Jo Avery – the Blog

Avery Garland Quilt

I’m so pleased that I can finally share this special quilt with you. This is my Avery Garland quilt which I made for the new issue (52) of Today’s Quilter, which comes out today in the UK. And it made the cover! It’s a mixture of English Paper Piecing and applique which I started back

Spotlight at 40 Quilt

Settle down everybody for today I have quite a quilt story to tell… I should have written this post 3 weeks ago. The quilt was finished and photographed and I had started to write the blog post and was waiting for photos to load when I went back to check a little detail and discovered

The Thread House Summer Retreat 2019 Report

Last weekend I headed down to Yorkshire for the first ever Thread House Summer Retreat. This was held at the wonderful High Trenhouse centre which is set in the most amazing countryside, close to Malham Tarn. As I said to the slightly shaken attendees, who arrived after quite an alarming drive up steep slopes, hairpin

Water Lily EPP Hoop Art Tutorial

Welcome back for part 2 of this week’s Hoop Art Tutorials! Following on from the earlier post I am offering a second hoop art idea, this time EPP and this post also comes with the free templates and tutorial to make this Water Lily EPP block. Why all this Hoop Art? It’s all to do

Flower Teacups and Dandelion Clocks

A lot of my time is spent coming up with new designs for quilts and new designs for classes and sometimes both things at once.  I often turn my magazine quilts into new workshops (usually due to student’s requests) but with a full-time teaching studio and three annual retreats I am still always searching for

Butterfly Fantasy Quilt and GIVEAWAY!

Earlier in the year the lovely folks at Free Spirit Fabrics asked if I’d join in with their Murmur Fabric Influencer Tour.  Murmur is the new fabric collection from one of my favourite designer’s Valori Wells, so of course I said ‘Yes please!’. A beautiful box full of the new collection arrived a few weeks

Stitching Flowers and Leaves

It’s May the Fourth and I’m heading to a wedding reception tonight. It’s the wedding of one of my students, Suzanne and her fiance Scott, who are big Star Wars fans, hence the date they decided to tie the knot! I’ve become very fond of, and proper lifelong friends with many of my students over

Mixing Techniques and Experimenting

I’ve had a bit of time away from quilting deadlines since Christmas and this has given me some space for experimentation. This started when I needed a Christmas present for a neighbour and so I stitched a couple of panels of scrappy improv for a pouch. I used up the odd left over class sample

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