Maeve's quilt

Last weekend I met my youngest great-niece, Maeve, just 6-weeks-old today. She's a very cute and cuddly baby. This is the quilt I made for her and, although she's a bit young to appreciate it, her parents liked it.

Words, words, words

The Save the Words website aims to preserve words that are in danger of falling into disuse. While some words should perhaps be allowed to sink without trace, others are well worth preserving. In any event, the website was the inspiration for these cushions.

My friend, Chris, who alerted me to the existence of the Save the Words site, recently did some major renovations to her house and I decided to combine her love of words, my new 5D software and my Husqvarna Diamond Designer machine to make a house-warming gift with a difference. I was still toying with the idea when she rang and invited us to dinner tonight, so the project catapulted up my priority list. I'm still learning how to use both the software and the machine - and to get them to talk to each other - but, despite a few teething problems, I managed to produce these cushions.

The first cushion includes such delights of the English language as dodrantal, redamancy, flosculation, affictitious, trajectitious and vacivity.


The second features keleusmatically, tantuple, rhodologist, drollic, frutescent and secability, as well as other equally arcane words. I recommend a visit to Save the Word for meanings and further endangered words.

Poppy journal

Last year, I decided to make a handbag featuring a poppy motif. After doing a sample piece and a couple of attempts at the bag, I abandoned the project. (Along the way, I learned that some tear-away stabilisers can leave lots of small fibres behind.)

However, when I made my journal cover for the ACT Textile Arts group holiday challenge, I decided to revise my earlier idea and made a journal cover for my friend Margaret instead. I like journal covers that fully enclose the journal so that loose things don't fall out but I didn't want the closure to have any impact on the poppy, so I opted for a zipper closure - which was as difficult as I thought it would be. Fortunately, Margaret loved it and didn't notice the bits that were a bit wonky.

Knitted scarf

I've been very busy with work for the past few months but I made this scarf for my daughter-in-law. I use a yarn called Entice from Lincraft - it was nylon but very soft and I liked the soft colours. I knitted it up in a K1P1 rib.