Jo Avery – the Blog

Jo on Tour 2016!

Tickets and workshops are now ready for booking at the Festival of Quilts 2016 website!! And this year I am one of the tutors!! Yes, I am teaching a 3 hour workshop as part of the Quilt Academy programme on the Thursday (11th August), and as it is my first time it would be lovely

Text Embroidery and some more Matchstick Quilting

I’ve been busy launching our new myBearpaw prospectus over the last week. These are my workshops and evening courses from mid April till mid June. There are 5 new classes, four of them are for quilts and projects that I have made previously like this House Quilt and the Snowball Craft Bag. But I did

The Great Tapestry of Scotland

I’ve been wanting to tell you all about this exciting project since I first became involved back in May, but there hasn’t really been much to see until recently.  I first heard about it on the radio one morning in Spring on the Today programme. James Naughtie was talking to Alexander McCall Smith about a

Cedric the Badger

Meet my new woodland friend, Cedric the Badger. Cedric’s had a difficult birth but he’s here now and ready to be stitched. Yes I have a pattern all ready for sale on our website! This was the sneek-peak preview you got a few weeks back when I did a tutorial for the Raised Rose Stitch.

Embroidery Pattern launch with FREEBIE!

 You have been asking for these and I have been promising them, and at last I can announce… … that my embroidery patterns are ready to buy!! Thanks to my IT consultant (*cough* husband), who has been working hard on this all week, you can now buy a pdf of any of the designs on

Sampler Tree Embroidery with extra owls

I have been having a week off work for a wee holiday, just ‘staycationing’ at beautiful Shangri La Farm. But seeing as I have picked the wettest week of the year for it, I have been inside sewing most of the time! This has given me time to catch up on ARRR8 and Cherish Circle

FQ London Sample Swap – Embroidered Portraits

I’ve finally finished my pieces for the FQ London Sample Swap. Basically you make 4 pieces of something and swap them in groups of 5 so that everyone comes away with 4 different things. I was very keen to consolidate my recent woodland embroidery theme, so I thought some mini embroideries featuring my cast of

I will be the envy of FQ London…

…with my beautiful name tag!! How gorgeous is this little embroidered badge made for me by Emily of Strawberry Patch Blog?! I am participating in a name tag swap for the Fat Quaterly Sewing Retreat in London next month (so excited!!). I hadn’t even started mine when this exquisite little thing popped through my mailbox

More Woodland Friends

Meet Rufus the fox and the excitable owl.  A few weeks back I completed this embroidery featuring Boris the bear and his chicken as an inspiration piece for the Hoop up – Stitch & Send swap. I really loved making it and went on quite a bit about how much I was enjoying embroidery. My

All hooped up now!

I’m all finished with the ‘Hoop-up! Stitch and Send Swap’ on Flickr. Well, I have finished my embroideries anyway. And this one here was a bit of a departure for me. Dolores’s theme was Modern Classic Furniture, and her mosaic was full of minimalist sofas and chairs. Well I think you’ve all seen enough of