Winter arrived. It was quite all-of-a-sudden-ly. Now, cold hands and woolly hats are abundant.


The park froze over. The puddles are miniature ice-rinks. Jumpers and cardigans have been replaced by snowsuits. There was, in fact, even snow. In London. In NOVEMBER!


I haven't been crafting much as it seems that I spend more time making sandwiches for lunches, cleaning up after messy baby and washing bottles than on anything I actually want to do. Ya know, like knit a cardigan, or a pair of socks, or ... anything, really.

I did, however, make an eensy weensy and snuggly warm baby blanket for a friend's baby shower. Just a few evenings after baby has gone to bed and et voila! Instant craft satisfaction.


Take one cheery fleece fabric print (hot air balloons AND rainbows)...


... and blanket stitch all the way around the outside to make a base for a neat crochet edge. This keeps the fleecy bits all neat and tidy for washing later on.

It may have been a bit ambitious to make a one-year-old baby a quilt for her birthday, but she was delighted. She unwrapped it, picked it up, and hugged it with her tiny baby arms. She now points at the squares, and tries to find funny shapes. Clever girl.


I started making this quilt months ago (okay, actually maybe a year ago. Or longer.). I cut up some of my favourite fabrics in 2 inch squares, and then added to the stash every time I had a fabric scrap. I then pieced the squares together one-by-one as the stash grew... LONGEST and most drawn-out method of making a postage stamp quilt ever. The sensible thing to do would have been to piece strips of fabric and cut them out from there, but then I couldn't use up my hoarded scraps. Ah well.


I quilted around each square with straight lines, and then quilted a grid around the whole quilt, going round and round in a tight square with lines about 1cm apart. Such neat quilting... so unlike me. Really love the grid effect, it makes the fabric go all crinkly when it folds up, like an old, much-loved quilt. I think it helps that I used two layers of wadding to make it a bit thicker than usual.

I'm so happy with this quilt, I put so much love and work into it; even pulling out seams when squares didn't line up (!) and carefully lining everything up so there were no identical squares side-by-side. I can't believe I finished it (A) in time and (B) at all. #happy.