Jo Avery – the Blog

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

Crochet Virus Shawl

I have been really enjoying knitting socks over the last few years (and shared a few pairs over here), but I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that my hand problem (inflamed tendons due to RSI) flairs up more with knitting than any other hand activity. However I love working with the self patterning

Pouch Problem?

Is an addiction to zippy pouches a recognised condition?!  If so I think I better get some help as I can’t stop making them! I’ve been talking about my Tendrils Technique in my last few posts.  The pouch above was the first one I tried with this technique, using Dashwood Studio ‘Paper Meadow’ fabric. I

New Snowball Bag

I’ve been busy this week organising our next term of myBearpaw craft classes. We have 5 new classes but I have to admit to not making anything new for them, but I did manage to make a new version of my Snowball Craft Bag. This was originally made as a pattern for issue 22 of

New Patterns and New Classes!

I have had a VERY busy weekend! In fact I have had a very busy couple of months! And tomorrow I will be lying beside a pool in the sun as I am off on my hols to Tenerife!! I can’t wait! But before I go, I just have time to tell you about our

A Journey of Some Scraps

I’m not the sort of quilter who keeps every last little scrap, in fact I’m pretty brutal with the sizes of scraps I throw away (otherwise I would be drowning in them even more than I actually am!), but when I finished making this 3D Improv Dresden block the fabrics were so pretty and looked

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

Mystery Quilt Update

We are up to week 7 of my Mystery Quilt evening course tonight so I thought it was a good time to share the quilt’s progress so far. I shared the first couple of blocks in posts earlier this year and explained how offering this class back in December (when we launched the term) had

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

Scraptastic Tuesday – the first time!

For ages now I’ve been meaning to post about and link up with Scraptastic Tuesday, hosted by the wonderful Nicky and Leanne, but I’ve never been able to get my act together. If I am using scraps I forget all about it and if I remember it then I have nothing scrappy to show! But