Craft Olympics - all my thimbles

Finally the secrets are revealed, Christmas gifts opened and I can show what I have been doing to get all those thimbles from Melanie's Craft Olympics. My first thimble was for a secret knitting project, toe to top two at a time socks for my daughter Kaija, and the rest of the yarn was enough to make wrist warmers for her busy hands. The yarn is hand dyed Araucania yarn from Lentävä Lapanen, the Flying Mitten knitting cafe, very lovely to knit. I'm also beginning to learn the idea of the toe to top heel!

 

 

 

The yarn was so lovely I bought another skein and knitted socks and wrist warmers for my daughter-in-law-to-be as well.

Second thimble is for this stitchery, where I learnt some new stitches.

 

My third thimble came with this Granny Square quilt I made for my sister, who is a granny. The grey and pink outer rounds of the blocks are from our Granny's old summer dress.

 

All the fabrics came from my stash as usual, and 90 % of them are recycled garments or bed linen.

My fourth thimble was a change of plans: I had no time to make the wool applique I had planned. Wreath making is crafty too, so this will be within the rules.

 

The fifth and last thimble was for a new skill, needle-turn applique. The pattern is one of Kaaren's freebies on her blog The Painted Quilt. My work is nowhere near perfection but I could give it another try, hoping for better results and rounder circles. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, the days are really very short and dark at this time of the year here.

The applique is on the front of this bag I made for Melanie as a Christmas gift for her knitting projects.

The Craft Olympics has been a fun challenge at the end of the year, not too demanding as we could choose our crafts and change our plans during the Olympics. Go to Melanie - she always puts the kettle on when visitors arrive! - and see who else has been a crafts athlete. Melanie has links to all the finished projects on her sidebar.