Christmas presents catchup

Another long gap - but one of my excuses is that I spent a lot of time making things for Christmas presents! I now have more people to make presents for - including a grandson and a granddaughter which has really inspired me.

I decided to make a ball with a bell in it for baby Hope, with patchwork pentagons as I did for Julia, but this time with all the letters in felt. The material I used is a heavy-duty cotton which started life as a cushion cover and provided different mixes of blues and greens.

For Noah I branched out with my knitting and made a teddy bear in a lovely soft velour-type wool which I found in a sale. The knitting and making up were quite intricate but I was pleased with the result. I added features with embroidery wool and paws with brown felt.

The pattern suggested finishing the bear with a ribbon round the neck but I felt that with a baby in the house this might not be safe so I constructed a jacket with one button instead from some red and black wool which had not worked as i-chords.







As well as presents for children I also made another book cover, in a more conventional log-cabin patchwork.

And finally I made four brooches, all in the same kind a pattern with a central bead or button and a more of less symmetrical arrangement of beads going out from the centre to the edge, although I did vary that a little.

I made them in four colours, red, blue, violet and green, and decided to echo this blog by mounting them on card as you can see.

So that is what I have been doing since I last wrote but I am determined to keep up with making things and will be back when I have decided what to do next.