Jo Avery – the Blog

Notting Hill Dresden Plate Cushion

Yes, I’ve got a big thing about these Dresden Plate cushions. First I made this one. And then I made this one. And then I made another one that I can’t show you just yet 😉 I thought it would be lovely to turn one of these into a kit that came complete with the

Vintage Floral Embroidery

Regular readers will know that I have a large collection of vintage embroidered linens. I have been cutting these up and using them to make things like notebook holders and cushions for a while now. But, inevitably, I’m starting to use up all the best bits. And some of the bits are just so gorgeously

Floral Dresden Plate Cushion

A few months ago I had my first go at the Dresden Plate block when I made this cushion for a session in one of my evening class blocks. It proved really popular and so I decided to make it a full day workshop for 2013, with the idea that you could complete the whole

Lesson planning

I’m very busy with my craft classes at the moment and now patchwork is vying with crochet as the most popular class. A few weeks back I taught a full day workshop in the porthole technique that Lu Summers had taught us at FQ London (I checked first to see if she was ok with

A hearty Goodbye to 2011…

… and Hello to 2012! I am just hoping it will be an improvement on 2011 which was a pretty pants year as far as I was concerned, but it did have lots of good points too. And look at all the quilts I managed to actually finish! I am very impressed with myself. Of

My First Class

I thought you might like to see some photos of my first class (seeing as you have all been so sweet and encouraging about my new venture). I had 4 students (2 of whom were my friends!) so it was a nice gentle start. There were a few teething problems but they didn’t seem to

Too Busy to Blog – Part 2

Phew! I have finally got to the end of my mammoth sewing and crocheting marathon! So here are the next batch of projects completed for my Bearpaw Craft Classes venture. Do you remember the Sleepy Owl Pyjama Case I made last year? Well here is his big brother Wide Awake Owl Doorstop! I thought this

Too Busy To Blog – part 1

My life is a bit of a whirlwind at the moment and I feel my poor old blog is being slightly neglected. So please forgive me, dear readers, and also all you lovely bloggers whose blogs I usually follow. I just have not had a spare minute over the last few weeks to properly visit

One good turn deserves another

  Remember how happy I was a few weeks back when I received all those lovely FQ’s of Elizabeth Scott’s ‘Red Rose Farm’ fabric directly from Elizabeth herself? Well I was desperate to get them cut up and sewed back together again as soon as possible! And like everybody else recently, I have been so

More tickertape cot quilts

A few weeks back I made a tickertape cot quilt as part of the latest ORBC quiltalong. Deeroo was hosting the quiltalong on her blog and I posted about the quilt I made here. Well that quilt sold in my shop really quickly and since then I have had it on the top of my