Gardening notebook
In anticipation of a visit to my sister in North Wales, I wanted to give her an additional handmade gift for Christmas that I could take with me on my visit. Catherine is a keen gardener and as I had some pretty gardening-themed printed cotton in my stash, decided to make her a padded, covered notebook in which she can record her gardening plans and achievements. The pattern instructions and an A5 notebook were supplied by Lizzie at a recent meeting of Sprat & Winkle Quilters. I used some 80/20 cotton/polyester wadding recently purchased from New Threads Quilt Shop and some plain White cotton fabric from my stash for the lining. I quilted using one of my favourite stitches – wavy lines which are great in that if you waver a little, it does not show up as a glaring fault! In no time I had the completed cover for the notebook – I hope she likes it.
Baking-themed gifts
It all started when a neighbour asked to borrow a Bundt baking tin. Unfortunately I was unable to help but this prompted me to think about what to give for a Christmas gift. Those people that know me will be aware that I like to use a theme when planning my hand made gifts. So ….. along with the silicon Bundt tin I decided to make an Oven mitt and also either a recipe book or fabric covered note book. This latter contains a copy of one of my favourite original recipes for 3C muffins. The 3C stands for Chocolate Cherries and Courgettes!
I ordered some 12oz fire-retardant wadding from Amazon and some cake motif printed cottons from Hot Pink Haberdashery. Online I found a free pattern for double ended oven mitts from The Sewing Directory, the fabric pattern for the covered notebook came from Lizzie at Sprat & Winkle Quilters as mentioned above.
A couple of sewing sessions yielded the completed gifts. To ensure that the recipients will be aware of the type of wadding I have used, I printed off the following note to include with the oven mitts.
Please note: For the main part of these oven mitts I have used Marent 12oz Fire Retardant Wadding. The thinner wadding used on the back of the mitts is a Cotton 80% Polyester 20%. The oven mitts are machine washable at 30 degrees C.
Now I just have to wrap up the packages, label and decide how best to send – bearing in mind the current vagaries of the postal system!
Projects #53 completed 24th November 2022