Christmas Gifts - Felted Potholders

Sorry, it's been so long since my first post. I was all set to really buckle down and blog regularly, but early in December my father became ill. He passed away somewhat unexpectedly a few days later. Ironically he was on his way home from the hospital after beating his pneumonia when he died getting out of his car. Just when we thought he'd dodged a bullet. So I've been busy with his estate and, of course, with Christmas.

I love to make handmade Christmas presents. There's just something wonderful about a gift made with by hand with care. I do it every year, and thought about skipping it this year after my Dad passed away. But the week of Christmas, I was overcome by a need to create something. So I made potholders. I had already machine felted a number of thrift shop sweaters for earlier projects. So I cut out squares of the felt, then added needle felted decorations.

Here are a few of my creations. Somehow I neglected to take a picture of my favorite - I guess I had already wrapped it. It was impressionistic; I wanted it to look like flowers in a meadow.

I'm fairly new to needle felting, but I liked how these flowers turned out.

This one is very basic but I liked the sinuous shape. I added a coordinating button with contrasting yarn crocheted to form a loop for hanging. 

I can't decide whether this one is a meteor shower or a variation on a Van Gogh.

This is one of my more abstract ones; I love the colors.

I knew these colors would work beautifully in my sister-in-law's kitchen.

This one is the craziest. I felted in pieces of yarn, roving, and more sari silk scraps. (Can you ever have too much silk?)

I even fired up my cast iron pan and let it get nice and hot to test them. I picked up the skillet with one of these and then with my store-bought oven mitt. The felted wool worked better. Hooray!

Merry Christmas!