Jennie's Threads

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...

This year's Christmas sewing was definitely a reduced service compared to previous years and consisted of bags and pouches and a single cushion only. But I'm pretty pleased I had the energy to complete them and they turned out pretty well too. A few months back, I saw a Devon Pouch posted on Instagram. It was made by Saira, who runs the lovely Olive and Flo Handcraft fabric shop using the pattern by @ sotakhandmade . It's a fairly straightforward pouch but with a front pocket and the option to add a coordinating fabric - so a bit more special than a basic pouch. I made four: One for a secret santa swap at our local quilt group, filled with an EPP pincushion kit;  One filled with  a gift card;  And two for work colleagues, filled with sweets. I then made three Wee Braw Bags: These two were made as Christmas presents for Mia's teachers and filled with a mug and some posh hot chocolate. Mia picked the mugs and fabrics herself. And finally the sm...

In the past I have made the kids decorations to go on the tree. For Mia for her first Christmas, for Jess for her first Christmas (and one for Mia at the same time). I had planned to make them one every year, but last year it just didn't happen and they had shop bought decorations in their Christmas Eve boxes. When we first decorated the Christmas Tree this year, Mia pulled out the handmade ones from previous years and gave them a kiss and excitedly hung them on the tree.  When the shop bought ones came out, they showed no interest in them whatsoever: a pretty good indication that Mummy needs to make handmade ornaments! So this December some handmade felt ornaments were definitely on the to-do list. I picked a pattern that I'd saved on Pinterest ages ago: penguins - pattern by Casa Magubako I took inspiration from the colour ways in the pattern and made one in pink with a purple scarf for Jess And a grey one with a red scarf for Mia. That was me done - tick...

This is a quilt that was a year in the making. Last December, improv Christmas Trees were all over Instagram - a tutorial by @diaryofaquilter and I couldn't resist joining in. I made six blocks using the smaller sizes provided. I thought they'd make a nice cushion. Then I made a few more blocks, and then some more and then I had 76 small Christmas Tree blocks. And then it was Christmas. Those 76 blocks helped push me over my target of 1000 blocks in 2016. But once Christmas is over, the last thing I wanted to do was make them into something, so they have sat in my bedroom all year. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them! In the last few months, I finally got round to ordering the minky I wanted to put on the back - red, of course. I pieced the blocks into a usable panel. And I bought some red for some wide uneven borders. It only took me an hour to get a finished quilt top. Then the fun started. This was my first time playing with minky and it.is. slippy! I ch...

There is nothing quite like an impending deadline to get a project finished, and that was certainly the case with this finish. Advent starts on 1st December (in terms of advent calendars, anyway) and Jessica needed an advent calendar. It might have been better if I'd started it earlier... the first challenge was picking out a design. Like Mia's I wanted there to be a central embroidery, surrounded by the pockets, but I could not find an embroidery that fitted the bill. It wasn't until I changed my search to "Christmas Line Drawings" that an absolute gem popped up . It's a Christmas card design and it's perfect. Jessica loves standing on the sofa looking out of the window, and she loves dogs! I needed to make it bigger, so I added some words and then my mother-in-law had a brainwave - I could add the side of a Christmas tree and the final pocket could be a present under it! Perfect! Challenge number 2 was picking a colour scheme. In the end I went with...

Earlier this year, @Gnomeangel hosted another round of #100days100blocks - 100 blocks in Tula Pink's City Sampler block in 100 days. And last Christmas I'd collected together a bundle of Garland fabrics from Cotton and Steel. A match made in heaven! Half way through the quilt along I decided that rather than make one large quilt - we already have quite a few Christmas quilts - I would make two smaller quilts and give them to the girls at the start of advent. We do advent books, where each day the girls unwrap one Christmas-themed book from under the tree. My romanticized vision is that we can snuggle up with the advent quilts and read the advent books! Obviously that's unlikely with two toddlers.... but a girl can dream. Each quilt is 43" x 57" and made up of 48 blocks. I sashed those blocks with Kona pepper and swore lots - I hate sashing. The backing is an Asda duvet cover, and when I realised it wasn't big enough to back both quilts I swore so...

Whoops! I may have fallen behind on sharing these blocks with you (we're up to block 38 today!). I'm following along with the Tula Pink City Sampler quilt along again this year, and I'm using Garland by Cotton and Steel, along with of the C&S basics, and the coordinating Kona solids. Here are blocks 11- 15 And 16 -20 I think it's going to be quite a bright quilt, don't you?

I think I've finally finished sharing all of the finishes from December, so I can share with you my first finish for 2017! Just in time to be packed away with all the Christmas Decorations, I've finished my Snowflake cushion. Back at the end of October, Helen - Archie the Wonder Dog, threw down the #ChristmasCushionAlong challenge. It wasn't hard. Make a cushion by Christmas. I sketched out two ideas. One remains nothing more than a sketch. The other has gone through quite a few iterations. I liked the idea of embroidered snowflakes. I hunted on Pinterest and couldn't find anything I liked. So I designed my own. These are the same snowflake designs I used for some of the Christmas ornaments I made in December. At about the same time, I was finishing up the blocks for the Tula Pink City Sampler as part of #100days100blocks and one of the blocks struck me as a great way of displaying a piece of embroidery - a rectangular piece of embroidery. Snowflakes a...