This week I had a hankering to do a “just for fun” craft—making things and experimenting with supplies on hand is a true meditative practice and stress-buster for me.

I pulled out my copy of Lena Corwin‘s Made by Hand. MAV and I had so much fun doing the photography for this book (we have posted about it here and here and here), and I have long promised myself that I would make it through making all the projects in the book, I was daydreaming about it the entire time I photographed the makers in Brooklyn, in fact!

I was looking for a quick project, so I adapted Cal Patch’s braided cotton jersey rugs instructions to make hot pads. Because I have so much wool on hand, I used it in place of the cotton jersey (much of what I used was leftover melton wool from making bunnies, but I used some wool jersey as well which was much easier to work with). Otherwise, I followed Cal’s instructions, just finishing off sooner and adding a leather strap for hanging.

These were so fun and relatively mindless to create that I am determined to make a full rug now, using wool again as I love its feel and durability.

After that, I am on to the next MBH project! You can see more examples from the book and purchase it in our shop—there are projects for the beginner to the more experienced crafter which I love. If you already have the book and have been making projects, Lena recently set up a hashtag on Instagram to share them with us, it’s #LCMBH.

—SCB

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