Jo Avery – the Blog

Monster Sampler Quilt!

I have a quilt finish and it is only 11th January! In fact I finished this a week ago but as it’s for a gift I have been waiting to post about it. This is a very long running WIP which I can trace back (thanks to this wonderful blog archive) to the summer of

Ombre Clamshell Cushions

Back in June I finished the Clamshell Cushion below. It had started as a class sample and then hung around in the WIP pile for a few years before I was in a tidying mood in the Spring.  It reminded me how much I like to work with this shape and technique. Around the same

Stitch Gathering 2018 Report and Goody Bag GIVEAWAY!!

Last Sunday was the 6th annual Stitch Gathering! Every year I organise this one day event which is held in Edinburgh in October. Around 90 quilters come together for a fun filled day of sewing, chatting, shopping, learning and sharing! This year we had some new teachers such as the amazing Karen Lewis (seen here

Paisley Passion Embroidery – FREE Pattern!

Today is the official launch of my new Passionflower thread collection on the Aurifil blog, and to celebrate I have designed a new embroidery pattern which you can download for FREE! I wrote about my Passionflower thread box in this post here. It contains 10 x 12wt spools in the beautiful shades I used for

Festival of Quilts 2018 Report

Yes… that IS me and Kaffe Fassett! This year my Festival of Quilts adventure began (at 8am!) with an appearance on the Sewing Quarter.  And if you read my last post you will already know that the other guest that day was none other than the legendary Kaffe Fassett – one of my biggest design

Quilting on the Radio AND the TV!

What an exciting week I am having! First up you can hear me talking to the adorable Pat Sloan on the American Patchwork and Quilting Radio Podcast! I felt so honoured to be asked to chat to Pat on her show.  Through the Aurifil DOM and the Splendid Sampler 2 projects that we’ve been working

Passionflower embroidery and thread collection

I’ve got my embroiderer’s hat on for a change today.  As quilting is pretty much my full time job these days I like to think of other crafts like embroidery and crochet as my hobbies. But also sometimes I combine the two for an embroidery commission. I first designed this passionflower pattern a couple of

Small Projects and News

My working life is roughly divided into four parts: MyBearpaw Studio and Shop Stitch Gathering Retreat The Thread House Retreat Quilting/Sewing Patterns for publication I always joke that I’m part of the gig economy as I need to run at least four businesses to survive! Actually I am only partly joking and sometimes I can

Colour Box Quilt

I am delighted to share my Colour Box Quilt today! It’s a pattern in the latest issue (61) of Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine and I got a lovely surprise when it arrived this week to find that it had made the cover! Even more so because I thought it was destined for issue 62!

Pantone Quilt Challenge 2018 (and other minis)

This year’s Pantone of the Year colour is Ultra Violet and as usual the lovely Rebecca and Sarah have organised another Quilt Challenge! I entered this for the first time last year and had so much fun that I thought I would try again this year (and also I really like purple!). You can see