Green Child's Scarf

Not a great deal that I can write about this.
I've knitted a Green scarf for my son.

I cast on approx 40 stitches. I used 100grams of 8ply green acrylic wool and size 4 knitting needles.

I used green as it's my son's favourite colour. He kept asking me to check to see how long the scarf was on him (knitting needles and all!) as I progressed.

All in all the scarf is 47.5 inches or 121cms long and is just over 9 inches or 24cms wide.

I did consider making tassels, but decided
against it, as it is for a rough and tumble little guy.

I enjoyed settling back with a warm drink and watching DVDs while I knitted away. The perfect activity for winter.

Quilted Place mats

                                                                 Quilted Place mats

These are a set of four place mats that I've made for my Grandmother's birthday.
To construct these I've sewn six strips of batik fabric (approx 2 inches wide) together and framed them with the purple printed batik fabric.
The binding is left over fabric from the quilt that I've done for my brother. It's a light blue print with small lighter blue dots.
The place mats were quilted with a purple thread on top and a blue thread on the back in a random fashion.
The backing is purple homespun fabric.


Making place mats is great practise for quilting on the machine and also for perfecting the art of binding.
I've sewn the binding on to the place mat with the machine and tacked it on by hand at the back.
Finishing the binding by hand is a fantastic project to do when watching TV at night.

This set of four place mats I made for my friend Dan's birthday. Again there are six strips of batik fabric sewn together framed in the purple batik print.
Being a gift for a male, I tried to select more masculine batik fabrics.
I have quilted these with purple thread on the top and red thread on the back.
The binding is navy blue homespun fabric.
The backing is a red swirl fabric which was part of a bulk lot of fabric that I purchased from eBay.

 These are a set of six place mats that I've made for myself. For the centre I've sewn together 12 different strips of green fabric and framed it with a red and black swirl print. For the binding I've actually used all different types of material that I have left over from other projects.

One of the bindings is yellow, another orange, one is a red floral print,one is a brown floral print,  two are a black and white daisy print that I have also bound my own quilt with.

I used a red, blue and white variegated thread to quilt these and the backing is plain navy fabric.

The second lot of place mats that I’ve made for myself consist of seven strips of batik fabric (approx. 2 inches wide by 8.5 inches long) with edges top and bottom in the cream and silver fabric I used as the background fabric in my Man Sized French Braid Quilt for my brother.  The back of these is a pink swirl fabric that I got for a bargain price off of eBay (that at the time I didn’t have a project in mind for, but I got caught up in a bidding war and won!). The binding is aqua blue with a birds, butterflies and branches pattern. For the quilting I’ve used aqua embroidery thread and quilted in a random style going from one side to another. These place mats measure 12 by 11.5 inches.

 The best thing about these place mats is that they can be put in the washing machine as often as needed. I have put mine in with the regular washing after washing them separately the first couple of times.