Jennie's Threads

 Several years ago, right at the start of my quilting adventure, I made my Mum and Dad a tablecloth. Their dining room is quite dark and the table cloth was yellows and creams and golds to brighten it up. A few years later, Mum picked out some fabrics she liked for a quilt. The problem was that there wasn't much contrast in the fabrics she picked and I never found just the right pattern, so the fabrics sat in my cupboard.  Last year, just as the world was shutting down, they had their living room and dining room redecorated. When it eventually got finished, it was clear that whilst the yellow tablecloth still looked good, their decoration has changed from a slight yellow to a slight greeny-blue. A new tablecloth was clearly required! And would you believe, the fabrics she picked out many years ago were perfect! Some hours wasted on Pinterest and I had a pattern picked out. Sadly the source of the pattern seemed to result in a dead end so I drafted it myself. I started cutting ...

Four years ago I made Santa Sacks for Mia and Jessica  (I can't believe it was that long ago!). I had planned to do stockings for them, but I couldn't find a pattern I liked that was big enough to take presents without having to be too careful to buy small ones, but not so big that it would cost a fortune to fill... my husband's family always had pillowcases rather than stockings growing up, so a drawstring bag seemed like a great compromise. When I made those original Santa Sacks, I only had Mia and Jess. We knew that we wanted to have a third child, but obviously we didn't know whether it would be a boy or a girl. So I made sure I had enough matching fabric in case we had another girl. Well, it's just as well we didn't cause I have no idea where that safe place is that I put that fabric! And it was just a bit too girly for Josh anyway.  Last Christmas I picked up some green snow-globe fabric. I ran out of time (and inclination) to make the Santa Sack last yea...

 Last Christmas, Joshua was just 11 months old. I got away with a few things... like he didn't have his own santa sack or his own advent calendar. Fast forward 12 months and there is no way I'd get away with it again - he's very aware of what the girls have and is determined not to be treated different (makes for some interesting tantrums to be honest).  I did start an advent calendar for him last year, but I didn't make any real progress. I put it on my Finish Along list in Q1 and Q2 last year thinking how good it would be to get it finished nice and early in the year and not be in a rush come November. But that's just not how we roll... and once Christmas is over, I really don't want to be doing Christmas sewing anymore, so inevitably it was a November rush! No the rushiest rush... I think I had three or four days to spare, but certainly not leisurely, The starting point for the advent calendar was a picture I pinned on Pinterest when I first used Pinterest, w...

 I've fallen in love hook, line and sinker with all of Corinne Sovey's patterns! I started piecing Christmas Cheer alongside Hocus Pocus - some of the techniques are the same, but there are also different ways of creating a similar look - whilst this quilt looks straightforward it makes use of multiple techniques - applique, foundation piecing, inset circles and regular piecing.  I pieced these blocks during our weekly guild zoom sewing sessions on a Monday night - whilst the last year hasn't been the easiest, this is one of the besy things to come out of it. I spend more time chatting with this lovely bunch of sewers now than I ever did when we could see each other in real life, and I really hope we continue with these sessions once the world rights itself! Three of us were busy piecing this quilt and it was lovely to progress together. I adore the backing of this quilt. It was a duvet cover I picked up at Asda last Christmas (or maybe even the Christmas before) and it is...

Sometimes you see a quilt and you just know that it's one you're going to make! That's what happened when I first saw the Hocus Pocus quilt by Corinne Sovey. There was something about the simple images and fun colours that I just loved. Having bought the pattern, I then realised that those "simple" bold designs were actually created using a number of different, and at times challenging, techniques. The witches boots are foundation pieced. Not a problem. The eyeball is made of concentric inset circles. I've perhaps done this technique once before... but I tried it, and overall I'm pretty pleased with it! But those stars. Templates and Y-seams. Two of my least favourite quilting terms. I thought about making foundation patterns. I thought about doing them using English Paper Piecing. I thought about applique.... in the end I put on my big-girl pants and did them. Templates and Y-seams. Success.  They took some time, but they are mostly flat and they mostly m...

 The same weekend that I made the cushions for the kids, I also joined a workshop to make the Zip-Around pouch. It's a pattern I've made before by Bad Banana Patterns , but I didn't need much of an excuse to make it again and I picked up some excellent tips from Tori, who was leading the workshop (@Cloudtori). Basically, if Tori says hand-baste in place, hand-baste it, because it makes life easier and the results better! I decided two pouches is better than one! So I made a new pouch for my headphones. I make my ziparound pouches deeper than the pattern - for this one I cut each of my side strips 1.5" wide. In hindsight this is perhaps too deep as without any interfacing, they don't hold their shape - perhaps next time I'll add some interfacing? I love that 90s walkman print - perfect for a pouch for my headphones - it's from Lovely Jubbly fabrics, but I can't remember what it's called (It comes in two colourways too!). The pink is a Kona and the bl...

 The dinosaur quilt I finished back in early September was quite popular in our house. Josh squealed in delight every time he saw it. So he was not best pleased when we gifted it to the newest addition to the family - a baby cousin. I am planning on making him his own dino quilt (I have a May 2021 deadline in mind....) but in the meantime, I decided a cushion would soften the blow.  Michael and I watched his reactions to the quilt a few times and worked out that he definitely liked the orange dinosaurs but couldn't pick between the Stegosaurus and the Triceratops. I made an executive decision that the Triceratops made a better shaped cushion! But of course when you have three children, one cushion just won't cut it! I was lucky that I had a weekend set aside for the Virtual Sewing Shindig. We couldn't meet up in person this year, but a weekend was organized full of zoom chatting and sewing with some workshops as well! I cleared out our junk room, set myself up and closed th...