Jennie's Threads

Well, not bad all things considered! Here is my final finish for the quarter: the mini quilt for the UK Mini Swap. I'll write up a proper full blog post once I've (hopefully) added in some extras I have planned and sent it. But this mini is just one of nine finishes! January saw my first rash of finishes - four in total! I finished of a couple of swap items with January deadlines - a Whimsical Woodland Mug Rug ... ...and a Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt. As well as making  a new mug rug  for my desk at work And with a final push and the help of my January goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes I finally completed my Essential Sampler quilt.  And then things slowed down a bit. Life got in the way and I got distracted by pretty new projects! But I did get a few more things ticked off: My February ALYoF goal was the Trellis baby quilt . And my March goal was the Preppy the Whale baby quilt And squeezing in at the last minute - two more mini...

I don't know whether to celebrate, or to heave a huge sigh of relief... Apparently I started this quilt on 21st January 2011. I've just read through some old blog posts about it and read that I hoped to finish it by January 21st 2012 - a year after I started it. Excuse me a moment while I laugh hysterically. We are now three years on from that, and four years on from when I first started it and I can finally tell you that it is FINISHED! As in done. I managed to get a couple of photos outside in between the  flurries of rather pathetic snow #notquitejuno Finished. This was my first foray into quilting, and was started as a monthly class at my local quilt shop and we used the book "Essential Sampler Quilt" by Nikki Tinkler. I pulled fabrics from my "stash" - again I must laugh hysterically - at that point my stash took up one 9 litre Really Useful box. Oh how times have changed. The first block I made for the quilt didn't make it into the f...

Just popping in quickly to share a crappy phone photo with you because I am so chuffed: My Essential Sampler Quilt is now all put together! All of the incredibly-stupid quilt-as-you-go seams are sewn! The end is in sight! I'm planning on free motion quilting a small stipple in the sashing just to reinforce the hand-sewn seams and then binding. And then it's done!

So after the successes of sleep-deprived-stupid and overly-ambitious Finish Along lists in Q3 and Q4 2014 I'm going for realism with the next installment! Honest! Aspen Glow: I really, really should make some progress on this... Star Mug Rug - I really enjoyed having a mug rug on my desk during December, but the Christmas Trees have been packed away, so I need a new one. At the moment it looks like this... Skill Builder: how many times have you seen this quilt appear on my lists? Maybe, just maybe, this will be the last time. Secret Sewing: it has progressed a little from this picture, but not much. I'm having a blanket stitch crisis: I don't like the blanket stitch on my new machine. I love the blanket stitch on my old machine, but it doesn't sew at the moment and needs a service. Or I could do it by hand... Jennie Rayment wall-hanging: this needs quite a lot of applique before I can layer it up and quilt it. That should give me enough time to work ...

So it's the start of the new year, and as with last year, I'm going to try and link up weekly with WIP Wednesday - it's a really useful way of blogging at least weekly and keeping track of what I'm up to. This week I've been up to a fair few bits and pieces, but I've spent quite a lot of hours on the Essential Sampler quilt. If you've followed me for a while, I declared this quilt as unloved in September, as it had been lying around since early 2011 and untouched for most of that time. Having declared it unloved, I spent a week working on it and falling back in love with it. Progress by the end of September I made such good progress that I optimistically added it to my Finish Along list for Q4. And then Christmas happened, and Christmas sewing took over, and I didn't touch it for three months. With the end of the quarter drawing near, I pulled it out again. With just a few days left, there was no way I would it in time for the link up. So it will re...

Half way through the year I started joining in with A Lovely Year of Finishes hosted by Shanna at Fiber of All Sorts and Melissa of Sew Bittersweet. Alongside the Finish Along it's been a great way of focussing my sewing (and sometimes stopping me from getting distracted  with new things when I have deadlines!). I have completed 6 months of goals so I get to join in the final linky party for 2014. Here are my finishes: In July I finished a basket for the Big Stitches Swap; in August I finished the Siblings Together Bee Quilt; in September I finished my Swooning in a Crowd quilt; in October I finished the Mix Tape quilt; in November the theme continued and I finished the Mini Mix Tape quilt for the #IGMiniSwap; and in December I finished the Baby Boats quilt. So that's a wrap for 2014, onto 2015 and my January goal. I could pick one of the two swap projects that I need to finish, but I need to finish those regardless, so I want to use this to push me to finish ...

After the success of "Sleep Deprived Stupidity" I've got to follow it with an even more ridiculous list! I've taken off some of the really unrealistic goals and these will reappear next year. In theory, every single one of the projects in the list below is achievable....ha ha! Loads of people we know are expecting, or have just had babies, so there are a few baby quilts on my list: first up one with butterflies... ...And one with boats... ...these fabrics will become a quilt I've designed myself... I hope I've worked out the cutting instructions correctly! The royal blue is my background fabric - yummy! ...and these fabrics will become a Preppy the Whale quilt - I love this rainbow of colours. And then there's these fabrics - I'm hoping to make the prints the star of the show and I'm planning on risking some fussy cutting! There are a couple of full size quilts I want to finish: The Aspen Glow quilt is part of a quilt along a...