Mama Elf's Hut

Papermania

2011-09-01T16:44:00.000+01:00

Look at my pretty papers! I could almost eat these. I am generally not a scrap-booking type, so don't use scrap book papers. On the other hand I am no stranger to prettyfying things around me using paper...lately I have had to make something very close to a scrap book, so I have been using these.

The best thing is how I got my sticky paws on the papers; I scanned some of my yummy fabrics and now I have a lasting record of these pretty patterns and it feels a tad easier to use them instead of hoarding. I don't know about you, but I tend to get overly attached to some fabrics and it takes a long marinating period in the draws before I set my scissors to the fabrics.

Pretty yellows and oranges

Cool blues and greens

and edible reds and pinks

If you wondered about print quality and such, I found that I can print on poorest quality colour and it is still pretty. I print on normal paper with a Brother colour laser printer.

Little Giraffe's Birthday Party

2011-08-29T10:55:00.000+01:00

Here the little Giraffe is getting balloons from all the other giraffes. The picture is a companion for my jolly cats. The inspiration came from the same place and again I changed the picture to be more "mine".

I used machine appliqueuíng and hand embroidery like the last time.

I like the big giraffe's messy balloon strings!

Retro Cats

2011-08-21T12:28:00.001+01:00

I saw a delightful retro style poster in pinkfriday's blog displaying two playful cats. I got very bad attack of wanties and tried first to find out where I might buy the said picture. I could not find it. (Although I did not ask the blogger, which would have been the logical thing to do).

Then I thought that this could be a perfect paper cut project. I really wanted it in minimum A3 size and as I live in the sticks there is nowhere to buy coloured A3 paper. Buying it on the net in two colours with postage would have pumped the price up to unacceptable. I then had a marvelous idea; I could do my version in fabric! Applique would be the answer. I used machine applique and hand embroidery to make the picture.

As you see I changed it slightly from the original to be more "mine". Nevertheless I also admit that this is copying, but for private use only, no intention to sell. I put it in a cheap IKEA frame, which I painted orange red. I also left the glass bit out, as it looks better without. have you been "borrowing" ideas lately?

Jolly Pinny

2011-08-20T15:37:00.000+01:00

I made this happy pinny for a little girl as a surprise. I used a thrift shop table cloth as the main fabric and added big polka dot details from the stash. I like it a lot and thought that I might just have a rummage to see if there are more nice fabrics like this!

Cushions and a Curtain

2011-08-17T20:43:00.001+01:00

Hello there! I am sewing a lot and posting very little. Here are some cushions to bolster Elf son and visiting children at our dining table. Elf Son is quite tall, but lacks just a few centimetres to be really comfortable at the table. I thought that it would be nice to have some in happy colours to sit on.

I had a sit on the red/pink one today myself and am pondering whether I want one for myself (I am not tall at all. I almost asked for a cushion at a restaurant, when we got one for Elf son today ; ).

The little room has got a "curtain" now. I don't like curtains and either have blinds or black out blinds combined with a little "pelmet" like this.

I sew it from grey linen bought in IKEA and some cottons from my stash.

Despite lining it, the back light does show the two seams I had to make for my coloured stripes to be long enough. I cheated by leaving the black out curtain hanging behind the pelmet to stop the light shining through.
I used a crocheted sofa arm protector/table cloth/something, which I found in the charity shop to make the cute snow flakes with buttons in the centre.

Big Quilt

2011-07-23T18:10:00.000+01:00

As you might have gathered I am not an accomplished quilter. I do only easy and VERY easy quilts and even they have plenty of mistakes to show that they were handmade.

I have managed to produce five quilts since I started blogging and actually five quilts per se and none of them have stayed in the house. They have been thrown together for special occasions for special people. I admit that I have fancied them all and been a very bad elf coveting my gifts to others.

So I made this quilt - I won't tell you as yet why it was made other than I really wanted to have a quilt staying put in this house. Due to circumstances I have not made the "dedication patch" for it either. It will be used in the little bedroom, which is under re-decorating and will be showed later, when finished. All this won't stop me having a tah-dah moment though and show to you what I have made. All sorts of things are planned for this room and I will show the bits, when I have made them and in the end show the whole room. Here the quilt is shown on our bed.

I really, really like this one. It is the largest one to date I have made and although it took some time to make, it was not that difficult. The pattern you can see in it is my own design, but I would guess that it might be a traditional pattern anyway, having a name. I just don't know the name as I am not that well versed in quilt matters.
The reverse is red and the binding polka dot.

So indulge me and see my quilt from many different angles!
The centre of the quilt:

My two favourite fabrics in this quilt (although I like all of them A LOT and I absolutely adore the owls above). I was planning to quilt it in the groove, but decided that I liked the top stitching. Certainly not the tradition, but I don't care.

Other colours

Happy heap

Baby Yogi

2011-07-10T20:53:00.000+01:00

I go to a yoga class weekly and this winter one of the ladies gave birth to an adorable little princess K. The Yoga teacher was collecting money to give something to the newcomer and asked me if I was up to making the baby a present as it would be nicer to give a unique gift.

I think that it is a hoot sewing baby things, because so little goes so long. We agreed that I would make one of those baby sleeping bag dresses, as they are handy. I was very sure that I had a pattern for those somewhere, but alas no. So I got to the Ottobre site and had a look through their back catalogue. Luckily there was one in 5/2006. I had thought of making an apple green one, as the project started before the baby was born. I had eyed a lovely jersey for it, but when the pattern arrived, it said to use cotton fleece outside. That was not widely available and at this point I luckily knew that we had a princess and went for fuchsia. I still made the lining of the said apple green jersey and comforted myself with the fact that if the Mum really hated the colour, she could use it inside out, and nobody would probably notice.

Because the sewing of the sleeping bag was just so easy I felt as if I had cheated, so decided that we needed to give a bit more. I looked in the same magazine and found a pattern for this.

I used a thrifted XL ladies' cardigan as the main material and the skirt bit is Marimekko jersey from my stash. The little princess goes to mums&babies yoga class and has reportedly been admired in her personal yoga gear.

Dresses galore

2011-07-08T10:25:00.001+01:00

I bought red "kivet" fabric from marimmekko in Finland last summer. (Yes, I know, mad picture, but hey. I am not great at taking these "in the mirror" images). I had a dress of sorts in my mind for the autumn and winter. Well, it never happened. Then just before the red nose day I got my act together and made it, so I wore it for Elf son's delight on the red nose day. I found a new pattern and the length is just right to be used as a dress or a tunic. I rather liked this new addition to my wardrobe and as I had managed to get my paws on MORE marimekko fabric, this time black, grey and white "unikko" I decided to make another. The fabric was provided by my aunt who came for a visit and brought not only this, but another piece as well AND some lovely hand towels AND a lovely bracelet from aarikka with their trademark wooden beads. This has been used to distraction, especially with my black and white dress.

I decided to change the pattern just a bit and drop the sleeves. I absolutely loved how it came out. This dress has been used just as an everyday dress, to a wedding breakfast and to a garden party where the Queen was the guest of honour by just changing what I wear with it and the accessories. Good going for a dress I would say. Thank-you Auntie A!

A summer without a green garment wasn't going to feel right and as I was on the roll and devastated by the fact that I ONLY had two of these tunic dresses I made a third one, this time from white polka dots on olive/lime background.

Because I live in the cool Northern England, I often wear a t-shirt under the dress, either with short or long sleeves. I have practically lived in these three garments since they were made. I force myself once in a while into something else for a day or two to convince my environment that there is indeed more than the three dresses in my wardrobe. I don't really know why, because who cares even if I only had three garments I really liked. Actually I quite like the idea having only few clothes, using them until they die and then getting/making new ones. Most of us use only 20% of our wardrobe regularly, I read somewhere.

Fairy Wings and such

2011-07-03T20:42:00.001+01:00

Here is a NEW project. Elf Son was invited to a birthday party of a friend's daughter and you know the rest of the story. I don't like giving plastic and handily had time enough to make something for the princess.

The bag I made for another little girl here was still a viable idea and reports that the said item is appreciated were heard, so I made one of those as the main present.

I don't use any patterns, just sketch what I want to embroider free hand with an indelible marker and then consequently embroider something else! (This is how it seems to go every time).

This time I did not want to fill the bag with writing materials and such, because this is a very different princess from the other one. She loves dressing-up. I thought that a pair of home made fairy wings might just be the ticket.

I used just normal dress net double and sew the edges together, I then put some wire around the edges and finished off with pink lace. I chose to use elastic around the shoulders for the fastening. This was sewn into a cotton bit in the middle of the wings and I used fliseline to make it a bit stiffer. I decorated with craft "jewels" on both sides, so the wings don't have a "back side". Have you helped any little faeries to get wings?

Surfacing from life that happens and filing it

2011-06-25T15:34:00.001+01:00

Hello and thank-you for hanging on there, should you still be here with me. It is really nice to be back. I have had quite a tumultuous spring in a good way and that has meant that a lot has been written, but that lot not being the blog. It all revolves around some changes in our family life, but I am not going to go into detail just now.

I have been firing on all fronts and although I have not blogged, I have created. Maybe not as much as usual, but still. So this and following posts are going to be playing a bit of catch up.

I have had this file prettifying project in my mind a long time and got to realise it at last. I have quite a lot of files, both for our family papers and for my work. They are kept on open shelves and in order them take as little attention as possible, I have chosen to have them in white.

This is how it all looked like, all white and green in different degree of yellowing.

I had a few ideas how to replace the backs, but ended up colour coding them according to the use. Our family files in one group, my sewing in another, my therapy files in third etc. I used textiles I like and scanned them. I thought that it would be a lovely thing to do with the fabrics which I almost don't want to use, because they are so delicious. I could "preserve" the prints in paper format to use in my crafts. Honestly I don't know how legal all this would be. I think it is OK as long as I don't sell the products.
I chose a "retro" font and typed all the contents as well, so it all looks neat.

I especially liked the retro print, which is on the bottom shelf and I have still not decided what I will make of it!
PS the picture quality is awful. I try to change them as soon as I get the photoshop back on my computer. My computer has been misbehaving, so still several programmes to load...

Surface Decorating and Collage

2011-03-11T16:43:00.000Z

A couple of weeks ago I had a weekend of learning and creativity in Mandy Pattullo's workshop "Surface Decoration". The Saturday was mainly used learning some techniques and playing around with them. On Sunday we created two or three larger pieces. I chose to make just two big ones. Mandy's work is much more "decorated" than mine and I think mine was on the whole least decorated of all the works. Mandy is so very generous with her teaching and it is always really good fun to attend. If you are anywhere near Newcastle it is worth attending. Look in "Horsley Printmakers" website for her courses.

Anyway, I had an idea of creating something to on Elf son's wall and the other piece I had not thought of. I got the son's "boy dreams" picture pieces together much quicker than the other one, as I did not have a ready idea or colour story in my mind. I have called it "particles". The Boy dreams picture has pieces which have special meaning to Elf Son.

There is collage, lino print, print with blocks and wall paper, monoprinting, painting with brusho, resist techniques, stitching, textile and line drawing all in one picture.
The frame is a cheapy one from IKEA. I would have liked to put it in a nicer frame, but I am still slightly nervous about hanging pictures with glass on Elf Son's walls. This is with plexiglass and much safer. I will see if I can buy some proper matting for it as I think that would improve the looks to no end.

The particles picture got a detail added at home:

I added a real old skeleton key buy sewing it on.

As you can see I have used not only Mandy's stamps, but also other artists' copy righted material in form of postcards and pictures. It doesn't matter as this is for myself, I would not do this if I was to sell the picture. Here is the "particles"

I chose to frame it under glass in IKEA frame. When I was measuring this picture for the frame, I remembered another picture I had wanted to frame a long time. This time work of Elf son, two years ago:

These two have same colours and look really nice together in their frames. This is obviously a portrait of me, made for the mother's day. Behind the picture it says: "I love my mummy because she massages my back every evening and it makes my back feel good."

Now I just need to hang them.

Hello Again! and Re-make three: Retro Skirt

2011-03-06T07:33:00.000Z

Sorry about the far too long hiatus. There was a really long spell of drab grey days which made any picture taking impossible and then my computer went into coma. It took a turn in intensive care unit aka Elf Husband's hands (how good is it to have a helpful in-house computer nerd?) and is now functioning again, yihaa!

This garment was one of the things I was lucky to rescue from my Grandma's wardrobe. She must have made it in 60's. It was so neatly sewn. I took it for its retro fabric and thought maybe making something out of it as I was convinced that I could not squeeze myself into it. I got inspired later to try to make a skirt by cutting it up in strips. When I tried it on the skirt fitted. It was only far too small over the shoulders, yihaa! I simply cropped the skirt off and sewed the waist and made a couple of darts at the waist to give it form. Time used: 5 minutes or so.

While I was doing this I noticed that the lowest button had had an accident either in the making or using. It was patched, really neatly, so that the pattern matched.

I wore the skirt for half an hour and I had the same accident happening to me, just one button up, where the fabric wasn't reinforced. I could have just given up at this point, but I had realised that I WANTED this skirt.

I then put extra interfacing behind the buttons and used some fabric to enforce the button strip. Next thing to happen? The button holes started ripping. So doing the same on that side too. Now I have a really nice retro skirt and no other bits have given up the ghost. And I like it!

Re-take Two and three

2011-02-09T12:46:00.001Z

I bought a vintage layered cake tin a couple of years ago. I found it in my local treasure trove aka charity shop. In principle I like old and a bit worn out stuff. This tin was yellowish cream coloured and had sage green lid, colour combination which did nothing for my kitchen.

So I decided to something about it. I was thinking of spray painting them, maybe with polka dots. It was a good idea, but it would have been really costly and I could not find the shade of green I had set my mind to.

Lucy in attic24 was doing some decoupage with specially produced paper and I thought that it was the way to go. Again I could not find the green I liked or even pattern I liked in slightly different green. So I decided to go for and white combo. I had a go and the result was this. Not good.

So the tin was a UFO while I was re-grouping. I think that the paper bit is totally oversold thing. They say that it doesn't rip. It did for me.They say it doesn't bleed. It did for me. Or I might be the most sausage fingered crafter on the planet. I was even using their special glue to do the work with. I don't have any evidence, but I think I was taken for a ride with the glue. It smelled and felt like any PVA glue.

In the end I realised that I had the polka dots and the colour in my fabric draws, so that was what I used. Didn't rip or bleed FYI. The lid needed two layers as the green paint was showing through and making the lid considerably different in colour. (It still shows a bity, especially in the picture, less so in person)

The only problem is that the tin was quite tight to open to begin with. To stuff a bit of fabric in between doesn't help. We will see what happens. Maybe I should have given it just sandpapering a la Jokke from Jokkemaa. I like the colour though!

My IKEA chandelier with self-hung beads had lost some of its jewels.You can see it here in its former glory. I replaced them, as I cannot find the container in which I put the ones that had fallen off and added a few more beads and colours for fun.

PS. In pictures you can see how there are some air bubbles left, because my decoupage work was not perfect. It actually shows far less in real life, the pictures really bring them up.

Re-take One

2011-02-08T12:15:00.001Z

Sometimes my projects are fine to begin with, but then there is a problem as time goes, sometimes its just the usage the things get. I have had a few things needing re-doing in my kitchen and lately the issue has bothered me as much as to propel me into action. Remember my kitchen sweeties aka cabinet knobs? I blogged about them here. I used varnish, which seemed ok, smelled ok and brushed on ok. I did not heed my doubts about using a product which has travelled with me from country to country even shifted continents a couple of times. And actually, when I started to think about it, I know which project I bought it for and when. And hmmm...it was 15 years ago!

So the varnish started to get glue like and got gunky and unattractively dirty. I have now re-painted them and re-varnished with new varnish.

First time around I kept the colours slightly muted for the most.

I noticed though that I liked the bright ones best. I think I was a bit worried to make them too bright, but the amount of the colour is negotiable in the sea of white cupboards, tiles and walls. So this time around I have used brighter shades. Very Happy with the result : )

What can You Get for 50 pence?

2011-02-05T21:16:00.001Z

A bunch of colourful dishcloths in cotton! I bought a toddler's hoodie knit in the local charity shop, cut it in pieces and sew it them together in dishcloth sized pieces.

This is one of those obvious things I hadn't thought of before I saw this done in Jokkemaa. I had before read about using your old t-shirts as dishcloths, but I am ridiculously attached to my "knitted" shop bought ones. So this is the obvious solution. I get cheaper, recycled dishcloths and as a bonus they are in pretty colours. Jokke's are far prettier than mine. Even if you don't understand the language, it's a good place to go and get some inspiration, the pictures are worth it, Jokke is extremely productive and creative crafter.

And as a bonus for this production I got a cute zip as well!

Heart hair clips were made for my friend's littele girls. Very simple, very cheap, well under 50p a pair...

She Sells Sea Shells on a Sea Shore

2011-01-28T19:03:00.001Z

Well I don't really. But I do like sea shells and spotted this idea how to display my collection in a interior decoration magazine or website. Not a faintest memory where. In my memory their version was more "polished".

These shells were largely collected during my morning walks along our home beach in Mbezi Beach in Dar es Salaam some years ago. There are also shells and sea glass from Northumbrian sandy beaches.(That's where we live now, just to make sure that you don't think that it has started to snow on the shores of Indian Ocean).
There is also a pretty quarts from Alpujarras in Spain where we lived a short while:

It also contains a very special shell, which my husband found for me on Zanzibar Stonetown beach after the day we had met there. It looks like a Flamenco dancer's dress.

I might add that I do like old used things and anything having a lot of departments. After a long rumination period I decided to give in and glue my shells into the typesetters tray. My inclination was to stick them with blue tack or something, but Elf husband rightly pointed out that they won't hold and lots harrumphing would ensue if I followed that route and the shells started falling like leaves in the autumn. The upper ledge, which has originally been the draw front was given a light sanding as I didn't fancy the yellowish cream colour of it. I left some paint behind, my take on "shabby chic".

I love the little metal corners holding the slots in place. The whole thing has an air of an old zoological museum, in a good way; the old wooden draw, things sorted in there and slightly dusty looks. It reminds me of school store rooms, where one had a rare access with a teacher. One of the first schools I worked as a teacher had still some store rooms like that and they still made my tummy flutter in excitement.

For anyone worried about marine conservation, I should add that all the shells and the coral were washed up on beaches and empty/dead, no live organisms were touched.
PS. I will post a picture of this on the wall when we get our act together.

Elf Mama's New Favourite Hand Bag

2011-01-23T17:05:00.000Z

This is a bag I have been planning during the nights I haven't been able to sleep, not that there are many of them. The colour of the bag in the picture is far too blue, it is in fact teal coloured. I wanted to make something like this since Elf husband bought me this purse, which I love very much.

I love the big bobbles closing the purse, so wanted to have them in my bag too. In this picture you can see the true colour of the bag as well.

I just didn't have a clue how to attach the frames to the sewn bag. I tried to study each frame I had at home, but became none the wiser. Then I found my Bag Hero, Lisa Lam of Bag Bible fame. The instructions are not actually in the book, but on her shop web-site here. The outer fabric is remnants from my teal jacket I blogged about here.

I used nice wild "Emmaline" quilting weight cotton for the lining. This is the other bag I made a pattern and a muslin for, amazing in my mind.

I like the metal clips which attach the strap to the bag. I had also purchased a chain, but decided that I liked a strap in the bag's own fabric better.

Now that it is all sewn and clued it will get a lot of outings! (Sorry about the blog turning into a bag blog lately. I promise to do other things as well!)
The fact that the bag widens in the bottom and seems to be able to room an awful lot for a little bag makes me think of Hermione's handbag in the latest Harry Potter film.

Sewing Jersey and other Stretchy Stuff

2011-01-22T18:31:00.000Z

My birthday present has arrived! Of course there were several days when I did not have time to acquaintance myself with my new overlocker. My lovely husband and dad gave me my new toy.

I was really lucky, because trawling the net the price seemed to sit £50 under RRP everywhere. Then Elf Husband spotted a place with a further £50 reduction, because they were selling the display model. Hurrah! We did the purchasing in the New Year's weekend and got a phone call later in the week that unfortunately they had sold that display model, but if I could wait for their next stock delivery, they would give me a brand new one for the price, which I said "Yes Please" to.

I have never ever used an overlocker before, so everything is rather new and scary. I am getting a grip with it now, but I have a lot to learn.

The first project I decided to do was making a fleece for Elf son from my old fleece. I thought that even if it goes horribly wrong, I won't feel too bad as it is an old garment I never use. Elf son's favourite colour is red and he needs a new fleece, so that is how this project came to.

I had all sorts of "aha" moments. Many overlockers, mine included have a cutting knife to tidy up the edge you are sewing. In my model you can choose not to use it and indeed some stitches don't use it at all. For some odd reason I felt that the knife was preventing me to see what was happening there with the material and the needles and everything, so I whipped it up. (Being used to sewing machines I sort of needed the visual control, which you don't get with an overlocker). The picture is taken from the side, but if you imagine being on the front of the big white safety barrier and the rest of it...

At the same time my edge I was sewing wasn't perfectly cut and straight. I can tell you that the overlocker didn't like this. It got all muddled and then snapped a needle. I managed to snap one more by pulling the material, which is a no-no with an overlocker. In addition there is double the amount of thread tensions to consider and of course the same with correct threading.

I then proceeded to make a stripy long sleeved t-shirt for Elf son. I got the material from "marimekko" factory outlet in Helsinki when they had their great sale in last August. I was very lucky to find a big piece and could not have bought bad quality jersey for that price other places. It's not that important for me that it is marimekko fabric, but Elf son likes stripes and jerseys from marimekko wash really well, so I felt it was a brilliant find.

New favourite accessory for the normal sewing machine has been found due to this project: The twin needle. Hemming the sleeves and the hem the twin needle is lovely and pleasingly neat. I was using it also for the neck opening with the stretch stitch. At least in the hem and the sleeves the needed stretch is already there in the normal twin needle stitch, so it was quick and neat to sew. I am pondering now whether to cut out the neck opening strip and redo it with a normal twin needle top stitch...

Knits have been long on my list of "would like to do", but the slowness of the process when using a normal machine has put me off. Now I can run some stretchy seams with a steaming speed! The only speed hampering thing is that the knits of this type definitely need pinning before sewing, so I can see that the seam matches. It is totally impossible to tell as it rolls like mad. Even ironing won't stop it. (Believe me I tried. I do anything before I pin or horror of horrors stay stitch anything).

I must also say here that if you are thinking of buying an overlocker, because you already own a passable sewing machine, I would urge you to think again. As wonderful as it is to be able to do overlocking, you still need a sewing machine and a good one of those is such a fantastic thing to have and makes one's sewing really a lot easier. Of course you can get much swisher overlockers than mine and I am sure that they are equally "easier". (Not that mine is difficult at all). I am so happy that I chose first to upgrade my sewing machine, before getting an overlocker, but then majority of my sewing isn't knits. (As you might have guessed, I was actually thinking of first getting an overlocker as I had a machine...)

Hannele Bag

2011-01-19T14:41:00.000Z

I am on the roll with bags. It is really good fun to make them, now that I have learnt a few basic principles. This is totally my own design. The hotch-potch sewer, yours truly, has made first muslin in her life! Not for garments, oh no, but for bags. I actually started another bag before this and will show it as soon as it is finished.

This bag was in my mind a long time. I had made the first sketches last September, and now it is here. The bag changed slightly under the process, but for me that is normal.

A pattern and notes of everything needed for this bag was made, should I want to sew another one. That is something to celebrate in my book.

I was debating about the closure for this bag quite a while. I am all for closures, which keep contents safe, so was quite intent to put a zip on it. In the end I decided not to, but went for a magnetic snap.

It keeps the contents in quite ok, as the bag is not that deep. I also made the bag to be carried under the arm, which closes it even more. As I am all for versatility, I made the strap with adjustment, so I could carry it across my body as well.

Inside I have open pockets on one side:

and a zip pocket on the other.

I am not entirely sure, how wise this was as the bag is constructed with pleats. They seem to be ok, but I just might change this too. In general I am very fond of pockets in bags as I don't like hand-bag-soup where all the items are swimming in a merry mess.

All in all I am well pleased with my efforts. Now it only remains to decide whether to keep or sell this bag...

More Hooting from the Owlery

2011-01-16T11:56:00.001Z

When I finished the first owl purse, I just could not stop before I had tried a few of the variations in my head.
This is the original guy:

Here is his girlfriend:

Then the stripy one with running stitches on the felt bits:

The green one with endearingly wonky "ears":

The Mustard coloured guy with wise expression:

and a row of owl bottoms: (just cannot resist...)

This has inspired me to think again about opening a little shop for my "overflow". Sometimes the inspiration is larger than my cupboards and a little help for material costs would not be bad either. I designed the banner for the shop this morning, but it also needs making. I want to do it in embroidery and applique, so it won't be here today...Well, there is no hurry for the shop opening, is there?

Money Wise aka Owl Purse

2011-01-13T12:32:00.003Z

Well...I was supposed to do some supply teaching today, but Elf son has gone down with temperature and is only interested in listening to stories either read for him or from a CD or films. As I did a whole lot of reading already, he is now enjoying a Star Wars film or two and I am having sudden unscheduled time for crafting; BRILLIANT!

I am possibly really late to this trend, but I do adore owls and as I was thinking of doing something from my own head, I settled for trying to make an owl purse.I know that those buttons look mucky. It's dust and I will take a cotton bud to them. I just could not be bothered to take another picture. You can see that the buttons are from a granny tin in this way!

I might be the only one wanting to have an owl purse, although my thought was trying to develop something I might be able to sell on craft fairs. There are several variations in my head, so friends and family, you are now warned that you might be gifted with these, if they don't sell. (In case I actually produce a stack of them).Watch this space, the variations might fly this way soon...woo hooo!

The purse is zipped along the owls bottom. I won't entertain you with several childish jokes that ran through my head making this opening.

Here is the owl in its entire glory:

I think it would have looked even better had I hand stitched the wings and the forehead bit with embroidery floss. Next time...Have a hooting weekend! Edit: Have a hooting Thursday. Being suddenly at home doing cosy things has thrown my sense of time...

Here are the results of the draw

2011-01-10T21:11:00.004Z

Of course I should have seen it coming. I could not get Elf son to be my random number generator as he received the eagerly awaited Lego with the mail. He got money for Christmas and had some savings too, which he used to buy a BIG kit of Lego. Ergo, there was no way of extracting him from the kit apart from taking two bites for his dinner and in the end putting him to bed.

So we did it today here are the slips in his hat:

Elf son is picking one of them:

and here is the winner:

Congratulations Pauliina. The goods are going to be sent your way asap.(Yes, it is blood on the paper. I butchered my thumb earlier today and it has kept bleeding all the day. )

Here is what Elf son crafted to his cousins as Christmas presents. They were a part of an exercise for his fine motor skills, which was easier to "sell" as there was a reason to make these. He likes his twin cousins R&L awfully lot and making gifts for them was a great motivator.

Elf Son's New School Satchel

2011-01-06T13:38:00.001Z

Just a reminder that you still have time to comment on the previous post to participate in the anniversary giveaway!

After the successful bag making session I moved swiftly to use all the new knowledge by designing a new book bag for my son. This was sort of half planned as a Christmas present as well, but I thought that it did not matter if he would get it as a New Year gift. His old book bag is one of those nylon numbers the schools get their logo printed on and all the kids have the same. There is a cuteness to it, but he is on his second or third of those already. Its velcro has stopped sticking and it has holes in the corners. He is now that much older that he is quite happy to have something different. He had another bag for his morning fruit snack as well. Some days he is carrying four different bags to school.

The satchel looks deceptively similar to my bag, but I honestly made the pattern myself, using my knowledge of "how to make" supplied by Lisa Lam via her book Bag Making Bible. I used Elf son's old satchel as a guide for the size, although I added a bit both to height and width. I had enough of ticking fabric from elf husbands apron left over to line this bag. It has a big pocket, which I hope will be used for newsletters and all the other handouts mummy needs to read...

On the other side we have similar, but lower pocket divided into three smaller compartments ready to hold pencil case and such. I had meant to buy all the hardware for this bag too, but had forgotten the d-rings, so one end of the strap got sewn and another got a strap loop fashioned from the same jeans fabric with a mega buttonhole. I did get the magnetic snaps and strap adjuster.

One of my goals making this bag was to reduce the bag load he is carrying, so I made an elasticated strap to hold his water bottle

and enough space for a new snack bag.

It is a watertight zip-bag made of dark out blind cut-outs. I knew that they would come useful! And to lessen the frustration with the zip, it has a mega pull with his initial in red felt! What's more the bag has been approved by Elf son, phew....(His comment was that it had a pillow inside. I think this is a reference to ticking).
My blogging might suffer a bit as I am heading to the BIG city for the weekend and then having some work...(REAL work, rather than crafting) to do. I shall be back next week though.

I am also eagerly waiting for my birthday present to arrive. Yes, it's my birthday today, but the present is not going to be here before the end of the next week. I will show and tell when it arrives as it is craft related and I am VERY excited!

Blog Anniversary Giveaway and a New Year's Gift

2011-01-02T18:45:00.000Z

It was my blog's 1st anniversary yesterday! Happy birthday blog!

I am fully aware of the custom of having a little giveaway to celebrate. I don't know if there are any others than my family and a few friends reading this, although the stats show that there are at least occasional visits from places where I don't know anybody. (Obviously the family and friends are welcome to participate). As this is mainly craft and sewing blog the give away is "crafty". I thought that it would be nice to give from my stash and something I have made, so here we go.

The giveaway winner is going to get a rainbow of zips:

small selection of buttons

Two Suffolk puff pins

and a pencil case I made

To participate leave a comment, it does not matter if you have never done so before, you are still welcome! I will draw the winner on Friday the 7th after 3pm GMT, as I am going to use Elf son as my random number selector after he is back from school. Please check if you have won and if so, contact me as the blogger doesn't always give me your email address even if you leave one. GOOD LUCK!
Now that we have got the giveaway sorted, I can show you a notebook I made as a New Year's gift to my friend and mentor, who is an avid journal writer. We don't exchange Christmas gifts, but I am going to see her next weekend and thought that this would be a nice surprise and a way to say thank-you for mentoring me and being a friend. The colours are not very "me", but are "her". It's always nice to make things for people, because it forces me to colours and designs I would not otherwise use.

I blogged earlier about a notebook I made and there was talk about writing some sort of tutorial for it. Well, I didn't, but maybe I should have, just to use it myself! I could not remember what I did last time, so I needed to figure it out again. Not sure if I did it the same way, but that doesn't matter. I still have not produced a tutorial though...I have to refine my false book binding technique. I really don't have a faintest clue about real bookbinding, so it's all ad libbing it. The printed text is an Einstein quote: "Imagination is more important than knowledge"

I wanted to make the insides inspiring as well, so I added some pictures and decorations here and there

There are fantastic sources for vintage children's craft activities etc on flickr. I can easily lose myself for hours there. It never stops amazing me how generous people are sharing all these goodies with the Internet community. There are several rainy day cutting and pasting activities there which are super cute. Go and check out here and here. The latter has a lot of sets with different vintage themes and is a treasure trove. The pictures are actually lovely enough to frame, if you are missing pictures for your child's room, or indeed for yourself. I used some of them for illustrations printing them to be on the left hand side, where it is more difficult to write.
The whole process of making this notebook was much more painful this time than last time around. I wonder whether it was because I knew I was making this as a gift, whereas the other one started as something for myself.

A Bag and a Loose End

2010-12-31T10:23:00.002Z

Have a Happy New Year, Dear Readers!

Wishing You a Creative 2011 with my last post for 2010

Love from Mama Elf

After the Christmas there was delicious time to use to sew. The countless projects in my mind were all put in an imaginary pot and one was drawn from there as a winner. Make a bag for myself! I had planned this since August, when I visited Marimekko factory outlet during their big summer sales and acquired some materials. I wanted to replace my old Marimekko shoulder bag by something more colourful. As I wanted the bag be rather sturdy, I chose to buy canvas from IKEA for the lining. First I could not get the lining and then the publishing date of Lisa Lam's book "Bag Making Bible" was delayed. I did not plan with the book from the beginning, but saw some pre-reviews and thought that it would be stupid not to wait. And then came Christmas.

I was debating with myself whether to adjust the pattern slightly, make it just a smidgen smaller..but then I thought: for once woman, just do as it says in the book. Follow the instructions and learn. So that is what I did, largely...
I did go with the instructions and I have chosen a white lining, as I am tired of losing things in dark bags. Whether it will look awfully grubby in no time is another question. This is how the bag looks inside. I took the picture during the construction to give you a better idea:

I added the little pocket above the pencil pocket. The owl fabric has been in my draw for a while and I had used some of the fat quarter, so the remains were used very carefully. The pattern included the pocket with zip, but letting the lining encircle the zip was my own idea. I thought it looked really cute and I also added that pull with an owl for the zip.

The other side was meant to have a laptop harness, but I seldom lug my laptop around, so I did not bother. I made a big pocket/divider there instead.

This is my first homemade bag ever to have this much metal hardware on it, adjustable strap and square d- rings for the strap

the twist turn locks on the flap

I am proud of my top stitching here. It was made with special top stitch thread and needle. You probably have known about this for yonks, but I have first recently found out about the possibility to buy this product to re-produce something akin jeans top stitching. I was kicking myself that I did not notice to lengthen the stitch when top stitching the shoulder strap. As you might know I love my sewing machine and one of its lovely features is that it can make up to 6mm long stitches.

In the end I was well pleased with another NEAT product from the hodge-podge seamstress.

The loose end I had was that I showed in last January the beginnings of a crotchet bag. It was finished and this is how it looks:

It's mostly used to house my yarns, but gets an outing once in a while in the summer.

More showing presents while we are sniffy, wobbly and throatachy

2010-12-30T15:52:00.000Z

She has gone mad you might think....posting several posts a day after leaving the blog occasionally for a month. There is an explanation: Christmas has been spent having my two boys' faces in various shades of gray, sniffing, coughing and sneezing. Until this morning I did brilliantly - not a symptom in sight. Now I have a sore throat and very wobbly limbs. I have my hopes up that a day's rest will work wonders and that I am feeling all shiny and new tomorrow morning. Meanwhile I have been putting up my blog roll, although I must admit that in reality it is longer. These are however the blogs I visit most frequently. I might well add a few, as I notice that I have forgotten some "oh so important ones".
I even had a look at some other designs, but none took my fancy, using the blogger has its limitations, but it's free and free is good in my book.

Here is the apron I made for Elf husband, as he is the bread baker in our family. Can you see the D-rings for the adjustable strap? They are actually two key rings, which I sent the husband to buy in town before Christmas without telling him what I intended to use them for.

I gave him the River Cottage handbook for Bread, which has been a hit. If you like to make real bread and maybe dream of building a little bread oven in your garden, this is your book. It is the best bread book either of us has ever read. In addition it is really pleasing to hold being "book sized" and hardcover with old fashioned texture to the cover. Should I now add that I like the scent of new books and shoes?

I have to tell you that we have aprons in our house, but I have abused them with bleach and paint and varnish and you name it...This time we keep the nice one(s) for cooking only. (I have the fabric ready to make a new apron for me too).

Pencil Cases

2010-12-30T11:29:00.001Z

These were really good fun to make, the fun consisting of getting the gist of how they are made, producing them satisfyingly quickly and getting rather neat results. (A novelty for a hodge podge seamstress). I borrowed the way of making from Flossie Teacakes from her little make-up bag tutorial. When I was leafing through Lisa Lam's "Bag Making Bible"similar instructions were found. I altered (as usual) the pattern to be longer, so the pens would fit. Our nieces and my sister got these. My sister got one of the prototypes, which was too short for a pencil case to use as a make-up bag. The nieces had some pencils and pens thrown in as well.

The zips got added a little pull:

and the lining was another colour. The birds had nice seed pods on green, the orange bag had polkadots on orange and the brown one some nice stripes. The fourth one can be seen here as it was the only picture of the insides which did not shake totally out of focus:

I must admit, that in my eagerness I made a couple of them stiffened first with TWO layers of canvas inside and then just one. Did not work, so don't try. It really needs a proper interfacing. I was SO sure I had some, so I had not got it from the fabric shop, but none could be found, when I came home. This propelled me into a tidying frenzy of my materials and in the last, and very deep draw, of my Victorian chest holding my sewing and crafting materials was the said interfacing hiding! I took it as a bonus that I was forced to use a couple of days exploring the deep, deep guts of my chest of draws...

I put some homemade cosmetics inside my sister's and the teenage niece got hers on the side. My sister got the organic rose-water face water, which I use myself as it is lovely relief in these skin drying times. For the teenage niece I produced a facial cleanser/face water from rosewater and some oils. Nothing too exciting, but a nice gift idea for those who prefer natural products.

A Jester's Hat

2010-12-29T19:40:00.001Z

This was meant to be a Christmas present for Elf son. In these pictures he is wearing the hat with a balaclava under it as it was really windy that day.

Luckily I constructed it a day before the winter began in the late November. As the snow started to fall for real, I decided to give the hat to Elf son immediately. It was no time before it looked like this around us. ( I am sure you are well tired of snow pictures now, just jump over...)

The hat is made entirely of fleece and I made the pattern myself. It even involved using Pi calculating some of the measurements. I was really proud of this fact, which just reveals my exceptionally bad maths. I took from beginning to finish just a couple of hours, so if you use a pattern, you could be done in an hour.

Making the hat from fleece simplifies the process a lot: it doesn't fray, it gives a little, but not enough to requite stretch stitch and it stays put. All in all very forgiving and an ideal beginner project. If you are a beginner, you are forgiven to think that I am mad. It really is far easier than you might think. Any mistakes or miscalculations are easy to put right without too much of altering.

I have it in my mind to make the pattern available here as a PDF file and write instructions how to make it, if people want to have it. If you have sewn before, you might just need to see my pictures to figure it out. Elf son wanted to have "streamers" in the back, like his hat from Lapland had:

I would have preferred a dark gray with the red, but unfortunately I could not get fleece in that colour. I used new fabrics, but this could easily be made from an old thrifted fleece jumper as the pieces are small. I can see in my mind's eye many a variation from the theme: using one colour, decorated with ribbons and buttons on the bit going around the head, multi coloured...bells anyone? Elf son's hat has been used a lot, as the snow is still on the ground, although it looks as if it is going and this will soon be just a nice memory:,

More Hearts and a Quilt

2010-12-29T19:00:00.004Z

So now the pressies can be revealed! This is another decoration I made around the heart theme for my sister. It can be hung on a door or wall or between door jambs. It was not made too heavily in Christmas theme as I thought that she might want to use it other times as well. Maybe as a lucky charm around the Valentine's day?

The other sister's baby got his quilt after a looooong wait. As my sister requested a white one, that's what she got. It was not the most inspiring thing to make in my mind and in the beginning I had the idea of hand quilting it...well, that plan was abandoned. It still has the central bits and some of the panels in hand quilting, but the rest is machine work. Basically anything curved was done by hand, because I am rubbish at free motion sewing on machine. I need to practice it more. It was washed several times to get the required wrinkly look. I embroidered the baby's name and birth date on it, with white. How nice am I? Well, my sister did not even notice the name. I hope she has found it now. As you might expect the pictures of a white quilt are impossible to take, so here is a white wrinkly thing

and here is a hint of the name embroidery, just take it as an extra competition, "who can spot it?"

More gifts to be blogged about and I have already managed two projects after the Christmas despite the fact that every major electrical item seemed to die in this house over the holidays. That is a slight exaggeration; only washing machine, tumble drier, toothbrush, car battery and the coffee grinder. The last one clearly being the worst...luckily we still own the manual old fashioned grinder as well.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-22T15:30:00.000Z

Here is my gingerbread house this year. In my book I have cheated as I bought it as a kit from IKEA. Last year I did the same and it collapsed! My homemade one year before the last did the same, although my technique with melted sugar has improved since. I burnt myself only once today instead of having fingertips covered in blisters.

Pre-made kit route was chosen as I cannot bear the thought of going to all the hassle of making the house, which ends up in ruins as soon as I turn my back to it. I think that last year's disaster was due to using far too heavy sweets as decoration and just possibly the air humidity in this country.

We will see how this ends. The pictures are just a way to wish you lovely holidays, if I should not pop back before then. I have an excitable 8-year-old in the house, so entertainment is required. I thing I might even chase a few dust bunnies out of their hiding before Christmas, although that does not count as entertainment.

Life's Little Luxuries

2010-12-20T21:48:00.000Z

I love the feel of newly washed and ironed sheets. I am not that hot on ironing them, but I love the result, so I do it anyway. I always think of it as "buying" a luxury, when I am using my time ironing.
On my recent trip to IKEA I found new bed sheets for us. I had eyed them in the catalogue, but did not want to set my heart on them before I had seen them in person. They were just as I imagined. They are obviously machine embroidered, but I just love the red work on them.

No trip to IKEA is completed without a quick look around in fabrics department and this time I brought back the gingham, which I wanted to make to pillowcases to go with the new sheets.

We don't really sleep with two pillows, it's more so I can have some eye candy. The husband and son read the goodnight story on our bed and neither had noticed my gingham pillows, even though they were lying on top of them. My cousin says that this is normal male behaviour. He claims that he won't really notice any changes, which his wife has made at home unless she has moved the fridge or his bed. Well, at least I am free to do as I please with my home decorating and that is another lovely luxury!

The Elf

2010-12-19T21:43:00.000Z

For many years our tree has been decorated in silver and white. It has been pretty and I have enjoyed it. Last year I started hankering after a more "homemade" tree, bit more Shaker style or even Scandinavian style. (That is what Scandinavian style means in my head, no official way of decorating in Scandinavia). After last Christmas I bought some straw decorations from IKEA for very little money and I already had some cute wooden decorations and couple of other bits and pieces.

A bit of gingham ribbon was added with elves from IKEA's this year's collection and my homemade hearts and voila, I had the tree of my dreams.

As my boys were so accommodating for my new scheme and did not kick up too much fuss about all the glitter lacking from our tree, I decided to go for an opinion poll for the tree topper. (I should add here that the discussion about lametta is conducted on a yearly basis in this house). Opinions asked: one, the Elf son's. I told him that I didn't much care for our rather overly sweet fairy bought from B&Q and would like to make a home made one and what did he think about that. He had an instant reply: I don't want to have a fairy, I'd rather have an ELF! So this is what I made:

I had absolutely no idea how to make one. It was rather "let's see where this takes us" affair. I am delighted by its stability on the top of the tree. All the toppers I ever have had to handle were wobbly one way or the other. And it is a truly homemade decoration. It is mainly made of felt and the stripy arms and legs are made of the last bits of Elf'son's much loved stripy t-shirt from when he was 4. My plan is to make some more homemade stuff every year, how I am going to fit it all on the tree, I don't know. I guess some of it gets too worn out or I will replace some of the bought stuff. Have you had any last minute making for your tree?
Editor's note: The long exposure tree picture and the proper, sharp picture of the elf are taken by the Elf Husband with his SLR, as my camera didn't quite make it in these low light conditions.

Christmas Preparations

2010-12-15T20:42:00.000Z

There are luckily a few preparations for the Christmas, which are OK to show now. We baked some gingerbread biscuits with Elf son on one Sunday morning. As usual he was eager to help, see the grin:

This is the reason.

Honestly, it's a time honoured tradition that at least 1/5 of the dough ends up eaten before its baked. It is unusually delicious and both young and old keep snatching bits from it.

I did not take any pictures of the result as my mojo left me after decorating only three biscuits. And guess what? We have already eaten all the ones we baked. There just might be more baking in the cards.

This December I have had red, polka dots and hearts on my brain, so I made these for our tree. I love how they feel in my hand. The felt was really nice to work with in this type of project as it doesn't unravel and is easy to make to relatively small and tight forms.I found some vintage cloth covered buttons for these, which pleases me to no end.

Elf Husband gives little gifts to the ladies who work under him every Christmas. It tends to be my job to put the gift together after he has decided what type of present he would like to give. As there are 10+ people, they cannot be expensive. This year I put this together: (Angel not included)

You probably don't need any explanations really, but here are the few technical bits, which are worth sharing: The candle is raised a bit and blocked to the position with florist's oasis, which also holds the greenery. Should you use satin ribbon like me, it has tendency to slip off the pot. I solved this by rolling a bit of masking tape under the ribbon in the back and on both sides of the bow, as I didn't have any double sided tape. I tried earlier with a hemp string and that sat without help. The pine cones are held in place with a bit of steel wire stuck into them. The hearts are cotton glued on felt, edges cut with pinking scissors and the ribbon sits in between them.
I like this type of things where I can use few simple ingredients to make something nice, but not too elaborate. At Christmas time I especially love the greenery with some colour. Have you made any nice Christmas things?

Book Review for Sewing People

2010-12-09T20:37:00.000Z

I find the issue of crafty and sewing books quite tricky. While I generally LOVE books and I especially love a good craft/sewing book, I am not easily pleased. I mean I find most books of this kind inspirational one way or another, but not enough for wanting to own them. Often there are a couple of nice things and the rest don't appeal. And then there is a category called TREASURES. I won't part with my treasures, I sleep next to them (ok, they are stacked on the floor, I do not snuggle with them). These two books belong to that category. You might already know them, but in case you have not heard of them, now is a good time to add them to your wish list.

Cal Patch's Desing-it-Yourself Clothes; Patternmaking Simplified is good both for beginners and more experienced sewers. It starts with how to take your own measurements and takes you through step-by-step how to create your own patterns for basic pieces.

When you have mastered them, you will also feel confident changing the patterns to make exactly what you wanted to have and it will fit. Or change some ready made patterns to be moreto your taste.

If you are more experienced there are several good tips and techniques to be learnt. (Well, there was and is plenty here for me at least).

The book is visually pleasing, with beautiful photos and nice lay-out.

Cal Patch used to design for Urban Outfitters and Free People before launching her own line of clothing. She has also taught pattern making and sewing for yonks and that shows in clear instructions. She knows how confusing it all can be for a beginner.

Lisa Lam's book "The Bag Making Bible" is just that, at least for me. She is the insanely creative and skillful girl who is behind the blog and internet shop called Uhandbag. She has written eight different patterns into this book, and all of them look good. What actually pleases me most in this book is that it has chapters on different parts of a bag and how to construct them. For example in the chapter on pockets

you can learn how to make a slip pocket, lined slip pocket, bellows pocket, elasticated top pocket and darted corner pocket.

There is also a whole chapter about closures (among other topics, this is truly a bible):

This means that you can dream up a bag and then have Lisa at hand explaining you how to sew the different bits. I need this kind of weekend bag, definitely.

I am looking for the fabric for mine, have not decided as yet whether I want it in canvas or in wax cloth.

The book is absolutely packed with good hints and tips and the pictures are eye candy too. I love bags and clothes, but have my own style and go through periods of intensely liking a colour or certain colours. Combine that with hate of shopping and wanting certain quality and finish in my clothing and bags with limited finances and you start to see why I like these books. That I also adore sewing and creating and get all giddy with it, is obviously a bonus.

Both books have the format in common; there are projects there, but in essence they give you tools to create whatever you fancy. And boy, they do it well! These books won't be on my list, because I own them already, but I would love to hear if you have any treasures in your bookshelf.

Teal Jacket

2010-12-05T12:08:00.002Z

This is my new favourite garment and a very silly "look here I am taking a picture of myself in a mirror" pose. It is made of boiled wool blend. I literally took it from the sewing machine and put it on and we have not been separated but for a day of cleaning. What no whole days of cleaning at yours? Not that I am cleaning like that all the time, but when I am in my creative frenzy the cleaning tends to slip from my mind and we go two, maybe three weeks without cleaning. And then I suddenly notice the dust bunnies, grime in the bathroom, bits on the living room rug. This time of the year elfing business is at its busiest.
We have had lots of snow, so some time has been merrily used in three-way snowball fights, sledging and building snowman.

Anyway, I started off with an Ottobre pattern from 5/2008 magazine. In the end I had adjusted rather a many details and after listing them to Elf husband he said: so you re-designed it. The jacket is unlined and works as a cardigan, but I foresee it being used as a spring jacket too.

First the changes you would not be able to see; I added a layer of fabric to the front opening and collar area to give it a bit more structure and made the armhole considerably roomier. This is my gripe with Ottobre patterns. We seem to have very different ideas of what constitutes an armhole. I got caught in this again and despite making the armhole up to next size, it was not enough, so ended up adding extra ovals under the arms, where they hopefully cannot be seen. I should have made a muslin, I know.

I also changed the front pleats from being scrunched up style to little individual pleats and that pleases me to no end.. The sunshine(!?) during the photo session washed the colours out rather well, so this detail looks almost black and white.

I used the pocket pattern as it was, but did not add the velvet band on the stitching on the pockets. I like them as they are and used a double top stitching instead.

Sleeves were extended to full length and added a cuff. The pattern had 3/4 sleeves, but I find them cold in the winter and I especially loathe them in jackets used outside. I find it is too much of faff to match my indoor clothing, which would be peeping from the sleeve with the jacket.

In the end I also went with two buttons instead of three, just because it looked nicer in my eyes and allows the jacket open to a slight a-shape, which I like.

So here is another shot of the whole jacket, the true colour is the colour of the sleeve and the cuff picture. All the others are despite photoshopping washed out in colours in various degrees.

Baby Quilts

2010-12-01T16:43:00.000Z

This year there were three babies born, whom I felt I wanted to gift with a quilt. Here are two of them, the last one is almost there and hopefully the baby will get it as a Christmas present. I have been shamefully slow to get these together, on the other hand the boy baby's quilt would not have had a name on before now, as the parents did not reveal his name before the Christening. The poor nephew of mine, who was the first of the three to be born is still waiting for his.

Baby Alyssa's quilt has many pink colours, unusual for me to use as I don't much like pink in my house or clothing. I must say that in the end I was quite loving it and wanted to keep it!

Mainly because I just loved the owl fabric

and the polka dot binding,

not to forget the back of the quilt that is made of sew together Edwardian piece of curtain or something. The handiwork is beautiful as you can see.

Baby Filip's Quilt was made of shirtings and old sheet to keep it lovely and soft.

There is just nothing to beat cotton, which has been washed many, many times in softness. I used the same polka dot binding, which lifted the mood of the quilt.

I thought that rather make it like this than putting "baby" materials in it as it might lengthen the use of the quilt. Little boys often protest if things are too "sissy" in my experience, especially when they have big brothers around. I created a Scottie(?) dog playing with a ball with his embroidered name on the back as there were no pictures in the patchwork materials.

There will be one more quilt here, maybe first after the Christmas and maybe one day I will make one for myself as well!

Snow and cards

2010-11-28T19:20:00.002Z

We have been snowed in! Well, actually we can creep out in our Land Rover, but the roads in this part of the world are not awfully safe at the moment. I am happy with the snow, because I don't need to go anywhere, we have plenty of food and there are shops at walking distance. I find it really cosy with candles lit and doing crafts and my elfy business.

At Elf son's school they have a tradition to have a postbox at the school and all the children send cards to each other. Now this school is minute and everybody has something to do with everybody. this means that he needs/wants to send cards to ALL the children and ALL the staff. As he is not the greatest writer, even short messages tax him a lot and writing 30 cards is a total no-go area. To offset the printed message inside, I encourage him to make the cards himself. It cannot be too time consuming as he is a boy who won't make 30 same/similar cards or different for that matter. I don't think that I would have at his age. So this is what we made today, for children:

for adults a different card colour

I think it was a rather good effort. I cut the cards for him with the guillotine and he attached little wooden Christmas figures on the front. We had a choice of three figures and three punches as you might figure out from the pictures. Elf son had a go with the decorative punch, but had to give up as it was too hard going. Even I had to resort to tricks to be able to do it. We produced all 30, so now we just need to plan what to write and get the message printed. I think I scanned his handwritten message last year, might do the same this year.

Have you made any cards? My own cards are not done yet...

Stationery and Shameless Self Promotion

2010-11-23T13:16:00.000Z

This pretty CD case contains files for my friend's new stationery; business cards, compliment slips and letter paper. A while ago she saw my new business cards, which I designed by myself. She was just running out of her stack, so she asked me to design new ones for her. She wanted to be able to print her own stationery as and when needed. She also liked the idea of having a design made for her. Her business is dance, drama and storytelling, so the theme went with it.

She had also asked for greens and blues as the dominant colours. Otherwise I had free hands.

The pictures suffer a bit from that I printed on normal paper rather than card and thick paper, but you get the idea. I must admit that it is easier to design for a person whose personality I know and these felt right for her. Luckily she agreed! So I as you might guess I am open for new commissions...

Baking and Canning

2010-11-21T11:47:00.001Z

It is that time of the year again. The projects that take my time cannot be showed, so there will be an excess of baking and such on the blog. I will try to think other things to show as well and at the moment I still have a couple of things to show.

On Thursday afternoon waiting for the Elf son to emerge from the school one of the other mums asked me what my son had decided to dress as on Friday. I had the feeling of Alice being sucked into the Wonderland, falling, falling, falling...I had just got over the costume producing and organising the son's week while he was starring on the big stage AND produced the viking costume blogged about previously. It was of course "Children in Need" Friday, which I had been informed about in good time, but had promptly forgotten.

My luck was in though. Elf son did agreed to be a viking, so the costume had another run with an added woolly waistcoat, which we already had. The other mum did remind me about the cake stall as well, so I went home and made the macaroons in the picture. This is my "quick to make, tastes good and can be packed to impress" coconut macaroons. As it was, they had sold very quickly, which just proves how much the packaging and presentation matters.

I have beavered away with my pile of baby presents this weekend as I have a queue of them and feel bad about beginning the production of Christmas gifts before I have cleared the work in progress. I will show the results when I have finished and the recipients have got their gifts.
On the kitchen front I took the better late than never attitude and produced eight litres of apple chutney, here all in the jars and ready to go for maturing in our storeroom.

Please forgive me this disgustingly brown post and use of flash. It is annoying that there are very few windows of nice sunlight at the moment. I promise to have more colours in the coming ones.

Vikings

2010-11-16T11:16:00.001Z

How did this happen? It was just Halloween and now it is the 15th? I am sure somebody or something has accelerated the time recently. Now, vikings...after the great performance at the local theatre as the King in Cinderella, my son needed a viking costume. His school is doing lots of practical history activities letting the children to cook over open fire, re-enacting viking and Anglo-Saxon meetings (wars?) and so on. The children have been encouraged to come in viking clothes and a letter came home with suggestions how to make them.

Elf son has clearly cottoned on that he has a mum who can "make", so there was no end to his wishes as what he needed. I made the tunic and a wrap. Last Friday I pushed myself to produce the helmet in the evening well knowing that I would not be able to do it on Sunday after I was back from weekend in Edinburgh. I left the father and son to produce a shield for the brave viking warrior and when I came back he had not only a shield but an axe too.

Sunday evening the viking was still pestering for arm rings. I just could not muster the energy, but have now thought a way of doing them, so I might surprise him later this week. I will show how to make them, if I get around to it. In our case all the paraphernalia needs to be weather resistant as they play outside.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T09:35:00.000Z

This is our pumpkin. I carved it according to Elf Son's wishes and scraped enough of the flesh to make a delicious pumpkin pie. In search of recipes on the net I noticed that all the recipes were calling for canned pumpkin, even the American ones! I could not believe it- we tend to make a pilgrimage to the supermarkets after the Halloween to buy some cheap pumpkins, because they disappear from the shelves as soon as the afore mentioned day is over. People don't obviously use pumpkin any more.

We made these bats as well. I cut a whole lot for our kitchen wall and Elf Son cut the ones for his room. I got the idea from Dana and like her I am not much of a fan of coffins and plastic Halloween decorations. The bats on the other hand look rather nice and were good fun to make with Elf Son. I was pleased that he wanted to cut bats for his bedroom as scissor work and the required fine motor skills are challenging for him.

Yesterday evening I went out of my kitchen door and was about to get a heart attack. There was a ghostly Nessie in my carport. I had parked my plants from my polytunnel under the carport and wrapped them in horticultural fleece. There was a stiff wind flapping the fleece in a wormy manner and the car park lights were casting an eerie orange light on this monster. It was one of those split second moments when I almost screamed, but realised very quickly what I was seeing. Here is a hazy picture of my monster.

Believe me, it was far more scary in person as it was the movement which actually tricked me. Have a Happy Halloween!

Red and Polka Dots

2010-10-30T14:28:00.001+01:00

I absolutely love the autumnal red of the rose hips and the strong green of the stems together with the turquoise glass vase. I have been revelling in reds lately. Our dining table have been decked in this:

It is not there anymore as it was not intended to be used as a table cloth. It is wax cloth from IKEA and I bought it for protecting the table when Elf Son gets crafty with glue etc. I had to try it and could not resist letting it be for a while as our round table resembled a toad stool!

For a while ago I had a stall at a health fair and as they also had crafters there I took some of my things with me. I wanted to do something new and it needed to be quick to produce, so I made a box full of Suffolk Puff pins. I love them myself and as I didn't really sell them, I might as well use them myself. My poor friends and the family are bound to be gifted with them in the coming season.

Otherwise I have not been very crafty, just sewn some costume bits for Elf Son's upcoming theatre performance. He is doing the Disney Musical "Cinderella" at the local Theatre and is casted as the King. Otherwise I think he has chorus parts along all the others, so there is need for all sorts of "basics" such as brown trousers, black leggings, white collarless shirt etc. The bits I have needed to sew or adjust from thrift finds are not exciting enough to show.

On the home front I got my act together to hang up this picture by Mandy Pattullo, which I have blogged about here and framing my blog picture to accompany it.

Here is rather a bad picture of the wall.

Can you see the little wooden clown on the other side of Mandy's picture? It continues my polka dot theme nicely:

I love its worn looks. I originally bought it in a thrift shop in order to give it as a baby gift, but decided that I could not part with it!

Autumn Dress

2010-10-14T14:01:00.004+01:00

My crafting can be in a very small place at the moment, but I did manage to liberate a Sunday afternoon to sew this dress. I have been using it a lot. It reaches just under the knee and can be used as a dress or a tunic. I used a pattern from Ottobre Autumn/Winter 2008. The sleeves have been adjusted from gathered and short to straight and longer. The armhole and the sleeve needed to be made bigger as well, it feels as if the pattern has not been enlarged in this area going up the sizes. I can attest that size 6 arm hole is very different from size16. Although I might just have really fatty over arms. Even when I was a skinny minny, the armholes seemed to be a an issue.

I like the pleats on the front

and the yoke in the back with the centre seam

Now this is a little competition to my family: Can you identify the fabric? (Don't look down yet!)

Yes, that is the curtain which was in front of the coats and shoes in my Grandma's flat. I always liked it and grabbed it, when nobody else wanted it! I get quite a kick about this fact, especially when people are paying compliments to me about my dress. ; )

Sniff, sniff atchiooo....!

2010-09-28T19:16:00.003+01:00

Ok, I am a bad blogger, if you have an award for it, just send this way. First we went on summer holidays and then all the school starting business took me by surprise. It is as if it never had happened before; the search for shoes, the PE kit, the sandshoes...and the whole thing getting back to the routine was as if I had never tried it. Now that everything should be smooth and running I went and got a bad case of cold. I told this virus when I felt it coming that a) I don't do colds and b) September was certainly not the time! The virus was not impressed and I have been languishing in my bed the best part of the last week and am still not OK. I am up and doing things, but the batteries are not quite charged yet.
My crafting has come to a halt too, because of all the above mentioned, so I will show you a couple of things I managed to squeeze in during the holidays.

I had seen on the net a nice idea for an "extra draining board". I am apologising, because I cannot remember at all, where this might have been, just telling you that this was not my original idea. Of course you can use any towel for the job, but this one is a dedicated one and I got to cram some delicious fabrics in it. In this way I can see them every day in my kitchen. The back is made of an old handtowel, which I did not use any more.

We were visiting my family in Finland and my sister S had just given birth to a little baby boy H. I was talking to her about baby clothes before I went (or actually even thought about going) and she was saying that she needed a few more pieces, so this is what I made. It is all made from thrifted cotton sweaters and t-shirts. The only new thing is the buttons.

The little niece L, who got the rag doll in February had also her second birthday. This time I had not had any time to prepare as our decision to go was made two days before the departure. Luckily Grandma had a great project, which I could help with! She had dug up my sister A's old doll's bed and bought a baby doll. Now the bed needed bedding, which was sweetly made out of little L's dad's aka my brother's old baby cot sheets.

That was the present as Grandma had imagined, but us being two to dream up things, we did not leave it at that. I thought that the baby needed a change of clothing

Then I thought that if the little baby was invited to a party, it would not suffice to wear PJs or rompers, so I made a dress and a shirt.

And while I was sewing all this Grandma was busy with knitting. I would have never stretched to those mini-socks and very much doubt that I could have been bothered making a cardi either had it been only me...

I had a closer look at the packet where we had liberated the doll from (I hate those ties all the toys are strangulated with in order to stay in posh boxes with see-through fronts) and noticed that the baby was a bathable one. So of course we had to provide her with a bath towel.

Yes, the binding doesn't bear close inspection. At this point Grandma's machine and I were not on friendly terms. The simplest piece in our collection did take most effort. And just because I had time in my hands I had to make a little shoulder bag for the dolly's clothes.

It was very well received present indeed and the most pleased were the BIG BROTHERS! It was so funny to see how they were changing the baby doll's clothes. So there you are, my summer crafting and nothing really achieved in this month. I have so very many projects waiting that I have decided that I am NOT allowed to buy a new project before I have made a sizeable hole into my supplies. Buying is only allowed if I need something to finish one of the pre-planned projects.

I must say to my own defence that I did re-decorate my workroom and tidied all the work related draws and shelves, so it feels really lovely to get to work now!

Summer Tote

2010-08-11T18:33:00.001+01:00

The material for this quick-to-make tote came from Finland from "marimekko's" factory outlet. They have a great big box with seconds, admittedly most of it was rubbish from my point of view. I guess that is because I was not intending to make just a little purse or such and many pieces had a very little of the intended print intact.

This morning I thought I better make this summer bag, so I can get some use out of it before it is autumn. I did not have a pattern, nor did I have a proper plan of what I intended to do. It is only a tote...

It all went well until I put the handles on and didn't think about putting the handle I had to construct from two pieces to the back of the bag. I just could not be bothered to change this detail after sewing it, as I am a true lazy bones.

I had had a fleeting thought of lining the bag, but the material is rather thick canvas and doesn't really need it, so thought why to complicate things further. The last thing I did was to topstitch the edges and this is where all the bother started. My machine was suddenly going totally haywire with bobbin thread tension. I think I sewed and used the unpicking tool after each other for an hour in one go. I still don't really know what was wrong, but I managed it in the end.

You cannot see in these pictures, but my tote has a little "mama elf" label on the front pocket. It was added after the photos were taken and the sun had disappeared at that point...Shameless self-advertising!

Sewing Saturday

2010-08-09T20:05:00.005+01:00

Saturday afternoon was one of those magically super powered afternoons when sewing mojo was with me, Husband did all the kitchen duties and the Son was otherwise entertained.

A while ago I gave in and bought two metres of Anna Maria Homer's voile in kiwi and a smaller piece in "Little Honey Meadow" pattern. I had my plan of making a tunic from an old sewing magazine, which I begged from a realative, when I was visiting Finland last winter. The magazine is from 2003, but most of the clothes in that number are timeless pieces and many of them to my taste. This tunic was "the easy beginner" project, so that was all really promising. Actually the pattern and the instructions were really easy, but in the interest of public health and safety, I needed some sleeves. The tunic is sleeveless and I don't feel that I can at my age publicly flash my overarms any more.

I needed to draft the pattern for the sleeves and then the arm hole was not quite right either and needed small darts. All in all I think I faffed as long time with the sleeves as with the rest of the tunic. The colour is nice, but not quite what I expected, you know screens and colours and all that. It just isn't quite sitting right with me. I think it is a tad too yellow and far too light shade at that. So now I am comtemplating to make a shorter overlay of the patterned piece. It would also solve the problem of the sheerness of the voile. Otherwise I need always to have something under the tunic and that would be pity as it feels just wonderful on my skin. I would agree with several other bloggers that it has a "buttery" feeling to it. This unexciting picture shows the colour better:

Elf Husband had asked me to make a new holder for his new phone, which is bigger than the old one. None of my phone covers in my stash fitted, so I made an entirely new one. As he wants to have it attached to his belt at work, a belt strap was added as well. To avoid the strap being pushed together on the belt and to stiffen the whole works some plastic was added both inside the back and the belt strap.

Husband carries also a whole lot of keys at work. When they are in his pockets the trousers look awful after only a few weeks. I made a key pouch for him last year, but that has been worn down. I had bought the material for a new one, but had not made it yet and as I was on the roll, decided to tackle that as well. The pouch got the same new elements as the phone holder. It has got a loop added for the key chain, so the keys cannot get lost. The pouch is made of denim so thick that if you sew trousers out of it, they would stand by themselves, no problem. I even made it double in the main parts of the pouch. I would have never ever attempted on this with my old sewing machine, but my new one is just a dream. I think at one of the corners I had six layers of the said denim to go through and the machine did it without a hiccup! I love that machine and think that everyone should have one like it. It is so much easier to sew neatly with a good machine.

I was still contemplating the not quite pleasing colour of my tunic, when my creative juices started flowing to improve the look with long necklaces. Of course I had to make two of them to check out my theory. In the end I liked them even better with my white peasant blouse. I looked very hippy wearing them both together! I think the overlay for the tunic is definitely in the cards...

Have you had a super charged day of creating lately???Let me know!

Bathrobe

2010-08-06T20:35:00.002+01:00

I am back with a non-foody post, yihaa! Elf son insists having a red bathrobe. I managed to get one secondhand for him last Christmas. Unfortunately it had two draw-backs; It was advertised as being cotton, which it is not and it is made for bean poles. The overlap on the front is really not big enough and even on a bean pole it would open up with movement.

I also insist on cotton bathrobes as they are safer and in my mind nicer on the skin. I was given in my teens a fluffy looking fleece robe and it was the itchiest thing ever. After that I have only used toweling robes. If your child grows at the same rate as mine it is eyewatering exercise to buy something like a toweling robe. They come only in limited colours and are SO expensive. Ergo, I had to make it.

Luckily the local fabric store had terry toweling in red. It was not the cheapest project, but certainly cheaper than a shop bought one. Elf son was pleased. I noticed that I had made it slightly short, I had intended to have a longer length to allow for growth. The sleeves have this, so I might simply add some length when the time comes. (Yes, with a really unprofessional horizontal seam...). Sorry about the horrendous pictures taken with flash, so dull here today and I had no patience!

Lemon Explosion

2010-08-05T14:33:00.004+01:00

This cake must be one of my all time favourites. It is lovely and tart and hits all the right buttons. If you have ever been offered a shop made lemon cake and thought that lemon cakes are not really to your taste, give this a try - this very yummy cake explodes with lemony freshness in your mouth.

A while a ago a friend was visiting and she appreciated the cake as much as we do. She asked us whether the cake keeps well. Sheepishly we admitted that we could not tell as this cake does not make it overnight in our house. This is the reason why it cannot be baked too often, we would look like Humpa Lumpas in no time at all.

I had this excellent idea though today as I was baking it; making it to cupcakes gives me possibility to freeze some of it and the portions are "pre-measured". (We really need all the help we can get to restrain ourselves around this cake).

The recipe came from the aforementioned friend F, but I have since changed it quite a bit and now I call it "Mama Elf's Lemon Explosion". My friend was texting me yesterday begging for the recipe, as she cannot find her original, so here it comes F...One more thing; this is really good cake and people who are wheat intolerant can have it as well. If the problem is almonds, you can get around this as well, just look at the notes in the end.

Mama Elf's Lemon Explosion

3 unwaxed lemons
5 large eggs
175g caster sugar
175g ground almonds
50g polenta
10ml (2tsp) baking powder

1. Place the lemons unpeeled in a pan, cover with water and bring to boil. Lower the heat and let simmer for 45min or until the lemons are very soft. Drain and let cool for 30 minutes.

2.Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas mark 5. Grease and flour a 24cm/10" cake tin. You could line the base with a grease proof paper, if you wish.

3. Cut the lemons in halves and remove the pips. Place in a food processor or a blender and puré.

4. Whisk the eggs and sugar together, so that the the sugar is dissolved and the colour is light yellow.

5. Stir in the almonds/polenta/baking powder. I find it helpful to mix these ingredients together first, so everything is evenly distributed.

6. Add the lemon puré.

7. Pour into the cake tin and bake 40-45 minutes or until golden and just firm to touch. When filling cupcake forms, scrape the mix from the bottom of the bowl, as the lemon tends to drop down and you will otherwise end up with half of the cakes with no lemon and half of the cakes very heavy. If you are using cupcake or muffin cases, bake from 16-20 minutes depending on the size of the case. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Notes to vary the ingredients:
Here are some other ideas for composition of the dry ingredients. I tried this one today and it is fine.
1) 175g sugar/25g ground almonds/ 50g polenta/100g potato flour/50g dessicated coconut.

2) You could also take the almonds out of the receipe all together and bake with 75g polenta, 50g dessicated coconut and 100g potato flour.

IMPORTANT
Before icing the cake, drizzle some lemon juice and water mixture on the cake to make it really moist. You can aide the absorbtion by forking the cake top.

Icing

200g cream cheese
150-200g icing sugar (depending on your taste buds, I drop the amount of the sugar even lower quite often)
Few drops of lemon juice.
Mix together with a fork and spread or pipe on the cake.
Let your imagination loose with decoration. Mine is grated lemon peel and a tiny mint leaf.
Edited Note: I am not a brand loyal person at all, but have now tried this icing with several cream cheeses and only Philadelphia seems to work. I believe it is about fat/water contents. Other cream cheeses seem to make this icing a horrible runny affair. If you find any other make suitable, please leave a comment.

Have fun and save some for your family!

Good Life

2010-07-29T15:22:00.001+01:00

I know I am slightly stuck in a theme here; it's all garden and harvest and food, but it does not get much better than this. A friend has a beautiful old "coble", a traditional fishing boat, and went to give it a spin yesterday evening. As he was giving the engine a run he thought that he could as well have a line in the water and then it all happened! He had to stop fishing in order to stop landing fish which could not be eaten. We got five of the beautiful mackrels and I think all his neighbours and pretty much the whole street was supplied!
The fish was all gutted and headed, which I did not expect and look at their shiny sides here:

I went to the garden to get some new potatoes and salad stuff and we had a feast for the lunch. I would have loved to give some of my produce in exchange, but this couple has a double allotment providing them and for the aforementioned street! Yum Yum Yum!

Herbal Goodness

2010-07-27T21:07:00.001+01:00

Oooh...time runs away in the summer when I need to catch every possible sun-ray and mild skin caressing wind outside. I could literally spend a day pottering in my polytunnel, having a cup of tea in the chair placed in one of the corners and just soak in the serenity of that magical growing sphere.

I am not a herbalist, but like to make some easy home made remedies for us. We are not much ill, so remedies are very basic. My skin tends to get eczema during the winter so I gathered marigold (Calendula) petals for my bath. I also picked sage and rasberry leaves for hormonal balancing, should I need it and thyme and oregano for cooking.
My climbing rose yielded some flowers for petal baths and here are my bath petal jars:

I have since collected more marigold petals and even used them in my bath. The night I used them I was really tired and could not be bothered to wait for the water to drain to clean the petals away. I forgot about them and the following morning while I was enjoying my breakfast in bed, courtesy of Elf Husband, Elf Son came to the bedroom to announce: "Mummy, even if it is your un-birthday, you do have to clean up the mess from the bath".
Any nice home made remedies you have been making?

Selfish Peasantry

2010-07-11T17:14:00.003+01:00

Hello, hello from very windy Northumberland! I was half thinking gardening today, but the wind out there would drive me round the bend in no time. The only garden related work today was securing our polytunnel yet again. It has taken flight already once and I think we have to bite the bullet and turn it 90 degrees, so the sides turn to the East and West where the strong winds blow from. Having the ends towards the wind is to ask for trouble.
Well, I have not have a chance to sew much lately and the week gone has gone in tired haze after the weekend when I taught my Kinesiology Course. I don't normally need this long to recuperate, but life threw a couple of curve balls at me and hence I started to feel slightly like me again first on Thursday.

My intention was to press on with my project which is a present, but I found out that I have somehow lost my pair of little sewing scissors which are really essential for the project. I tried without, but managed already to have an accident and decided that I better pack the BIG project away today. So I decided to be selfish and sew this peasant blouse from Meg MCElwee's Sew Liberated book.

I had thought of this for a good while and because it is a true peasant blouse it fitted the bill today. It was an easy project to cut and sew without much ado. I am at the best of the times a hodge-podge seamstress and thrive best when the sewing does not have to be done by millimetre. On the other hand when I manage to be precise there is no end to my self-congratulations. Anyway, this blouse would make an easy beginner project as the sleeves are so easy to sew on and there is absolutely nothing fiddly about the neckline either.

Meg uses in her blouse a linen-coloured linen with a little appliqué flower. I had this white linen-cotton blend fabric in my draw and there was just enough. I borrowed the birdies from Meg's other project. I appliqued them on with raw edges and hope that they fray and get more visible with washing.

The day has been really rather lazy for our family today, that's what we needed most. I was so lazy that I served this for our lunch:

The Boys did not object, although the Elf Son did request a sandwich as his pudding! Do you have any easy projects to share?

Many Pattullo's Artwork

2010-07-03T20:15:00.002+01:00

For a while ago I visited Mandy Pattullo's art exhibition, which was on tour with the "Highlights". Highlights is an organisation, which brings art, music and drama to rural communities in Durham, Cumbria and Northumberland. Unfortunately I was so dazed with all the lovely work that I totally forgot to take any photos. Mandy has a blog, so you might want to see some of her work there. I bought one of her recent "small" pieces. She works with a theme for a time and "empties" it before moving on to her next "obsession"(Mandy's own words). Last year she has been working with "Thrift and Thread", using a lot of old materials to make new things. One of the sources has been old Victorian Quilts. My little bird has a piece of such a quilt. She has then embroidered the picture on it with traditional embroidery techniques. The theme before this was called "Memento Mori" and had some beautiful pieces inspired of the old gravestones. She had looked at especially women's headstones from Victorian era, when lots of women died in childbirth. The pieces she made were both beautiful, etheral and haunting. Do go and see her work if you have a chance.

Back to her joyful piece and more details from it:

I have framed this in IKEA's white "Ribba" frame and I think I will hang it in my workroom. It does have a glass, so not that easy to photograph. I am always slightly in two minds putting glass in front of textile as it does take something from it - for the time being I am quite happy with it. My blogheading embroidery might be framed similarly and be hung next to Mandy's birdy.

Have you seen any inspirational art lately?

Kitchen Loveliness

2010-07-01T12:02:00.002+01:00

Sweets! No, actually the new kitchen cabinet handles I painted. I am quite in love with them. The local hardware shop supplied the pine knobs and I decorated them with my artist's acrylic colours. I did add two layers of clear varnish to them as they are in use all the time. To begin with I had a more complicated scheme in my mind, but realised that I like the look of spots and spirals. I have this littleTingatinga painting in my kitchen

which has orange

and green

and black colours in it and because I did not want to do any black handles, I went for really dark purple. In low light it looks black, but that does not bother me.

The new handles in situ:

Our kitchen has North facing window, so all photography is tricky. The window wall where most of my decorative items are is almost "no-photos" zone. I know, I just have to borrow Elf Husband's SLR camera and everything is possible and photoshopping helps as well. I wanted to show you a couple of other things from my fresh new kitchen.
One of the Moroccan wall lamps, which Elf Husband installed for me. Thank You! I know it was a horrible job involving crawling in our attic.

A corner with the sheep clock and a rice sorting basket on the wall. I have coriander from my garden hanging to dry.

The coriander is hanging from a shelf we installed above the window after the painting. As the ceiling is quite low, there is almost no natural light that way, so the pictures don't really do justice. Here are though two snaps from my fish collection on the self.

I bought a hand towel and made three lovely teatowels from a scarf. Yes, I know that sounds daft, but this scarf was made of two layers of nappy muslin and dries dishes beautifully. The scarf was originally dyed and sewn by two of my friends. i had it for years and seldom used it as a scarf, but more often as a tablecloth. One day though I had a candle accident and an ugly hole was burnt into it, so now it has a new lease of life as very posh teatowels. I also added the ribbon as an extra, when I made the towels.

I love flowers and I make little posies for our house during the summer. Here is the latest one in the kitchen.

And the chandelier is there as well, without the birds at the moment, but with green candles. (Do I notice an obsession with a colour?)

I hope to get some pictures to show of the whole kitchen in a sunny evening, after a cleaning fit! Now I better go and do some preparation for teaching in the weekend!

New Blog Picture

2010-06-23T13:03:00.001+01:00

This new picture is how I see my hut in my mind's eye. It took some time to make as it was mostly embroidered when Elf son was having swimming lessons and while travelling on train, which does not happen that often. Also the design changed several times over. I am not very experienced in embroidery, so I seldom know exactly what I am aiming at. This time I was fine with my hut, but had to redo the tree trunk once. After getting into swing with the details of my hut and the tree I had to remove three flowers from my picture, because they just looked odd.

Anyway, I was pleased with the result!

So Pretty, So Appreciated

2010-06-20T19:32:00.003+01:00

Look at these roses! They make my heart sing just when I am on my way to our kitchen. The colours just are lovely: the roses, the candles, the teatowels on the radiator and the bowl full of bananas. All pretty and fresh in my newly painted kitchen. I got the roses from a lady who is on the Kinesiology course I am running, so Thank-You P!

And Happy Father's Day to all Dads!

I could eat these

2010-06-11T08:31:00.002+01:00

Look at this loveliness! It dropped in with mail a couple of days ago and has been stroked and admired constantly since. These lovely fat quarters came from here. I really have to regulate my visits to their site as it is very tempting to buy. Anyhow, this time I have a project in mind and feel justified spending a bit to make it perfect. It is as usual a present, so won't be discussed into detail before I have given it away.

Even the Husband said that the fabrics looked good...

Quilty Pleasures

2010-06-08T13:38:00.004+01:00

Here it is, THE PRESENT. Again, apologies for the picture quality. I had to send this away and light at the moment is rubbish. It is just gray and cloudy all day long here in Northumberland. The present has now been received approximately three weeks after the birthday and the recipient was well pleased.
This is my first bigger quilt and certainly a first patchwork one. I started easy just with squares. It was hard enough to get them cut and pieced precisely. If you look closely, you can see I was not entirely succesfull. This owes to two facts; I used one material which was considerably thinner and stretchier than the other ones and that I did not have a walking foot for my machine. I knew that using a thinner material was not a good move, but could not resist from the colour point of view. I just had to have that deep rusty orange in this quilt. You might know everything about walking foot, but as I am a newcomer to patchwork sewing, I did not have a clue. The foot helps your machine to feed both the top and bottom fabric at the same rate. Otherwise the top is fed just a tad slower. Often this does not matter, but in patchwork, where every millimetre counts, it is just what you need. And of course now that I have my new machine I don't have to worry anymore, it has an integral walking foot.

Here is the back of the quilt. I made it before the front as I was waiting for some materials to turn up in mail.

All the appliqué was machine sewn. The quilt is machine pieced and hand quilted. I enjoy the hand quilting bit, just a perfect evening job. I don't much watch the telly, often going without for weeks, but if there is something on which can be "watched" with half an eye like "QI"or "Have I got News for You" this is the perfect accompaignement. The quilting pattern is a total free-fall. I like the look of irregular pattern and as I used fleece inside the quilt, I was not limited by minimum distances between my quilting lines as you might be with an"official" batting.

My quilt had the "dedication" embroidered in one of the back corners. I like using real handwriting, rather than doing "nice" lettering. And our embroidered signatures add a nice personal touch in my opinion.
The patchwork and appliqué were made of mixture of up-cycled and new fabrics. The white back is an old sheet, which gives it a lovely "antique" soft and snuggly quality. The material also looks much more like the antique quilts do; wrinkly in a special way. I would make an entire quilt of this type of material if I could find it!

I Cannot Sleep Tonight

2010-06-04T21:43:00.003+01:00

Do you remember the feeling of excitedness for Christmas when you were little? You know the absolute hearty-skippiness and being totally incapable of sleep. I am like that today. Elf Husband was laughing when I refused a second cup of coffee today middayish as I was afraid of not being asleep anyway...don't need any chemical help for that.
The kitchen has now been painted and all the boring jobs finished. I will show pictures when I have done some of the nice stuff. Doing that won't be any hardship. I have my head buzzing with ideas for several projects and can hardly wait. I will though take it easy and SLOWLY and enjoy the fun.
My excitement knows no limits because a couple of days ago my husband bought me this:

I hadn't been able to really try to work with it before today when I did a little job with it and what a joy! It's greatest secret is here:

Can you see the black arm behins the presser foot? This is an integral walking foot and makes precision sewing absolutely a doddle. It feels lovely to work with and I am in sewing heaven. My first sewing machine was bought for me by my Dad when I was 13. It was a second hand machine from 70s and I had it until five years ago. We were then moving between continents and I decided to sell it as it was not in the best shape any more. I then replaced it with a very basic model as at that point I was only doing an odd repair job and sewing some cushion covers and alike. I was not doing any creative stuff, nor sewing clothes.

Now that my machine is in use constantly I have noticed its limitations. I was quite hankering for an overlocker, but actually I needed a good regular machine much more. And this is in my mind the ultimate Limousine of the working horse machines. I love it. It's sort of my next Christmas and birthday present - we are not fussy about the real dates, we do the presents when we need them and not necessarily at Christmas time.

Not enough with a new kitchen and a Limousine of a sewing machine, there was a present dropped in our front yard this morning. A local builder J, who also is my client, dropped off some iron stakes, timber and pipes for us to build a polytunnel. I am slowly building up our garden and this has been on my wish list for a while. In general the biggest cost is the soil, because I have to buy all the soil save the stuff we get from our compost. The soil in our garden is dire; clay and building rubble under a 5cm layer of topsoil, which is bound to grass roots anyway.
J was offering to come and build it with us, but Elf Husband did it with me as his assistant. Look at its frame, it's HUGE.

Its measurements are just shy of 5m X 3m. We are not finished with building it, but not far to go. Then I have to think the best way of putting beds and shelves in it, so I can optimise the space.

I am absolutely hopping of excitement thinking of all the veggies I can now grow! I have a good amount of "outside" bed space as I added a couple more this spring to my existing ones. The polytunnel enables me to grow tomatoes and cucumbers and stretch my season longer for other veggies like broccoli and spinach.
All this wonderfulness means I don't know how I am going to sleep. Maybe copious amounts of wine?

24hr Cafe

2010-05-30T21:25:00.003+01:00

I am in process of redecorating our kitchen. It really needs a new coat of paint and as I mentioned earlier, I wanted to change the colour as well. I was actually really happy with the burnt orange walls, but they restrict escapades to colourful kitchenalia. My only worry about the white walls is how long they might stay white. The orange walls hide to a large extent candle wax, food stains, snot...What? You don't have snot on your walls? Don't have anybody in the family sneezing at any opportunity?
So I went yesterday down to the paint shop with my chosen colour slip. They made a little pot of it, so I could try it in situ. And it was BAD. Not the effect I wanted at all. The gray tint in the white made my kitchen tiles look dirty. They are slightly off white and so are the cabinet doors. I decided that I needed another colour, maybe slightly yellowish. And that was luckily the right one. The white looks white, it just is the effect it has or rather has not on other things around it.
In the midst of filling the holes in the walls and calling the Electrical Elf aka husband to help with moving a light fitting I had time to do a bit of preparation for the new bright colours that are going to invade the kitchen.
Truth to be told this little sign was a gift to Elf husband a couple of years ago as he always tastes new foods and especially cakes we make with "the cafe" in his mind. This is something he dreams of, although I have told him that he would drink all the profits making all sorts of coffees for himself all day long...

Now the sign is nice (I of course forgot to take a "before" picture, so in the picture I have already started to repaint the sign), but I wanted brighter colours, so this is what happened to the sign:

Rather funky or what? And it's really good that my Coffee Elf keeps the shop open at all hours of the day!

A Homage to Tingatinga Painting and a Craft Book

2010-05-28T14:33:00.005+01:00

The time flies and I keep promising to myself to update the blog. A great deal of the time is going into gardening and sometomes it feels as if my other life is suspended. Now, at the moment I am still engaged in the BIG present making and cannot show any of that as the receiving person obviously should be the first to see. So I think I need to blog about some older projects.
The picture above hangs on my living room wall together with this one:

They are painted by Tanzanian Tingatinga artists Mbwana and Hassani from the Tingatinga artist co-operative in Dar es Salaam. I get immense joy of seeing them daily and appreciate them more than words can tell.

Around the Easter we went visiting down South and my sister-in-law S took me to a QD store where they had wooden boxes for craft use for sale. These ones were £2 each!

I really wanted a couple of them to put little items in and hang in my living room. I have painted one of them and the second one is work in process. I chose the theme of those two Tingatinga paintings by making "polka dots" on black background and painting the insides with bright orange. Painting outlines of the figures is typical of Tingatinga, so I decided to paint the self edges with white to imitate this.

Craft books are a tricky topic. As I don't want to own more than what I use and find inspirational, I am quite picky. I find magazines often dissapointing and rather keep my money to invest in a good book. This book came with the mail today.

I ordered the Green Crafts for Children by Emma Hardy after reading about it in couple of other blogs. It looks really useful and is pretty to look at. Some of the entries are old favourites, but it does not hurt to have a reminder of them. Older children can also do many of the activities by themselves. The pictures and the layout are really yummy and clear at the same time.
I like the fact that the book's point of departure is using natural or recycled materials with a few widely available and cheap bought ones. Here are a couple of pages from the book for you to admire.

Go and borrow it from the library to see whether you want to own it. I think it will be used here in the hut and also when I am supply teaching and lacking something to do.

Have a lovely weekend and tell me if you have come across any lovely and useful craft books lately.

Notebook Frenzy

2010-05-06T14:52:00.007+01:00

I am going on a course in the coming weekend. (Not craft related). The only "thing " we are required to bring is notetaking equipment. The idea of a personalised notebook has been lurking in my mind for a good while since I read Amanda Blake Soul's book "Handmade Home". I took the inspiration from Amanda, but decided against the spiralbounding. Instead I did some home devised bookbinding. I do not have a clue about real bookbinding, so I just figured out something I could do with my sewing machine. (Yes, the needle does need changing now).

I am not normally a "pink" person, but today it felt very important that this project was swathed in pink fabrics, ribbons and cute buttons.
I also filled the rather thin notebook with different colour pages and as it is for myself I added some pictures and slips of edging for inspiration here and there. There is even a page of handmade paper purely because it looks and feels good. I don't think I can write on it!

After the weekend edit: This is one of those really odd things. During the weekend I took notes of the "balance" that I gave to my partner on the course and wrote them in this book. Next morning I had very strong urge to give the book to her, so I did. I think that I was actually making it for her, hence the pinkness of the project! The book was widely admired on the course and there were questions of whether I would make them for sale. I shall see...

May and Potato Excitement

2010-05-01T11:49:00.003+01:00

Oh my, oh my....it's May already. If you are a dab hand at printing with stencils and screens and freezepaper, look another way. I got so excited when these pots came with the post.

They are six pots of textile colour I ordered from the Scottish firm Stewart Gill. Now I must admit that I cannot for my life remember that I have EVER done any textile printing. Not even in kindergarten with a potato.
I have plenty of ideas how I would like to use these lovely colours: I have plans of making t-shirts for Elf Boy, I would like to have a couple of new pretty calico bags for shopping and I think printing a small border on white napkins would be nice too.
I have also another project underway, which I cannot discuss yet, as it is a present. It involves an amount of different fabrics and I thought that a really quick way of trying my hand with prints would be printing a small sample to use in the project. I chose the old potato print method as it is quick and easy.

And here is what I did in the first sampler (far too small for my project).

The final pattern using the same potatoes:

My inspiration was a seed in a pod and as you can see I have interpreted it with a poetic licence. It was first in my second attempt that I had a towel under the fabric to make the printing easier. The differences in strength of the colour was an intentional effect and I am just itching to do more now...
Edit: I suddenly remembered that I have done printing before! I made some pillowcases when I was in the 6th form for Christmas presents for the family and friends. I have actually seen them kicking around when visiting. I can now remember that I used the book plastic for making stencils. And I think I printed Mick Jagger on a pair of sloggies for my stepmum (Great fan of Rolling Stones)!

April is here Part 2

2010-04-03T21:24:00.001+01:00

Sorry about the confusion, but if you just got here, scroll down and read the part 1 first. Blogger doesn't allow for miles long posts obviously, or I had a technical hiccup. So, where was I? Yes, the dolls. The dolls were made for small children, so no weighting pearls or rice in the dolls, the only thing I ask people to take off the dolls is the shoes and hair ribbons should the child be under three years old. I love painted doll faces, but for small children it is safer to keep to embroidery. Similarly I could not use lovely buttons to embelish, but never mind, I think the dolls are rather cool still.
I made an improved version of my own phone cover in multitude, here are some of them:

I also made some luggage tags, similar to what I made for my own holidays. I don't think I have blogged about them. They are colourful and help to identify your luggage on the carousel and at the same time your contact details are kept hidden from the world.

I like to make my own cards and had developed this design not so long ago...It is a little flower appliqued on a piece of fabric and an embroidery running stitch around it. I also made some freehand papercut cards for children, but don't have any pictures of them as yet.

I had made these applique pictures a while ago, but finished them off and framed them. In the pictures they don't have frames and the one in the embroidery hoop was reverse appliqued on a piece of dark blue calico.
This is "Pirita Dances on Ice"

And the second one is called "This Must Reach the Evening Post"

I have to admit to be the most rubbish blogger, because I am going away AGAIN. This time the whole family is going to travel to East Anglia to see Papa Elf's family and breath some hopefully warmer spring air. I so hope that the weather has warmed up when we are back to inspire me to go to my garden. At the moment it is totally impossible to do anything as I don't have a greenhouse. (That though means less crafting=less blogging, unless this blog temporarly becomes a gardening one. Hmm, maybe)
I wish you all a very happy Easter with these lovely daffodills. I have been lately indulging myself in homegrown ones in vases...

April is here Part 1

2010-04-03T20:54:00.001+01:00

Yihaa! I had this calendar page on my fridge door all ready to go on 31.3. I followed the March page in style as it was easy to create and colourful to watch.
I can see that many of my posts carry apologies for bad pictures due bad light. I managed to snap some pictures of my recent production, while the sun was out(just a little, so image quality isn't quite as good as I could wish for), so you can see why my fingertips have been smoking. (And why I haven't answered anyone's emails, texts and calls). The Elf son's school had a fundraising shopping event and I usually offer my skills as a therapist for the evening to raise money. This time I did just that and in addition had a little table with my crafts as well.
Here are the Livia Dolls from April '10 Edition:

I think these girls are rather cute and to accompany them there were two Wolfie boy dolls:

Crafting and Messy

2010-03-29T16:43:00.002+01:00

Where is this month going so fast? I have been soooo busy with life in general and making some crafts for selling, so this post will be short. The above pictured half made dollies are part of my effort. I try to get pictures of the finished ones as well. At the moment the light is too bad for photographing.

I have seen on the net several articles about creative people's working spaces and it never ceases fascinate me. Now, I don't have a dedicated studio, neither do I have to work on the dining table. My therapy room doubles as a sewing/crafting/painting room/office. I love my big, old Victorian chest of draws, filled with my sewing things. I must admit that it is not quite enough for all my stuff. Here is one of the draws where some of my material stash lives in neat piles.

As many other crafty people I am quite obsessive about having my space well organised, but not under the creative process. Then it looks more like this on the table:

And on the floor:

Yes, bad, isn't it? See you soon with hopefully nicer pictures.

March and Much More

2010-03-14T14:43:00.006Z

BIG SORRY to leave the blog for this long. I did not have much chance to blog on my holidays; going back home means catching up with the loved ones every minute at my disposal. We got back safely and then the horrid tummy bug hit our house...So this post is a real mixed bag. In the first picture my March calendar. You might ask: "What about February"? Well, officially it did not happen in our house, so no calendar. In truth I did not get round to it and had to force myself to do something for March. The end result was far better than my uninspired mood predicted.

I made a doll for my niece whom I met for the first time despite her being 18 months old. She was stinking cute (the niece, not the doll) and sligthly confused about who I might be tropping up with the Grandparents. Initially she wanted to call me grandma as well.

I just LOVE this doll and the colours. I have never before tried this type of combo. The doll is made of cotton, so is the hair. I am always torn between being really "natural" and use natural materials only or make it washable. So this time I went for the washable option as the doll was for a toddler. The filling is polyester and the doll is weighted with plastic beads. (Both parts secondhand, so at least that was a bonus). Obviously the face was embroided instead of painted for the washability. I quite liked the end result myself.

I think this was the first time I used knits for doll clothes and it was SO good. The whole question of how to get the doll into the clothes was solved as they stretch, no zigzaging needed as the material doesn't fray. And the best of all, my old long t-shirt sleeves were the perfect size for the body part of the shirt and the trousers. So I had ready made hems!

I also made a playmat for a friend's little son. Unfortunately they were travelling while we were visiting, so it had to be posted. The playmat was made of hand dyed African cotton for the front and the binding and thrifted soft cotton for the back. I made different "sensory" things for the upper edge of the quilt for baby to play with. It is playmat size and can alternatively be used in a pushchair where the baby will still have access to his toys. The pockets were hand embroided as well as the robot's face. I hand quilted it with an irregular squiggly pattern, which went well with it's modern bright colours and toy theme. Everything it is washable and if the mother gets tired with the toys dangling from it, they can be snipped away.

The weather up North was wintery. At times it was -22 C with stiff wind. That meant not going out other than getting from point A to point B. My sister claimed that her frontal lobes were deep frozen during our walk from the Zoological Museum to a department store. The picture of the elf son was taken on a day of lesser severity; only around -14 C and no noticeable wind. He is on the frozen sea ice, making confusing trails.

I promise not to leave the blog for another month. There are more things to blog from the travels and new fresh things to show, so see you soon.

Bags for Everything

2010-02-15T10:15:00.003Z

I like bags, purses and boxes and anything at all that can hold something. This is what I made for my husband for Christmas. They are for his laptop and graphic pad. I used African cotton and padded them with fleece and lined with unbleached cotton and used velcro for fastening the flap. I must admit that I almost did not give them to him, because I was so in love with them myself. Coveting the gift I had made for him! In the end I actually decided that I could easily produce similar ones for myself, if I really needed them. I haven't as it is, but I made this for my new mobile:

Looking at the material makes me smile, but next time I will plan my velcro sewing so that it won't show on the outside. The lining is made of hand dyed African cotton.
Something much less arty are these bags I made for my son, the same African cotton and old white sheet used for the project.:

They contain his lego, all sorted according the type (length, width and thickness) and labelled. Yes, we are nerdy in that way in our house, but when you own lego in the amounts that Elf Son does, this is the only way forward, if you don't want to lose your mind while searching for a certain bit.

February is so weird. It is such a long short month. Sometimes it just drags on and on, but this year it seems to dissappear before it started. I might not be around for a while, as it is school holidays and the Son and I are heading towards Scandinavia. We are back on the last day of this month. I will blog a little from our travels if I get access to a computer and time to use it. Hope your winter holidays are good!

Bob the Bunny

2010-02-05T15:39:00.002Z

Meet Bob the Bunny. He looks far hairier than he is in person, I notice.

He is my first ever felt project, entirely made by needling. He is made of British Blue Face sheep wool, nothing else. People are always really surprised when I tell them this. Bob is rather firm to touch, so many people assume that he has been filled with something else. Wool is like that. You can choose to work it so it is loose and soft or very tight and hard.

I made Bob about a year ago, I think. I haven't ever taken a course in felting techniques, just studied it from books, so I was rather pleased that I could get the wool to felt at all. I found the needling rather an easy process albeit couple of fingers were punctured! I was working from raw wool, so the process took its time. If you have not tried felting at all, this means that I bought a sheep fleece, washed it, dried it, hand carder the fibres to soft fluff and then attacked it with a hand held needle to make it to felt. Since my first attempt I have done couple of cushion covers and a handbag which sadlly still is WIP (work in process).

I love wool and have a bunch of ideas to realise, but have not got around to clean and carder enough wool for this. Sometimes I think that I should buy some merino wool or at least carded wool, so the process speeds up a bit. Just the thought of having to clean the room after a session of carding can put me off. The solution to my dilemma must be that in the coming spring I need to give up a few sunny days of gardening for washing, drying and carding of wool outside. We will see...

Yarn Temptations

2010-02-01T20:40:00.002Z

Oooh, aah. I have been to a BIG CITY over the weekend and got to caress yarns and haberdashery in John Lewis. I meant to be very diciplined and only buy some wool to begin a blanket, but then I eyed cotton yarn on sale and decided to have some colours for little projects like birdies and purses.
I could almost eat these...

I did restrict myself to the yarn and did not succumb to the temptation of East of India ribbons as lovely as they were. By the way, I was by no means the only one trying not to leave a wet patch of drool on Jonh Lewis' carpet. There were several ladies having the unmistakable lovelorn look in their eyes on Saturday morning.

Thrift Gifts

2010-01-29T12:48:00.002Z

This is what I am going to take to my friend tomorrow. Homemade apple chutney and carrot-pineapple jam and a thermos I found on my thrifty rounds. It is the same colour as one of her kitchen walls. I don't mind giving people gifts and them doing whatever they are moved to do with it, but this time I am going on train and don't want to carry unnecessary things, so I actually asked her whether she fancied the thermos. She has not seen it yet and since she is not reading this blog I am safe showing it off to the whole world.
I am always pleased to find treasures in thrift shops and this thermos has been calling for me for months. Luckily I remembered to ask my friend, because when I went to the shop the flask had made it from the shelves to the pavement box. Close shave!

From the Doll Archives

2010-01-27T07:29:00.004Z

This is a doll I made about a year ago. The story is rather similar to the Princess' birthday party. The Elf son was invited and I was the Royal Purveyor of the Present, as usual. The little Lady who was to receive this doll is herself rather an artistic girl. I thought she would appreciate a doll, which was looking a bit like her. The doll was made of a mixture of old and new fabrics/ lace/ buttons. I painted the face with acrylic paints and filled her with English sheep wool.

Afterwards I heard that she was awfully pleased about the specs, as she wears them herself. Obviously the Big Brother had immediately removed these from the doll, which had caused a little skirmish between the siblings. Luckily the specs were made to be removed. I remember as a child being thoroughly frustrated with dolls and soft toys with non-removable "bits" like collars, jewellery, hats and specs. I thought that it would be awfully unpleasant for my charges to sleep wearing these things.

I toyed with an idea making these for sale, as I enjoyed producing this one. I made a few more, but was not that happy with them and admit that they still sit in my draw. I could easily make more, if anybody wants to have their handmade dolly. They are suitable for over three year olds and adults too! Obviously I can make dollies for younger children, but I would then do away with the painted face and any "loose" bits. (Obviously the face would be there, but embroided, I think.)
My absolutely favourire bits about this doll were her specs

and her green felt mary-janes.

Crochet Madness

2010-01-26T12:35:00.006Z

I purchased a couple of crochet hooks and am now officially hooked. I blame Lucy from Attic24. I just had to try after seeing all her lovely crochet. I learnt to crochet as a child, but cannot remember doing it since age 10. So...we were in for long shots here. I could miraculously dig up chaining and single stitches from my muscle memory. They sort of flowed automatically, if you know what I mean. Beyond that, thank heavens for utube. It didn't take long to get the movements back and now I am thoroughly enjoying it.
To start with I just did some boring samples on stitches. Then I tried "granny squares" just to see if I could actually produce something. This is when the above pictured flower also was made. It was easy with Lucy's really clear instructions. (If you want to try, go onto her blog and all the patterns are in the sidebar, brilliant). I made the flower to a pin and put in on the lapel of my wintercoat. I still hadn't quite made up my mind what to do as my first "big" project, so I decided to try the crocheted birds. And this bird was made

I have two of them as unfinished projects lying in my yarn basket. They will be completed, but just now time and efforts, besides having the horrible cold, are used for this one

This is going to be my summer bag. I am so proud of noticing that I had made the bottom far too big and had the guts actually go back and unravel it to a more appropriate size. I unravelled more than a skein of cotton, so there was quite a lot of work going down the drain...
I am using Lucy's pattern, but have modified it, so if you make it from her pattern, it won't look like mine, not exactly. I think that my bag is going to look quite different on the whole, so watch this space.

I hope you have avoided the seasonal sniffles...See you soon!

Atchoo!

2010-01-25T19:54:00.001Z

That's how I have sounded last five days. I have had a cold and haven't had energy to blog. The pictures need to be taken of the latest crafty things and a few lines written. I promise I will be back VERY soon.

Finds

2010-01-16T13:26:00.004Z

I went to my local charity shop yesterday to give them items I had cleared out of our kitchen cupboards. Of course I had to have a nose around for some treasures for myself. I am slowly building up a collection of glass containers for our pantry items. I like my flour, nuts, salt, sugar etc in containers instead of bags from which they tend to spread all over the cupboard in our household. I don't want to store my food in plastic, so big old jars do the job for me. I am in no hurry, I just pick up things when i see them in charity shops or car boot sales. This time I got one jar for my peppermint teabags and a new butterdish. Hurrah! I was starting to despair with our current butterdish, cheap stoneware from a supermarket, which had chips in it. It was not the most hygienic of containers any more.
I try to do mine for the environment, but I do buy new materials and yarns etc for my crafts. I hugely admire Amanda Blake Soule of www.soulemama.com for using so many repurposed materials. When I am in thrift shops I try to think in terms of "materials"and am getting better. There is also the matter of keeping all the stash, especially when it does not just fold in neat piles of fabric. I cannot make myself to cut the garments into fat quarters, as I know that so much of the garment can be used as smaller pieces. Anyway, there was somebody's stash of fabrics for sale yesterday and I took a few pieces home with me together with some wool for my new crochet projects.
I picked up something to be shined up as a present for a person, but not going to show that as yet. Quite a while I have planned to start using fabric napkins instead of the never ending use of kitchen towels and paper napkins. My plan is to make some myself, quite simply from some cotton or linen, but these were cute and price was pennies...

I also got this tablecloth with fabulous colours and that unmistakable old-made-to-last-quality. The napkins I bought quite long ago from the same shop.

The ladies in the shop are absolutely lovely and know me. They even remember Elf Son. Yesterday they sent a surprise to him in form of a tin full of marbles. Elf Son has a marble collection and these were a well received addition. All in all a very pleasing expedition with some stuff I didn't bother to show. The price? £5. Have you found any good things lately?
Editor's note: Sorry about the poor quality and total borishness of the pictures. There has been no light around these latitudes for a week and I could not wait with posting until we got some more natural light.

Birds and Birthday

2010-01-07T15:22:00.023Z

OMG.OMG. I did delete a LOOONG post just there. Have to start again (swearing silently in three languages as young ears are listening).
I thought of having a "mama does rounds in charity shops" type of birthday yesterday while my boys were at work and in school. Well, we still have snow and schools are closed, so my plans changed. I decided to settle for a cosy stay at home-do crafts day.
During the Christmas holidays I found Lucy's blog Attic24 ( www.attic24.typepad.com/weblog), which I have been enjoying like a good book. I really think you should pay it a visit. Word of warning though, it is addictive. Lucy inhabits a world of colour and pretty photos. I really got a hankering for bright colours after immersing myself in her world.
I used to live with rather a lot colour, like many of us during the 90's and in my case well into noughties. Then I got tired of it and wanted to have white walls, loads of wood and natural materials. This is where I am now, Kitchen and Elf Son's room excepted. Our kitchen walls are in need of painting and I have decided to change the burnt orange walls to something more neutral. Now that might sound counter intuitive as I just said I want more colour. But it is far easier for me to have and tolerate loads of colourful things, if the background is in neutral.
As mentioned I have read Lucy's blog and saw her little crocheted birdies and got inspired to make some. I am not very clever with crochet hook, so I decided to sew. My colourful supplies were dug from the bottom of the deep draw

and these dudes were made:

I seek harmony, also when I am sewing and tend to make things pretty or stylish. I really admire all the creative people in the blogland, who throw together wild combinations of colour and pattern and end up with waa-waa-woom results. I decided that my crafty New Year's resolution should be to try this approach once in a while and the birds were the first attempt on it.

The birdies are now hanging in our kitchen from an IKEA chandelier, which i dressed up with glass beads sometime last autumn. For once I could not go for the "nice" look as I did not have enough of beads in any single colour or even a two-colour combination to make it tasteful. So it ended up with all the colours and I liked it!

Calendar and Snow

2010-01-02T16:37:00.007Z

This is what we woke up to yesterday morning. The pictures are from Papa Elf's morning walk in the snow:

This amount of snow is not common around here. We are normally seeing rain and if we are lucky a dusting of snow. The snow is still there, not as thick and pretty, but covering the ground nevertheless.

I am changing my plan and inserting a fresh project here I made yesterday after we have built snowmen and -woman, sledged and generally frolicked in the snow. We needed a calendar to hang on our fridge door. For our family it just needs to have very little space for each day to show the upcoming birthdays and to give us a quick overview of where we are in the month. (Not that it helps us to remember to send the cards, as our friends and family would be able to tell). All our "proper" organising happens in a diary, which lives next to our phone.

I went to one of the "print free calendar" sites and chose a simple calendar, which left space for a picture on an A4 sized paper. I left the "2010" out of the design, as I thought that even my amnesia is not that bad that I would forget which year we are in. I hope that my February design is bit more exciting, the January needed doing quickly and we had just had a big dump of snow, hence the snow flakes.

I printed out all the months of the year, but I think I will make the February page in the end of January and so forth. In that way I will get a calendar which reflects my mood for the coming month. In this way I will also avoid hanging a big bunch of paper on my fridge door. I hope that the Elf Son will agree to design as many of the months as possible. Editors note: The Elf Son has already been to request a page for March, that's his birthday month, so my plans of making a month at a time might change. Aw, just noticed that I haven't made a stellar job of glueing my paper cut pieces...