Jennie's Threads

Hopscotch is finished! I don't mean the big full quilt sized one, I mean the little practice one. I refuse to use horrid templates! So I needed to do a practice to make sure I could rotary cut it and still sew it accurately. I can. This was only the second quilt I've done with binding attached by machine both front and back. I struggled a bit with the non right-angled corners, but only one out of the six wasn't very good - you'd still have to look closely to spot it - especially on the glass table that reads dark grey in the photos. I hand quilted it with Perle cotton. A quilt, a cuppa and a snoozing doggy - a perfect bank holiday!

On Tuesday last week I left work and the temperature reading on my car was 27degrees. I'm sure that was more than reality, but yesterday when I left work it read 3 degrees and it was snowing. What is the weather playing at. The snow didn't settle here in Blyth, and today it is sunny, but still cold and very windy. I've made four Farmer's Wife blocks this week: The first was #96 Tulip - it is spring after all! I worked out the rotary cutting because the foundation piecing pattern didn't look very friendly. It went together very quickly. It's not my favourite block, but it's done and I changed colours around so it was less fussy than the version in the book. The blue "vase" is one of my new batiks. Block #83 Spider Web: this was another of my new batiks. I foundation pieced this one, because of the funny angles. On point it kind of looks like a celtic cross shape. I really like this one. Block #80 Single Wedding Star: Mum and I picked out the fabric...

I'm on my lunch break at work so just a quick post - have you seen Winterkist ?

A brief detour from sewing to family.... You may have read in some previous posts that Saturday night was my Mum's "significant" birthday party (we aren't allowed to use the word sixty - ooops - I just did). Michael and Linda (Michael's Mum) and I drove down on Thursday evening. We live as far from the A1 in Northumberland as Mum and Dad do in Bedfordshire - about 20 minutes, so the drive is fairly straightforward normally. Except the A1 was closed at Grantham and the detour took us via Melton Mowbray - I can tell you two things about Melton Mowbray - they make Pork Pies, and it is nowhere near the A1 - the detour was a good hour and would have been a pretty drive. Except it was dark. We arrived quite late, but we were able to give Mum both her birthday cake and her yellow tablecloth - she loved both! On Friday we headed for Milton Keynes: first stop Threads and Patches to buy some fabric - they have a huge amount of fabric, though no many complete ranges, so it ...

Last night we saw out March in style with my Mum's "significant" birthday party. We had a great weekend down at my Parents and I have some photos to share later this week. For now, a round up of my March sewing: From the top left, aiming for a logical order: 1. Farmers Wife Block #74: Ribbons 2. Indian Summer cushion . This was a present for Granny, and I gave it to her this morning. She really liked it and the colours match her decor perfectly! 3. Oh My Stars : the quilt top is finished, except for a thin border and a wide border, but I couldn't face any more long seams with lots of points to get accurate. 4. Farmer's Wife in Your Life blind runner . My first attempt at binding using only the machine - no more slip stitching for me! 5. Swoon : All nine blocks completed with the Happy Mochi Yum Yum fabric and pieced together. 6.Farmer's Wife block # 28: Duck and Ducklings - a green block for St. Patricks Day 7. Farmer's Wife block #22: Corn and (baked) bea...

Well, I am finally ready for you to see the finished article. It is a blind runner (when I first said this to some friends they thought I was making an ode to the paralympics), but like a bed runner, it's a narrow quilt that runs along the bottom of a blind. At the top of our stairs we have a window that looks directly into the same window in the neighbour's house. When we moved in three years ago, we put up a basic blind from Ikea, and I've regularly thought I could make something to tart it up a bit. Well the Farmer's Wife in Your Life linky party from Love Affair with My Brother was the push I needed. From left to right: Prairie Queen, Flock, Windmill, Churn Dash, Windblown Square and Linoleum. I measured and did some maths, then pulled out the book and picked six of my favourites which I felt I could work out the rotary cutting measurements for. Most of the blocks I've already made I've done using foundation piecing, and I wanted to try accurate piecing, as ...

On Monday I suggested that my entry in the Farmer's Wife in Your Life linky would be ready for the reveal this evening. It isn't. I haven't quite finished the quilting. Instead I have the start of a new project to share. Back in September Mum said she would love a stained glass effect quilt with the leading made from bias strips. In November she decided what size she wanted (about 28" x 20") and I started designing it and confirmed there was no way it would be ready for Christmas :) Last weekend I finally started cutting the fabrics. All of the fabrics are batiks, and I'm sticking them to a calico backing using the glue designed for attaching fabric to pre-cut hexies. Tonight I ironed on the bias strips (these have been ready for a couple of weeks). I'm doing it in sections, so that they are easier to manage. And this is an idea of what they'll like put together (obviously with another strip of black between them). This month's free motion quilting...