Jo Avery – the Blog

The Hills Are Alive and Quilts of 2023

It’s that odd time of year between Christmas and New Year when time seems to be more elastic and when I traditionally post a review of all the quilts I’ve made in the last 12 months. Every year my quilt total gets less and less! In many ways I think this is a good thing.

3 New Quilts and one is already a Prize Winner!

Back in January I finished 3 quilts. Now it’s March and I’m finally getting around to posting about them here! And one of them has already won a prize! I wrote about The Thread House Academy, our new online teaching platform, in my last post and this, followed by the Scottish Quilting Show in Glasgow

Further Adventures with Freehand Applique

Back in May I wrote a post all about the Freehand Rainbow Applique class I had taught at the Making Zen Retreat and the cushions I’d made with my class samples. You can read that post here. I’d already became a little obsessed with the rainbow applique and had completed two cushions and a coaster.

Wardrobe Landscapes and a Flower Power Embroidery

It’s been a while since I had a project in a magazine but now, just like buses, two have landed at exactly the same time. One is quilting and the other is embroidery which adds a nice balance to this post. The first one is my Landscape Wardrobe mini quilts as featured in the latest

Watermelon Eyelashes Quilt and a Moxie Update

My first quilt finish of 2022 is called Watermelon Eyelashes. This is quite a long post as I’ll be discussing how you can put too much pressure on yourself and become paralysed by it. So buckle up! This quilt begun almost a year ago after I taught my Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Tiny Improv World Quilt

Today I’m delighted to share my finished Tiny Improv World quilt. The quilt top was finished during the first lockdown when I put together many collected sample pieces from all the Tiny Improv Streetscape classes I had taught. I actually didn’t have quite enough (having made plenty into puches and bags!) and so I needed

Two Finished Flower Quilts and a Moxie Report

I have two finished flower themed quilts to share with you today! Both were quilted on my Handi Quilter Moxie and I have again learned a huge amount. So in this post we’ll be exploring the quilting of my Journey to the Centre of a Flower quilt and my new version of the Bedding Plants

Heather Black Book Review and Moxie Update

I’m a huge fan of Heather Black’s quilts and loved her first book, written with Daisy Aschehoug, ‘Quilt Modern Curves and Bold Stripes’, so I was delighted to be given a preview digital copy of Heather’s new book, ‘Design Make Quilt Modern’. I have to say that I was immediately impressed by Heather’s ambition with

Quilt Dancing with the Edinburgh MQG

Lockdown brought all sorts of challenges but also some new opportunities and one of these was the chance to take an online class with the amazing Irene Roderick along with my Edinburgh MQG buddies. Irene lives in Austin Texas and starting offering her ‘Dancing with the Wall’ workshop as a Zoom course during lockdown. Our