Deers and a little house in the forest

Look what I made for table decoration:

I let the kids in my crafting classes do thoses as well. 

They added some golden stars and a little snow. I told them to only whiten the tips of the trees and I have to say, that looks more alive than mine. I didn't jet had the time to let it snow on my composition.

The half branches where we put it on, are about 35cm long. I could imagine those little landscapes as a table middle on a long table with a much longer branch. Would only be difficult to cut it in the length so it lays flat.

But this year it will do as decoration and for our table I have also my advent composition with candles that's like the one I made last year. 

I wish you all a very merry Christmas! Have a good time and relax!

Je vous souhaite joyeux noel! Reposez vous et profite bien!

A bientôt,
Jane

Lots of pillows

Three month ago we bought a long needed new sofa. The old one was so used, we couldn't even donate it. Of course I felt guilty to dump everything, so we took the pieces apart and kept two foam matrasses and lots of cushion inlays. I now have filling material until the end of my life!

I tried to use some up and filled new pillows. Even when I first said I didn't want to, I had last weekend a stand on a private Christmas market and therefor I produced... Sorry for the bad photos, I took them with flash the evening before the market.

First I made a bunch of neck pillows. They swallow a lot of filling material!

I forgot to take photos before the market and now they are all gone. 

Then I used a quilting exercise for a pillow 55x55cm:

This pillow I thought would be great for a children room. I am happy to sell it to someone who loved it on first view.

In my cupboard I found two little pillow cases that had been with the old sofa, but at that time I have made new ones in a contrasting color, so they had been used very little. I washed them, made pillows for stuffing them and applicated stars. I sold them very cheap as Christmas decoration.

And last I made a big pillow 45x90cm. Could be used on the floor or as a back rest. The basic fabric is sturdy and the color is a dark aubergine (A big scrap, someone gave to me years ago). I decorated it with appicated flowers and quilted tendrils.

I had lot more ideas for pillows, but didn't had the time to realise thoses. 

I also had two white patchwork pillows left that I made two years ago. Don't know why they are not selling. I still like them! Of course the color isn't very practical.

This is my stand on the market. Except of the pillows I only had some bags and pouches I had on stock and my obligatory little bags from wax-cloth.

Unfortunately the market wasn't very frequented so I still have some pillows left and don't know where to store them. Did anybody want's to have one? Please! :-)

A bientôt,

Jane 

Socks for St-Nicholas

Hey there! 

I didn't planned to neglect this blog for 2 month! There had been lots of other things taking my attention, stopping me from being creative. Some still do, but I hope I will manage soon to do everything. Maybe in 2018 I become super-woman! ;-)

Today it's St Nicolas day. Normally not a day that we are celebrating, but yesterday youngest-son put his boot out telling me, he wanted to see if it "works". First-son did equally. So mom had to do something. Both don't believe in Santa, so I guess they know who is filling the boots, too. I took out the first advent calendar that I made when the boys had been little. At that time to avoid the risk of an over-excited child opens more than one package per day, I made stockings for everybody and filled them new every day. That's how it has been looking at that time:

Horrible photo!

I made one sock per family member, but mine had been rarely filled with anything. As my husband has other access to chocolate he didn't emptied his every day neither. The boys did! 

I stitched our names in the socks, but you can't read them. The dwarf on the sled is from first-son, the dwarf climbing the rope is little-son (funny, alpine climbing is now his sport :-)), my husband is the Santa-dwarf and mine is decorating the tree (I always wanted to stitch some more details on it, but never finished). 

Yesterday evening I filled those socks with sweets and nuts and dried fruits and hung them up very early today in front of our entrance. 

It has been 5 years now that we didn't used this socks and little son didn't remembered them at all! This is the advent calendar we are using now. I showed it in 2014.

Hope you all had a very nice start in the Christmas-season!

A bientôt,

Jane 

Bull's-eye-bag

Sunday I took the time (that I should have used for more important things) and made a completely (un)necessary bag!

A bit of brain jogging to find out how to put in the window without making the complete lining from plastik.

To compensate that you can't hide any secrets inside :-) I added a cover that can be closed by pulling the two stings tight.

I think it's a funny bag, but to be honest: I don't really have use for it!

A bientôt,

Jane 

Autumn leave printing

I tried a printing technique with leaves that I found on pinterest. You are using fresh leaves and painting them from the back with felt pens in different colors. This is so much less messy than printing with water colors! Still you get colored fingertips so when putting the leave with the color side down on a paper, it is best to cover the leave with a scrap paper so when pressing the leave onto the paper, you are not leaving traces with your dirty fingers.

The results are stunning and I loved doing the printing! 

I did some post cards (there are some autumn birthdays ahead),...

... a page marker,

... a note block for shopping lists that is already with a friend of mine,

... and I decorated a notebook.

I also did this printing technique with the kids in my crafting classes. They did really nice works too. I like to show them crafting that they can do also alone at home, not needing lots of special equipment.

A bientôt,

Jane 

Matching bag and pouch

What is Jane sewing when she gets an adorable new wax-cloth?
Exactly: A little bag!

This time accompanied by a little pouch. I doubled the pouch and made nearly a knot in my brain, by thinking of how I could turn it :-) It didn't worked how I wanted, but I am anyway satisfied with the pouch.

A bientôt,

Jane 

Upcycling a children armchair

One very little crafting project I made during summer-renovation-time was to jazz up an old children armchair from the Swedish furniture store. We bought it for our youngest, but he never really used it, as our cat occupied it for years. Now she prefers the sofa and little son is too tall to be comfortable in it, so we decided to hand it down to our little niece. The cushion was smudgy, but with lots of soap I got it back to its original beige color. Except some black spots. To cover them I drew flowers over them with fabric paint. 

Looks nice, doesn't it?

At least it is usable again! And my sister in law can add flowers to it, whenever her daughter is causing the next spot :-)

A bientôt,

Jane 

Fox bonnet

Yesterday a friend passed by with a pattern, fabric and some pre-cut pieces and together we made for the birthday of her animal-loving son a fox bonnet. Then we forced my son to wear it for test and we took this photo. It happened that the t-shirt of my son fits perfectly the bonnet :-)

A bientôt,

Jane

Floor Patchwork

This has been a long summer break that I took! But I have been so busy! 

You ask with what?

Patchwork! Mainly patchwork!

And I guess now you want to see photos of nice blankets or wall hangings or at least tops that are awaiting quilting! Sorry, it hasn't been that kind of patchwork. My husband and me did floor patchworking! Not creative, not colorful, but dusty and heavy and it seemed to never end!

We renovated our basement floor this summer and installed a floor heating system! It took much more time than estimated, mainly because of delivery delays for nearly all materials. But after 6 weeks we finaly have our new floor and we love it! Also we repainted the walls and everything feels new and fresh. Of course we are still in the process of finishing all the little corners that rests always after you finish the main work and putting back all furnitures and stuff takes also a while. But the end is in sight.

So hopefully I soon will be able to blog about some creative things!

SU soon!

A bientôt,

Jane 

Tree in a circle

In the weaving class we made woven trees in branch circles. I made a test one for myself first and it was quite tricky to put the warp thread. I let the kids do it two by two, so one always hold the circle and the middle of the tree, where the trunk ends, and the other put the threads.

Next step is to wrap the trunk and a bit the ground around it. I let some strips hang down as roots. 

But the kids didn't like the roots and made just simple grounds. This is how far we got the first afternoon:

I even started some branches before starting the weaving and feared a bit that all kids want to do the same and would never finish, but no. The same with my weaving, I tried to do it with lots of different colors in spots and not half circles, but the kids weren't inspired to do the same. They had been happy by weaving lines.

During the second afternoon, we all added pearls to our weaving. And finally at the third afternoon, we finished the project. I didn't expect it to last that long. But everybody was happy in the end with his tree. Unfortunately I only have 3 of the four trees on photo:

The last one had used very thin wool for the weaving and it would have taken hours to finish, so I proposed some clouds that are a nice twist also.

During the weaving process I had to fix the warp threads for the kids with tape to the circle, because they always moved.

A nice project and the kids liked it, even when they were getting a bit inpatient in the middle. But this could have been also because of the incredible heat we had.

A bientôt,

Jane 

Paper bags

You remember I made squirt pictures on big papers with some kids from my crafting classes? The week after we made several little project with those papers. We had monster pictures, cards (like I did here), and we made big paper bags:

They are so easy to make. This are not like the bags you get in stores that are folded on the sides with a bend to the inside. They are more like the paper bags you got to put your fruits or vegetables in. But having a flat base, they are standing upright, like the more advanced bags. I always folded the upper edge over to add stability.  

We added also self-made cords as handles. The class with the kids ended in making lots of cords as bracelets.

I thought those bags might be great as gift wrap and at home I transformed some of the papers from my "already-used-gift-wrap" stock and made bags bags bags. The sizes depending the size of the paper.

I had lots of that cute elephant paper. Those bags will be great for new-born presents. I also made some little cards to go with. 

And this one has been used directly for little sons birthday!

I can also imagine to make them with simple plain paper and stamping on them ...

A bientôt,

Jane 

My new handbag

A new handbag has been necessary since a while! Have a look how necessary:

It has been so nice when I made it two years ago (look here), but daily use let his traces.

I loved the green color and have been thinking about using the same fabric again (yes, I still have it. One of my favourites and those are used only for special projects :-) ). But I also loved the orange of the handbag before (here). Oh, always those choices one has to make!

I decided I wanted something really colorful and took out my uni-colored orange and pink fabrics.

Yeah - that's a lot of warm colors! 

The circle is combining the two different sides. Also the quilting is different on the two sides. The quilting gives stability to the bag. Even empty it stays upright.

Because of my back I don't use big handbags. They are always too heavy and hanging only on one side, what causes irregular tensions in the shoulders. So I got used to have only the most necessary in my handback and if I need more I take a backpack.

Have a look, there is everything important in it: Papers of me and the kids and my car, my portable phone, my purse and on the ground (not visible) a painkiller, a tampon and a hairband. It fits also in my keys and a pencil, but that's it. Actually I don't miss anything more.

Very happy with my bag! Only I shortened the shoulder strap, and I am not used to that length jet. Not so convenient any more to carry it diagonally. But no big matter.

A bientôt,

Jane 

A fast little blanket in grey-red-white

In our office-and-kids-play-room we have a little couch. When we have too many guests in the house we can transform it into another bed. With a piece of fabric leftover from the curtains in that room and white moleton I made a simple couverture with a binding from the fabric of the cussions I have also on our living room couch. 

I did a very simple meandering quilting in red on it.

For the quilting I used the longarm machine my husband made for me already several years ago. At that time he saw that I always had trouble with big blankets under my normal sewing machine and he bought a simple machine cut it in the middle and put a 20cm extension in the middle. He managed to assemble everything correctly and it could stitch, but unfortunately the motor was too weak to handle heavy quilt sandwiches. A pity, but I stored the machine in a corner and never actually used it. Until last year I had the idea if my husband couldn't put in a stronger motor and at the same time make the maximum speed adjustable, so my quilting could get more even. It took him nearly a year to finish, but now it's done and this blanket is the first project I quilted on it. 

This machine is not a beauty and I still have some changes in mind, but now it works not bad and I will make some further tests (before demanding more changes :-)

A bientôt,

Jane