Jennie's Threads

On Sunday I linked up my Quarter 3 finishes for Rhonda at Quilter in the Gap's Finish Along Obviously ten projects was a bit ambitious. It turned out to be a bit over-ambitious. I finished 6, worked on the three of the remaining four and totally ignored one! There were three finishes in July and three in September. The first finish was the Rainbow Churn Dash Quilt for Joshua. There's nothing new about the churn dash block, but I love it. And I love rainbows so put the two ideas together with fabrics from my stash and ended up with a quilt for a little baby boy. Then I tackled the two big quilts that I started as Quilt-Alongs back in January: Swoon: Happy Mochi Yum Yum paired with bright red. Another two favourites. I spent the first half of the year working on Free Motion Quilting and finally felt comfortable tackling this. I did a small scale stipple over all of the red, leaving the stars free to pop. I love the red and white striped binding! And Oh My Stars ...

Mum has adopted my Oh My Stars quilt, at least until I have made her a quilt from the fabrics she picked last summer! But I really wanted the quilt to have a label before it was used. So I designed myself one to embroider on my summer holidays. But hexagons got in the way and I never started it. Last week I finally started it, and I appliqued it onto the back of the uilt just before we left Mum's on Sunday. I have finally labelled a quilt - I should really label all my quilts....

Two posts in one day! If you want to see reveal number 2 - Swoon, that post is here . But this post is reveal number 3 - Oh My Stars - my largest quilt ever at (I've just measured it) 97" x 76" - that's 346" - 28 feet - of binding sewn on to the back of the quilt by hand! What a good use of the Olympics Opening Ceremony!  It was a bit windy - thanks Mum and Linda for holding it up!  Here's the story of this quilt: I really like star blocks - I like the symmetry of them. Back in November I tripped over the Oh My Stars QAL - I can't remember exactly where I saw it (but it could well have been on Sharon's blog - she always has loads of great projects). Sheila was using vintage sheets for her quilt and I love the large floral prints. Our local quilt shop hat just got in the full range of Dogwood Trail from Moda and the floral nature (whilst not old fashioned) seemed to fit the bill. So I asked for 16 fat quarters for Christmas and then used ...

It's 1st August. And that means that it's nearly time for Sidmouth !!!!!! But before we head off on holiday, I have time to wrap up July, which was a bumper sewing month! I'm linking up to Lily's Quilts for this post: I have finished three quilts: Swoon and Oh My Stars (which I still haven't fully revealed - hopefully tomorrow). I free motion quilted both and attached the binding by hand - that was a lot of meters of binding! And Joshua's quilt  - a rather large baby quilt, which I grid quilted. All of these three count towards my 3rd Quarter finish-along . I started a fair few projects too: I started a Jelly Roll hexagon quilt from Papillon by Moda I started the Sew Intertwined QAL in greens and purples. I started a jelly roll Dresden quilt in Ruby by Moda And I made the fantastic Desperate House Wives block for Stash Bee - I am totally in love with this block! For August I've prepared some embroidery - two quilt labels for Swoon and ...

It's been a big week here - in quilty terms anyway! SWOON is finished! Don't  you just love that red and white stripe binding? OH MY STARS is finished! Archie gave it the seal of approval before I had even finished sewing on the binding!  The hand stitched binding on these two quilts comes in at 680 inches!!! JOSHUA'S QUILT is finished! I love the backyard baby fabric for the banking! But you only get sneak peeks - these quilts are so big, that I still haven't figured out how to photograph them properly - hopefully it will be beautiful weather when we visit my parents (and their large back garden) next week and then I will be able to share the full picture with you. I would love it if you popped back! Out of the ten finishes I listed for the third quarter Finish Along , three are now done! By the way - did you see the Olympics opening ceremony yesterday? Some of the imagery went a little over my four-year-old nephew's hea...

Have you seen all of the polaroid inspired blocks around recently - like this one , and this one ? I really like the idea of an I-Spy quilt using this idea, but my stash isn't the biggest, nor my fabric the best for this type of quilt. Then I came across this Flickr group. You make as many polaroid blocks as you fancy, send them off, and get back the same number in return! How simple is that! I've been through my stash and pulled out 25 prints that would work, and I'm making two blocks from each fabric - one for me to keep and one to send off. I plan on raiding Linda's stash later this week - she has far better fabrics for this than I do! If you want to join in, there's still time before the blocks have to be sent - check out the Flickr group for all of the information! So as well as making up the blocks, I've been making binding - metres and metres of it. The darker blue roll is now attached to the Oh My Stars quilt ready to be hand sewn down. ...

Last quarter I signed up for the Finish Along hosted by Rhonda at Quilter in the Gap. I planned to finish three quilts, and eventually finished two of them. Ironically it was the two quilts that were furthest from being finished that got done - the one that just needed quilting (and also the smallest) remains on the WIP list. Sign ups are now open for Quarter 3 and I am going to be far more ambitious. I've been thinking about which projects to list for this quarter and couldn't decide, so I'll list them all. I found that the accountability was really useful, so you never know - one person finished 11 projects last quarter! So here goes 1. Farmer's Wife Quilt All 111 blocks are made and I've already made a start on the sashing, but this is really not my favourite of quilting, so I really need a bit of a kick up the butt. My Local Quilt shop is expecting a delivery of new batiks soon, so I'll be able to pick out some beauties for border and backing. 2. ...

It's Fresh Sewing Day at Lilly's Quilts, so I'm linking up! But I forgot at the end of May, so there are some pictures here from May too. 1. Farmer's Wife: I reached the 111 blocks total at the end of May - Wohoo! And I took the opportunity of a large carpeted area on holiday to decide on my layout . 2. Noah's quilt : Noah was born 16 June to Natasja and Ruben. 3. End of May I sent off my swap item for the Modern She Made Swap - a sewing machine cover with someembroidery. 4. Just last week I started sashing the Farmer's Wife blocks 5. June blocks for Stash Bee 6. Owl cushion (applique) 7. Amelia Jelly Roll Quilt - I finished stitching the binding on this just last night (just in time for the Finish Along) and I'll show you some more photos tomorrow. 8. Oh My Stars quilt - I know I showed this a few months ago, but I've now added borders and been able to photograph it in daylight. This morning we basted it ready for quilting. 9. Lots of ...

Last night we saw out March in style with my Mum's "significant" birthday party. We had a great weekend down at my Parents and I have some photos to share later this week. For now, a round up of my March sewing: From the top left, aiming for a logical order: 1. Farmers Wife Block #74: Ribbons 2. Indian Summer cushion . This was a present for Granny, and I gave it to her this morning. She really liked it and the colours match her decor perfectly! 3. Oh My Stars : the quilt top is finished, except for a thin border and a wide border, but I couldn't face any more long seams with lots of points to get accurate. 4. Farmer's Wife in Your Life blind runner . My first attempt at binding using only the machine - no more slip stitching for me! 5. Swoon : All nine blocks completed with the Happy Mochi Yum Yum fabric and pieced together. 6.Farmer's Wife block # 28: Duck and Ducklings - a green block for St. Patricks Day 7. Farmer's Wife block #22: Corn and (baked) bea...

Here is my finished Swoon Quilt top. I finished it yesterday but Michael's arms aren't long enough to hold it up for me to photograph and it's taken me a day to come up with the idea of pinning it up on the wooden surround around the arch from our dining room to kitchen! Even then I can't get far enough back to photograph it well - unfortunately this will have to do! And then I did the same with my Oh My Stars Quilt top. This is mostly finished but still needs two borders to be added.: a very narrow one in blue (about 1" finished) and then a 6" finished border in a white fabric from the range with large blossoms on it. If I'm honest, I'm currently fed up of pinning long seams, especially those where I have to be careful not to lop of points from stars.... so it may be a while before the borders get added. I think I'm going to quilt both in a similar way - stipple/swirls in the background fabric, then something in the centre of the big stars on the ...

Mother's day today in the UK, so Michael cooked roast chicken dinner for Linda, Phil, Jane, Steph and James. Michael, Phil and Jane then dashed off to Newcastle to watch the match (which Newcastle won) and then Steph headed off, leaving Linda and James. James is now four-years-old and into everything. Uncle Michael plays Warhammer (war games with little models) and James desperately wants to play with Warhammer. We all watched the football and he's chanting "Black and White Toon Army"and cheering when the black and white players have the ball and booing when the green players (Norwich) have the ball. I was busy on my sewing machine continuing to piece the Oh My Stars quilt top, and James came to watch, then he asked what the buttons on my machine were for, then he asked if her could press the buttons, then he wanted to know how it ran, then he used the foot pedal.... (no fingers went near needles, pins, scissors or the iron) and now James knows how to quilt. When he ...