Jennie's Threads

I have no idea how much time I will get this quarter...probably not a lot. But that won't stop me putting together another enormous list! Priority number 1 is the Cosmos Dust Quilt. Because this is for Baby. I'm hand piecing using EPP techniques and I'm now over half way. I have already bought fabric for borders and backing and binding - I'm working on this project today! I really really want to finish my Thread Along quilt. I'm sharing the pattern with you all on my blog and I fell a bit behind during my never-ending pregnancy but I am catching up. I'm pretty close to a finished quilt top but I may hand quilt it and that may be a long process - but I'm still hopeful. This week I finished piecing the 100 blocks of Tula Pink's City Sampler. Now comes my least fabric part...sashing and the dreaded long seams. But I can at least do this. Then I want to quilt it and move out of my comfort zone and try to use different FMQ patterns - It's not go...

It feels like ages since I've worked on something fiddly - small with lots of pieces. I've missed it and I'm totally fed up of long seams. So today I did some foundation piecing, and it was quite obvious it had been a while. After I had sworn and unpicked the first two seams because I had put the fabric on the wrong way it went relatively smoothly. I now have the December block of the Lucky Stars 2013 completed! I'll try and remember to link up with Kristy tomorrow for her paper piecing party - though I've had a severe bout of baby brain today so I made need a reminder....

If you're bored of seeing these little blocks then the end is in sight - these are the last 11 blocks! There will still be posts on my dislike of sashing and my disappointment that I can't quilt like Angela Walters, but these are the last of just blocks! Block 90: Spoons: This is our traditional family Christmas game - it is very competitive and injuries are common...the "rules": If you have ten people you take a pack of playing cards and pull out aces through to 10s and discard the rest. Shuffle and deal - 4 cards to everyone. Place 9 spoons in the middle and make sure no one is edging closer.... on the count of three everyone passes a card to the left and the aim is to get 4 cards of a single number. When you do, you dive for a spoon, everyone else notices you dive for a spoon and does the same and one person ends up with no spoon - generally after rolling round the floor with a person on each end of a single spoon... the person without a spoon is out. Continue,...

This bonus week has meant one final finish for the 2013 Finish Along and my first finish of 2014! The quilt is for a friend who had her baby boy back in August. Baby's nursery has a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme so the choice was easy. But I didn't even order the kit until mid-September. I got the fabric cut and then left it. To be honest, I wasn't very inspired. I had even resigned myself to letting this one roll over into next quarter. Until Sunday when I had an hour spare. And in the space of that hour I had done all of the border piecing and added the first border and half of the second border. Why is it always the way that the things you put off actually can be done so quickly that you end up not knowing why you put it off again and again in the first place. So an hour on Sunday and a few hour yesterday got me a completed quilt top. I basted it this morning all by myself (just) and then I quilted it. I couldn't face setting up my machine for free motion ...

Yep - beaten by a quilt. For the moment at least. Back in October I added a barely-started quilt to my Finish Along list and I was really, really hoping to link it up this week as a finish for Quarter 4 2013. But this has turned into one of those quilts that just does not want to be finished. From the moment I picked it up, it has fought back, and today, I finally let it win - the battle but not the war.... In summer 2012  my LQS had Joy by Kate Spain for Moda in stock. I loved this fabric - still do. About the same time I was doing a class for the Pac Mania quilt (this was another Jelly Roll quilt I finished last February). In the same book, Jelly Roll Dreams by Pam and Nicky Lintott, was the perfect pattern for these big bold Kate Spain prints, so I bought a Jelly Roll, the sashing fabric, the border fabric and the binding fabric (plus a couple of fat quarters for good measure). The construction method was very straightforward - join eight strips with long seams, cut, sa...

This isn't so much a post about resolutions, but a post about the things I'm going to have a go at this year (and pretty fabric I'm going to play with). You can't have read my recent blog posts without realising I'm expecting our first child in the very near future. I read a lot of inspirational blogs about Mums who still find time to sew. A lot. I hope I will also get the chance to sew in between nappies and feeds and everything else that comes with Baby. Nevertheless, I have probably planned in too much... (I'll say it before my Mum or my mother-in-law do)! I've signed up for the Vice Versa BOM hosted by Anne-Marie at Gen X Quilters I "took part" in her Sisters BOM last year. By "took part" I mean I made the first couple of blocks... I have every intention of finishing last years quilt too, but I picked a lot of white, which doesn't necessarily fit comfortably in a house with two dogs, my husband and a new baby... so I'm...

I'm slowly catching up on sharing these with you! Today we're onto the October block. I love how my pumpkin turned out, though I had hope he would look less like a cheerful clown and more ... Halloween-y! You can find the instructions for the embroidery here , listing the stitches used and the background to the motifs. And you can find the embroidery pattern here . You can also find all the instructions you need for making the pieced sections here and the applique section here . And there is more information on the Thread Along page . I'd love to see anything you make - how about checking out the Flickr group ?