Welcome to Jo Avery's Blog!
Crewel Embroidery Handy Pocket Guide
Well here is some exciting news… I have a new book coming out soon! Crewel Embroidery Handy Pocket Guide will be published by C&T Publishing at the end of August (most likely end of September in UK). If the cover looks familiar that’s because this book is a reduced version of Modern Crewel Embroidery, the …
Twelve Green Bottles and other new Academy workshops
I have a new quilt to share with you today! This is Twelve Green Bottles and I made it for a new workshop in The Thread House Academy. We have just launched our third Academy year today with enrolment now open! Every year we plan a whole year’s worth of online workshops, one per month. …
Jukebox Quilt and some Important News
Let’s start with the exciting news… I am getting one of the Textile Galleries at this year’s Festival of Quilts! This is a very big deal for me. I applied for a gallery six years ago and got rejected and it’s taken me a while to give it another shot. I am so excited to …
Mini Chicken Pouch
It’s time to launch our Free Taster Weekend for The Thread House Academy and this year my tutorial will be this mini chicken pouch! Read on to find out why I will NOT be writing a pattern for it. I first made one of these little triangle pouches during a Golden Bobbins (my local sewing …
Moon Trees
My latest obsession is stitching these panels that feature trees in front of a moon. It’s a further exploration of my Freehand Rainbow Applique which I started 3 years ago now. The idea behind that was to cut and stitch simple shapes with the least fuss possible. No templates, no instructions, just some fabric and …
Temperature Quilt Fabric Book for 2024
As soon as I got up on Tuesday 31st December I stitched the last temperature block for 2024. Luckily (!) it was a very rainy day so I could decide on the weather code for the day with confidence. I’d already sewn the other 2″ blocks into the 16 block pages and had them up …
Doodlebug and Quilts of 2024
Amazingly we are about to head into 2025! How can we be a quarter through this century already?! I’m so pleased I’ve continued to write this blog even though the distance between my posts stretches a little more each year, but these annual round ups of quilts are an important marker and I managed to …
Folk Art Dolls
It’s been quite a while since I posted over here! I’m sure I’ve been as busy as ever but working on many different projects at a time and not really finishing anything enough to share here. However I wanted to tell you about a little journey I’ve been on recently to create a Folk Art …
Pop Art Dandelion and a Quilted Jacket
I managed to (sort of) have two weeks off at the start of July. Running your own business from home means it’s hard to take a break without physically leaving home but I live in such a beautiful place that I don’t want to go anywhere else! So instead I try to avoid emails and …
15 year Blog Anniversary and the Alice Caroline Sew Along Festival
15 year’s ago today I wrote my first ever blog post! Huge thanks to all my blog readers who have joined me on this journey, for all or some of the last 15 years!! I remember so clearly asking my then teenage sons for help and we actually had such a fun time together setting …