KissKus

Personal challenge: a whole week of summer sewing

I woke up this morning feeling very determined. I told myself that today is the day that I finally start my summer sewing for the children!
I have so many ideas going on in my head every day and I have so much fabric lying around and it's all just in my way! I have do something about it NOW... before summer is over!!

So the challenge? I will post something that I've sewn for one of my children everyday this week. I'll start tomorrow and next Monday I'll post the last piece of clothing. This means that by the end of this week I should have at least seven items made.

I know this is a very ambitious plan, but I feel that if I don't set a challenge for myself then I will never get round to it.

I've already been working hard this morning. I've cut out all the patterns that I will be using and I collected all the fabrics that I will need.

Ok, I'd better get going... wish me luck!!

Wriggly

I made a blankie for Linus today. I really wanted to make another ever since I made this one. It has proven to be so practical. Perfect for covering him up when we're feeding outside, excellent to use in the pram or car seat and very easy to wash.

And it's so very simple to make too. Choose a pretty and light fabric and sew that onto a cotton diaper, topstitch the lot and you're done! 

I actually also "quilted" this one, following some of the wavy lines of the print, which made this very quick project a little more time consuming.

I used one of my favourite fabrics. I'm trying to use more of my good fabrics lately. I keep telling myself that I'll enjoy them more when I make something out of them than when they are put away in a cupboard... still, it's difficult sometimes!

Anyway, after I finished it I wanted to take some photos. And Linus was just thrilled to see me! As you can see he was so excited that he simply couldn't keep still... so different from two months ago!

Therefore, the photos are a bit blurry and they don't show the blankie so well... but how could I blame him, my wriggly baby?

That smile makes up for everything! (and he likes his new blankie!)

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!

New skirt

I made a skirt for myself yesterday. I used no pattern, I just measured my tum & bum and cut two A-shaped pieces. Sewed them together, put in some elastic and my skirt was finished!

For something that took so little effort it turned out really well. The fabric helped too. It's a stretchy synthetic fabric with a very busy print. Any mistakes (not that there were any ;)) are almost invisible.

You might be able to tell from this photo that there is a little bit of glitter on the fabric... nice!

At first I left the skirt long, ankle length, but when my Mum saw me wearing it she vetoed. According to her, it made me look like a deeply religious woman. Of course there's nothing wrong with deeply religious women, but that wasn't really the vibe I was going for. So I shortened it, which I must admit looks better. I'm now able to wear it with or without a legging.

My only problem is finishing the hem. Since I have no fancy sewing machine -let alone a serger-, I just don't know how to go about it. Any ideas? If not, then I think I'll just leave it like this.

I'm glad I have a new garment to wear... I hardly fit into any of my clothes anymore because I'm just so fat! I wished I could blame the pregnancy, but really that's only part of the problem. Chocolate and other unhealthy food are the real cause. I'm not very upset about this "new" fuller figure of mine, but finding clothes that fit properly (and still look nice!) is difficult sometimes. Also, I refuse to spend a lot of money on XL-clothes, because I do hope to get thinner again. Any tips on how I can work on my chocolate-addiction and get into better shape (without proper dieting because of the breastfeeding)? Any ideas on this would be very much appreciated.

By the way, I still have quite a bit of fabric left. Enough to make another skirt, except one is enough for me. Anyone else out there that can find some use for it? Leave a comment or send me an e-mail and I'll pop it in the mail!

One last thing... am I the only one that hadn't heard about Spoonflower yet? I must have been living under a rock! How wonderful to design your own fabric! I'm on the waiting list; I hope I get invited soon. There's a Flickr-group as well. Yummy!

For all that shopping

We needed a new shopping bag. The one that I made about five years ago was slowly falling apart. We've used it soooo much! Half the time we're lugging our body weight around in shopping and this bag has never let us down. However, it was time for a new one!

I had some Ikea fabric that I had bought a while back with this particular project in mind. It's curtain fabric, nice and sturdy, like canvas. I love the print and colours (for a bag, I wouldn't like it so much as curtains I think).

I used my old bag as a template for this one. I just took the measurements and cut it. It's a very simple bag, but it fulfills all my needs, which are that it needs to hold LOTS of shopping and that it must fit around the pram like this (this is the old bag):

For me this is extremely important, because I nearly always do all our grocery shopping walking. I don't think that I've taken the car to go shopping even once since Linus' birth. I find walking more practical with a baby.

So even though I felt pretty awful today (I've got a nasty cold and I'd been up half the night... at one point all three children were awake!) I felt such a sense of accomplishment after finishing this bag. Creating something from scratch is so much more fun (and so much cheaper) than simply buying something new.

And just to give you an impression of how huge it is...

It looks empty, doesn't it?

Well, it's not! (ah, poor Linus!)

Thank you everyone for your kind and encouraging words about Simon! It's wonderful to be reinsured. Now I'm even more certain that this is a phase that we have to go through together. And the funny thing is that the past few days were almost without incidents! Also, on Tuesday he went to school to meet his teachers and classmates. He loved it; I think school will indeed be really good for him.

The crafts that went with the birthday

There were a lot of things that I needed wanted to make for Amber's birthday.
In my life there is always that dilemma: will I go mad and try to make everything myself, or will I make it easy on myself and simply buy everything? In the end it's usually a mix of both these things. For instance, I can't remember ever having baked a proper birthdaycake. However, I do make it a point to always make Amber's birthday dress.

Another thing that I find important is to think up of something creative for birthday treats for school. Last year I made fabric flowers and the year before that we made boats. I was wondering whether it's a Dutch tradition to hand out treats at school? It's just that I can't remember ever having read about it on any of the international crafty blogs that I read.

Anyway, to my mind the best treats are unique, but also simple to make. This year Michel and I came up with the perfect idea: fish rods.

Now, I would love to tell what I used to make them, but I'm afraid I'm only able to do so in Dutch: soepstengels, rode en zwarte dropveters en snoepvissen. Thanks to Nichole I now know that I used breadsticks, red & white shoestring licorice and Swedish fish. All sweets came from Ikea, so you might be able to get them there.

This was so easy to put together. We made the fish rods on Sunday and kept them fresh in ziplock bags. We decorated a cardboard box with blue wrapping paper and fish stickers (both Ikea). Then we punched holes in the box and all I had to do the next morning was put all the rods in there.

This is how we tried to transport the whole thing to school:

Amber carried it when everything started to collapse on Linus.

It was a huge success with both children and teachers (and parents).

After this there were still some things to make for her party on Wednesday. Of course I didn't start until the very last minute ;)

For the treasure hunt I made oilcloth letters that the children had to collect during the game. I used a cup to draw the circles unto the oilcloth. After cutting them out and sewing them together, I attached a letter sticker... finito!

For favours I made small oilcloth bags.

I used my girliest oilcloth... I actually love the pink gingham myself! Again, the bags were very easy to make, it's just a shame that I had to work on them so late into the night...

I made cupcakes to put in the bags. Although I don't think I can call them cupcakes...my cakes don't even come close to all the wonderful creations that I so often spot in blogland, but they looked cute enough and were tasty as well :)

In the end, this was the result:

Please notice that I re-used the letters from the treasure hunt to create bags with the girls' initials on them... pretty clever or not?!

And that was the end of that... I promise no more posts on Amber's birthday! Oh, by the way, I'll announce the two winners of the give-away in next post. Enjoy the last bit of weekend, everyone!

All dressed up

I had bought the fabric for Amber's birthday dress more than three months ago in Amsterdam while I was shopping for fabrics for the nursery. I fell in love with it immediately and when I bought it I intended to start sewing right away, so that I wouldn't have to stress when her birthday was approaching. Well, yes, we all know how that went...

So that fabric, so very pretty I think, especially the 'main' fabric. And I still have a good bit left. Not enough to make clothing, but plenty to use for some future craft projects. (Sorry for the bad photos, but I quickly had to take some photos in the early morning before Amber put it on.)

The pattern came from Knippie, a lovely Dutch pattern magazine for children's clothing (there's also an adult version). I liked the 'country' feel to the dress. I imagine it's exactly the kind of dress you would wear while walking through a field of barley, if you were so inclined.

The pattern wasn't difficult to follow and I only made one mistake that I corrected quite well I think. The pockets were my own idea, because I felt the dress needed a little something extra.

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and, more importantly, so is Amber. She likes long dresses and she didn't even mind that it wasn't pink.

Oh, and I made a matching headband after Heather Bailey's pattern. So quick and easy and lovely... I can't wait to make more of them. New mission: a matching headband with every outfit!

Tablecloths, 300th post & a give-away

I've been sewing like a woman possessed today. You see, it's Amber's birthday tomorrow, so I still had a hundred things to do. Yes, I do everything at the last minute, don't you?!

The main thing that I had to do was make her a birthday dress. Ever since her first birthday I've sewn her a birthday outfit. I think I missed one year when we were on holiday in France, but this tradition is very important to me. The only problem is that every year I start far too late. However, I wasn't stressed today and I'm happy to say that the dress is almost finished.

Her birthday party's theme is high tea and I happened to have three great "tea" fabrics. These two Japanese fabrics that I bought on Etsy:

And the fabric that I scored on Queensday.
By the way, this has got to be the cutest matryoshka fabric that I've ever seen...

...this I will definitely keep for a very special project!

Anyway, I used these fabrics to make two tablecloths. They were so insanely simple to make that you could hardly call them a craft project, but still I'm very happy with the result.

 

At first I thought that I would use them for Amber's birthday only and then cut them up for another project, but I like them so much that I think they will be our summer tablecloths.

While I was glued to the sewing machine I also whipped up two medallions for Amber and her friend who swiped the whole garden (on their own initiative!):

They were so proud of them and I was reminded how rewarding it is to be able to make things: a precious moment.

So yes, it is my 300th post today!! I suppose I should have made a medallion for myself as well this afternoon :)

I've written a hundred post since July 2007. Not so much in August and September and then everyday in November. I still enjoy blogging very much. I love the combination of keeping a record for myself and the interaction with other bloggers. The inspiration I get from it is amazing.

As a thank you to all my readers I want to hold a little give-away. Leave me comment before Tuesday evening (my time <-- see the clock) and I'll draw two names. I thought it would be fun to make an oilcloth pyramid pouch and tissueholder and let the winners choose the oilcloth that they like. Oh, and lurkers... don't be shy and please leave me a comment too!

Well, I'd better get back to that dress and then get some sleep... big day tomorrow. She'll be 7!! How can I be the mother of a 7 year old?!

Oilcloth junkie

So on Saturday we went to one of our favourite towns: Deventer. We went to our usual places, but also discovered some fantastic new shops. Shops that look like this (this is just a tiny corner of it):

 
And that sell gorgeous things from Green Gate and Cath Kitson and other delicious must-haves such as this plate:



I've been sensible and didn't buy much, but I did add a bit to my already quite extensive oilcloth stash:



Oh how I love that stuff! I couldn't wait to get started with it...
I made some pouches/pencil cases:



I'm not normally into girly pinkish cuteness much, but this I like! Do you see that lace? It's made of rubber... love it!

I made some more pouches, this time black, white and red. Again with the rubbery lace of course.



And two more pouches/toilet bags:



I love this retro dinner print :)

And (this is the last photo, I promise!) I made a wall organizer.



I've made these before, with both fabric and oilcloth, but this times I used eyelets. Although it's not perfect, I'm really pleased how it turned out and I'm definitely making more of these.

Some of the things above will be making its way to my shop soon. You can also see some of the new oilcloth pyramid bags there that I made last week. I told you I was a junkie!

Bibs aplenty

Even though Linus lives on a strict diet of breastmilk I made him a couple of bibs that I'm sure will come in handy in the future.

I made the patchwork with some of my favourite Dutch fabrics combined with the fabric that I bought on Queensday.

They close with a handy snap (it took me an embarrasingly long time to work out how to adjust these guys...) and are backed with terrycloth.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with these bibs.
However, not as satisfied as I am with the matching cuddly cloth that I made:

Somehow I love how this turned out. The colours, the texture, the pretty ribbons... I'm telling you, if Linus decides for some reason not to cuddle with it then I will!