Jennie's Threads

It was my birthday last week! My daughters bought me two books: Fantastic Beasts - illustrated version and Angie Wilson's Fussy Cutters Club - which I've been after for a while!  I was given it on Tuesday evening, on Thursday evening I made two improv panels and before bedtime on Friday I had a finished bag! Improv piecing is not my comfort zone, and fussy cutting is all new to me. The fabrics I picked were not all fussy-cuttable, but some had nice motifs I was able to include and others were directional and I managed to cut them straight. I picked a selection of navy and coral fabrics. This wasn't my first choice but there's a good reason for it: the pattern calls for a heavier-weight fabric to be used on the base of the bag - vinyl or denim or upholstery weight... I don't have much fabric that isn't quilting cotton, so I raided my wardrobe and picked a paid of jeans. I picked the pair that fit worst, but there's no denying that I could have c...

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...

On a roll with the finishes at the moment! I finished this last week, but it's taken me until the weekend to combine weather and daylight to get some photographs. I tried to convince my little helper to hold the quilt, but it didn't quite work! Anyway: this is a quilt I started back in July at a wonderful workshop with Sarah Fielke hosted by the lovely ladies at Simply Solids in Huddersfield. You can read all about the workshop here - suffice to say it was the hottest day of the year in a room where the large windows didn't open! I had grand plans at the start of the day of a full quilt, but the reality was that the technique ate low volume fabric just a bit too quickly for my liking. I stuck with the single word I made on the day and knew that I was never going to get any further. I added a bit more background and quilted it up. A bit of purple binding and I have a finish. It's 36" x 12" and might end up on Jessica's bedroom wall. T...

Lots has happened this month! Notably I think I have blogged more. And that's down to planning: at the start of the month, I sat down and planned some blog posts, and in the most part I have stuck to that plan! I'll try it again for August and see if I can keep it up. So what was I actually sewing? Well, for starters, my monthly block count is 70! A total mix of projects! Zippy pouches. Lots of zippy pouches. I shared two here : a boxy zippy for my perle threads, and an open wide pouch for taking stuff when I go out and sew. Followed by a C&S black and white pouch for my black and white EPP project, and a blue and pink number for a travel play set for Mia. A bit of a thing for black, white, grey and bright pink going on. I finished two quilts: a baby quilt - Quasar II And a whopper - Jane Austen Family Album I had a ball at a workshop with Sarah Fielke I did a bit of charity stitching And I made good progress on both the Splendid Sampler and...

Last Wednesday I had a day to myself: no children for a whole 12 hours. Just six days after Jessica was born, the lovely ladies at Simply Solids announced two workshops with Sarah Fielke: much as I would have loved to do both days, the reality was that with two small children, I could only push the generosity of my sleep-deprived husband so far! And the willingness of Linda - because let's be honest, it would be her looking after the girls, not Michael! I did there-and-back in the day. It's a two-and-a-half hour journey by car (three and a bit if you get stuck on the M62), and those nearly-six hours spent in the car were totally worth it. The workshop took place in an old mill building by the canal. It will be absolutely lovely once fully renovated, but at the moment it looks like the Room of Requirement from Harry Potter! And the windows didn't open. My car read 28 degrees when I left mid-afternoon and I'm sure it was far hotter in the room. But despite the long...

I'm wrapping up my swaps for this year - no more until well after Baby comes. This is my penultimate swap commitment and is the second round of the Easy Swap UK. This time, rather than just making a mini, the swap was for a mini, a zippy or a bag. My partner was happy to receive any of the three, and as I don't make bags, but do make a lot of minis, I decided on a zippy. Everything is taking so much longer to complete at the moment... but I finished this Sew Together Bag in time for posting. My Partner, @Daisybuttockup, said at the start that she liked aqua and low volume, but no white. I have to confess that once I was finished, I was worried that there was a bit too much white low volume... Even though in the photo above, it looks like there is white included, I promise it isn't! I pieced improv stars on the outside and then went to town with the aqua on the inside, having restocked my zips (I only had pink left.... not really ideal). The extras on this ...

It feels like I haven't done any sewing in ages, but it's actually only been since Sunday. On Monday I basted five quilts (yes - five. There is a lot of quilting in my future). But I didn't sew. Yesterday I made some mosaics for the swaps I've accidentally signed up for! But I didn't sew. Tonight I came home with a cough and a headache and dead tired. But after we'd put Her Majesty to bed and had tea, I made myself sit down at the sewing machine. And boy do I feel better. This is what I made. I pulled out the red scrap bag, drew a moustache, and started piecing (in much the same way as the turquoise cushion I shared yesterday). It's possible I'm starting to find this kind of piecing comfortable... I didn't touch my stash, my fat quarters or any yardage (except the grey which was bought for this purpose) - all scraps.  I have to say that the moustache shape made the circle seem easy. I struggled a bit with the ends, even though...

I am insanely pleased with this finish - most of it was just a little bit outside of my comfort zone... Months and months ago Susan ( Canadian Abroad ) hosted an Instagram giveaway - repost the project she had made which you liked most and she would make you one. I reposted a gorgeous scrappy cushion ( you can see it here ). Only one member of my family followed me on Instagram at that point, and she decided that she liked the cushion: "can you make a cushion like that?"... "possibly."..."in turquoise and grey?" My family are known for their subtlety - this was the same family member who when I was first brought home from University to meet my boyfriend's family (after dating for just two weeks) asked if she could be a bridesmaid. Any sensible woman would have run a mile. But we did let her be a bridesmaid. I figured this would make a great Christmas present! I dug out my turquoise scraps and got my husband to do a sneaky colour match. And then ...

Oh yes - another one! This is one project which went through a lot of changes. The original plan was nine 6" swoon blocks in a traditional setting. I cut all the fabric. Made three blocks. Put it away. Had a baby. Pulled it out. Made another two blocks. Decided I was bored. But five blocks doesn't get me very far and I had loads of fabric ready cut. One Saturday evening I sat and randomly pieced together the remaining cut fabric. I then spent several evenings trying to put these random pieces together, limited by having only a fat quarter of the grey background fabric left. This is a kind of piecing that I DO NOT enjoy. It makes my head hurt. The resulting quilt is not entirely successful. I've called it Swooning in a Crowd because the Swoons don't stand out - which is a shame given how much work goes into them. The cross hatch quilting doesn't help - it hides them even more... I added a little hand quilting - just lines here and there. But again, the thr...

I finished off the Wild Flowers quilt top that I was working on whilst on holiday with the borders. This is the part I find hardest about EPP - trimming the edges off the shapes and then trying to find seam allowances to sew together, which I've accidentally sewn down already. But it's done. I needed a back for it. Whilst on holiday I searched every charity shop in Sidmouth for vintage textiles and came up with the most poorly made (homemade), faded pillow case. It was, however, only faded on one side. But it did have a fastening made of dark green velcro. The best part, was that it cost just 50p! I decided it would be the basis for the backing of my holiday quilt. I forgot to photograph it before I pulled it apart... When I do EPP I cut large square/rectangular pieces of fabric which I then trim roughly to the right shape with scissors as I baste them. This leads to quite a bit of waste, which I saved with the intention of doing some improv piecing. The pillow case b...

In my last post you may have noticed that the pile of scraps I was playing with did not just contain green and orange, which I used for my Kindle case, but also purple, pink, grey and turquoise.... these had a different purpose. More improv piecing, but more controlled - I did this before I did the green and orange as a gentle introduction for non-improv brain. I made two panels. and trimmed to 4.5" x 6" and using the instructions for the prettified pincushion (am I the only one who thinks it says petrified ever time I look at it?) from the Patchwork Please book I made myself a new pincushion. The top and bottom are all scraps and the sides are a text  print from Architextures. My corners aren't perfect but I'm pretty pleased with the finished item. It's ticked a lot of boxes - scraps, new pincushion, pretty, text print.... This is my favourite side! This evening is about finishing piecing the baby quilt - all of the blocks are pieced and I now ju...

I used to read a lot when I was younger - nothing could beat Enid Blyton! Now I'm older I find I read less, though Enid Blyton still crops up occasionally! But I figured with Baby on the way, reading would be something I could do perhaps whilst breast feeding, or when I'm too tired to sew. So for my birthday I got a Kindle (one handed reading!). Every Kindle needs a case so I started hunting the internet and found this tutorial, which seemed to hit the spot. I decided to combine it with another plan for the year. Sarah from Fairy Face Designs is leading a year of using up scraps . Over Christmas when I sorted out my sewing stuff, it turned out I have far more scraps than I thought - I tend to keep anything that can make a 1/4" hexagon upwards! Sarah's goal is also to make practical things for the house. All of this seems like a good idea, and a Kindle case using some scraps felt like the perfect thing to start with. This was yesterday lunchtime. My comf...