Ah heaven! An unprecedented three day weekend off! Today I spent a couple of happy hours playing with quilt cotton scraps. I pulled out red and green fabrics from the stash, red and green threads, and some batting.

I built up two blocks from the centre, sewing the strips to the batting as I went. I cut the batting at 11 inches square, then trimmed them to 10 inches once covered in fabric.

I’m not usually a fan of classic red and green for Christmas, but I thought these worked out okay.

However when I made the two squares into a bowl cosy (from a random tutorial on YouTube) things went a little awry.

This is my first bowl cosy and I should probably have just used two basic squares rather than pieced ones, because the bulk at the edges made for some very messy topstitching. Also, I rounded the corners but now think that right-angles would have been easier to get neat.

Oh well, lesson learned. I can use this myself and perhaps practice making some simpler versions for gifts.