My friend Andrew moved to LA a while ago, and his girlfriend Staci recently moved in with him. To celebrate their moving in, my friend Emmelia and I embroidered two sets of napkins for them. Her initials set is the one with the yellow thread, and mine is the one with full names written out in blue (apparently, I'm not content with simple initials; I also think I just wanted to embroider more, without regard to how that would affect the design...). After we finished our embroidery, I hemmed the edges with matching pink thread, so they wouldn't fray, and then got to work on the second half of my gift.
Andrew's really into tie-dye, and Emmelia warned me that if I made anything in a plain color, he'd be liable to tie-dye it, so I figured I'd head him off on that one. I found a tie-dyed knit shirt at a thrift store, cut it open, and applied heat-fusible interfacing onto the wrong side to keep the knit from stretching as I sewed. I also crocheted 2 circles from some thicker yarn I had lying around to use as the center of the potholders. As a sort of last minute whim, I added the braided loops, though they're probably the biggest thing I would want to go back and change on this project. I stitched the crocheted pieces into place on one side of the potholders, and then closed them up around the edge, flipped them right side out, and closed the flipping hole, inserting the loop at this time. If I had to go back: I'd change the loop, and I'd hand stitch the hole closed. But, really, I just wanted to know how well this method would work out. I might make more of these in the future, and on those occasions I will be more particular about the details.
