Spring Cleaning III & some Sewing

A small update on the office/guestroom.

I actually can see the floor again!
Threw a lot out, or put it in boxes. Where it belonged..!
And I have a little desk space, which is currently filled (again) with my sewing machine.

Finally got the sewing machine back to work, the thread kept breaking, but I fixed it... Yay me!

This is what I made.

Finally, no more searching for my crochet needles or a scissor.
Found the tutorial on Pinterest.

The flowerfabric is a scrap of Tilda I had left from the bedspread, the white is IKEA, also left over from the bedspread...

Love, Caroline

PIF

I came across this topic on a couple of blogs I read.

PIF...
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PIF?
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PIF stands for Pay It Forward... Now that rings a bell...!

Remember the movie?
The idea is that you do something selfless for someone. That someone may in turn be inspired to do something selfless for someone else (or multiple someones...)

So when Rebekka asked if any of her readers was interested in a PIF, I didn't hesitate to respond...

Today I visited Rebekka (more on that in another blogpost) and I got my PIF...!
It is sooooooo gorgeous!
Rebekka knows we (Andries and I) love everything Whale and we love whaley-stuff for Joshua.
I could have guessed I would get a Whaley-PIF...

She made a Marble-bag with an embroidered whale. Inside was a felt whale which I can add to a shirt, bag or make a brooch from, a whale stamp, a stuffed whale (which Joshua LOVES! ! !) and a really cute small whale pin...

So now it's my turn to Pay It Forward...!
If there is anyone who is interested in receiving a small PIFpackage, let me know!
You don't have to have a blog to enter... You just have to like receiving a small gift and be open to the idea of maybe Paying It Forward...!

Love, Caroline

ThriftStore Finds

Last week I payed a visit to the thiftstore.
Finally I had a satisfied feeling when I left.
I'm always complaining that others find the cool stuff and when I'm there, there's nothing good...
Well, not this time!

A sugarshaker and a cafetiere for a friend.

A new suitcase for the class sleep-over bear.

A fleece vest for Joshua. Maybe add a whale on the back?

I also bought 5 kids magazines to copy from for school and a "Berenboot"-comic.


Love, Caroline

Taggies

Last week I made two taggies. The first one was a gift for a friend son, who is 4 weeks older than Joshua.

Joshua loves the rustling of plastic, so I put a layer of plastic in between the two layers of fabric.

It was a big succes with the little boy who I gave it to.

I also made one for Joshua with the piece of gnome-fabric Rebecca  gave me.
I added the clip she also gave me, so I can clip the taggie on Joshua's clothing or the walker when we go out.

I used a slightly thicker plastic for this one, but next time I'm using the thinner one again, since that rustles a lot more. I also didn't sew an extra line along the outside, but I'm adding that this week. I think it just gives the taggie a little more finished look.

Love, Caroline

Sunday Recap #1

Starting today, I'm posting a recap of my week, every Sunday afternoon or evening... So here goes:
This week:

- I read about 50 pages in "Groen doen" by Marie-Claire van den Berg. I was amazed of how ingnorant and easily-fooled (most/some) people are when it comes to the environment (myself included on some parts). It's really easy to read and made me laugh on more than one occasion.

- Andries bought Joshua his first Lego. He also assembled it... LOL

- We started re-organizing our bathroom, but it's still a WIP, so no pictures yet.

- I went to "work". This week was the last week of the two week X-masbreak, so the kids were still at home. This gave me and my new duo-partner a chance to discuss how we are going to run our group.

- We ate pancakes at my colleague's place. Hubby helped her hubby with a DIY-job that wasn't really a one-man job...

- I got the "slofjes" Rebekka (the above-mentioned colleague) sewed for Joshua.

- My fabric from Spoonflower arrived on Saturday.

- We tried the Tripp-Trapp, but it's still a bit big...

- I sewed a seatcushion for Joshua's Tripp-Trapp. I still need to make a padded seatcover. (I also fixed hubby's shirt, pant-pocket and Joshua's Fant (elephant))

- I crocheted about 4 rows on my ripple-blanket and started on an Owl-beanie for hubby...

Ofcourse I did loads more, but these are the most "interesting things"...
Tomorrow is my first "real" workday since I've been on leave... Also the first day our babysitter is coming over to watch Joshua for the whole day... I'm a bit anxious...

Love,
Caroline

Some pictures of this week:

Daiperpouch

I was sick and tired of taking my huge daiperbag with me for Joshua, just going to the store for some groceries.
So I sewed a small daiperpouch, which fits in my handbag. It holds a sack of babywipes and 3 or 4 daipers. I could even fit a mouthcloth in there.

I used eloleo's tutoleo but pimped the outside a bit.

We are really into sealife, so I made a whale cutout on the front.

For the liningI used a cradlesheet from the Hema, which someone gave me But since I don't have a cradle and it doesn't fit Joshua's crib, I cut it up.
The outside is IKEA Aina fabric.

 I'm planning on making a messenger-style-bag for Joshua to take his stuff to the daycarecentre. And I'm using the same fabrics...

Hopefuly I can show you my progress on that next time, but I'm also doing loads of othe crafty stuff, so maybe I'll show that first...

Love,

Caroline

Bedspread and crocheting...

Yesterday I wrote about the bedspread...
And here it is.
The wall and bed don't match with the quilt, even the slightest, but we plan on partially redecorating the bedroom... I just don't know when yet...

I'd love to paint the "wood" on the bed white and I want the wall behind the bed in one color. Would purple match with the quilt?

I also started crocheting. I did Mieks first lesson, but impatient as I am, I went online in search of more.. Youtube is a great medium...! ! ! This is what I'm working on.
When I'm done, I'm sewing the ends together and it'll be a scarf (cowl?)

First I wanted to make a blanket, but I didn't use enought stitches te start with. And I didn't want to take it apart and start again...

If you want to try this combination of stitches (it's really cute when you use multiple colors), watch this video! It's really good and repeats each step several times!



Well, that's it for today!

Love, Caroline

PS Leave me a comment?

Busy week

I had a really busy week, with lots of crafts...First I tought myself how to crochet, but more on that tomorrow!

Wednesday I showed you I was going to see Rihanna...  Well that turned out to be a huge bummer...

Grandma came to babysit Joshua, so Andries and I could go to Arnhem.
It was really busy on the roads, with loads of small traffic jams, which was annoying, but not really a big deal, since Rihanna wouldn't start until 9PM.
We were in Arnhem quite on time, but all the parking spaces around the Gelredome were full, so we had te park elsewere, which meant a 20 minute walk to the stadium (but no parking fees).
When we finally got inside, the opening act (Calvin Harris) was just ending his performance. That was at 8.30PM, so we were on time to see Rihanna...

Well, 9 PM came... And went... 9.30 PM came.... And went... And the diva didn't start until 9.58PM.
And about the first half an hour she didn't sing much herself, but left most of the singing up to her backgroundsingers and the audience...
After those 30 minutes her voice seemed warmed up and that's when she showed what an amazing singer she really is... Eventhough she still turned the mic to the audience waaaaaaay too much....
I wasn't really too enthousiastic about the whole show, so I didn't take any pictures...
(When we came home, I read loads of rumours on Twitter that Rihanna was drunk and stoned, which would explain a lot, but makes it even worse... You're not really a serious artist of you drink and smoke weed before a concert...! The next day, these rumours were also all over the news....)

Before Andries and I went to Arnhem, my mom and I went to the thriftstores in Almere to see if they had anything good. I bought a shirt and a pair of pants at Tante Pollewop and a shirt, a Sinterklaasbook and two Heinekenglasses, at the big thriftstore. My mom also brought a vest I saw at the thriftstore in Harderwijk and didn't buy then and a really cool LiefLifestyle Wintercoat, which I bought of Marktplaats and was delivered to her house (the seller lives in the same street).

The day after the concert, my mom helped me to finish the bedspread I started on last December and picked up again in May/June.
The thing is kind of big and I don't have that big a piece of free floorspace in my house, so I couldn't lay it out completely. I sewed half of it together last week, on my own, but that took me just about the whole day. So because my mom was here anyway, I figured she could help me out...

The gorgeous pink and blue(ish), flowery, polkadotted bedspread in laying proudly on our bed now, and it's already keeping my feet nice and warm.
I can't wait for the nights to get reaaaaally cold, so we can use it over the whole bed...! Pictures of the beadspread tomorrow also...! I'm a bit lazy today and have lots to do... :-(

Love, Caroline

Raglan baby T-shirt

A while ago I borrowed a couple of Ottobres from my colleague Rebekka.

I found this great pattern for a T-shirt, that didn't look too diffucult.

And at the FabricSpectacle in Lelystad I already bought some cool kid knit-fabrics.

So I started on my first real sewing project yesterday.
Other than sewing straight lines on cotton, I have never sewn anything without my moms help... So I was really scared ! ! !

The pattern I picked, really wasn't too difficult. I ran in to a little problem with the cuffs and collar, but I fixed that rather nicely, if I say so myself...
You can see what went wrong, but for a first try, I really happy with the result!

Love,

Caroline

Celebrations...

We are celebrating the 5th anniversary of our school, so every classroom and the halls are decorated with all sorts of stuff...

I wanted to make a fabric flag-garland for a long time and last sunday I worked my ass off to fix it...

It's just short of 10 meters and hanging proudly in my classroom:

One of the thing we celebrate during the party-weeks is "meesters- en juffendag", a collective birthdayparty for all the teachers.
I got spoiled rotten by my kids. My class-mothers organised a collective gift, which consisted of a large daiper-cake, filled with little gifts the kids bought...
Here's the cake:

I got a few gifts just for me (some Rituals shower foams and a Toblerone-bar) and the rest of the gifts are for the baby. Socks, some cuddly-animals, rattling-toys, a few rompers, a couple of baby-pyjama's and lots more... Really cool stuff..
I won't bore you with lots of pictures of all te gifts so this is it for today...

Love,

Caroline



Fabrics and a Star

Today the fabrics I ordered at Dekkers Stoffen, came in the mail...

I ordered short pieces of each fabric, as I'm using them for a line of party-flags and I won't be needing very much of each color. It was a great way of testing this webshop and I was very VERY pleased with their fast service...

And I found one of the lights I was talking about in my previous post at Tante Truus.

Not really expensive and Earth Friendly (litterally!).

I looks great in our little boy's room...!

This is all for today!

Love,

Caroline

Tools and Thriftstore finds...

When I was working on my quilt, I discovered some of my sewing-tools magically disappeared... Not that thats really a bad thing, since the stuff that's missing came from a crappy, cheap box with sewing supplies.
So I thought I'd treat myself to some new tools:

I bought some patternpaper, so I could start tracing patterns from the Ottobres I borrowed from Becced. There's some really cute boy's stuff in there I really want try my hand at...

I also went to the thriftstore yesterday, looking for some baby's clothes and some other garments I could pull apart and make something else out of.

But no such luck...

I did buy these:

A book about kids-parties.

A crafting book I can use for crafting ideas for my schoolkids. And a really old and corny sewingbook from Burda... Could come in handy with the sewing basics...

Really happy with these finds...

Love,

Caroline

"Quilted" Bedspread...

For my bacheloretteparty in January 2010, my mom, mother in-law, sisters in-law and my best friend took me to a "quilting" workshop.
Very basic stuff, but soooo cool!

We did a High Tea and chose to make a large quilt.

When I got back home, hubby told me he loved it (who would've thought, with all the pink and flowers) and said  I should make a bigger one, to fit our bed...
Great idea, buth with the wedding coming up, lots of other stuff to do and sooooo little time, I didn't get around starting 'till last December...

But then I started with this:

And last week, I finished the top layer.. ! ! ! It's absolutely huge (2,5m x 2,5m), and I'm dreading to start on the finishing, but I want it done soon, since I have lots of other idea's for sewing projects...

This gives you an idea of what it's gonna look like when it's finished and on our bed...

I'm planning to make some matching pillowcovers, but that's not a priority at the moment.
If there's something you want to know, about how I made this, just ask...


Love,
Caroline

Fabric Spectacle

Last friday I went to Lelystad with two of my colleagues.
They had the Fabric Spectacle there and I wanted to shop for some stuff...

This is what I bought:

Filling for the bedspread I'm making. That would be a boring picture, so I'll post a picture of the quilt-like spread later on...

Plain white tricot to add to a skirt, so I can wear it during the rest of my pregnancy.
And this lovely tricot, designed bij Eline Pellinkhof. I'm making a "buikband" to spice up my plain tee's and accentuate my growing belly...

 

And then I spotted these:

And I just had to have them. They're gonna look so cool on our little boy... Now I just have to figure out what to make of them and how to do it.

As I'm kind of new to sewing (up till now I've only sewn straight lines on cotton), I'll probably screw up a couple of times. But my colleague is very handy! So I'll ask her for advice...!

I also bought new fabric scissors, since my other scissors were screwed up by hubby-dearest, some ribbon and bias tape for a garland I'm planning to sew...

This is it for now! More soon, I promise...

I'm already planning new posts ;-) ! ! !

Love,

Caroline

PS: making this blogpost took some time, 'cause of the placement of the pictures (I'm a sick perfectionist), but not too long... The new Blogger features for editing are great, so I have good hopes of keeping this blog updated...! ;-P

And Becced: thanks for welcoming me back...! You probably didn't think I'd do it, did you ???