Sofia is 10!

Sofia -some of you might know her- is enjoying her sewing birthday party at this very moment. M, a ballet friend of Sofia, is having fun too learning some sewing basics from Erika.
My eldest is no big crafter. What she does like very much and prefers playing for years already is horse-riding. But she sure liked to be invited to Sofia's party, who is a talented teenager with a sewing machine. For the wrapping of her present (an easy sewing kit) M had her first sewing experience today. Look at it, we think it's a great result!

Update in the evening: M came home with the sewing virus! She only wants to sew. Thanks Sofia!

The Universe

Wow, this was not ment to be a month with blogsilence. It just happened to be. No craft came out of my fingers!
But certainly there was a lot going on. For instance the organisation of a feast in school with this theme: the Universe. Together with another mother we made a design for the schoolyard, just sitting half an hour on a bench watching our kids playing there. But how to realise it? I made a list with 40 tasks on which parents could enter their names. But none of them did! So one week later I just added their names randomly myself. And guess what, all parents were in!
For me there was some sewing to do: silver curtains for the stage background, to be painted black curtains after the gate and a rocket... I'm not a rocket expert at all, so I drew a simple one on a small piece of paper, based on standard fabric width to make it easy and asked our little boy next door if he liked it. After his approval I went to the market, bought an impressive amount of fabrics by meter and made this 8 meter high rocket! Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday were planned around this so-called Springmarket and we were having a great time.
Thanks F for being responsable for the ropes, fixed on two facades on a distance of 26 m, the bounderies of the schoolyard. You're my hero!

Pif

When M and L were newborns they wore this very cute hat in a beautiful green color. A former colleague did crochet it. Kristel of Vlijtig is another former colleague. She paid this hat at least 20 times (!) forward to several aftercoming babies.
Making a crochet piece of work myself was probably more than 25 years ago! But I wanted to pay it so much forward to one of my nowadays colleagues, who's becoming a father of a little girl. The other one will be given to some other sweet newborn in the future. The blue yarn appeared to be a very fine crochet yarn, but really every yarn will suit you. For today I like to posit following thesis: everybody older than 8 can make a hat like this. So if you like to pay it forward too, get started with an average crochet hook like 4,5 mm. Find a similar pattern via this link.

Catching up

It's quiet on my blog, I know. I'm quite busy both professionally as privately. M and L are into a lot of activities: yesterday we all attended M's circus performance, this morning she was playing her violin in a childrens orchestra. It was the first time for M feeling nervously. Furthermore I'm organising with a group of parents the so-called Springmarket, a feast in school on a Saturday in May. We made a design for the schoolyard, but to get it realised we need a lot of hands... I'll get you posted about the result in a few weeks.
A few weeks ago I got an invitation to contribute to a German family magazine called Nido. It's my first time this is happening through my blog. This week I took a quiet day off to get the work done. Of course it's still top secret ;), but in a few weeks I'll get you posted about that too.

Ordering

Our kitchen has a high ceiling. While sitting here behind the computer, you can look into the kitchen, smell the cooking and ask for a coffee easily :). It's a great spot to make pictures during birthday parties too.
Actually this furniture consists of three parts: a cabinet you see in front, a tabletop and a floating cabinet above the tabletop. Because our house is our own design we made the opening in the wall as wide as the tabletop we had already. This week we mounted the floating cabinet again. For years it was standing on the ground, filled with Lego. As our girls are no Lego lovers, we decided to use the cabinet again where it was designed for in our former house.

Furthermore I made new labels for the folders to make them a bit more attractive. Covered each paper label with adhensive foil, slightly bigger than the label itself and sticked them to the folder. I'm happy, because it took some time to administrate and order the folders. Now it's up to date again, pfff. The view on the folders will hopefully stimulate to do the administration on a more regular base.
Btw 1, do you see that hole in the side of the cabinet? It's made for the printer, which is housing together with the hard disk inside the cabinet. And btw 2, do you see that little hole in the corner of ceiling and wall? I'll write about that later...

Well done!

Here I met some family members of the stick horse:

1. Betje on the Jip & Janneke forum
2. Under the pecan tree
3. Ik heb een bep
4. Practically perfect Polly
5. Vanmarieke.

Well done, isn't it?

Keep on trying

Yesterday evening I was exhausted from work. Once I had decided to make a bag for my birthday neighbour I got soon in a better mood! I loved to combine different fabric samples for the front. The small stripes are Paul Smith's. The bag was almost finished, I thought.
Today only the zipper had to be added. Do you recognize this: party started at 1 p.m, would last till 5 p.m. I, again, 'only' had to add the zipper. But actually I didn't know how to. And, as a like-to-be-autodidact, just started and tried out. Due to timepressure it didn't work out. In the end I searched for a how-to on internet. Still, at 3 p.m. I sadly declared this bag for failed. And quickly went for a cold glass of white wine in our common garden. Dear Cariene, please be patient. There will be an improved one soon. Wine and food were delicious.

Trula

And (after Tord) do you know Trula? Oh, I would like to meet her! She's having a great blog straight from Barcelona. Look at her pics! When she posted these, I was in love.

Lucky ballet dancer M. To be honest, I didn't like to make this tutu and it wasn't simple. I made six layers of supple bridal tulle (2x white, 2x beige and 2x black) and a lycra band and waistband. These unnatural materials are not ment for me. It takes a lot of time to cut them straight and to control their slipping.

Mama, it works! Then she disappeared to play outside with tutu and summershoes.

My sweet niece

Yesterday we spent the afternoon in my sister's sunny backyard. Every year when my niece Janneke is having her birthday, there're plenty of first sunbeams. What a gift to let all the kids play outside and us lazy sitting in the garden!
My niece turned thirteen. In this age there's no more playing, but more hanging around. It's was quite hard for us to think of a nice present. So I sat down and started to sew. I changed this free pattern a bit, one of my saved tutorials on Pinterest. I'm quite satisfied with the result, especially how the striped piping detail turned out to be. Striped fabric is from Ikea. M+L added drawings they made for Janneke in the bag.

Tord

Who (except the Dutch among you) knows Tord Boontje? He's a Dutch designer, known for his floral designs on textiles, furniture, tableware and so on. If you're triggered you could go here to read more about him.
In the office I often use his floral textiles by Kvadrat, but I'm not an overall admirer. We have one little item of him in our sitting room: this long metal garland of flowers that is wrapped around a light bulb. You buy it as a flat metal sheet in which the garland is punched. We had to break it out of the sheet. Love this genius idea, so great job Tord!