Jennie's Threads

Although our holiday was absolutely wonderful, sleeping was not. Mia refused to sleep in her travel cot, so I ended up sleeping on the floor with her on the travel cot mattress next to me... when we got back, we put her into the co-sleeper we've been using and had the night from hell - in the week and a half we were away she started rolling in bed and wanting to sleep on her side/front, and the co-sleeper just wasn't big enough. At this point I will say that the co-sleeper, which is a cot with three sides which can be height adjusted to match your own mattress, was the best thing we bought, especially as I have breast-fed at night. So Monday night we read up all the websites and decided that there was no way Daddy would cope with any of the cry-it-out methods of sleep training. I slept all night in my own bed! In the end we went for a method where every time baby cries, you pick them up until they stop, then put them down again. If they cry, pick them up again. If they li...

I worked on a few projects last night, but couldn't really settle. First up was my Bee block for Stash Bee - the colour inspiration was Americana/4th July - it turns out that I don't have many true true blues in my stash, but eventually I found something I was happy with. Although this isn't my favourite colour combination, I like the block and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Having said it isn't my favourite colour combination, the next thing I worked on was a baby quilt in the same colours. So many people we know are having babies at the moment. And they are all boys. So this is the first of quite a few baby quilts - so far I've cut all the circles, but got no further. And then I pulled out the Rhubarb and Custard quilt - this got stuffed in a draw when I stitched something wrong and couldn't be bothered to unpick - never a good idea. I unpicked and re-stitched. then I carried on and made quite a bit of progress with the sashi...

Tonight was Friday Night Sew In and I stayed in a sewed! First up the February blocks in the Skill Builder BOM. I cut these out on Wednesday before I was distracted by Color Me Retro and I did a few seams last night, but got them finished tonight.  This is the Em Dash Block... I can't tell you what to two fabrics at the top are, but on the bottom is a purple from Rock and Romance from Art Gallery and a pink from Noetworthy by Sweetwater. And secondly the Mood Block The pink is Lace Elements from Art Gallery, the green at the top is Wild Garden for Westminster Fibres, the yellow postmark fabric is Free Spirit (I think) and the green in the bottom right is a Nancy Halvorsen fabric... These two blocks aren't my favourites in the quilt, but they are growing on me each time I look at them! And they are great for showing off some of the bigger print fabrics. The background for both blocks is Kona Coal. I then did a few more blocks of Steph's Hot Cross Buns...

More snow last night! Not quite as much as last week, but enough. It's already melting today. Last night was also the first Friday Night Sew In of 2013 and I spent it with Jane. I made two blocks: D6: Challenge - it was anything but a challenge - beautifully easy foundation piecing! I used an Art Gallery fabric with quite a large scale print for that huge area in the middle. And C7: Megan's Mountain Laurel. Now, I like fiddly, but I may have found my limit - look how small one of the foundation pieced sections was - that's on the inch markings on my cutting mat! Inevitably with pieces so small, my finished block isn't perfect, some of the lines are wobbly, some of the points don't meet etc. But I am thrilled with the results and I AM NOT redoing this block! The fabric is from Noteworthy by Sweetwater. In the original quilt, the diamonds in the corners were appliqued - I decided to foundation piece those as well. And why pink? Well, Angel over a...

I had planned to work on my Mod Pop quilt last night. I did for a bit and I sewed all of the curves. I still haven't pressed them all. Half way through the evening I took the dogs out for a walk and had a thought.... I love my earrings..... big ones....lots of them (and hats and scarves and shoes but this isn't that blog post). My earrings live on my dressing table in a tin: As you can see, they are very rarely actually in the tin because I can't find the ones I want. I have a plan for an earring tidy, but for the next two weeks I will be away in Budapest for work (so things may go a bit quiet round here for a while) - so what I needed was some kind of earring travel tidy thingy. By the time I got home with the boys I had a plan. It was a plan that involved fabric I knew my local quilt shop still had in stock in case it went totally wrong! Ambrosia (it's really the leftovers from this quilt ). And just three hours later I had a finished earring tidy. ...

I spent yesterday evening playing with hexagons. Back in the summer I started a cushion, that became a table runner, that became a baby quilt, that returned to a table runner.  I've now got the point where it is along as I need it, and I've included all the colours, but it's quite straight. I spent yesterday basting some more hexies, so I stitch them to the edges so that not every row is four hexies wide. I've also basted some of the backing fabric I'm going to use as hexies, so I can have some of the coloured ones floating. That's the plan, anyway. During the week, I had a bit of a mad moment .... I bought some more hexy papers.... for 1/4" hexies. The shop owner asked me if I wanted to sit down, and my Mother-in-law thinks I have totally lost it. My Mum asked why - because I can! So I had a bit of a play and made a flower - it is just soooooo cute. Those lines are the inch (and at the top the half inch) markings on my cutting mat! I ...

The months just keep flying by, but very little changes. Again my Friday Night Sew In started with me not leaving work till 7pm ... I hadn't planned what I was going to do for the evening and I was exhausted. I need another holiday! So my husband chose the project I would be working on last night. It's a quilt for his sister's 21st birthday. Which was last October. I really want to get this finished beore she turns 22, and this is one of the projects I've included in the 3rd quarter finish-along, so it was a good choice on his part. The problem is, that although the batik fabrics are gorgeous, I find it quite boring to sew. I think I prefer things that are more intricate or at least have the challenge of matching seams. So it kind of gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. But last night it was perfect. I got another 12 of the 64 blocks complete. All the blocks so far We'd been talking about chick flicks at work yesterday and we'd mentioned Save the...

As I mentioned at the beginning of the week, I have recently inherited my Grandmother's stash. And with a few days left before I had to send off my Polaroid blocks for the swap , I had a rummage and found some more fabric begging to be used for these blocks. Batch 2 from this week To tell you the truth, some of the fabrics couldn't really be used for anything else! The seagull is in a league of his own..... I also had a browse in Linda's stash and "borrowed" a few select fabrics. With only one evening to make up the blocks and limited Kona white on hand I only made up the blocks to swap. I've also cut a 2 1/2" square of the same fabrics to make up later and keep to go with those I get back. 75 blocks to send off I wish Debbie lots of luck in sorting out something like 2500 little blocks! Tonight is Friday Night Sew In - pop back tomorrow to see what I got done!

On Thursday I posted my third quarter goals. There was quite a bit of quilting on that list! So I took the opportunity of yesterday's Friday Night Sew In to make a start. And I jumped right in with quilting my Swoon quilt. At 90"x90" it isn't small, but my machine, and me, seem to be coping ok - though I seem to be going through needles pretty quickly - must pick up more tomorrow. It's difficult to photograph well, but here we go: I'm doing a small scale stipple in all of the red areas. I'll leave the patterned pieces in the Stars unquilted and this really makes those beautiful Happy Mochi Yum Yum fabrics pop! I started again this evening with a new needle and I've only done an hour more quilting and that has been the life of another needle. I'm not sure I should be going through them that quickly. Although this picture is quite dark and doesn't show the colours at all well, you can see the quilting in it! I'm using a red Auri...

Perfect for a wet June day! Every day seems to be wet at the moment! Weeks ago Jennifer at Ellison Lane Quilts announced a Summer Sewing Contest. I thought I might make a bag for my summer holidays. My "summer" holiday was last week. No bag. A brolly would have been more useful. At the beginning of the year Rhonda at Quilter in the Gap announced a 2012 Finish Along. Last Summer I chose to make a quilt with Ambrosia fabrics. Last night was Friday Night Sew In. Today all those fourthings come together! I signed up to the Finish Along at the start of the second quarter (for the first quarter I was having my own personal start-along!), and I picked three quilts I wanted finished. At that time my sewing machine was misbehaving when I was free motion quilting, so I picked three quilts that I planned to straight line quilt. This was one of them. This is how far I'd got at the start of April April passed May passed June started passing very quickly. I ha...