Twelve Green Bottles and other new Academy workshops

I have a new quilt to share with you today! This is Twelve Green Bottles and I made it for a new workshop in The Thread House Academy.

We have just launched our third Academy year today with enrolment now open! Every year we plan a whole year’s worth of online workshops, one per month. We divide the year into three themed terms and take one month each for our chosen class. That leaves an extra month every term, this year we will be hosting a Block of the Month for this month.

This year’s themes are Tiny, Shapes and Folk Art. This new quilt is for the Shapes term. I’ll be showing students how to create a range of improv shapes in this exciting and demanding new class, with no curves allowed (quite a departure for me!)!

The quilt consists of a few of my current favourite improv pieced units such as wonky bottles, crosses and log cabins. And then I’ll be teaching my way of creating an undulating checkerboard panel and long strips of ‘coral beads’. Finally we will tackle two different techniques to create improv triangles.

The quilt is made of three different blocks, some of these are then repeated to make the corners and ‘walls’. I kept the colours divided between these two sections, with cool shades on the walls and hot in the corners and centre. This gives a really dynamic effect, like a medallion quilt with a cross laid over it.

If you don’t want to make the whole quilts you can make one or all of the stand alone blocks and I will be showing these used for mini quilts, cushions or bags.

I’m really enjoying using black and white alongside my usual bold solids and I think this works so well in this quilt. The fabrics are a big mixture from my stash but mainly Kona and Dashwood Pop. I used my go-to Random Plaid grid to quilt this on my Handi Quilter Moxie using Aurifil 40/3 in off-white.

For the Tiny month I have chosen one of my most popular classes ever, Tiny Improv Streetscape. But I’ve produced a new quilt for the class and renamed it Tiny Improv Town.

I’ve taught this one since 2018 when it was originally developed for the Stitch Gathering Retreat I used to organise.  At the end of every class I would ask the students to lay out all their tiny houses together to create an adorable (and temporary!) ‘tiny town’. 

I’m actually just back from Ireland where I had a fabulous time teaching at the Quilters Guild of Ireland Retreat. I taught Tiny Improv Streetscape there and did exactly this at the end of the class. Here is the result on the left.

In this new Tiny Improv Town quilt I have tried to recreate that communal magic but with added trees! The quilt measures 34″. This is such a versatile class where you can make a huge range of projects from pouches to pots depending on how much you are enjoying being a fabric architect!

Lynne and Karen loved my Folk Art class in last year’s Academy so much that they both wanted a go too and so our final term is all about Folk Art! I am going to be sharing the joy of my Folk Art Dolls. You can read my first post about them here. Since I wrote that post I’ve gone on to create the Cats in Cardigans, and I’m not stopping there!

I can’t wait to teach you all how to make these fun dolls. As well as sharing the basic pattern I will be encouraging you to create your own personal versions of these tiny friends. We will then explore different way to transform your doll from a bird to a cat to a lady to a rabbit! You are going to have so much fun bringing each little doll to life and falling in love with them during the process.

We will also look at creating themed dolls such as scary dolls for Halloween or something more festive for Christmas. I’m also planning to depict the three Thread House tutors as dolls (not for any voodoo purpose I must add!!)!

Speaking of my three partners (here we are at our recent retreat in front of the new BOM quilt), Karen and Lynne are also offering some fantastic classes! I honestly think it is going to be our best year yet.

Do head over to our Classes page here to read about them all. And if you don’t want to sign up for our whole year then don’t forget you can sign up for just a term OR a single class.

Term 1 is also available to buy now and our first single class is coming in a few weeks time. After that a new single class will be available to buy every month with a new term every 4 months.

Hopefully you have already signed up for the Free Taster Weekend to make my Mini Chicken Pouch along with Karen’s Couched Coasters and Lynne’s Origami Crane Mini Quilt. I am still having a lovely time with the triangle pouches and couldn’t resist making a blackbird pouch this week!

Click here to sign up if you haven’t already and I will (sort of) ‘see’ you at the weekend!