What a fun swap!

At the moment we are winding up our most recent swap on the Down to Earth Simple Living Forums. This swap was all about learning a new skill or challenging ourselves to improve a skill we may already have or even resurrecting a craft we may have tried many moons ago but had given up on. Well, the swap partners were matched up and we all got busy with our swap items and then waited patiently for the postman to deliver our surprise and my swap item was well worth waiting for.

My swap partner had chosen English Paper Piecing as her new skill so she made me a hot pad placemat with a hexagon handstitched on the top using the EPP technique. 

It was very time consuming doing all those tiny stitches as you can imagine and I just love it.

For my swap items I wanted to try and improve my metal stamping as I had only had a couple of tries at doing the letters as it is a fairly noisy craft so wait until I have the house to myself so that I can make as much noise as I want without driving anyone up the wall. 

It is still a bit wonky ...

...but some nice people say that that adds character!

I used to do a lot of beading when it was a popular craft a few years back but had never done any form of wire wrapping so when I saw  Birdnest Necklaces on Pinterest I just had to have a try and this was the first one I made. I like the messy look of the nest and bent the wire but you can have a more smooth look if you want to. My swap partner liked it so that was great.

When I was a teenager I used to do a little knitting but it was mainly plain and purl so I knitted a dishcloth using plain stitch and thankfully it didn't turn out too wonky. I had attempted a different coloured dishcloth but made a mistake right at the end and had no idea how to fix it up so pulled the whole thing out again. :-) It was all a lot of fun to extend ourselves a little and it is always interesting to see what other forum members have chosen to make.

Today we are starting another swap. It is one that everyone can participate in whether they can sew, knit, crochet or do any kind of craftwork. It is a kitchen towel and recipe swap. I can't wait to see what ideas everyone comes up with. If you aren't a Down to Earth Forum member you can join up and swap along with the rest of us. Members need to have made 20 posts before going in the swaps but there will be two weeks to get those under your belt during the sign-up time for the swap if you would like to take part. 

The swaps are a great way to get to know other members some of whom are from overseas. So come along and join us. The more the merrier!

 

Don't forget the Australian wildlife book giveaway closes on the 30th June and you can click here  to enter. It is open to both Aussie and overseas readers. Email me at nannachel@gmail.com if you have trouble entering. Everyone is welcome to enter.