Oooh we do love a little Monday freebie to start the week! As a special treat for The Making Spot followers, we're giving away a Sizzix Big Shot Starter Kit to one lucky winner. As well as being pretty nifty for cutting tags, shapes & apertures in your cards, this great die-cutting start kit comes with dies and an embossing folder to start you off. You can use it to cut fabric, felt & all sorts of textures too - here's a couple of our favourite card ideas made using the Big Shot. Read more to find out how to enter.

When Carol Medrum created Einstein and Marlilyn Monroe in her last book Knitted Icons we thought we'd seen it all. But how wrong we were. In her newly published book Knitlypics Carol shares patterns for 20 Olympic icons including Zola Budd, Usain Bolt and Steve Redgrave!  

Not only that you can knit your very own ticket, the Olympic torch and the iconic rings!

We caught up with The Making Spot designer to find out what inspired her...

Knitlympics, how did that come about? Are you a big sports fan?

The idea for Knitlympics came from the publisher – Anova Books. As I’d worked with them on Knitted Icons and both books are doll based, it seemed like a natural progression.  It was a great opportunity to develop the basic doll pattern, adding hands and feet for one thing and making both a male and female doll was important.  I am a bit of a sports fan - I really enjoy watching the Olympics and am looking forward to seeing what kind of show London 2012 will put on next year.

When did you first learn to knit?

I think I learned to knit when I was about 4 or 5. I was taught by my mum and grandma at home, but was also taught at primary school. I used to love flicking through my mum's old Vogue knitting books and experimenting with the different stitches. I remember staying overnight with my grandma and knitting a stripy Doctor Who scarf for my doll. I was so excited to show my dad, but I hadn’t secured the ends where I’d changed colour, I decided to cut them off and funnily enough – it fell apart on the way home in the car! I was so upset, but it makes me giggle now to think about it.

Gone are the days when a paper Poppy sticking out of your lapel was enough to show your respect to war vertrens. These days thanks to the celebs on Strictly Come Dancing and the X-Factor your tribute is considered pretty pedestrian if it's not dipped in glitter or upcycled. 

The Poppy is such a popular flower and with Rememberance Day coming up on Friday we thought we would pick the best of The Making Spot poppy crop for you to peruse. 

This Maria Diaz Remeberance Fields design is stunning and when finished looks more like a painting then a cross stitch project.