Glass covers

Do you remember the bowl covers I made a few years ago? It is one of my most frequent used sewing projects. A friend from my sewing group had now the idea to make them as glass covers with a hole for a straw, so that bugs are not falling into your drink, when you are outside. Especially useful for kids.

So last sewing session we made plenty of covers after fixing metal eyelets in the middle of each fabric disc.

For better hygiene we used oil cloth or wax coated cotton.

We bought re-usable straws to be more eco-friendly.

I made a set of covers for our family. Our glasses are having mostly no big diameter and I had some problems finding the right elastic band to make the covers fitting. This left some covers that have been too wide and so I made a set of four for a friend of mine who uses bigger glasses.

What about you? Want to try this little summer sewing project too?

A bientôt,
Jane

Picnic at the river and drawing gras

Are you children as much exhausted at the end of the school year as mine? A free afternoon that should have been calm and relaxing at home turned into quarrels and tears and nobody knew what he wanted really to do ... So I decided we needed a break in the nature to calm down! I put the boys and a little afternoon-picnic (watermelon and biscuits) in the car and headed to a spot at a nearby river where it is very nice and rarely other people. 

And it was the right decision. The boys happily played for one hour in the (ice-cold)water and I had a nice spot under the trees and did a little drawing, something I didn't do for a year or so! I just took blades of grass growing around me and drew the different types of seeds they had:

It's not my best drawings ever, but I had fun. In fact I am really bad in drawing near reality. Normally I am getting inspired by flowers and then drawing them more doodle or zentangle like. After I caught a first impression of the different grasses by pencil, I did some again with a black pen in my usual style. 

Next time I get to draw, I will collect those samples in a tangle picture with some imaginary weeds ;-) Will show you.

Then the boys came out of the water and we had picnic and lay on our backs to look into the trees and talked. Everybody in good mood again. Why don't we do this kind of things more often, instead of stressing with the all-day problems?

Everybody: enjoy the summer as much as you can!

See you soon,

A bientôt,
Jane

airy summer garlands

Not easy to take something so light and delicate on photo!

I did this garlands with the kids of my crafting class. First we decorated the paper with paint bubbles. I loved that, but the kids not so much (Can't understand why - I love messing around with the color). You put water, acrylic paint and one drop of liquid soap in a cup and blow in with a straw until the bubbles rising over the cup. Then you put a paper on it and the bubbles popping on the paper leaving nice traces. We decorated both sides of the paper that way and added some color sprinkles as well. After drying the paper is always a bit wavy, but you can carefully steam-iron it between two towels.

I punched out lots of round discs 

... and also I punched flowers from unicolored paper. We cut out butterflies as well from the bubble paper. 

Then we put together garlands with little wooden pearls to stop the pieces from sliding down.

I fixed my three garlands to a wooden stick to have them all together. I think the effect is nicer when they are together as one alone is very thin and airy so it didn't catch your eye, but three together do. I like them as my newest decoration element and the children from my class loved their garlands too.

A bientôt,
Jane

4 became 1 - Patchwork-Jeans

Life is rolling so fast, I never have time for anything. But at least it is not an illness stopping me :-) so I am not complaining.

Last weekend I attacked a project I wanted to do for a long time already. My jeans often break at the knees, so I had a stack of 5 jeans that are only useful for gardening and honestly, I am not so much gardening that I need 5 dirty trousers. 

So I choose one that had the best fit and still the best quality around the hips and cut off the legs. I used the original legs as a pattern and cut from three others the best parts to make new patchwork legs! 

It worked so well! And I love the result!

My new favourite trouser when it is too chilly for shorts or skirts!

I wondered if all those seams over the legs might not be a little uncomfortable - but not at all. I pressed them open and sew them down and I don't feel them at all. Not even where all the double seams are meeting on the inner side of the leg.

From one of the scrap jeans I keept the top half for gardening shorts. Lazy as I am I didn't hem them and only rolled up the ends. 

My elder son said that this is exactly the shorts-style at his high-school! I felt so stylish and young when he told me :-) Of course he didn't say that to my patchwork jeans! ;-) But I can see myself that it's not the nowadays style - but I don't care! I am old enough and self-confident enough to wear what I like! You too?

A bientôt,
Jane