Things to do in the cold weather

So... what do you do with your nearest and dearest who does your washing - love him of course. But when he takes a lambswool jumper, and washes it, and then dries it in the tumble drier - and ohhhh well I will have to lose a LOT more weight for it to fit me again...


Never mind - I cut off the sleeves, and they make very good hot water bottle covers don't they! I have been wanting to make something with felted jumpers - so here goes.

Michelle has been crocheting alone as a part of the Tour de France knitalong going on. So I told her I would join her with some crochet I am doing at the moment...

Firstly - I started making these cute little flower medallions - and I had to join them together and make something out of it didn't I. Don't know what it will finish up being...


Then I made a circle out of some cotton... and thought it would make an interesting pot holder...
so I crocheted a bit of fleece on the back


Then I have been patching some potholders / hot mats
and these are backed with an old towel - actually they make really good face cloths for in the shower - I love mine.

And some more hot mats...

Good Friday sewing

I have had a productive day, and an enjoyable one, making these - all 50 of them.


Here is a closer look of a few - they are glasses cases, or mobile phone covers ... or even for an IPod.
They are made for a special occasion where they will be given away to some special people.

Raibow scarf & Log cabins

Here is the finally finished rainbow scarf. It is knitted in double moss stitch, and where the colours were joined, I decided to make into a fringe. I have never seen this before - but it looks like an interesting collar on.

These are log cabin patchwork squares from Sew Mama Sew patch for the week. I love the look of the shadow and light in the smaller one. They are little mat to put under a tea pot and a cup. I guess I will make some more square patches to make more coasters over the following weeks.

Disappearing 9-patch - complete

Here is the completed disappearing 9-patch quilt which I have quilted onto an old towel
and put in use as a shower mat.

Done...

Disappearing 9 Patch

I started playing with patchwork this week - inspired by Sew Mama Sew . (You will need to scroll down to see the disappearing 9-patch)

Beauty I thought - this will be an easy one, I can sew the colours in strips of three, cut them off, all the same size, and then stitch them together in a row

to make the original nine patch. All went well - exept the corners didn't match, I had to pull them out, each seam, and resew the 9-patch to make the corners match. Notice, I had made the appropriate arrangement of colours - dark centre which would be split, purple corners and cream centre patches.

Then you split the 9-patch into 4 patches Not bad I think. Should be easy, because all I have to do is turn the squares around so that I have two dark small squares diagonal in the centre, and the other two diagonal in the opposite outside corners.

Two problems - It looked easy, only the centre corners had to match didn't they. BUT - at first, I didn't get the sizes of the centre squares identical, and the long strips - well they weren't the same width. Also - look at those two dark purple large patches on one side, and the two floral ones on the other side.
So it gets pulled out again. In future, before I cut the 4 squares out, I mark the finished size of the final patches. At least I know they will be nice and regular. I sewed them up again - and ended up with the arrangement above with the unequal intensity of the purple squares


So it got pulled out again... and rearranged so the darket purple squares are diagonally opposite...
Of course, I had to complete three patches before I discovered the colour problem didn't I?

OK - This time I should get it right to complete the rest of the 9 patches to make a little blanket, or something...

And what is more, Sew Mama Sew already has a new patch for me to experiment with...

Crazy Nine Patch Quilt

Sew Mama Sew has February as Quilting month. There were some basic nine patch samples this week, and this Crazy Patch got me interested.


I couldn't help making to make one like this for my son.
Fabrics were all sorts of fat quarters that I had in my stash given from a freecycler. Backing, borders and binding - some interesting suiting I collected from a fabric sale. Each square finished about 25cm square - total width approx 120cm.