My first craft swap

This month I did my very first craft swap.

It wasn’t quite a traditional craft swap, firstly it was with Cat rather than a stranger, and secondly it was sort of accidental, but it was a craft swap nonetheless.

There’s a great post over on CraftBuds.com which explains all about craft swaps and links to a couple of websites where you can arrange to team up with someone and swap handmade items. It’s such a great idea!

My little craft swap came about because Cat saw this skirt I made and asked if I could make her one. Of course I said yes and when I popped down to visit her we found this gorgeous red linen fabric for the skirt.

Lovely fabric and cat buttons!

It’s actually quite daunting making clothes for someone else. There’s the sizing to worry about, and the fact that if you don’t sew it properly and it falls apart, it’s going to be someone else standing in their pants in public rather than me.

Putting those worries to one side I figured I’d better just get cracking, and after about three hours the skirt was finished. It actually came out loads better than the first one, which was quite the surprise! It fit me perfectly, and as Cat and I are similar sizes, I was pretty sure it would fit her too.

When I popped down to see Cat, she also showed me a blanket she had been knitting for my birthday. It wasn’t quite ready in time for the big day so she said she’d keep working on it and give it to me when it was finished.

A few weeks later and we sent each other texts saying ‘it’s done!’ and the swap finally happened last weekend when Cat came up to visit.

The blanket!!

So much blanket love

I LOVE the blanket! The colours are awesome and it’s a great size for keeping on the sofa in case you get a bit chilly in the evenings. (Although no chance of that at the moment with this amazing weather!).

The skirt also fit Cat well, hoorah, and it looks really lovely (if I say so myself!).

It fits!

The thing I love most of all, is that we’ve both used our skills to craft something for each other, and without getting too sentimental, it’s lovely when I wrap the blanket around me in front of the telly and I know that it was made by my sister just for me.