Jo Avery – the Blog

Quilts and Pouches for Grenfell

I’m sort of on holiday at the moment. The studio is having it’s summer break for the next 6 weeks so I’m not teaching, but I still seems to have a lot to do! I think that’s the problem with this ‘gig economy’ they keep talking about – I just have too many businesses to

Stitch Gathering 2017 workshops and news round up!

Our workshops for this year’s Stitch Gathering Retreat have just been announced and I thought I would share my two new class samples with you. As you can see from the mosaic above there is a fabulous selection of classes on offer this year from our new guest tutors, Mandy Munroe, Lucy Brennan and Sarah

Festival of Quilts ticket GIVEAWAY!

As a teacher at this year’s Festival of Quilts I’ve been given some free tickets. I’ve given two away on Instagram and now it’s time to give two away over here, to all my dear blog readers! Read on to find out how to win one of these tickets. But first let’s find out about

Improv Jugs Quilt

I have a new quilt to share!  I have to admit that it is the end of March and I have not yet made a quilt this year! I don’t know what the hell I have been doing – I don’t seem to have stopped working – but it is not quilt making! But I

Improv Paper Piecing – a review and a new project

I was recently sent a copy of Amy Friend’s new book Improv Paper Piecing to review. I had loved Amy’s last book, Intentional Piecing, so Iwas very happy to do this, and I was also interested and intrigued by the subject matter. Long time readers will know that I love a bit of what I

The Thread House Retreat Report!

A week or so after the event and I finally feel recovered enough to post my Thread House Retreat Report! This was our first residential retreat, held at Folly Farm near Bristol two weekends ago. Speaking for myself, Karen and Lynne we are happy to pronounce it a resounding success! And as far as the

Pickled!

I am juggling three very different quilt projects at the moment, with all of them about to reach fruition over the next week or so. I thought it would be nice to share a WIP story about this particular quilt which I hope to show you finished very soon. I’ve become a bit obsessed with

Embellishing Patchwork

I felt very honoured to be asked to take over the Technical Feature in Love Patchwork and Quilting for this issue.  Sarah their Tech Editor is on maternity leave so they invited some ‘guests’ to fill the gap and asked me to do a feature on embellishing quilts, which or course is right up my

Scraptastic Midnight Meadow Quilt

Recently I’ve been teaching an evening class based on my Improv Meadow Quilt below. So of course I’ve been making another quilt alongside the students, but this time with a dark background. The first 5 sessions were all about using different improv techniques to create flowers, leaves and stems. Here are some of my class