Shopping basket

The little basket I showed you in my last post had been so much fun, I immediately started on a big one! I wanted a shopping basket that is standing upright by itself so it might be easier to fill it. It turned out great! 

Isn't it nice? I am so happy with it! I will tell you how I did and my mistakes :-)

I measured a reusable plastic shopping bag and took the same dimensions. I wanted something colorful and tipped over my scrap drawer and cut and cut and cut. I thought I would need lots of bands and didn't calculate at all. I laid out all scraps sorted by colors on the couch table and elder son helped me to bring them in a nice order. Then I attached all pieces and achieved a band of 40!! m length!

Then I calculated and found out that with 40 meters I could made a sac about 90cm high! Oups!

I wrapped the band around a little matlas that had about the circumference of my planned bag and decided which colors I wanted absolutely to keep. Then I ripped off some connecting seams and reassembled a band of 20m length.

The sewing of the bag body took quite a while and was hard work for my arms and shoulders as it got heavy with the stable lining an intermediate layer and the light scraps. Not so easy to turn it around the machine. But no reason to never do it again. Actually I want to make a second one that is about 5cm lower. I think that would look better.

This are the two sides. There are only slight differences.

Today I took it to the grocery store! The colors made me smiling during my shopping, even when outside is horrible weather and inside it has been crowdy.

Don't you want to make one yourself? Maybe I will take photos and post a little tutorial! Watch out for it.

A bientôt,
Jane

linked at: RUMS (german blog-party for stuff you made only for yourself)

A new approach to fabric baskets

Inspired by "patchwork to go" or "quilting as you go" (what I wanted to try out for quite a while but never did), I made this basket by sewing a long band of scraps in spirals on a cylindric fabric tube. Round and round and round! Then I fit in a quilted bottom and covered the edge with a bias tape. Ready!

It is 20cm high and 25x16cm on the basis.

The sewing lines are giving a great stability to the basket. In my case they are 2,3cm apart. I put a third layer between the lining and the outside patchwork to add extra stability (used up an other scrap of a thick fabric).

On the next photo you can see at the bottom edge of the basket that the patchwork lines are ascending and not horizontally. You have to start in a slow angle to get the fabric band in spirals aroung the basket. 

The bottom of the basket is flat quilted and even more stable than the sides, because the quilting lines are denser. The hardest had been to calculate the right size of the bottom so it fits with the cylindric sides that I patched before. I needed two attempts as I had a thinking error in the first go ;-)

This has been so much fun! 
I love the result! 
And I have lots of more ideas and lots and lots of more scraps, so you will soon see my next basket. I give you a hint: I plan something big!

A bientôt,
Jane

First sewing project 2018

You won't guess what has been my first sewing project in this year! A little hint: It is no bag!

It's a seat pillow for a children seat of a tractor!

This adorable little tractor got a bench added to transport two children and needed a little comfort.

The pillow is from foam and for the cover I took synthetic leather. I couldn't get it in light grey as the driver seat, but I added as well a red edging.

The seat belts had to come through in the middle:

The pillow had been two pieces that I attached them with velcro. It would have been too much hassle to do it in one piece. 

It had been tested last weekend and the kids said the tractor ride was fun and very comfortable!

A bientôt,
Jane

Snow flakes on sticks

I wanted to give a little "Thank you" to a friend and bought a Christmas rose (helleborus niger) for her. I love those! They are flowering in a time of the year where there are very little flowers. You can even keep them in pots and they don't mind if it's freezing cold. 

I planted it in a pot and then thought I might add some winterly decorations as well. From a thick branch of firewood I cut round slices, fixed them on sticks and painted snowflakes on them.

You have to use the color very dry and do not paint, dab the color!

There is a white snow flake on one side and a blue one on the other.

I made some sticks for me too and rearanged my front step decoration:

As I already have a very nice flowering white Christmas rose in my garden (it has been my front door decoration two years ago), I bought for me one in a different color. Very interesting flowers as they are more like bells hanging down, but not as eye catching as the white roses.

A bientôt,
Jane

Last Christmas decoration photos of 2017

Before nobody wants to see any more Christmas stuff (this is for me every year quite early in January) I will show you three crafting projects I did in December. Also with the kids of my crafting clases.

This is a plastic ball that can be filled. With hot glue I fixed a wooden deer and a paper fir tree inside. My boys loved to make some confetti for me that is as snow also inside. A good advice: close the ball with a little glue, so the confetti can't get out again :-) On the upper half of the ball I painted from the outside with a golden pen stars or flakes. 

With the kids I did big lanterns from cardstock. Therefore we cut triangles in black cardstock and covered the openings from behind with transparent paper. Then the kids did decorating the trees with pens and punched out ornaments from colored transparent paper. This is my decoration example:

As it is always a hassle to get lanterns round, we just stapled two rectangle cardstocks together and put heavy wire inside to hold it open. The wire is fixed with scotch and cardstock from the inside. You can remove the wire to store the lantern flat. 

I also stitched stars with the kids. Mainly we made medallions that you can hang in the tree, but also some cards. Some children where quite advanced and they made also difficult stars like the one left on the photo.

So, this is the end of my Christmas season. My resolution for 2018 is to start preparing Christmas much earlier so I have time to enjoy it in December. We'll see if I manage ;-)

I wish you all the best for a happy and healthy new year and that you can do lots of things that you like!

Bonne année,

Jane