Massproduction

I've started working on six cushioncovers. I'm going to participate in a crafty fair in April and I've got a strong feeling that I have to start producing! I don't want the stall to look pathetic with only a couple of things :) And I'm leaving for Oxford in a fortnight, so that'll be a whole week without being able to proper crafting (although I'm trying to come up with small crafty projects I'll be able to cram into my suitcase; I'm afraid my sewingmachine is not going to fit in there). But in fact I like making more of the same items simultaneously. It's not that much more work and you got all the material you need at hand.
Anyway, these will be patchworkcushions in green/blue/pink shades.

The kids are back home, Amber is in school again, so everything is back to normal.

Babydoll

When I made the red doll for the Pink/red-swap, Shelli left a real nice comment on Flickr. She said the doll would be perfect for the babygirl she was about to adopt. I thought that was so lovely that I offered to make one for them. So here it is! I hope they like it. It will be sent to New York on Monday.

As you can see I've been making new ATC's yesterday. These are called: Dutch Pride, because they have some typical Dutch things on them. A bit of Escher, famous Dutch graphic artist, beschuit met muisjes, something that is traditionally eaten when a baby is born and ofcourse some delftware!

And a crafty good day it was

The kids are staying with my parents for three days, which gives me time to do EVERYTHING I always want to do, but never have time for! Three days is a seriously long kidfree amount of time and yesterday I could hardly decide where to begin. Michel had the day off too. First we had a go at trying to clear out the attic (there are still about a thousand boxes full of... well, junk from when we moved). We sorted out lots and threw away lots, with the result that the attic is now looking even messier than before... hmmmm.
After we had lunch we took the train to Utrecht and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening there. We did some shopping and had a lovely dinner. When we got home we opened a bottle of champagne (leftover from Newyearseve) and sat down and both worked on our first sets of ATC's (well, technically I had made two cards already).
It was so much fun. We had paper, glue, scissors, fabric, paint... the full works. It was so relaxing to experiment with everything and see how it would turn out!
Here are some I made:



The one with the little creature on it is already traded. The rest are up for trading, so let me know if you like to trade (doesn't matter whether you've never made one, just try it!) :)
the lady in the blue dress is reserved

This morning I had a lovely e-mail from my swap-partner Isabel from Portugal. She received all the goodies I sent her and was really happy with everything. I'm so glad it arrived safely and that my doll and quilt have found a good home!

Well, back to the sewingmachine now...

Tada!

Here she is: my Pointy Kitty !
It all went well except for stitching the head to the body. It wasn't easy and it didn't turn out all that neat either. However, nothing that a pretty ribbon round her neck can't fix ;)
Doesn't she look cute?!



Amber, who picked the fabric, claimed her for herself immediately. Goodbye Kitty!
I might make another one, with a printed fabric, but first I'll work on all the unfinished projects that lie around here. It's getting out of control! So I'll have to get those things out of the way before I can start on something else.

I had a good thrifty score this morning. I bought two lovely craftbooks for less than 3 euros. I've already seen so many things in them that I like to try!
(What I notice from these 70s craftbooks is that they feature so many crafts in just one book... people must have been crafting all day long then!)

Went to the market and bought some...

...fabric ofcourse!
I hadn't been to the market in Baarn yet, so thought today would be a good day to check it out. It wasn't bad. Had a bit of everything, fruit & vegs, clothes, bread, fish and even two stalls with fabric. They weren't very good though, but I did manage to score three large pieces of fabric for three euros.

I've been working on my Pointy Kitty today. It's a lot of fun and not difficult to do. This is how far I got today:



The real challenge is to put the head to the body; I intend to do that tonight, so hopefully I'll be able to show you (better) pictures of a complete Kitty!
And then I can make a start with Hillary's new pattern :)

Pincushions

Something funny happened the other day.
I already wrote about the cushion-group I created on Flickr. Well, at the same time I also created a group for pincushions.

However, I thought it would be a bit much to introduce two new groups at the same time, so I left the pincushions for what they were. But what do you know?! The next day this group had come to life all by itself! I still don't know what happened, but all of a sudden there were a whole lot of members and lovely photos of pincushions in the pool.

Pincushions are such wonderful things. Of course they are functional, but at the same time they are (or at least can be) pieces of art. Some pincushions are simply stunning. Like these, or this one, or these... (still much to be learned)
And another thing I like about them is that they are so cutesy small :)

Anyway, if you have ever made a pincushion or want to do so, or just want to be in awe of what other people make... go check it out!

all pincushions posted here are made by me

Progress of Garden Paradise

I promised to write about the garden work we did on Tuesday.
When we moved into this house in October the garden was a right mess. The lady that lived here before us was 97 so we don't blame her, but it's up to us to clean up this wilderness.
In September and October we already did quite a bit of work on the garden: we removed complete bushes and even two trees.
However, now it's time to get started on the proper work... I can already feel spring in the air and we don't want to wait until all the weeds start growing!
Luckily, my parents came to help me and my mum has all this great professional gardentools, which makes it all so much easier.
After a couple of hours hard work this is what the backyard looked like:



Really quite spectacular if you know what it looked like before (sadly no pictures of that right now). I moved the yellow bench in the empty spot between the trees where it looks very pretty. We'll be making a terrace here and the rest will be plants and flowers.

Our little helpers. Simon was all dressed for the occasion.

When we started cutting back the trees all of a sudden this emerged:

our very own bicycle-parkinglot, wow!

We also have a large garden at the side of the house where we want to have grass, a swing, another small terrace and a vegetable-plot (my wish). All that is yet to come... I'll keep you up to date!

And just for a touch of cuteness in this post: a picture of little Chris:

Blenkie for baby Chris

Another baby was born in our circle of friends last week: Chris.
And yesterday we went to visit and admire him.
He was just adorable and a spitting image of his sister!



I made a blenkie taking the colours of the babyroom (red & aqua) as a startingpoint. Although I had begun to work on it last week or so, it was real lastminute sewing and I was freaking out a little. I couldn't help wondering for a moment why I didn't just go to a toyshop and buy something big and plastic. But no, ofcourse this is much nicer... and unique too. Plus once a project is finished it gives a real great sense of satisfaction, something you just don't have with something store-bought. All in all, I'm happy about it :)



I started a new group on Flickr today dedicated to cushions. There was nothing like that yet, strangely enough. There are plenty of people making lovely beautiful cushions, so this group is just a neccesity really...
So far there are 55 members and there are already some lovely pictures in the group pool. Go have a look!
By the way, I received an early birthdaypresent today.... a Flickr-pro-account!! Yay, now all my photos will be kept safely in the archive and I can create as many sets as I want ( added a couple of sets right away :))

Double hurray!

It's my youngest sister's birthday today (for about ten more minutes); hurray!!
We already celebrated it three weeks ago with presents and my mum's waffles and yesterday we sent a card. Hope it arrived in time. Needless to say that this is Amber's design... they're actually little hearts.

Another hurray, and this one's for me :) I'm going to participate in Plush You II in Seattle this Octobre! I can send three of my plush toys over there and they will be displayed and can be bought. You can read all about it here.
I'm so excited!!

We've done some very hard work in the garden today, but I'll post about that tomorrow. It's bedtime!

Artist's Trading Cards

Last week I tried my hand at some ATC's.
I used some fabric-scraps, glue and needle and thread and this is the result.
Although I'm not unhappy the way these turned out, I can see there is lots of room for improvement :) I would like to dig deeper into this whole nature/garden-theme (sorry bad joke).
The philosophy behind the ATC's is one that appeals to me, and ofcourse it's a relatively simple way of obtaining other people's 'art'. Actually, to get a little flavour of what they're making.
I don't know how much I want to get into this though. I'll see whatever happens and for now I've had fun making these!
Here on flickr you can find more.

We had a very good weekend; pottered around the house, baked a cake, went to two birthdayparties.
Tomorrow I'm seriously going to make a start at creating our very own GardenParadise (luckily my parents will be helping me with that...), yay!

Done!

My swap-package is finished, hallelujah! It was a lot of fun focussing on red and pink, gathering all the goodies and actually making it. However, it's always wonderful to finish a project; experiencing the joy of being to able to cross something of your list.
I like how the doll turned out and the little hearts-ribbon is so appropriate right now with Valentines' Day almost here (not that I'm into that kind of thing, but still...).



I hope my swap-partner will be happy with the package. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find out much about her on flickr. Her profile is not in English and she is not contributing to the forum. Still, I suppose she wouldn't have participated if she didn't like the idea!

The film, by the way, was FANTASTIC! Go see it if you haven't done so already!

Quiet day

The wheather has been crazy today. This morning it was really bright then it started snowing like mad. After that the sun came out again and it was lovely, springy even. Then again snow, sun, strong winds and now it's just freezing. Welcome to Holland where the wheather is always unpredictable!

I've been working on my swap-package. Put the almost-finished cuddlie aside and started making a doll. Whatever happens it has to be finished tomorrow!

Done some reading too today. I started this book just because I came across it in almost every weblog that I read. It seems an interesting book (I've only read a couple of pages), although I don't think it's something I can use for myself. For one thing I'm not an artist and for another I don't feel blocked. Still I'm curious enough to read on and who knows what I'll be able to laern from it.

We watched a lovely film the other night. We both thought it had been worth renting this film just to see the menu and credits: they were quite something!
Tonight there's another film showing in our very own cinema... I'm looking forward to it!

Self Portrait Tuesday

This month's theme for SPT is 'all of me'. So here you see all of me... from the waist down that is :) By the way, you'd better not look too close at the rug... it seems that there are almost more stains than orangeness (is that a word?! Ofcourse it is!!)!

More pink &red

The deadline for the February-coloriffic-swaporama (friday) is fast approaching, so it's really time to get my things together for the package I'm going to send. I already bought some goodies and started a cuddlie. Today I decided to make a mini-quilt as well. It turned out really nice I think; at least it makes me happy looking at it! Hopelfully my swap-partner will like it too!
Tomorrow I'll finish the cuddlie and then send the package on Thursday.... way before the deadline!

Pressies!

I love receiving mail -not so much bills and insurancepapers and stuff- but nice, lovely, big, PINK envelopes and so today was a very good day for me!
I got my packet from the coloriffic-swap-o-rama-group
It came all the way from Canada, smelling totally Canadian of woodstove :) Lovely!

The theme for this month's swap was red & pink and Claire stuck to it like a good girl.
This was what was in the package:



Beads, origami-paper, fabric and a lovely bearpouch that Claire made herself: truely a wonderful gift! Thank you, Claire!

Pocketpillow

This weekend I finally finished the pillow I'd started making weeks ago.
It's for my brother- & sister-in-law who live in Australia.
When they were in Holland last November they mentioned that they thought it would be handy to have a pillow with pockets at the back where you could keep your remotes. No more remotes laying around and you'd always know where to find them!
So I made such a pillow for them. It will be sent tomorrow so in a couple of weeks time I will know if it really was a clever idea...
In the meantime I took some pictures with a few softies in the pockets. Check out the rabbit, it's a little doubtful whether it's enjoying the experience!

Blenkie for baby Imme

This is the recipient for the Blenkie that I finished yesterday: Imme, daughter of our friends. She was born 30-1. We went to visit her on Wednesday and she was absolutely adorable.
Unfortunately I hadn't been able to finish the blanket in time, but I'm going to bring it to them tomorrow.
The blanket is two layers of cotton with a thin middle layer of wool. It's my intention to make more blenkies to sell in the shop.
These are the photos:

Happy birthday!

It's my sister's birthday today, yay!
As she lives in Oxford we had to send her present in advance and luckily it arrived in time.
This is what we sent:



A small knitted bag from my favourite shop
my very first crocheted anything
Stitch 'n bitch- book (since she has just learnt how to knit)
and a card with sheep on it, because she loves them.

The S & B-book I really want to read myself. I leafed through it before I sent it, but when I go to visit her in March I will really be able to study it and perhaps when I come back I'll know how to KNIT! Because 2006 will be the year that I will learn how to knit...

I've been really busy today with a present for a brand new tiny little girl, but I'll write about that tomorrow (when hopefully it will be finished).