Jennie's Threads

Sometimes there is no logic involved in why I put a project down and ignore it for a few months and just as little logic as to why I pick it up again. It's been months since I really worked on my La Passacaglia quilt but this weekend I picked it up again. My large rosette made entirely with fabric from Carolyn Friedlander's Architextures range (one of my all time favourite fabric ranges, now greatly diminished in my stash) was so close to being finished I have no idea why I didn't. On Saturday I got it finished and it only took a few hours! I love it. And a huge thanks must go to the oodles of people over on Instagram who made my weekend by liking it! On a roll, and I finally went back to one of the smaller rosettes. I had cut enough star pieces to make this with 8 stars, but after piecing 3 of those last summer I decided I didn't like the contrast and stopped at a much smaller rosette. In the intervening months it's grown on me, and yesterday I finally ad...

Time flies when you're throwing up in the morning, and it's been a couple of months since I did a bit of a review. So here's what August and September looked like: We found out that we are expecting again - Mia will be a big sister in April next year. We spent a week in Sidmouth , and Mia has got over her fear of Morris Men, which is just as well really. This is Dad in Mendip kit. There hasn't been much sewing, but what has happened has been focused on my La Passacaglia project - this photo is a month old now, so I'll do a post soon to show recent progress. I completed my Thimbleblossoms Mini swap: But then as August progressed, the Harry Potter swap started stressing me out a bit - with limited energy, I struggled to complete this on time - but I just managed it and sent off my interpretation of The Burrow on the deadline! I've also re-read all 7 of the books in the last few weeks. It's amazing how much I'd forgotten and ho...

I've been doing a lot of hand piecing again this month and my focus has been my La Passacaglia quilt. I've been working on three different rosettes: first up this blue one. I used quite a lot of Kate Spain fabrics in this rosette. The aqua around the centre is a Cotton and Steel basic cut so you can't see the dots, the dark blue star centres are Pearl Bracelets and the star points are a shot cotton. I had originally basted enough pieces for 8 stars, but once I started piecing I was quite concerned that there wasn't enough contrast between the large pentagons and the star points.  So I stopped with just 4 stars. However, since I stopped, this rosette has really grown on me, so I'm going to add on the remaining stars as originally planned. The lower contrast means that different shapes jump out at you when you look at it, which in a quilt of many similar blocks is quite a good thing, I think. I started a rosette using an Art Gallery fabric from Carnaby Stree...

I've had a really good month which feels like it's whizzed by! Here's what I got up: I finished a large La Passacaglia Rosette And the first of the New Hexagon Millefiori Rosette I've also worked a lot on swaps Cotton and Steel Mini Thimbleblossoms Mini Hand pieced mini swap Cotton and Steel Angel Mini I finished part 1 of My Small World and I can't wait to start part 2 - please can there be more than 24 hours in the day?  I quilted a quilt made by my mother-in-law  I started quilting my enormous City Sampler Quilt And made myself a quick bookmark

I know I showed this on Wednesday, but it was not quite finished, and now it is, I felt is deserved it's own post. And some photos taken in daylight! And on a personal note, I think it will be nice for me to look back over each Rosette in the future, as each will tell it's own story... The fabric: the fabric combination in this rosette was a total accident! Aren't the best ones! I placed an order with The Village Haberdashery - there was a sale, I was using my mobile and I just picked random fabrics which I liked, and which I thought would fit well into my stash. And when I spread them out I realised that some of them went together perfectly! So I started the recollection print - the white background floral in the centre of the aqua flowers. And it just so happened that the Geometric Bliss stripe (the first round of pentagons and the centre of the outer-most stars) matched. In the same package were the two aquas which I have alternated for the pentagon flowers,...

Last weekend we went to stay with my parents so we could take Mia to the zoo. We went to Whipsnade which is about half an hour from my parents, and met up with my brother and his wife. Mia walked her little legs off, the rest of us got sunburn, and overall we had a fantastic day! Whilst we were at my parents I did no stitching at all, but it's a five hours car journey each way, so plenty of sewing happened, but with it being hand sewing, there isn't much to show for it! Having finished Rosette 1 of the New Hexagon Millefiori quilt, I started rosette 3 (the paper pieces for 2 were out of stock). I've cut fabrics for the centre and first two rounds, and used the daylight we had on the journey down to start hand basting and then piecing - here's the progress so far. On the way back I decided to work on my current La Passacaglia rosette. It's so nearly finished - just a few more stars to add round the edge. I think my next steps with this quilt are to...

The thing about hand sewing, is that it is a slow process... there are no milestones, like finishing a quilt top, quilting a quilt top etc. At least not any time soon. I'll pop some photos on Instagram, but often I don't blog about them because I don't have those milestones to share with you. So here's a bit of an update on my favourites. My La Passacaglia is coming along beautifully. This is my second rosette and the colour scheme is one of my current favourites - I'd love to make a whole quilt from these aquas, peaches and pinks! I've pulled out lots of combinations for my next rosettes and even though I love working on one and seeing grow, it might be worth making up a few centres and seeing which ones I love as a way to decide on the which will be the big rosettes and which the small. Picking the fabrics for these rosettes is really what takes the time! My other EPP love is the New Hexagon Millefiori quilt. The pieces in this quilt are far bigg...

I love May. Everywhere suddenly turns green and the evenings are lighter. We'll pretend hay-fever isn't a thing! And even better, I got my sewing machine and sewing space unpacked and started sewing. The problem is that I haven't used it very much because I've been diverted by some hand sewing projects... I started my own version of La Passacaglia - this is my second rosette which isn't finished yet. Does everyone else take photos of their patchwork in the middle of the road? I also started the New Hexagon Millefiori quilt - this fells much bigger in scale to La Pass but I'm loving it just as much. This is my first rosette so far... one more round of hexies to finish it. And an off-shoot from this project... I'm using the pattern of rosette 1 to make a mini for my partner in the #handpiecedminiswap on Instagram. This time the hexagons are 2" finished rather than the original 3" I did use my sewing machine a bit. Michael goes a...

Better late than never...I finally succumbed and started my version of La Passacaglia. I was put off this project originally by all the fantastic fussy cutting going on on Instagram... you know who you are. It's not that I'm against fussy cutting, it's just that in general I don't have a very fussy-cuttable stash. But I started my Patchwork of the Crosses quilt amidst equally fabulous fussy-cutting and decided not to bother, so I don't know what was stopping me with this one. So when Paper Pieces had one of the lovely sales, I caved and bought the book and the starter pack of papers. Once I'd unpacked my stash I set about picking fabrics for the first cog, and I found that although I don't have fabrics with motifs or great big florals to cut and create kaleidoscopes with, I have a fair few stripes in my collection, and even blenders can be fussy cut... those metallic Xs are from a Cotton and Steel basic! But I made a decision whilst basting this f...

We are so close to finishing the work on our living room and dining room... it feels like it's taken forever but we have been in the new house less than a month so we're doing ok really. And when I sit down and think about it, a lot of the work that needed doing was so I could get a space to sew in the lounge... we've moved the door to the cupboard under the stairs... we've got rid of the fireplace, we've totally replastered both rooms...we've painted and painted and glossed (I hate glossing)... we have new flooring... and tonight we need to put up curtain rails, curtains, shelves. And then we can bring in the furniture - I have a lovely new sewing desk - still in the Ikea boxes. I can't wait to share some photos of the finished rooms, but for now all I have is a sneak peak at our new carpet! It's very brave for us! And this little monster stood up and walked by herself without encouragement for the first time! Whilst all that is going on and I...