spring decoration

After staggering from one infection to the other this winter we really long for spring, sunshine, flowers and butterflies. So yesterday we made a spring wreath for our door using felt and textile scraps. The wreath was covered with moss (by my mum ;)) :

don't THINK of pink elephants...

...just wear them ;)

The idea was published in an Ottobre magazine a while ago, but maybe existed before. I just used an Ottobre raglan pattern and designed my own elephant in pink - of course I first cut out the elephant to fit to a right arm whereas the pink left arm was already cut...

The elephant's eye is a flower button, the tail and the ear are 3D.

baby girl flowery outfit

At the last stoffenspektakel, the fabrics market here, I found this gorgeous retro flower knitted velvet. Along with some (still too big) trousers made from the sleeves of an old sweat shirt of mine, it was one of my first projects with my new W6 overlock machine. - And you can see this, there is a weird bend cut out under the left sleeve. It was a last minute project before we went on holidays and I really wanted to take it along, but didn't have lots of time to work it out properly... The pattern was taken from an existing shirt and slightly adapted.

finished: colourful, funky corduroy skirt

My youngest daughter has the chickenpox - not nice, her head is covered with small pimples, luckily her face is not too affected... Well, for sewing a sick child can be quite a drawback (so it was for the last 2-3 days), sometimes, however it can be the opposite. So today, while my husband took our older daughter to her gymnastics and to mass and the youngest was still sleeping (in fact she is still sleeping right now!), I finally managed to finish the corduroy skirt I had started earlier this week.

I'm quite happy with the result and it's so easy and fast to sew, I guess if it also fits, I will make some more!

Pattern: Ottobre 4/2006 Poppiger Rock

babywearing when it gets cold

It's freezing cold now in Belgium and it has snowed last night, so we had a beautiful , magic, white winter day today.

When it gets cold, there is always the question, what to do with your baby, how to transport her best, what she should wear so that she is warm enough. wearing your baby has the huge advantage that you have her close to you and can warm her with your own body warmth. This effect, however, is reduced the more layers of clothing there are between you and your baby. On top of that it is a real hassle to tie over a thick winter jacket. The solution is a jacket for two!

Now, for this one I used a very thick fleece jacket, cut a rectangular upside-down U into the back and 'filled' the sides with a V of polkadotted fleece. The top also got a stripe of fleece and an elastic to tighten it around baby's neck.

I made this 2,5 years ago and it's still great for late autumn, early spring. Today, unfortunately, it would have been too cold...

corduroy memories

I'm currently working on a skirt for my older daughter made from a beautiful colourful corduroy. Whenever I start working on it, it reminds me of the recycle trousers that I once made and enhanced with details from this material.

The red corduroy I took from some old, beloved trousers of my slimmer days, again nice memories are linked with this material. The colour is just stunning, a deep and nobel red, not the cheap, blatant red that you find so often.

The zipper I cut out completely from the original trousers, since I had never sewn trousers with a zipper before and I didn't want to start on this without any pattern. In the meanwhile I have come across this fantastic tutorial for zippers sewn into trousers, so I could now do it in a more elegant way, but actually it worked out very well the way I did it.

Instead of a button I used kam  snaps - they work well, even a year later now.

I added some embroideries, an owl, a freebie from ginihouse

The  house and the pigs are from emblibrary again

I made these trousers almost exactly one year ago and I'm happy that my daughter can still wear them before they will be passed on to our youngest!

exploring the leather world

For my leather range I started out with 4-5 pieces bought on a market. I originally wanted to sew a handbag from it - alas, what was needed much more urgently were shoes for my daughter. I took the measurements and according to some instructions I found on   hobbyschneiderin I managed my first pair of shoes. Parts of the appliqué were a bit tricky to sew, especially with my old Privileg sewing machine, but my daughter loved her new red leather shoes.

The second pair I was super happy with the appliqué, however the material, leather from an old pair of leather trousers of my mum's, was far from ideal for shoes: too thin, too soft...

So for the next pair I ordered leather from manu-faktur - such a great selection of colours they have! Dear daughter had just started her purple phase, so purple had to be part of the design at least. Pippi Longstocking was a favourite, too, so out came these

Da ich für Pippis Haare kein oranges Leder hatte, hab ich das rote einfach umgedreht. Die raue Seite ist etwas heller und passt ganz gut.

with monkey ribbon

They turned out fine although the fittimg could have been more perfect...

For the most recent pair I decided to buy a pattern from a professional, so I got another  E-book by Klimperklein. They got a generous pass from dear daughter ;)

new baby giveaways: photo keyring pendants

Here in Belgium it is customary to give 'doopsuiker' (small presents and some sweets, usually sugar beans) to family and friends on the occasion of a baby born. Being German I am not so familiar with this, but now that we live in Belgium we still went for it. So I prepared small boats filled with different strawberry sweets and photo keyring pendants with a photo of our little one.

By the way, she was born in May, that's why we went for the strawberry theme ;) I also made the strawberry stamp and a stamp with her name for the little cards.

lots of hats for mad hatters

The wonderful e-book by Klimperklein  inspired me for these colourful hats that can be worn both sides out.

The only tricky part is the trimming that also fuses the two hats.

Here some more:

My favourite from minky

the ribbon fits perfectly to the pattern!

Fräulein Rosenrot

my little daughter wearing her miniky hat

Here a set for a young biker

 embroidery from  emblibrary 'born to be wild' 

for brother and sister

my unique bugaboo roof

our second hand bugaboo cameleon is now in use for our secon daughter. we still love it, use it with a buggyboard now and we still enjoy the unique roof that I had sewn for our first daughter already. still, I think we will have a new unique bugaboo roof soon!




and here the sun protection