Welcome to Jo Avery's Blog!
Moon Tree Quilt and Thread Collection
My Moon Tree Quilt is finished! I’ve been working on this since November last year when I started stitching these moon tree appliqué panels. I didn’t start out with the idea of making a quilt but I was enjoying sewing these so much that I knew I had to find a use for all the …
Tiny House Town
I have been busy recording the videos for my next The Thread House Academy class over the last few weeks and this has involved making some fun new items. I have been teaching this as an ‘in person’ workshop since 2018 when it was a class for that year’s Stitch Gathering (the annual one day …
Social Bite Village Quilt Drive 2025
It’s time for a Social Bite Village Quilt Drive post! I’ve been collecting and distributing donation quilts to the Social Bite Village in Edinburgh since 2018 and I am about to deliver another 10 quilts! That will bring the total donations to 124!! Huge thanks to all the amazing quilters who have contributed over the …
100 Days of Tiny Abstract Appliqué
Two years ago I took part in my first 100 Days Project. This is a free global art project that takes place online every year. You can read about my first project, 100 Days of Organic Appliqué, and the subsequent fabric book I created in this post. The 100 x 4″ blocks I stitched became …
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 …