Jennie's Threads

Let's be honest, my list for Q4 was a little ambitious, wasn't it? Even I'm surprised with how much I achieved! My final finish for the quarter is a towel for Mia - one of those projects I have put off and put off for absolutely no reason! It probably took me about 30 minutes start to finish! But I have loads of the flannel left, so there will probably be a few more in some nice garish colours if I can find some in the sales! The flannel is from Riley Blake. Here is a round up of the progress made on the rest of the list.... Schnitzel and Boo mini swap : I finished this and got it posted in time. Tracking tells me it was delivered. Pity my partner hasn't seen fit to acknowledge its arrival. I still plan on making the same quilt for myself in the future - all the fabric is cut, but I'm all curved out for a while! I finished the UK Easy Swap Sew Together Bag . By a whisker I finished Mia's advent calendar before the start of December! It was a...

I am going to declare that November was a successful sewing month. I count 8 finishes looking back through my blog posts! It's been a while since I had a month like that! A swap, two cushions, three mini quilts, an advent calendar and a dress! Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap Camper Van cushion Rainbow cushion Two Karen Lewis quilts and a dolly quilt Mia's new dress And an advent calendar . And I made progress on a few other projects so maybe there will be some more finishes next month....Michael and I spent a rather wet weekend in the Lake District. And we discovered that baby #2 is going to be pink! I also did loads of baking in November: there are two Christmas cakes, made using my Grandmother's recipe, which are waiting for their next feed of brandy before marzipan and icing; I tried a new banana chocolate cake recipe which seems to have been a hit, and I made cakes for me and my sister-in-law too! Hopefully this week I'll g...

Back in June I had a momentary lapse in common sense and actually purchased some Art Gallery knits and a pattern for a dress for Mia. I don't quite know what came over it. Maybe it was a slow day at work. I even bought sewing machine needles for knit fabric. I took photos. I added this grand plan to my Finish Along list. And then I lost my bottle. I can blame this loss of bottle on pregnancy. But the reality it, dressmaking scares me and knit fabrics scare me. And I don't know how to use/find the overlocking options on my Brother machine. And any other excuses I can think of, really. I put the dress on my Finish Along list for this quarter too, and suddenly, a couple of days ago, I just decided to go for it. I had got as far as printing and cutting out the pattern back in the summer, but when I looked at it, and the measurements in the pattern, I decided to reprint and go up a size to 3T - Mia is only 20 months old, but I couldn't bare the idea of putting in all th...

I had a great month! How was yours! I started a lot of new projects, but I finished a few too! My starts include some of my finishes and: a mini Tula Pink alphabet quilt A post card quilt - I've been waiting for inspiration to strike on the quilting - and it might just have struck in the last few days! And some mix tape blocks ...but I didn't intend to "F the world" #accidentalfussycutting My finishes: Nested Churn Dash Quilt - I only started this at the start of the month, but really enjoyed it... ...especially the quilting a Tula Pink City Sampler Mini quilt, which I used as practice for my big City Sampler quilt and to get use to free motion quilting on my new machine Another buggy blanket for Mia which is effectively a decorated muslin cloth which I can use to cover Mia's legs when it's sunny. There are two loops sewn into the binding which I can use to attach it to the buggy so it doesn't blow away in a summer gale breeze...

My first finish of the quarter is one that I wasn't sure would even happen! I don't do dress-making. I had no desire to make clothes for my daughter. Until I saw a girl at my LQS make one! This has to be the easiest that dressmaking ever gets! Seriously - I can recommend this pattern to absolutely anyone! The trickiest part was the button holes. But it turns out that these are incredibly straightforward on my new machine. I did a practice one to work out what the hell I was doing, then two more practice ones to get the size right and then ta-dah. Buttons were nearly an issue - I couldn't find two that matched! Luckily these were hidden at the bottom of the tin. Embarrassingly I have to confess that I have never sewn on a button that needs to be used as a button. I got out my big how to sew book that I've never opened before! Because this dress is a little wrap-around number it really needed knickers to go with it! Unfortunately there was no tutorial on t...