Trousses, Pouches or Täschchen

However you call them, everybody needs lots of them. Especially everybody female :-)

A friend gave me a fat quarter of a really adorable cotton fabric and wanted as many pouches as I could make out of it. She gave some minimal dimensions, as she wanted to put her portable phone in one and in one other her make-up stuff. Has been funny to make one after the other and see the collection growing on our sideboard between the snow men.

The two make-up cases are doubled with synthetic leather and they are having a side pocket. There is only a small scrap of the fat-quarter left over. 

And after that I used up one of my oilcloths and made a little shopper and a fitting pouch. Love it!

A bientôt,

Jane

Some jeans and one corduroys

I spend some time repairing jeans. One of my most favourite (!Attention ironic!) sewing duties! Only topped by changing zippers on coats (what I also did this week). 

This is probably not a very interesting blog post, but I show you anyway some of my mended jeans. This one had been ripped on one knee. As it has been already a little short in length, but otherwise fitting really well, I cut of the whole leg and fit in an extension. 

The next one had both knees either ripped or already very thin. I opened up the side seams and fit in a complete new knee recycling an old jeans by keeping the old side seam. 

The third jeans I am showing is one of mine and it is so comfortable that I decided that also an adult woman can walk around with a mended jeans. I put a pocket over it that I kept from an other of my old jeans. It's now kind of cargo trousers style, except that the pocket is not at the side of the leg.

After repairing so many old trousers, I wanted to see a new one and made one in corduroy for my youngest. I took the pattern I am normally using for pyjama or training trousers and added some pockets. It is very comfortable to wear - my son told me.

  

A bientôt,
Jane

linked at a german corderoy linkparty at Mara-Zeitspielers blog

My helping cat

Why do cats like to lie preferential on things that you are just using?

When she was little I had a hard time teaching her to not put her feet under the needle of my sewing machine. She likes to sit behind my machine and is watching closely. When it gets too exciting with all those pieces that are moving, she gives a hit with her paw. 

After 5 years she starts to understand and is getting calmer now :-) 

Now she is mostly only sitting on the pieces I need next ...

A bientôt,
Jane

Crown for "Galette de rois"

In France in beginning of January you are eating lots of "galette de rois". This is a cake for the twelfth day (dt=Dreikönigstag). Inside there is a little figure hidden and the person who finds it in his piece is the king (fr=roi) and gets a crown. When you are buying the cake there is always a paper crown with it. 

Mostly those galettes are filled with marzipan (almond paste), what I don't like so much. Last weekend I made my first galette de roi myself from a french recipe that I found here on pinterest. Even the puff pastry (dt=Blätterteig, fr=pâte feuilletée) I made myself with a recipe from the same blog. It turned out absolutely gorgeous. Or what do you think? Isn't the look perfect?

I made a fabric crown to go with and put a little plastic heard inside the filling for the king. 

The filling isn't almond paste but chocolate-hazelnut-paste. The taste was fine, but I didn't liked the structure it had in the mouth that much - maybe it had been the chocolate I used. Everybody else loved it, so I can tell the cake and crown had been a great success.

A bientôt,
Jane

Alien pillow

Today I am showing one of my old projects:

I made this pillow case already three years ago, but only last month there has been someone who wanted to give home to a lost extraterrestrial.

The u.f.o coming out of space landed on my pillow case and a little blue alien came out:

I think he is strange but adorable:

This pillow can be used to lay your head on (it is 40x40cm) and for playing. My kids already had enough pillows when I made this one otherwise I would have kept it.

I hope the little boy who has it now is happy with his new friend.

A bientôt,
Jane

Drinking-glass-marker

For the end of the year we had friends with several children staying with us. Altogether we have been 10 persons. With lots of people in the house I am having always a problem with the drinking glasses, that are standing everywhere and you never remember which one is yours. Especially when you are drinking water, I don't think it's necessary to wash them after every meal. 

I know there are glass markers you can buy, but of cause I only remembered too late to order those. So the day of the guest's arrival I quickly crafted my own solution with rubber bands. 

The elastics are not very pretty, but it had been the only ones I had in the house. You can't use decorative elastic straps like I use for sewing, as it is too slippery and slides down the glass.

I decorated each band different with scraps from oil cloth, pearls, little ribbon scraps and buttons. Here are some examples:

They haven't all been very pretty, but the system worked very well with our guests! For the next time I will either think of something new or buy nice markers if I find any.

A bientôt,
Jane

Happy new year 2016

A happy new year to everyone! 

I hope that there are some more wise people and more peace in the world! 

For Christmas I made my parents a calendar for 2016 with my drawings. Some of them I have been showing already here, but not the January.

I didn't like the layout possibilities that are given by photobook online shops, so I made everything myself. The binding had been difficult and in the end I only used clips. Thats working fine and I made one for myself too. The size is about 30x35cm. 

Have a good start into January!

Mes meilleures vœux pour 2016 a tous!

A bientôt,
Jane