Little House by the Railway Line

My First Swap Completed

In March I signed up to participate in the tea-towel and pot-holder swap on the Down-to-Earth blog.  I'd never done a swap before, so I was a little nervous about it, but really fancied giving it a go.  We had to make a tea-towel and two potholders for our swap partners, and send them along with two favourite recipes.

It was really good fun, and I really enjoyed myself.  My husband was very concerned that I would end up in a frantic panic near the deadline, so he kept checking up to make sure I was on track.  I think he knows me and my procrastinatory ways rather well!  It was really useful to have a deadline, as normally I just make plans to do things and never get round to carrying them out, and this way I actually did something.  I even got to learn how to make bias binding, which is something I'd never done before.  They don't seem to sell it in the shops anymore, at least not the wider stuff, so I bought a little device to help me make it instead, and it worked really well.

Pressing the binding as it was pushed through the folding device.

Here is a picture of the things I sent to Denise:

And here is a picture of the lovely things she sent to me:

I love the cool, clean colours she chose, and the teapots look so fun.  They arrived on Friday, and I haven't used them yet, but will tonight (as yesterday was change-the-teatowel day).  The recipes she sent sound delicious too!

Bertie the Sheep

Blanket progress for the first week

Bringing a Blanket out of Hibernation

I've finished the Christmas jumper!

Dishcloth Knit-A-Long

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Looking back with hindsight, it looks far more obvious what the finished article was going to be. 

Greeting Cards

The front of the baby card (they were both the same):

And the inside:

Random assorted greeting cards:

Dishcloths

When I first read about knitting dishcloths, on some blog somewhere, I remember wondering why anyone would spent valuable time knitting something that was going to get so messed up and grubby.  Rather like my reaction when I read about hand-embroidered babies' bibs - and those I still can't fathom.

However, the other week it was really hot here, and so I was wearing short sleeves all the time, even late into the evening.  I found working on my cross-stitch was causing the aida to scratch my arms, and didn't really feel like working on something as hot and heavy as my unfinished quilt (which I don't have the stuff I need to finish yet, anyway) or a woolly cardigan.  So I thought I'd give a dishcloth a go.  Especially since I had some cotton yarn lying around that my mother had given me when she got bored of making it into a jumper.

I think I can now officially say I'm addicted to knitting these things.  They're even quicker to finish than baby clothes, which makes them very satisfying to me, as usually I take years to finish things. They're small and portable to knit on the bus, and let me play around with funny complicated stitches without feeling daunted that I've committed to doing a whole jumper in some twiddly pattern.  I've made three already, and I started a fourth this morning while Greg was checking over the bell tower and ringing the bells up.

Plate Bags for Camp

I spent yesterday evening making myself a plate bag to take on camp, and zigzagging the edges of the one I made Greg for his birthday last year - he'd complained that it was fraying a bit.  I learnt my lesson and zigzagged the whole piece of fabric for mine before I made it up.

I was rather pleased with how it turned out.  The boat picture is cut out of a large piece of fabric I bought from Robert Sayle's some years ago - two borders with the boat pictures on, and the middle of the fabric is beige with navy spots.