Miss Piglet

Here's a new little bit of ami fun... I call her Miss Piglet because she looks a bit like AA Milne's Piglet, but she's definitely a girl... The pattern is taken from Nicki Trench's Super-Cute Crochet.It's the 1st one I've made from there and I'm really pleased with the book - the pattern is very easy to follow, and there is a helpful template for the dress. I have no idea what the yarn is. All I can say for sure is that it's definitely cotton! It's a present for my friend's daughter - her birthday is next week, so I am a little surprised at how organised I have been!

What I haven't been organised about is taking a photograph of all my lovely swap goodies from Izabela as part of the Time for Tea swap. I have to confess to diving on the contents of the box, immediately starting on trying out one of the ginger teas (yum!), putting the cute teapot keyring on my car keys, putting the yarn and buttons in the relevant stashes...and completely forgetting to take a photo. Naughty me! So I have reassembled all the goodies - thanks so much Izabela and thank you too Vonnie at Blotted Copy Book for organising the Swap - it was fun. I was particular pleased that Izabela was kind enough to send me The Encyclopoedia of Crochet Techniques by Jan Eaton. It was a book on my wishlist and has already come in handy a couple of times. Sometimes I forget that although I crochet a lot, I am still a beginner, and it's good to have something to refer to when I get stuck.

A Little Experiment with Patchwork and Quilting...

I didn't want to make my swap partner something crocheted for the Time for Tea Swap - Izabela is such an expert at crochet (take a look!), so I thought I would have a go at something different and make use of some fabric from my stash.

I pieced together bits of fabric in strips and then in turn sewed them together until I had a rectangular piece of patchwork. I then cut a piece of toning fabric to form the base and a piece of fusible fleece to provide the padding. I ironed this lot together then cut out 6 coaster-sized circles. Then I used some thrifted bias binding to bind the edges - I was lucky enough to find a huge box of different shades of bias binding in our local Oxfam a while back. So it was great to use different colours - I think I like the pink best, what do you think?

I am pleased with result, and it was so enjoyable to do... I think I might make a few more - if I do square ones then they might not be quite so fiddly either!

The coffee mug in the photo up at the top is from my gorgeous Cinqe Ports Rye coffee set and dates from the late 50s. That's another charity shop find - just ocassionally I get lucky and find something very lovely. Makes all that trundling round worthwhile.