Last week a good friend of mine Jo celebrated a milestone birthday, she’s someone you might know and blogs over here. I knew her before she really started sewing so she might blame me for her addiction but I can live with that.
On Saturday night Emily, Susy, Jo and I went out for dinner to celebrate Jo’s birthday, we had done some secret sewing and presented her with this:
Call it what you like; a table runner, mini quilt or wall hanging. We each made a block reflecting some of Jo’s interests. If you didn’t guess, Emily made the bike book, I stitched the sewing one and Susy the cake (pattern from Patchwork Please).
Photo’s nicked from Jo’s IG
Susy very kindly took delivery of the blocks and put them together, quilted and bound – thanks.
For a while I’ve wanted to make a lone star, I was again reminded of this during the Cushions for Christmas blog hop. I thought that I could make one up and turn it into a gift for Jo’s birthday from our family. So the week before Jo’s birthday I printed off the pattern (free here). Bethan helped choose fabrics from my scrap boxes that we thought were ‘Jo’ and I got stitching. Like me Jo has 3 children and I know how grubby things can get so rather than use a white background fabric I used a grey which also felt like a Jo colour!
There are scraps in there too from Catrin from a swap I joined.
I machine quilted around the star using Aurifil 2530.
After thinking that I didn’t have an invisible zip I was trying to get my head into gear to put in a concealed zip (across the back with a flap over rather than invisible in the seam) when I searched again and the invisible zip became visible – phew!
On Sunday morning our family went to Jo’s for breakfast along with another family, something we try to do fairly regularly and the girls were very keen to give the present.
And here she is ‘modelling’ it (also nicked from her IG):
A really satisfying paper piecing project, I see more of these in my future!
Linking up with:
Yey! Still stroking and loving them. I have them upstairs away from the little grubby people!
Oh I love the cushion soooo much, if I knew Catrin had such great scraps I’d have paired her up with me 😛
I counted – only four of those were from me! I think Mary’s scraps are the real stars of the cushion 🙂
Great makes for Jo. Love the cushion and think the grey is the perfect choice!
That cushion is so lovely! Those are totally my colours, so I’m off to look at Jo’s blog to see what else she has that I’ll fall in love with! Ps do you have a tutorial you could recommend for an invisible zip in the seam? I have four to make this weekend! Thanks x
What a brilliant cushion! best colours and my favourite quilt blocks fabric! I think it really should have been for me!!
I’ve been looking for a lone star pattern after seeing a Cherry Christmas one on the Cushions for Christmas hop, thanks for the link!
Gorgeous gifts! I adore those books!
Lovely pressies , lucky Jo!
That cushion is gorgeous! I love the runner too. You have some handy helpers there 🙂
What fabulous gifts, and looks like such a happy celebration! (Ps have posted some squares to you today)
Oh lucky Jo! Awesome gifts x
What lovely gifts! The cushion is just gorgeous – beautiful fabric choices!
Fabulous pressies missus, love the star!
Lovely presents. I have that exact star pattern in mind for something too! I love the photo of you all with your legs curled up on the sofa 🙂
So lovely! 🙂
Greetings from Finland!
Hugs, Ulla
Such beautiful pressies! You girls are so lucky to have sewing friends living so close – nearly all my friends think that I’m either mad or very sad ;0)