilt-along kicke...

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...

Sometimes there is no logic involved in why I put a project down and ignore it for a few months and just as little logic as to why I pick it up again. It's been months since I really worked on my La Passacaglia quilt but this weekend I picked it up again. My large rosette made entirely with fabric from Carolyn Friedlander's Architextures range (one of my all time favourite fabric ranges, now greatly diminished in my stash) was so close to being finished I have no idea why I didn't. On Saturday I got it finished and it only took a few hours! I love it. And a huge thanks must go to the oodles of people over on Instagram who made my weekend by liking it! On a roll, and I finally went back to one of the smaller rosettes. I had cut enough star pieces to make this with 8 stars, but after piecing 3 of those last summer I decided I didn't like the contrast and stopped at a much smaller rosette. In the intervening months it's grown on me, and yesterday I finally ad...

I had been planning to post this once my partner received this parcel. According to tracking, it was delivered 10 days ago, and I haven't heard a word from my partner, so I'm assuming she has a good excuse and I'm sharing this anyway.... This is it. My last swap commitment. I am absolutely not signing up for anything more until Baby is here and we are settled into some kind of routine - so maybe 10 years time if I'm lucky (I haven't said what sort of routine). Even if I am very, very tempted. My partner, gave me a really clear list of likes - designs and colours. This made it so easy for me to put together a quilt for her. The design is by Julianna @sewingunderrainbow and appeared in an old issue of Love Patchwork of Quilting. I knew way back when I first saw it that I wanted to make the quilt, so when I was cutting the fabrics for this swap quilt, I cut double, so hopefully in the not too distant future, I'll have a matching quilt/cushion cover. However, li...

This is one finish I really did not expect to be sharing with you this week! This was my first photo shoot on our brand new fake grass - I never need to use a lawn mower ever again! But I think the lovely bright green threw my camera off, as the colours, especially the background fabric, are a bit out, and it really is more brown in real life! Marsala is the Pantone colour of 2015 and thus the subject of the Pantone quilt challenge. As someone who doesn't mind brown (I love the richness it gave to my Rhubarb and Custard quilt ) Marsala is still a little out of my comfort zone. A hunt through my stash led me to pick Kona Burgundy as my Marsala of choice (I'm not a wine drinker so I can't tell the difference!). To this I added a fat quarter of Annali from Dashwood Studios - my only other "marsala-ish" fabric. Then I added coral/peach, lime green and some text prints. And by chance my recently acquired Karen Lewis Textiles scrap bundle also included some ...

Here's my latest quilt top finish. It's a mini version of the Power of Nine Block of the Month by Rebecca Mae Designs. When I first saw the quilt back in December I knew I wanted to do it - I loved the setting. But I had no purpose for the quilt. Sometime I'll make quilts with no purpose, or rather, for me. But I couldn't justify this quilt on that basis (especially the cost). I decided to shrink the block size to 6" down from the original 12" and the shrink the sashing similarly. I was expecting the blocks to be pretty familiar, but with the exception of the favourite Churn Dash and a another couple, each was new to me. Most used the square in a square block or flying geese units with clever colour placement and created fabulous blocks. Here are a couple of my favourites I have to confess that I didn't follow the instructions from the point where I read to cut the fabric to one-sixteenth accuracy for the 12" blocks... I looked at ...

So it may seem that I'm on a roll with these finishes, but after this, the next one is a good way off still. I made this block by accident (I totally mis-read my partner's likes for the Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap). And by the time I realised I'd made over half of this block. It's just as well, because the centre of this block is bloody awful! So bad, that I've added a button... Luckily I loved the colours I'd picked and I had a brainwave: during December I loved having a little mug rug/mini quilt (cause I don't put my mug on it) on my desk at work. It let me dream of quilting whilst actually project managing... I hope my manager doesn't read this! So I've decided that for each month this year I will have a different mug rug on my desk. It's a great excuse to make a mini each month! And once the month is over I can add them to my mini quilt wall. My mini quilt wall doesn't exist yet, but when we move to our new house I am definitel...

The Mini Medallion, which I pieced at the start of summer is now DONE! The pattern is by Corey Yoder and was shared on Sew Mama Sew during May . I got totally hung up on the quilting. I wasn't keen on the straight line quilting of the original quilt but couldn't think of anything I liked better. After much deliberation I decided to quilt it with a spiral. Unlike previous spiral quilting attempts I've spray basted this quilt.... it wasn't all hunky dory - I had some serious issues with the machine skipping stitches, but I didn't have as much issue with the fabric moving and there are no puckers on the back of this quilt . The binding was sat for months, neatly made and wound up so it's nice to finally be attaching it - no more chances to lose it! I couldn't believe how much the yellow binding changed the look of the whole quilt! The fabrics are Architextures and Botanics by Carolyn Friedlander, Minimalista, Modernology and Urban Mod Pointelle by...