Gratitude

Thank-you presents can be tricky. After we stayed at the perfect cabin, we wanted to show our gratitude to the hosts and to the cabin.  For instance, the furniture was too nice to set our mugs down without coasters.  But we couldn't find any.  Would a gift of coasters be interpreted as implied criticism?  The cabin is a perfect getaway as it is.

But, don't the neatly lined up mugs in the kitchen spelling out B.E.A.R. need companion coasters?   And doesn't the shedding bathroom mat deserve a suitably blue and gold replacement?  And then doesn't this interesting book with a bright yellow jacket deserve to be read while sitting (most definitely not in traffic) out on the deck?

Iris and I stenciled the letters on simple IKEA cork coasters.  She thought up the alternating color scheme.  I told her that the yellow wouldn't show up against the natural cork background.  She says that I just needed to use more coats of yellow.  Harumph!  Well, the blue Sharpie outlines fixed the contrast problem.

The bath mat partially solved my SABLE problem with yarn.  It used up 390 grams of odd balls of cotton and cotton blend yarns in a box under my bed.  This is loosely based upon Absorba, the great bathmat pattern.  I used two strands of cotton and size 10 needles instead of the 3 strands and size 15 needles in the pattern.  It's still plenty cushy.

Project notes on Ravelry
I made two more Absorba variations.