Jennie's Threads

Another medallion quilt has been on my to do list for quite some time now. Although my first medallion quilt wasn't a great experience (one of the borders didn't fit and I'd run out of fabric to re-cut leading to a bit of a hash job) I really wanted to try again. About a month ago Sew Mama Sew announced two spring sew-alongs, one being the Mini Medallion quilt . At only 25" x 25" finished and coming just after my successful Cheerio Mini Quilt , I pulled some fabric together. These colours are a bit outside of my comfort zone: turquoise, navy, coral and yellow - my next quilt will definitely have green in it! It's taken a while to put the quilt together, a border as often as possible, in between other projects - I seem to be juggling a fair bit at the moment - it's great! 80 HST in this border.... that was quite the pressing and trimming session... ...and I really struggle to get these square in a square blocks accurate unless I foundation...

I have achieved the first stage of a few things - cut fabric into small pieces. I am working on achieving the second stage - sewing them back together again. I've cut out loads of blocks for my sampler quilts, and I'm hoping I get a few hours at the weekend to spend piecing them. I am currently working on the final border for my Mini Medallion quilt, which currently looks like this... ...I am half way through hand sewing the binding on my Thread Along quilt, ... and in that top picture you can see two further lots of binding in the mass of pieces of fabric ready to attach for two more finishes. At the top you can see a corner of purple - that's a pile of blocks ready to be made into a quilt top,  and hiding somewhere in this chaos is a pile of blue squares, also waiting for some chain piecing time... I wonder how many of those "nearly finishes" will be "actual finishes" by this time next week? I wonder if I will have found the blue...

This week Linda, my mother-in-law finished a quilt. It's for a friend's 70th birthday. Linda pieced it, and I quilted and bound it. In other news I've used the luxury of space to lay out another quilt. This is one made from blocks made by my Bee Mates in Stash Bee back in 2012. I have been meaning to finish this up for a while, but couldn't face trimming all the blocks. Finally I completed that step last night. I need to keep up the momentum and piece it together now. This will be for my Great Aunt, who I will be seeing in late June, so that's my aim. I also used the same space to lay out and take a look at my Dear Jane blocks (minus the 9 already in the process of being quilted) And my sampler blocks from Architextures and Botanics - these blocks are from a variety of sources, but so far mostly from the Farmer's Wife Sampler. I also trimmed up my Thread Along quilt ready for my attempt at a matched binding. In the end I did very simple quilt...

Pieced, basted, quilted, and bound - this quilt is finished. And I am very pleased with the finished result. Mia helped with the photoshoot Last year friends of ours had a baby girl called Arabella. I had fully intended to make them a baby quilt, but she was born just after I fell pregnant and I couldn't face sewing for over a month, so the quilt was never made. We are going to a mutual friend's wedding tomorrow so it's about time Arabella got her quilt. This started as a sketch and I worked it out with a bit of trial and error and a 60 degree ruler. The fabrics are a mix from my stash plus a light green mottled fabric I bought specifically, but which didn't have a name on the selvage: Kona Solids, Pearl Bracelets, Art Gallery and Moda. The was the quilt I needed to practice my spiral quilting for. I ironed out some of the problems with my practice quilt, and half way through I un-basted the remaining quilt and re-basted it as I've found the spiral qu...

After last week's successful mini-quilt make, I'm trying another one. I've started the Mini Medallion quilt from Sew Mama Sew. I've picked another colour palette which isn't near my comfort zone and I've started to realise that I define "colour palette outside of my comfort zone" as anything that doesn't involve green :) This one is yellow, coral, aqua and navy. I'm really enjoying using navy at the moment but my stash is seriously lacking. So far I've made the centre of the medallion and the first border. The next border is made up of Friendship Stars and I've sewn, pressed and trimmed all my half square triangles and it's time to piece. The final border is mini Economy Blocks - white is cut, but not the colours yet. After this I'm going back to the sewing I had planned for this quarter in an attempt to meet some of my Finish Along goals. Last weekend was a bank holiday in the UK: we celebrated my Dad's 60th bi...

I am going to declare April a success! Mia will now take a bottle, which means she is full some of the time, which means she sits in her bouncy chair and smiles, rather than constantly being breast fed. Naps are elusive - unless you count the ten minute ones - I'm pretty sure a nine-week-old shouldn't power nap! But a bottle also means Daddy can look after her by himself. This all means a little more Me time and this is inevitable spent with the sewing machine. As I'm typing this I'm worried some of you will think I'm a bad mother... But I need to, or I would go absolutely mad. But first up you need to see a photo f my daughter from last Thursday - I promise I hadn't done anything to her to get this face! It just makes me laugh! Anyway -  this is my sanity for April! I got my machine sorted for free motion quilting and I have been on a quilting kick! I started with two of the Skill Builder blocks And then moved onto my Neon Stained quilt - each colo...

I was planning on showing a mini quilt in progress tonight. But Little Miss Mia has been a star today and happily sat watching the snooker in her bouncy chair, so what I actually have to show you is a finished mini quilt! I got my copy of Love Patchwork and Quilting through the post on Saturday morning and found the Mini Cheerio pattern by Camille Roskelly. I had to wait until Sunday afternoon to pick the fabrics, which were loosely based on this Design Seeds Palette . These colours are not "normal me" at all but I fancied trying something different. This was my first layout but I felt it lacked a little pzzazz. So I  made up another block in navy and asked for opinions on Instagram. The majority said with navy, so this morning I stitched it up. I got out my free motion foot again for the straight-ish line quilting (I've now officially run out of quilting needles) - I love the texture this creates, then cut a skinny binding - 2" according to the pattern -...