Jennie's Threads

And now for the other piece of fabric I had printed by Print Me Pretty. this was another piece of text - my paternal Grandmother's travel diary from 1957 - Devon and Cornwall. The scale of this print is slightly larger than the marmalade recipe from my last post, so the Lola Pouch ( pattern by Sotak Handmade) I made for this was considerably bigger - my intention was that it could house the journals themselves as a gift for my Dad for Christmas. I just love how matter-of-fact my Granny's writing is. The act of putting the car in the ditch is given equal waiting to what they had for tea! If I'd put the car in a ditch I'd never hear the end of it! For the reverse of the pouch I decided to try my hand at a Cathedral Window panel. This is a technique I haven't done before, but it was something my Granny did a lot of, so it seemed fitting for this pouch. The fabrics are all Quantum by Guicy Guice fabrics, and a Kona cream for the base. It felt like an awful ...

Earlier in the year, I had some fabric custom-printed by a UK based company called Print Me Pretty. It was a bit of a risk as I had no idea what I was doing, but I ordered a metre each of two very special pages of text. First up was a page of the family marmalade recipe from my Mum's side. We're not sure if it's written by my Granny or my Great Granny, but it's the  family recipe - I have plans to try it out this coming January! I love the page - you can see all the splatter from countless marmalades over the years! I decided to use it to make a large Lola Pouch for my Mum for Christmas. On one side is this recipe fabric and on the other is a free motion embroidery of oranges and marmalade. I did a little free motion embroidery about 5 years ago, and then tried again at the Sewing Shindig retreat in September this year with the lovely Lesley (@mrs_moog). I had an image in my head and I really wasn't sure I could pull it off, but I have to say I'm pretty ...

I've made a few bits and pieces in the last few months which didn't appear on my original list for this quarter, but each had a purpose! I have become particularly fond of the Lola Pouch by Sotak Handmade . As well as using it for the pouch I made as part of the Shindig swap, I've followed the small size in the pattern to make three more Lola Pouches: The first was made so I could take my clover clips to Retreat in style! The second is a pencil case, also for me. I used my favourite Pinkerville print with an old pair of jeans. I lined it in the denim as well, as a nice sturdy finish. And the third was a practice run using some pleather, which I gifted as a Christmas present. And then I made the larger size pouch, with butterfly fabric and more of the pleather as another gift. I made a small key pouch in another favourite Pinkerville fabrics too - and used Kam Snaps for the first time! The other pattern I enjoyed making was the Tub Fami...

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 ...

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...