About Jenny
Jenny is a modern quilt designer and teacher known for her colourful, curvy machine pieced patterns.
Jenny Haynes (née Nilsson) studied Pattern Cutting and Tailoring in her native Stockholm. Soon after, she followed her passion for fabrics and moved to London to study Fashion and Textiles at the London College of Fashion. She went on to develop her own label ‘Papper, Sax, Sten’ (that’s ‘Paper, Scissors, Stone’ in case you’re wondering!), creating award-winning designs that reflect her many different influences. She is based out of Sheffield, now.
Her bespoke quilts and furnishings are recognised for their clean and simple, mid-century modern design. Jenny mixes rich colours with pastels and is not scared of a colour clash. She often uses her trademark curves together with solid fabrics, while remaining faithful to her Scandi’ roots.
Jenny’s work was recognised in Summer 2015 when Jenny was invited by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce, along with 18 other Swedish designers, to be a part of Heal’s Swedish Summer Exhibition. Heal’s have a long history of promoting Swedish design with exhibitions in 1923, 1951 and 1971.
Her quilts and patterns appear regularly in books and magazines, including Thames & Hudson for the V&A and in Patchwork & Quilting: A Maker’s Guide, ‘Designed by teachers and practitioners at the leading edge of today’s craft revival.
Two of her quilts won awards at QuiltCon 2019 in Nashville. QuiltCon is arranged by the Modern Quilt Guild and is the biggest exhibition of modern quilts in the World.
When Jenny isn’t designing her curvy and quirky quilt patterns, she teaches at the V&A as well as giving talks and running workshops for Guilds and textile venues in the UK and abroad. She also offers live online workshops.
You can watch Jenny demonstrate how to sew no pin curves in this episode of The Makers Studio series.
Signature Technique
Colourful curvy quilt patterns
Top Tips
- Use a shorter stitch length (1.8) for stitching curves to give your block extra strength and to avoid splitting in the seam.
- When colours clash a bit it gives your quilt spark.
- When sewing curves, always start with the smallest curve then work your way up.
- Your finger is the pin when sewing no pin curves.
- Always finish all of your piecing before pressing your block. It’s easy to stretch your block out of shape if you press before you are done.
- Press your seams open for a flat, block print like finish.
- Use a tailor’s block to help you seams stay flat.
- Precise and variable quilting designs help to enhance the organic shapes in your quilt.
Videos
Patterns
Posts
How do I avoid having a birds nest on the back of my quilt?
A birds nest is that ravel of thead that often happens when you start quilting part way into a project and when you are making a quilt you need the back of it to be as beautiful as the front. An easy way to do this is to pull that bottom thread up through the work so that you have it under control and then you can knot it off later.
What do you do with the thread ends when you are finished quilting?
Well the threads can be knotted and then hidden in the wadding. You can see how by watching Knotting Off Your Threads and here is what one happy viewer had to say: I have just watched 'Knotting Off Your Threads' with Valerie and would like to say thank you for sharing such a great method. I was taking both threads to the back, tying them off and then weaving in the ends which seemed to take longer than the actual quilting!
What wadding should I use?
Question from Janice: Hello again, well I've finished the topping for my log cabin quilt and now am about to sandwhich it together. I have Heirloom cotton batting and good old fashioned polyester batting. Having been slightly put of by the instructions on the heirloom batting, although that was my original choice, can you tell me - do I really need to rinse in tepid water & dry as recommended on the packaging for shrinkage or can I just apply it as it comes after opening & flattened overnight.
I have never used this type but heard Jennie say on C&C it was fabulous so ofcourse I bought it.