Jennie's Threads

This month's meet up of the North East Modern Quilt Guild was a special one! Chris English headed north to join us for a day of sewing our scraps! It was such a good day - there was a real buzz in the room, there was fabric flying everywhere, and we all learned something new! Chris teaches two techniques: crumb blocks, combining scraps with an old shirt, and Portholes. Here's what I made in the workshop: I used an old shirt of Michael's - and I love that green colour, and the portholes are filled with a stripey maternity T-shirt which I'd embellished (otherwise known as hid a stain) with a Tula frog. I have no need of it anymore, so it was nice to be able to recycle it! And when I got home I kept going. And instead of a cushion, which was the aim of the workshop, I ended up with a whole quilt.... The added borders are leftovers from quilt backings (otherwise known as Asda duvet covers). I need to find an appropriate, recycled, backing and then I'm going...

To say I am chuffed with this finish would be an understatement! It became one of those projects that always loomed in the background and I dreaded tackling it. Of course, I built it up out of all proportion and left myself just 7 hours of stitching time to get it finished. Which it turned out was exactly what it needed. In May 2016 I made my not-quite-a-sister-in-law-but-she-seems-pretty-permanent, Saika, a scrappy pouch  (nicknamed the Baby Brain pouch as I made such a bloody mess of it) as a birthday present. Her partner, my sister-in-law, then requested the same style as a travel pouch for their trip to the States. I had 18 months! No problem. She had certain requirements: it had to be big enough to fit a flat sheet of A4 paper inside, and it had to have space for passports. I added the requirement that it should be a zipped closure so nothing could get lost, and that was where I stumbled. I couldn't think of how to do it. Until 3 weeks ago when someone posted a wa...

Now for some finishes - as promised, I've got quite a few to share with you! First up is the Long Time Gone quilt. Back at the start of the year, Angie @gnomeangel announced her next round of quilt alongs and this was one of them. Classy modelling from my husband!  The pattern is by Jen Kingwell. And I bought the pattern without really committing. I know that these things have a habit of selling out. Last year I made the My Small World quilt to one of Jen's patterns, and if you've followed me for a while, you'll know that I had a bit of a love hate relationship with it. This was why I was hesitant. But in the end I love the finished quilt. So I decided to join in this one. Plus, the fear of missing out on one of Angie's quilt alongs is real! Unlike My Small World, Long Time Gone is entirely machine pieced. But that did not mean it was easy. This quilt along stepped up the game from a block a month (as this quilt was originally run) to a block a week. And...

Things got a bit hectic round here the last few weeks so I'm a bit behind in sharing things here on my blog. We're now up to week 11 on the Long Time Gone sew along and I need to show you weeks 9 and 10 as well. So here is week 9: log cabin quarters. Week 10 saw the start of the half square triangles. And week 11 is more of the same. And even more in week 12 I laid out all of my blocks so far this week. This is definitely a scrappy quilt in the making!

This week's block is my favourite so far: Trip Around the World. A truly scrappy blocks, so I'm going to link up with Leanne and Nicky for Scraptastic Tuesday. Tonight I took stock of how far I had prepared so far. Next week's block is pieced, and the week following is cut and ready, but after that I'm not so prepared. I continued cutting tonight and whilst it feels like I didn't make much headway, I'm at least further ahead than I was! I'm also making good progress with a few of the pineapple blocks - I'll need 16 of these in the final week and so far I've made four.

I have a final finish to share for the Q3 link up before it closes: my scrappy Pineapple Quilt. Made entirely from my scrap bags from pieces so small that most people I know would throw them away - that makes this a free quilt, right? It's hand quilted and will go on the wall above the changing table as a distraction from nappies! My original FAL list #ridiculouslylongfallist is here and included 28 items. The final tally is 6 finishes, 6 projects with good progress and 14 items where I have absolutely nothing to say. Here are the other 5 finishes. Quasar Quilt 2 Jane Austen Sampler Quilt Moccasin Block of the Month Quilt Induction Mini Quilt Inky Zippy. I feel like I've made good progress on ABC embroidery, one of the Baby quilts, the Bee-utiful mini quilt, the Summer Sampler, the Joy cushion and the fruit embroidery mini. There were a few finishes scuppered at the last minute - hopefully these will be an early boost next quarter. The rest ...

Please don't ask why, but all of a sudden I've got a plan to make fruit quilts.... Here's the first,  a mini quilt pieced entirely from scraps. There's a lot of pineapples about at the moment, but this is my own layout. The size will be repeated for a few more mini quilts so watch this space. I find it amazing that I've pieced a mini quilt from scraps that are small enough that most people I know simply throw them away. It's like free fabric! The thing is, that I seem to have rather a lot of it, and this little quilt didn't make so much as a dent in it! Linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday.

This year is flying by. I can't believe it's already September - downhill till Christmas now...nights are drawing in... all those sayings that annoy people! In my denial that Autumn was coming, I forgot to post this review yesterday. Forgot to write it even! So how was August? My block drive continues! 60 blocks for August, 24 of those are from the #365QuiltChallenge quilt. I'm now about a month behind which feels good, and looking at the August blocks that I haven't yet made, they appear a bit simpler so by the end of September there is a small chance I might, might be up to date again. Maybe. My mission for September is to do a better job of photographing my finished blocks. Thirty-two of the remaining blocks are from a few new projects. I've mentioned the #100days100blocks sew along using the City Sampler block. I'm making three different quilts as part of this project, and so far so good - on track and up to date! You may see more of this blocks...

Rewind 16 weeks. I was 41 weeks and 4 days pregnant. Too pregnant. Huge. Fed up. I was booked in for induction. Call the maternity ward at 1pm to check if you can go in at 2pm as planned. Lunch at Weatherspoons. Home and on the phone. "Sorry, we're really busy this afternoon and don't have room for you. Call back at 5pm". I think 'disappointed' best described my emotions. So I had four hours to kill. I decided to pull down my scrap basket and do some mindless piecing. I cut little pieces 2"x 1" and pieced them into sets of three without much more thought than colours together. It was what I needed. By the time I called the maternity ward back at 5 I had a nice little pile of them. The maternity ward told me to leave it half an hour then come in, but they couldn't guarantee I would be seen quickly. In the end my waters weren't broken until 5.30am the next morning. Jessica arrived just 11 hours later. A few days later, the first sewin...

I accidentally joined another quilt-along. I definitely have a problem! Let me explain.... it's the Bee-utiful quilt along host on the Moda Bakeshop blog. I can't remember where I saw the first block, but I know that by the time I did, the second block had already been released. The first block featured a cat. Mia loves cats. The original project is 20 embroidered blocks set in a quilt. The theme is bees and there is a bee in each block. I'm not keen on bees, but cats... I thought it would be a nice block to make for her, so I shrunk the design by 50% and stitched it up. Then I tried to decide what to do with it. Middle of the night bottles have their uses and I decided to add a scrappy border to make it up to a 6" block. I've also stitched up a second block. I'm not keen on all the blocks in this project, but I think I can find nine to stitch up and add a similar scrappy border. I sorted some scraps into colours at the weekend to help out with...

May was a bit of a slow sewing month. Instead I've been enjoying time with this these two fruitcakes! Jess is now 6 weeks old, desperate to see whats going on and be involved, giving out great big smiles, and starting to chat away! I forget how quickly they start to interact. And speaking of chatting away, Mia doesn't stop! She's taken a liking to map-reading in the photo above! Having completed 43 blocks in April, I had a feeling May would be a drier month - just 27. But my running total for the year is still a healthy 283, so my 365 blocks in a year goal is well on track! But this month's blocks were more varied: I finally made a second Zodiac block. This project has been held up because I do freezer paper piecing and I had to replace my iron, and it just didn't get hot enough to melt the wax, making freezer paper foundation piecing a thoroughly unenjoyable experience. I've now replaced my iron so hopefully I'll get caught up o...