KissKus

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Last week my Sheet Square Swap package arrived. And what a fun package it was!
I swear that I looked at each and every piece of fabric that was in there... all 200 of them!
After that Amber and I spent a lovely afternoon sorting the fabric by colour and making patchwork patterns with them on the garden table.

It was very comforting to be playing with fabric in these harsh times of sewing drought. It almost felt as if I was really working on something... bliss!

Anyway, I do definitely think that our sofa needs a new patchwork snuggle blanket this winter. It must be possible to sew one before March 21st 2009, right?!

Also last week I received this lovely package with pretty goodies. I'd won a give-away on Lisette's blog. All items are already being used and loved.

Thank you Katie and Lisette for brightening up my day with your great packages!

Cozy coasters

I made my first coasters this weekend. Don't you think it's a little crazy that I've never made them before? It's such a lovely little project! And one for which you can use your prettiest scraps :)

I used this fantastic tutorial by Allsorts... so easy to follow! I really like how they look and turning all the folded fabrics was so much fun.

I chose merely happy fabrics for this. A Holland-print, some polkadots and quite a few fabrics that I found at the thriftstore. I liked the combination of them all.

For the bottom I used a sturdy (curtain) fabric, so that I didn't have to use fusible web, since that seems to have gone missing in one of the many piles of stuff in what is supposed to be my craftroom.

These were a present for my MIL's birthday. I put them in a basket along with cookies, lemonade, glasses, straws, napkins and a pitcher.... I thought it was a lovely summery gift.

I'm going to try and whip up a few more right now. I just realised that I need a teacher gift before tomorrow!

Show-off

This post is so long overdue!
I promised to write a second post about the gifts we received at Linus' birth after showing some already. These handmade presents still need to be shown even if Linus is three months old already.
So here goes:

These two presents really turned the nursery into a beautiful room.

The quilt was made by my mother. Initially the idea was to use it as a cot blanket, but we both agreed that it was too busy (and pretty) for that and so we decided to hang it on the wall (and Mum made a simpler blanket for the cot). It looks wonderful against the blue wall (in this photo I temporarily hung it on the door)... this "Tree of Life"!

The cushion was made by my sister. She lives in England and had to guess the colours that I had chosen for the nursery from a photo. She tried to find the right blue and green fabrics and she did a fabulous job! It all matches so well, without it being too matchy-matchy... My sister has only recently started to sew and she has no sewing machine, so she did all of it by hand. My mother made the quilt into a cushion. This cushion has now made the chair in Linus' room the perfect place to breastfeed.

My MIL made this wonderful tree mosaic. Again completely in the style of the nursery, inspired by the curtains. I love its colours and the simplicity of the design. My MIL is a very crafty lady, who among things makes a lot of quilted cushions made out of men's ties.

Another very special present were these portraits that my neighbour drew of amber and Simon. He gave them to me the day after Linus was born. He had secretly collaborated with Michel and the children in order to make them. I think they turned out really well.

Not handmade, but very cute is this baby ice bear that my parents gave Linus. It is a tradition in our family that every child gets a Steiff toy. 

Here it is watching over Linus while he takes a nap in his moses basket.

I was really touched by all the lovely and creative presents we received at Linus' birth. The thought and effort that everyone put in it was quite amazing... I feel very lucky on Linus' behalf!

Hands up

Let me show you what I got Michel for Fathersday:

Aren't they cool?! They're soap hands!

Michel suggested that I just needed a excuse and that I really bought them for myself. Now seriously, would I do that?!

Oh how I wished I had a macro lens...

They are made using doll hands. Michel thinks they're creepy, but the children and I love them. Simon and Amber have both demanded one several for themselves, but I think they're just too good to use.

Phew, am I glad it's weekend! It's been quite some week. Yesterday was just a totally bizarre/exhausting day. It was just one thing after the other and I won't bore you with the details, but it were things like parking the car in human poo (not of anyone we know!! OMG!!! It was so disgusting!!) and having two policemen in my livingroom. Well you know... things like that. Let me just say again that I'm glad it's weekend! Enjoy it everyone!

PS I almost forgot... get your own soap hands here at Foliage!

Especially for you

Linus has received a whole bunch of wonderful and beautiful presents for his birth, but some of them stood out because they were made especially for him.
Such as this fantastic play mat that he got from his uncle and aunty:

 

It has his names on it as well as his date of birth and of course his logo. Michel designed the birth announcement cards for all three children. You can see Linus' card here. It looks great and already it's well used and loved.
It came with this cute cuddle cloth:

From very good friends Linus got this cool t-shirt:

He'll definitely be wearing it all summer long!

My colleague made this wooden plate for us:

She burnt the logo on it somehow. I don't know exactly how she did it, but I think it turned out lovely.

We also received a wonderful book that's titled 'Linus'.

Now although this wasn't especially made for him it's very nice nonetheless. The book on the left is a very much appreciated present from Levineke.

Next post I'll show you the handmade presents Linus received. These unquestionably deserve their very own post!

By the way, I'm back at Flickr after about a year's absence... it feels good again (I quit when you were forced to register with Yahoo). So if you want to take a closer look at my photos you can do that here.

Traditional festivities

I've already talked quite a bit about Sinterklaas on here, but there's even more to tell... I hope you don't mind ;)
Sinterklaas is a very old Dutch tradition that is fortunately still very much alive in Holland... and old traditions are something to cherish, right?!

On Saturday the good man arrived in our hometown and yesterday we celebrated Sinterklaas at my work. In between the children were allowed to set their shoes as I told yesterday. It was one big Sinterklaas celebration!

When Sinterklaas and all his helpers (Zwarte Pieten) arrived in our town on Saturday he was greeted by many excited children (and parents). Everyone was singing and cheering and all the children were hoping for a handful of pepernoten. Amber was lucky enough to get some.

The Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes) are Sinterklaas' helpers. They are black because they climb in and out of chimneys at night to put presents in all the children's shoes. They carry with them big bags filled with pepernoten which they scatter around them.

Sinterklaas has a white horse called Amerigo. At night Sinterklaas rides his horse on the roofs of the houses to distribute all the presents... no mean feat for such an old gentleman!

The reason why he hands out all these presents is that he celebrates his birthday on December 5th. That's the day that we call Pakjesavond (presents' evening) in Dutch. This year we'll be celebrating with Michel's family. For the adults we buy a couple of small presents and play a game, for the children we buy some presents for them to unpack. It'll be fun... it always is.

This last photo was taken at my work yesterday... spot the 7 differences with the other photos ;)

Read all about the Sinterklaas traditions here on Wikipedia.

Big or little?

Even though Simon is a tough and independent boy (ha! all within reason ofcourse...), he still needed his dummy * to fall asleep at night. He would also often call out to us when it got lost somewhere in his bed.
It wasn't really bothering us and we thought it was nice for him to find comfort this way.

However, recently we had an appointment with the counsel nurse (I have no idea how to translate it and it's too difficult for my vague head to try and explain) and she asked me whether he still used a dummy. This because Simon's pronunciation of the S sounds more like a SSHH (very cute now, but will it still be cute when he's 16?!).
Apparently the dummy's use is causing that speech defect... so the dummy had to go.

We came up with the perfect plan to get rid of it. Once Sinterklaas had arrived in our town, Simon would set his shoe and put all his dummies in there. We told him that we were sure that Sinterklaas would reward him with a nice present.

Simon agreed with the whole plan until yesterday evening when he had to go to sleep without his dummy for the first time. He pleaded with us to get it back. My heart almost broke when he said:"Mummy, I'm still a little boy, you know!" But after that he went to sleep and didn't wake up until the next morning. Tonight he didn't even mention his dummy! It seems our tactic worked!

And ofcourse Sinterklaas left a note saying how proud he was at both of the children and they were each given a present. They deserved it.

So any parents out there that want to lose the dummy... make a deal with Santa!

* A pacifier or binky or piece (North American English), dummy or comforter (British, New Zealand, and Australian English) or soother (Canadian and Irish English), is a rubber, plastic, or silicone nipple given to an infant or other young child to suck upon. (Wikipedia)

Shiny and new

Well, here it is at last... our new car!!

If you don't know how we came to own this car then read the whole story here.

It is a very nice car, very spacious from the inside and at all levels a big improvement to what we had. However, it was difficult to leave our dear, faithful car behind this morning!! We really believed that it sensed its fate, because on the way to the garage it refused to go!

Anyway, I have to go... I'm taking our new toy for a ride!

Paint by numbers: patchwork cushion

A little while back we had a 50th birthday to attend. The person celebrating his birthday is a painter who is a friend of Michel's. On his website here you can see the kind of work he makes. Michel and I both love his paintings very much.

Last year he was working on a book that shows an overview of his recent work. He asked Michel to write a piece about him (isn't that cool?!) en we helped him a little with the English translation of the text.
As a thank-you he gave us this:

Our first (and probably last) gorgeous piece of art... we think it's wonderful! This photo does it no justice at all, unfortunately. It is proudly hung in the livingroom. The children like it too, for the subtle details.

So we were invited to his birthday party. Coming up with an appropriate gift wasn't easy. Michel found a book that he thought would be appreciated, but I really wanted to make something myself. However, I found the thought of making something for an artist rather intimidating! Still, I put those feelings aside and started sewing.

I thought I would make a cushion for the sofa in his workshop. As a startingpoint I took Michiel's very own painting and picked out fabrics in the same colour tones as the painting. Then I cut small and wider strips and "randomly" started sewing. I did have some idea how I wanted it to turn out and I made sure the colours were spread the way I liked it.

When it was finished... I liked it! How I love a project that simply turns out the way I planned it!
But even better was that Michiel liked it as well. He was touched that I had taken the trouble to make something myself. And really that's all that matters, right?! As I've heard, it's now being used/displayed in his workshop.

::200::

I've decided that this 200th is my official housewarming post.
It feels good here on Typepad... I'm staying!

I had plans to host a tea party... set a pretty table and serve some nice food. But I must be realistic... organising it would stress me out and chances are it will never happen.
So I'm afraid you're going to have to bring along your own food and drink... it's what we here call an "American party" ;)

Blogging is still providing me with lots of joy and a great sense of satisfaction. I've been keeping diaries ever since I was able to write, but I think that this is the most regular that I've ever been writing. It makes me proud that I'm keeping it up, although it isn't hard. I love documenting our lives and it's wonderful to know that in this way I'm preserving  memories for myself and the children.

Of course, I also truly love the interaction with anyone who visits here. I'm still amazed that there are people from America, Australia and everywhere else coming here to read about my life. I love comments :)
As a thank-you I would like to give away two packages (*) to two people who leave a comment. I'll draw names on Friday. Lurkers, de-lurk!
Thank you all for making my blog feel like a place where friends can drop in whenever they want!

(*) The first package will contain a lovely handmade (not by me) apron and one of my patchwork pouches, the other will contain the cheery flowery bag and also one of my patchwork pouches. If you prefer one or the other, please say so.