Secret Sewist Gift Exchange

It's no secret that I can't resist joining in a secret crafty gift exchange. I was so enamoured of Sanae and Ute's Secret Valentine Gift Exchange that I ran with it for 11 months last year after it was officially wound up.

So when Caz (Useful Box) suggested a gift exchange to keep ourselves amused during Covid19 lockdown, I signed up straight away.

To keep things simple, and maybe to warn off people like me who get carried away, there were three suggested patterns:

The Bombazine oven mitt, The Apertio Pouch and the Fibresmith Cloth Pot, all of which are free, downloadable patterns.

My secret sewist gift recipient had said she liked navy with mustard or dusty pink and didn't care which project I chose.

That suited my stash of fabrics well and I figured was a great opportunity to play with the Wefty needle I'd bought ages ago.

I first learned of fabric weaving when Mr Domestic made this amazing trench coat for his duaghter and shared it on the Oliver + S blog. A little while later he also contributed a tutorial on fabric weaving. I bought the Wefty needle and then never used it.

I decided to make like I knew what I was doing and use 1cm strips (apparently for "advanced" weavers) on my first try. I had some solid navy quilting cotton, a check shirting and an uneven painted stripe woven along with some mustard yellow lawn.

I figured there's nothing worse than an oven mitt hat doesn't insulate well, so I batted this puppy up. There's one layer of wool melton and two layers of wool quilt batting on each side. I'd also stalked my giftee enough to learn that she's a smaller human and so I figured even if my oven mitt turned out a bit small due to its thickness that wouldn't be a worry. Unless she was a smallish human with enormously oversized hands! :)

I was completely delighted with the weaving, but once I sewed it into the oven mitt, with all that insulation and then turned it right side out, the weaving got a bit munted up. It really bothered me and I was ready to bin it and start over....

But then I sat on the couch, picked up some mustard yellow linen yarn that Sarvi sent me, and some macrame rope and crocheted a mat to go with it. Then I figured I had a gift worth giving.

Some yellow roses came off the bush (and that, fortunately, turns out to be my recipients favourite type of rose) and I did and knock and run delivery this afternoon. Fun!