Jennie's Threads

I've had a really good month which feels like it's whizzed by! Here's what I got up: I finished a large La Passacaglia Rosette And the first of the New Hexagon Millefiori Rosette I've also worked a lot on swaps Cotton and Steel Mini Thimbleblossoms Mini Hand pieced mini swap Cotton and Steel Angel Mini I finished part 1 of My Small World and I can't wait to start part 2 - please can there be more than 24 hours in the day?  I quilted a quilt made by my mother-in-law  I started quilting my enormous City Sampler Quilt And made myself a quick bookmark

I love a bit of EPP (you may have noticed) so when Jo announced a hand-pieced mini swap I couldn't resist. Now that Paula @mudpiesand pins has received her package, I can share it here with you! This one proved to be hard. I couldn't decide on a pattern, I couldn't decide on fabric... in the end I took my inspiration from an Art Gallery print which I use sparingly on the front, and then for the backing. Photo borrowed from Paula For the pattern, I settled on an excerpt from the New Hexagon Millefiori quilt and took the pattern for rosette one, shrunk it to use 2" finished hexagons (the original uses 3" finished hexagons) and then did just two rounds, rather than the full three. There were some definite learning curves in this project: to make my own templates I started with some 2" hexagon papers that came free with a magazine. They were much thinner than I'm use to and I struggled to get neat corners on some of the tight angles on the triang...

Last weekend we went to stay with my parents so we could take Mia to the zoo. We went to Whipsnade which is about half an hour from my parents, and met up with my brother and his wife. Mia walked her little legs off, the rest of us got sunburn, and overall we had a fantastic day! Whilst we were at my parents I did no stitching at all, but it's a five hours car journey each way, so plenty of sewing happened, but with it being hand sewing, there isn't much to show for it! Having finished Rosette 1 of the New Hexagon Millefiori quilt, I started rosette 3 (the paper pieces for 2 were out of stock). I've cut fabrics for the centre and first two rounds, and used the daylight we had on the journey down to start hand basting and then piecing - here's the progress so far. On the way back I decided to work on my current La Passacaglia rosette. It's so nearly finished - just a few more stars to add round the edge. I think my next steps with this quilt are to...

Eleven weeks ago I got the book "The New Hexagon" and about a week later I discovered the New Hexagon Millefiori quilt . Eight weeks ago I completed the centre and first round of hexies in the  first blocks and last week I finally finished it. This rosette is one of twelve designed by the author of The New Hexagon, Katja Marek. A new block is released on the  first of each month. It uses the blocks from the book, slightly altered in some cases and combined to create secondary patterns. For this block I made my own templates from card stock and glue basted the fabrics. For the next block I've ordered the pre-cut paper pieces and I'm tempted to go back to thread basting. Whilst glue basting is quick, I've found that with so much handling, some of the pieces have come out...and others set like concrete.... I've now removed all but the outside papers, and thread basted those in place. Here is my initial fabric for Rosette 3 (I'm skipping 2 becaus...

The thing about hand sewing, is that it is a slow process... there are no milestones, like finishing a quilt top, quilting a quilt top etc. At least not any time soon. I'll pop some photos on Instagram, but often I don't blog about them because I don't have those milestones to share with you. So here's a bit of an update on my favourites. My La Passacaglia is coming along beautifully. This is my second rosette and the colour scheme is one of my current favourites - I'd love to make a whole quilt from these aquas, peaches and pinks! I've pulled out lots of combinations for my next rosettes and even though I love working on one and seeing grow, it might be worth making up a few centres and seeing which ones I love as a way to decide on the which will be the big rosettes and which the small. Picking the fabrics for these rosettes is really what takes the time! My other EPP love is the New Hexagon Millefiori quilt. The pieces in this quilt are far bigg...

I love May. Everywhere suddenly turns green and the evenings are lighter. We'll pretend hay-fever isn't a thing! And even better, I got my sewing machine and sewing space unpacked and started sewing. The problem is that I haven't used it very much because I've been diverted by some hand sewing projects... I started my own version of La Passacaglia - this is my second rosette which isn't finished yet. Does everyone else take photos of their patchwork in the middle of the road? I also started the New Hexagon Millefiori quilt - this fells much bigger in scale to La Pass but I'm loving it just as much. This is my first rosette so far... one more round of hexies to finish it. And an off-shoot from this project... I'm using the pattern of rosette 1 to make a mini for my partner in the #handpiecedminiswap on Instagram. This time the hexagons are 2" finished rather than the original 3" I did use my sewing machine a bit. Michael goes a...

We are so close to finishing the work on our living room and dining room... it feels like it's taken forever but we have been in the new house less than a month so we're doing ok really. And when I sit down and think about it, a lot of the work that needed doing was so I could get a space to sew in the lounge... we've moved the door to the cupboard under the stairs... we've got rid of the fireplace, we've totally replastered both rooms...we've painted and painted and glossed (I hate glossing)... we have new flooring... and tonight we need to put up curtain rails, curtains, shelves. And then we can bring in the furniture - I have a lovely new sewing desk - still in the Ikea boxes. I can't wait to share some photos of the finished rooms, but for now all I have is a sneak peak at our new carpet! It's very brave for us! And this little monster stood up and walked by herself without encouragement for the first time! Whilst all that is going on and I...