Some more crafting for Christmas...

Here are a couple of things I've made lately. First of all, two more hot pads. One of them -- the one with the cows and the wintry scenes -- is just "winter" while the second one is much more Christmasy. I loved that fabric and bought it with no clear idea of how I would use it. I just liked the motifs. But it works well as a hot pad, I think.

This is the "Silver Skate" ornament I've been working on. I apologize for the blurriness of the picture. This ornament is from a pattern in a 1968 McCall's Christmas Make-It Ideas magazine. It is supposed to be made from red corduroy, but I decided to try making it up in red felt first. This whole ornament is just an experiment. I didn't enlarge the pattern as much as specified, because that would have produced a larger skate than I wanted. I think I will make subsequent ones a bit larger than this, however. I do have some corduroy I want to use, and think that sewing and turning the skate will be easier if it's made somewhat larger. (I have some red/black corduroy in a tiny windowpane check which is from a vest my dad always wore at Christmas time, and I have some blue corduroy from an old robe of my mother's. I thought those might be nice to use to make each grandchild an ornament.)

The cuff is supposed to be fake fur. I couldn't find the stuff I thought I had, so used some jumbo loopy chenille I had on hand. The lacing is supposed to be white yarn. Again, I didn't have any so used some silver-gray cord from my stash. (It would have worked fine if my fingers were less rough and my fingernails not split.) I'm not sure, for the future skates I make, if I'll use yarn or decorative cording. The blade was to be white felt with silver glitter glued on (remember, this was a 1968 pattern. 40 years ago they didn't have all of the wonderful craft products we have now). I just brushed on some slightly diluted silver glitter paint. Glitter glue would work, too. All in all it was a fun project and I think the experiment was a success. It definitely showed me what I would change next time to come up with a better result.