I just don't get it!!

For the last week I have been trying to figure this out: how on earth do I do the thing on the picture below??

It's supposed to show how one sews an invisible seam on a pair of trousers....

I have read several ways of doing it, I have the right presser foot, I have the trousers....

I just don't get it - do you?

A birthday bag

For the 1st time in 2 months I used my sewingmachine...WHAT a strange feeling!

I wanted to give yesterday's birthday girl a yellow bag, as she had written on her wish list, but it was no where to be found - not in shops nor on the internet! So I decided to make one myself.

I had an idea in my head about how I wanted it to look. The many things which a woman's bag contain were to be put on the outside of it, as decoration. I know that Liselotte likes things (and art) with a naive expression, so I dared making this kind of bag...

A phone, a purse, a set of keys, a lipstick and a little cookie could very easily be the contence of a lady's bag.

So I drew those bits and pieces on the backside of the vliesofix I had ironed on the fabrics. Then I cut them out, ironed them on to the yellow bag and finally stitched around the edges.

I sewed and sewed in order to get it done before we had to go to Liselotte's place for afternoon cocoa and birthdaybuns. But I didn't manage to finish the dotty biastape and the strap. It's very important to me, that the things I make look well made so I didn't what to rush and end up with a slovenly looking one.

I wrapped the whole lot beautifully and luckily we had another gift for her as well (a gift voucher for this fabulous place). So I told Liselotte that she could have 1½ birthday presents on her actual birthday!! (Not the 1st time that have happened to homemade presents of mine - just ask my sister. SO embarrasing)

Today - and perhaps tomorrow too - I will finish the bag for Liselotte. Then she can put women's stuff inside of it....

Today I send...

....the biggest and warmest HAPPY BIRTDAY to my dear, dear friend who turns 50 years.

If only all of us could be as beautiful in looks, mind and heart as her.

Even though she's the one to recieve gifts today, she herself spreads tiny gifts around her all the time - to the people who meet her and to us who care so much about her. And that she does just by being Liselotte....

Ribbons # 2

They have arrived....and they are even prettier than I had expected.

The winner of my give away is.....

Well, today is the day for picking a winner on the random number generator....

And here you go!! The one who gets the give away, is number:

The person who left comment number 34 is Mortil9

I will drop you a line on your blog Mortil9.....or else it would be wonderful, if you let me know your email adress on v.jespersen@newmail.dk

An outlet sale

Today my friend Liselotte and I went to an outlet sale in our little town. It was held by these 2 producers of children's clothes: Baldvinsson and By Richter. I find it rather funny that such a small town as the one I'm living in - about 2000 people - has 2 clever and well respected designers of children's clothes.

Even though Emil has become too big for their clothes, I still wanted to see what they had to offer. I bought 2 vests by Baldvinsson for him though - they seem to be his size...(maybe a bit too short)

...and for Anne-Sophie I got an amazing dress/ tunic from By richter. It was a bit of a chance to take, because I find it hard to find clothes for her which she likes these days. No wonder since she has just turned 17 and buys the most of her clothes herself ;0)) This is how it looks...it's the one in the middle. It's so beautiful - especially without a belt...

Picture is borrowed from By Richter's website

And guess what? She likes it - A LOT!!

Both Baldvinsson and By Richter make clothes which are made from good and organic certified materials.

DO remember to join my little give away - it ends Monday....

Give it away

Give it away, originally uploaded by lille-ursus.

I'm fed up by looking at this set of clothes, so now I will make it a price in a little give-away. Maybe you have a daughter, a niece, a granddaughter or a little friend whom might fit into it...

It's an apron dress and a small pair of yoga trousers I made in the fall. It's a size 3-4 years.

Leave a comment if you would like to participate in my give-away, and I will draw a winner next monday (January 26th)....Of course it will be done by a random number generator.

Surprises and Hallon Båtar

During December Julia - from Lineanongrata - had an advent give away on her blog. I have enjoyed reading Julia's blog for a while - I love to hear her tell about the wine harvest and life in general. Besides that Julia is a very talented artist....her drawings and illustrations are gorgeous! Well, what I really wanted to say was, that I was one of the lucky winners in the advent give away. And look what came to me in the mail today - all the way from beautiful France:

The finest little bag made out of white linen and a handmade notebook. Julia wrote me a sweet card - the one with her lovely painted bear on it....

During the day I have been thinking about which things I would give the honour of being put in my new white bag. I have narrowed it down to 2 things (my list of choices was long).

1. My current embroidery stuff which I often bring along in my bags.

OR

2. My asthma turbohaler which I have with me where ever I go..

Both are important things for me in my everyday life, and the bag would make them both a lot more beautiful.

The handmade notebook is simply perfect for me. I tend to bring a notebook with me so I can write down - or draw - ideas. The size of the notebook is just great for something like that...

Julia, you made me very happy - thank you so, so much :0))

Oh, I hear the national anthem being played in our TV. I had better go see some handball....and I will bring some Swedish "Hallon båtar" with me!

15...

I know for sure that the sun is shining for this wonderful young man today. He's my very sweet and lovely nephew Andreas, and today he turns 15... Happy birthday, Andreas - I know you will have a wonderful day :0))

1 warm head to go

A head less to freeze it's ears....

I finished the Flower Toggle Hat from Lucinda Guy's book "Designs for kids".

If you are not familiar with her books and designs yet, then you might want to have a closer look at them. I can highly recommend all of her books...

This hat was easy and quick to knit and the only thing I altered from the original pattern, was to make the stem a bit more strong. I did that by using two threads of the yarn instead of one.

So now the flower stands up instead of hanging...

THANKS!!

What more can I want from a rainy Sunday's blogging, than to recieve an award from Hanne ?? It fills me with joy when someone think of me as an creative blogger, and Hanne even gave me beautiful, heartwarming words along with it as well....

I'm so happy that you had me in mind, Hanne - thanks a lot :0))

Now it's up to me to find seven people whom I want to give the award to, and for that I need a little time to think. Not that it's hard to find 7 well qualified crafty people - actually the hard part is to pick only 7 out!!

P.S. Need I say that you should definitely check out Hanne's blog and gorgeous shop with a lot of unique bags, pillows, childrens' clothes and many more treasures?? You will NOT be dissapointed.....

COZY

COZY, originally uploaded by lille-ursus.

While sitting inside on a freezing cold Saturday, feeling cozy with my children, warmth and candles, this feeling made me think of the word "cozy".

So many ways to interpret the meaning of this word....

Meet "FRÖKEN SKICKLIG"

Since my camera is off to Sweden for the next four days, it gives me the right opportunity to write about a wonderful and very sweet artist I recently "met" here in cyberspace... Very generously Juliane let me show some of her amazing work on my blog. I really think you should have the chance to see it - if you don't know it allready!

Photo from http://frokenskicklig.blogspot.com/

Juliane is an actress and a puppeteer. She lives in Sweden and in Berlin where she also has her very own label called "FRÖKEN SKICKLIG".

This label she uses for making her own dolls.

I have never ever seen as gorgeous dolls as the ones Juliane creates. Truely!!! So many fine details make them very special and they almost come alive...

A little mushroom in the doll's pocket...

Photo from http://frokenskicklig.blogspot.com/

The finest hair with happy plaits...

Photo from http://frokenskicklig.blogspot.com/

Dimples on the elbows and knees...

Photo from http://frokenskicklig.blogspot.com/

And a tiny bellybutton....

Photo from http://frokenskicklig.blogspot.com/

....are all factors which make a huge difference when it comes to creating a personality for a doll, if you ask me. All those magnificent things are a part of Juliane's dolls.

Just the kind of doll I would be thrilled to give my daughter if she was some what younger than seventeen...

In the middle of February Juliane will open an esty shop and one on Dawanda. But you don't have to wait that long to have a closer look at her beautiful work - her blog is definitely worth stopping by....

Photo from http://frokenskicklig.blogspot.com/

Ribbons

I'm really not that strong-willed when it comes to haberdashery!

I you ask me, one can never have too much of that stuff - buttons, bias tape and ribbons are all necessities in order to have a well supplied craftroom (hmm, hmm!)

Strangely enough I tend to use a very small amount of these things. At least not often enough to justify my ever growing stash of haberdashery. Only bias tape is a recurring factor in my sewing.

But I have several ideas where to put the ribbons and buttons, so they make a piece of clothes look more personal and unique. I just don't do it that often!

Nevertheless I just ordered more ribbons - they are so beautiful and every single one of them in colours and patterns I adore! So hard to resist!

All of the adorable ribbons you see in this post are bought right here - at Aspegren. I never knew that they made haberdashery (and Thank God for that, my husband would say!) I knew they had amazing figurines, pillows, tablecloths and seasonal ornaments.

But now I know that they have gorgeous ribbons as well - I had better figure out where to use them before they arrive.....who says it has to be put on my clothes? I could easily see it on a gift, around a jar or gathering a buch of candles.

One thing is for certain though: when some of my haberdashery appear on my sewing or in my house, I will definitely let you know that I used some!! (and I might tell my husband too!)

A special day

One of the very special days of the year is January the 12th. This is the day Anne-Sophie was born - and this particular one is her 17th birthday.

I hope she has the most wonderful day...(eventhough the muffins I made for her to bring to school look like active vulcanos!! Need I say that she brought something else and that I will give it another go tomorrow?? I simply couldn't let her serve those cakes at school.)

Happy birthday my dearest Anne-Sophie...

OHHHHH!!

Do you remember this fabric which is my all time favourite?? In which I made the dress below... (I still have some fabric left waiting for the RIGHT project for myself.)

Well, now it's back in new and gorgeous colours!!!

That colour scheme I adore too......

I could very easily think of a million things, which I could make out of this new one. If I had some, that is.....

Do you know Shane Brox??

I'm a huge fan of Shane Brox - "who is he?" you might ask yourself.

He's an author and a designer. I saw him for the first time, in one of his programs for children on DR, our national tv channel.

He is a FABULOUS story teller and while he tells his amazing stories on TV, he creates his very own fantasy world and characters out of everyday things. He paints, cuts out things, glues - you name it!

It's hard for me to tell how wonderful he is for children and their imagination - you actually have to see for yourself (and if you live in Denmark you can see him every Friday at six o'clock.) Or you can have a look at this. Besides making TV, Shane Brox has written a number of books for children as well. Like this one:

And "The magical cookery book".

Shane Brox has also made a fantastic project for Royal Copenhagen - a very famous Danish firm which makes high quality porcelain products which are known all over the world.

He has recreated "Royal White" - a number of figurines taken from the heritage of Royal Copenhagen's works over the last 232 years. The figurines used to be painted in colours, but Shane Brox had them painted white, in order to make them more contemporary.

He did make something else with some of the figurines as well - he brought them into one of his stories and created a dinner service for children.

Who wouldn't love to eat food from this beautiful service?

I simply can't get enough of Shane Brox's fantasy worlds and amazing creations - and I keep watching children's TV on Fridays at six o'clock....

Birdy treasures

Yesterday's delivery also included some fabric.

I seem to be partial to birds these days, because I love the way they are printed on both of these pieces of fabric.

And "no" the birdy tresure wasn't real birds visiting my bird house!!!

I'm getting there

I assume that my 2nd big "Mini" from design.club.dk will be done in a few days. Anne-Sophie tried it on today and the cardigan is by now the length she wants it to have - actually it's a bit too long. Unravel, unravel!! But luckily only 5 rows or so...

I really like the colour she chose and I'm excited to see the big buttons she has been talking about. I hope the buttons holes are big enough!

I will not be short of knitting projects when I'm done with the "Mini". Today I got the yarn and pattern for this lovely sweater, and I bought the most gorgeous wool cotton for a little hat yesterday - the Flower Toggle Hat from one of Lucinda Guy's books.

And let's not forget this s...l...o...w project!

I always end up with a million projects at a time, not knowing which one to finish first!

Waiting for birds to arrive

Or maybe I put it too close to the window!?

Sadly our cat was killed by a car before Christmas...I really miss it and so does Emil!

But if I have to look at it in the positive way, then I'm glad that we - hopefully - can feed the wild birds again.

I think it's so cozy to watch those little fellows eat and jump around on their tiny birds' legs....

Come, come, come little birds!!!

I would love to keep my yarn in this

Whenever I come across this gorgeous piece of furniture in a store or see it on the internet, I tend to get all miserable! It's a sewing- and knittingtable designed by the great Danish designer of furniture Hans J. Wegner.

It's made out of solid oak wood and you can keep your yarn and knitting in the round basket placed in a hole under the table. When you pull out the drawer this is what meets your eyes:

All those lovely little compartments in the drawer for sewing needles, pins, buttons and other haberdashery - and with tiny wooden pins on which you can put your bobbins and sewing threads.

Ohhh, I wish that I could have one...!

I will keep my eyes open in the future - maybe I can find one here ?

Soon...

I think that I'm just about ready to sew again one of these days...at least a little while at the time. Several projects have come to my mind - I have promised my mother in law to make one of these as a present for a friend of her's, and Anne-Sophie wants trousers in the last fabrics I bought from Små Tekstiler before they closed. One of them is the golden flax in which I once made this: Further more I have recently bought the amazing Village Frock pattern and I'm really excited to try it out. See for yourself how gorgeous it looks...

And it can have so many different looks according to which fabric you use. This flickr group shows a lot of possibilities.

To use flax for my 1st version of the Village Frock - because I know I will definitely make more than one - would be an obvious choice for me. The pattern has so many fine details, which can easily drown in a fabric with lots of prints. So 1 colour it will be...maybe purple....or pale blue....or?