mother’s day potholders

I’m not a great fan of tradition for the sake of it, but this is one I really like.  This is my third year of making potholders for Mother’s Day, and now my mum has them hanging in her kitchen I can show some pictures.

The patchwork was supposed to be the centre of a huge quilt for someone else in my family, but I wasn’t feeling much love for it as it hung on my wall so I scrapped the original idea.  So with the patchwork part already being done I thought I’d spend more time on the quilting, and last weekend my friend Fiona showed my how to hand-quilt.  I used a piece of quilting on her kitchen table as inspiration, she drew me a little circle template and away I went.

Fiona pointed out how close the top patchwork and quilting design was to the backing fabric, which I also used on the front a little.

Happy Mothers Day!

lots of leaves

I think its because I can smell spring when I take Penny outside to play – leaves seem to appearing in all my craft projects…

A Leaves Long Beanie by Melissa La Barre, from Weekend Hats – maybe the quickest knit ever and due for some pretty finished photos this weekend.

The back of a funny little quilt I’m working on (the front is just as spring-like!  More soon…)

A little crafting play, some free-motion quilting for fun and something for a random quilted/sewn/embroidered artwork inspired by a recent blog post by Maya Donenfeld.  Not sure how I feel about this one, I’m waiting for some late night inspiration to hit me…

And yet another quick hat, a Foliage hat by Emilee Mooney.  This is Vintage Knitty from back in 2007, before I even knew how to knit…

my weekend in pictures

My first attempt at hand quilting, thanks to a lesson from my buddy Fiona.

Homemade snickerdropper!!  My favourite sweet thing in the world (quote Ysolda: ‘It’s like snickers and millionaire shortbread had a baby!’), a treat from our old knit night cafe and now re-created for me by Fiona…

This would have been done if it wasn’t for a sudden thread shortage.  Anybody recognise the pattern?

I knit.  A lot.  I spent most of yesterday evening wrestling with ribbing and icord, and now my knitting basket is overflowing with an almost completed Carter Cardigan…

A new phase of decorating has begun and I spent hours standing inside a very small space covered in tile paint.  And somehow managed to get it all over my legs, through my painting trousers.  Goodbye grubby-yellow shower room!

The only thing missing was a little time at my spinning wheel, so that is at the top of my list for crafting fun this week…