current work in progress

here's some of what we're working on. yes, we! dave said he'd stop after the bag. but he got so incredibly high when it was finished, that he started his next project the same night. now he's working on two different things. first off...



and then there's this secret project of mine... will be a couple of days still til i hopefully get it finished.

some of today's work

made a somewhat quick and somewhat little "thank you!" gift for our very sweet neighbors today. AND i managed to take pictures of it. all in one day. whoa!

on the line

serged, washed and now drying... about half of my recent fabric purchases.

yes, yes. i've sucked at blogging. been too busy enjoying summer with the kids and making stuff. i WILL take pictures of recent projects and i WILL upload them soon though. promised.
now back to cuddling the baby...

new favorite thing

and it's no longer mine.

my first little attempt at "quilting" resulted in a pillow for my sister.
it's her birthday today and she's about to move into her new room which will sorta have a pippi longstocking theme. perfect combination of reasons for me to go wild with scissors and the sewing machine.

i'm absolutely in love with the way the pillow turned out. in fact, i could stare at it for hours... so many of my favorite fabrics collected in one random chaotic design. it's perfect and just the tease i needed in order to really get started on our big family quilt. it's like a mouth watering appetizer.

anyways. long story short... here are some pics.









oh, in other really great news... my gran'ma is letting me have my great-grandaunt's very vintage singer machine. it's moving into my sewing space later this week hopefully. yay!

call me crazy

so i've started quilting.

that's somewhat weird because quilting is one of the last things i ever thought i'd do.

it just doesn't seem to make a whole lotta sense to cut perfectly good fabric into lots of teeny tiny pieces only to sew them all back together again and in the end have a big piece of fabric. plus, i'm terribly impatient and it appears quilting requires ridiculous amounts of time and patience.

well, logic smogic and the time and patience i'll just have to find somehow.

i made some space in my out of control chaotic sewing corner, pulled out the scissors and cut half of my cotton stack into lots and lots and lots more little pieces. yes, i used scissors. because i'm too rock'n'roll (read: too poor) for a cutting mat and rotary cutter.

now my ironing board and pfaff machine sewing table are covered in scraps and i'm picking up more fabrics (good folks. finally!!) at the post office tomorrow which will also end up getting cut.

i've done about an hour and a half of reading up on quilting online and of course decided to ditch all the instructions and advice and figure out my own approach instead. yes.

oh, did i mention that i intend for the finished project to be king size? that's where i decided to forget about all the seasoned quilter's advice... everything i read said to start with a baby quilt and i'm dead set on making a massive one right away for our big cozy family bed.

which leads to the cause of this madness. i feel the need to make a big bright colorful fun warm cover for my husband, myself and mostly the kids. so i'm making a huge blanket which will fit all of us now and when the girls are much much older and move on to college or art school or to travel the world, i can split in two pieces and each can take half.


mk. pics? pics.

the past few weeks in fabric

sigh. i feel like bathing in fabric. since that's not really a convenient option, i finally took the time to iron, fold and photograph most of my recent purchases. my husband thinks i'm a freak and he's probably right, but whatever. makes me happy and that's what matters.




14 half yards i received from fabricworm a week ago. love them for the most part. some colors are quite different from what i had expected but that's just what happens when you buy fabrics online without ordering swatches first. my favorite is the wonderland by momo print. i got a couple of other moda prints and i'm in love with the super fine feel of those fabrics... perfect for light summer shirts and dresses.



two pairs of quick summer pants i made for joon. her wardrobe needed some urgent help with the sudden change in weather. ten days ago it was winter here and now it's almost summer. crazy but oh so wonderful.


all those fabricworm pretties with their new friends in my stack of designer cottons. it appears i need to get a second bookshelf for materials some time soon.


this is the stack i got at a flea market last weekend.


and my bargains from stoffmarkt holland: a meter each of flower jersey (3euros), striped corduroy (5euros), boring but unbelievably soft grey jersey (5euros), light olive green flower print linen (2euros) and green and grey striped jersey (3euros). trin still has 2 meters of brown canvas for me which i plan on turning into thai fishermen pants next week.


still waiting for a stack of fat quarters... good folks complete collection should arrive here any day now. and i kinda feel like a five-year-old waiting for santa.



off to go work in the garden. time to start planting veggies in a couple of days.

spring awakening

the hoarding of materials and sleepless nights due to inspiration overflow have begun again.
three weeks after mika's birth i wiped a thick layer of dust off of my sewing machine (yes, it should be covered, but i just love at least looking at it from across the room every day).

first i pimped a little hoodie sweater jacket for my cousin's birthday and forgot to take a picture of it. oh well.
then i moved on to actual sewing and made myself a quick and easy top and a very retro very artsy dress for joon. then a quick two minute hat for her and today i shortened one of the many pairs of cheap jeans i recently bought.
i sold a mei tai and put everything i made off of that right back into two big fabric orders from the states which should arrive here some time next week.
i got a little bit of fabric at ikea and bought a couple of vintage materials at a fleamarket yesterday.
the list of things i want to sew is growing by the minute.

on top of all of that trin and i went to hollaendischer stoffmarkt today... fabricgasm! seriously.
140 or so market booths selling fabrics, threads, ribbons, zippers, velcro, bias, patterns, absolutely everything related to sewing and all of it for much less than at the overpriced german fabric stores. our town's market square was filled with gorgeous materials and i got to walk through it all with my best friend and without our crazy toddlers or impatient husbands for two hours. it was absolutely amazing! i didn't buy a whole lot because i just spent a lot of money on fabrics, but i did finally get that little biastape making tool and bought some jerseys, the perfect material for the thai fisher pants i've been wanting to make and some funky corduroy for kid's pants. all of that for less than 30euros.
my head is still spinning, my heart rate is probably still elevated and my creative spirits are completely overflowing. time to get a sketchbook and stop sleeping altogether.

so. tomorrow i plan of finishing a kick ass guitar hero mei tai for the store and then it's off to working on my family's spring wardrobe... for now though here are some pictures from today and a promise that i'll take and share pictures of my most recent projects asap.

yay! for springtime and the earth's fertility! can't wait to see everything in full bloom soon!

exciting friday morning

today i had to do something i don't normally do... take pictures of a fabric delivery right out of the box!

usually all my new fabrics get the prewash, line dry, iron with lots of love treatment first and then i lay them out nicely and take pics.

in this case i'm too excited to wait! i ordered from an ebay seller for the first time (i normally get most fabrics from etsy supply sellers) and i'm amazed by how quickly this order made it here from the states! the price per yard was a little higher than what my favorite etsians offer, but it was worth it for me in this case because i managed to get all the different fabrics i had planned on buying for a while from ONE seller rather than having to order from two or three different stores. AND i found a nice michael miller print i had never noticed anywhere before. yay!

so, here's my online fabric store recommendation, especially for everyone in europe... la-chakra offers a truely amazing selection of designer cottons, managed to fit 8 yards into a flat rate envelope, shipped so quickly i received my order a week after placing it AND marked the envelope as a gift (which i'd never expect anyone to do but after all my recent spendings on custom fees i'm glad to not have to hike out to the customs office for pick up, explaining and paying them a fortune). incredible!

now, here are my new beauties...



top to bottom: garden party "dancefloor", garden party "tablecloth" (2yards), garden party "mingling", michael miller "groovy guitars", michael miller "damask rock", michael miller bertha, alexander henry "sew now! sew wow!"



did i mention i love anna maria horner??



i'm so stoked about this micheal miller print! i wasn't even aware of it's existence until a few weeks ago (coincidentally i found this fabric the same night dave got his awesome vintage bass guitar) and all the photos of it i looked at online made it look totally black, white and grey. now that i see it "in person", it's actually slightly off-white which is soooo much prettier than i expected it to be. makes it looks somewhat vintage. yay!


bertha is another new favorite of mine. i had never noticed this print anywhere until i browsed la-chakra's store and thought it looked like it could be either totally gorgeous or completely hideous. i was very intrigued and ordered a yard thinking i could always resell it if i didn't like it. well, turns out it's gorgeous and i wish i had like five yards of it because it's perfect for so many projects i had in mind. i'll get the patchwork and applique look without having to do all the extra work, which is perfect for me right now since i'm getting a little sewing lazy these days. so yeah, it'll be some tough calls to make when it comes to deciding on what to do with just one yard of this treasure.


and finally the alexander henry print. i had seen this on etsy a few times but from the pictures it always looked a little too white and bare to me so i really didn't want to buy it. then i ordered that huge stack of garden party fat quarters and got seven little fabric charms with it (ruth from sewlovefabrics really is wonderful to work with!) and thought, wow! this looks great in person! so i decided to order some next chance i got and now i have a nice full yard of it and it's just sooooo pretty! it'll become two sewing machine covers in the hopes of me actually covering my machines when i have something truely pretty to do so with.




yeah, enough fabric ramble. thanks for letting me share my excitement with you. i know, i owe ya pics of my very few recent projects and i promise i'll get to it as soon as my kid returns home and lets me take pictures of her outfit.

pinks and blues...

are what's keeping me somewhat sane on this otherwise very far from festive thanksgiving day.
and that's pretty weird, because if you know me, you know that i'm so not a pink and blue kinda girl.

anyways, wishing you all a happy turkey day if you're celebrating thanksgiving or just a happy thursday if today is simply a thursday to you.

the pinks and blues are well on their way to becoming two toddler mei tais and should be ready to make their appearance on etsy tomorrow (yes, on crazy black friday).



preview? there ya go.

i blame church

yay! i found yet another thing to blame church for! ;)

growing up as a baptist church pastor's granddaughter did have a few advantages... everyone knew and loved us. or they had to love us, which is probably closer to the truth. anyways, one of our church members was in the textiles industry. i believe he had a fabric business. he always gave us big stacks of little fabric samples to play with. so as a young child i had this kid sized plastic suitcase filled with lots and lots and lots of silky fabric samples in all shades and colors and for years that suitcase full of scraps was my favorite thing to play with. i'd dig my hands in there and swooosh! throw them up in the air and let them rain down on my head. i'd sort them, stack them, tie them, swooosh! them again.... sigh!

why am i telling you this? because i just spent half an hour shaking my booty to old school no doubt and rearranged my neatly folded garden party fat quaters in every way possible, by print, by color, by color in a different way.... it made me think of that suitcase and helped me understand why it is that i'm so obsessed with fabrics.

i took close to one hundred pictures of it all. does that make me a fabric nerd? i need something to hold on to when all these beauties have been cut, turned into pretty things and have lovely new owners. speaking of cutting, that's what i should be doing. cutting those fabrics. seems i'm avoiding having to do that by posting endless rambles on my blog. yes.

so anyways, here are all my pretty new fabrics lined up and there's a shot of the totally non-traditional christmas wreath i made for our front door the other day. i needed to make something random and random it is. oh, and i thought i'd include the view from our bathroom window at sunrise a few days ago. i loooooove snow! at least this year.











and now i'm off to working on mei tais again. finally!!

sharing the fabric love

this month has so far been a really fantastic one for many reasons (Yes, We Did!).

one of my favorite things about this november though has got to be the fact that i managed to kick the greyness in the butt by purchasing ridiculous amounts of gorgeous fabrics which are sure to brighten my days for the rest of the grey season and will hopefully make the recipients of the final products feel happy, bright and colorful as well.

so here's what i got most recently...



mainly intended for mei tai bodies, but these fabrics are kinda whispering "make me into a bag" into my ear.



this pint one is ridiculously bright, but i just had to get it. i'm not quite sure if it would work as a mei tai, but i just may have to try. one of my favorite aspects of making clothing and carriers is that bit of suspense not knowing what a pattern will look like until it's made into a garment or carrier.


straps, straps, straps. the orange is so yummy it made me crave sweet potatoes all day yesterday. german stores are closed on sundays, but i'm set on getting some tomorrow and then i'll probably eat sweet potatoes all day!


i loooooove these quilter's weight cottons! so soft, i'm seriously considering making bedding from the one on the left.


yes, this is a stack of fat quarters. yes, it's garden party. it's twenty-eight of the fourty-four anna maria horner prints and they're on their way to me. needless to say thinking of the day that these beauties will arrive in their new home, i feel like a kid that's just been told she could spend a week in disney land and have all the free candy she wants.
check out sewlovefabrics on etsy for a great selection of ridiculously pretty fabrics!



i've been drooling over "groovy guitars" for months now and finally managed to order some. it's on its way over here from luckykaerufabrics along with some of my favorite alexander henry prints and my first ever echino (gotta find out if it's worth the hype).






all that should really be enough, i know. but there's more! my sweet wonderful mother-in-law went shopping at joann's yesterday. i got to join her in spirit and i'm sure she picked out some treasures for me. i just have no idea what's in store for me... yay! fabric surprises!