Christmas Crafting

I made a tea wallet for my mother-in-law for Christmas. It was based on this tutorial from Is it Naptime? which I modified slightly. The main change which turned out to be surprisingly tricky was adding a tab with a popper rather than a loop and button closure. Having stitched the tab inside out, I found that it was too narrow to turn. It took me three attempts to make one wide enough to turn but not too wide so that it looked wrong.

I added a raw edged appliqué of a teapot and free machine embroidered the text. The text came out pretty well, although I wouldn't usually 'join up' the capital letter when writing on paper.

My mother-in-law was pleased with the present - she often takes her own tea bags with her when out and about.

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I used some time over the Christmas break to learn to knit. After several attempts and unravelling, I managed to knit a square. The problem I kept having was that my rows were mysteriously getting longer and shorter. This turned out to be due to me splitting the yarn. The goal is to knit a monkey which Mr Mango got me as a kit several birthdays ago. Next step, learning to increase and decrease the row length intentionally!