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After work

Sometimes I just grab my sewing machine as soon as I'm home from work. These working days were not the best, so I needed to empty my head.

The lucky one who is getting a present this time is birthday girl Grietje, a beautiful romantic little girl in L's class. The bag is made of a fine and soft Liberty fabric and finished with a golden bias binding.

Like papa

F loves bikes, recumbents, carts, etcetera. And because he is not able to discard all kinds of 'lovely' parts like wheels, gears, pipes, and so on, our basement is a place where I don't like to be, but F so much the more.
Yesterday M spent the day in the footsteps of her father. Together with her best friend she made a sulky. (Now I know at least, what a sulky is :)) For many years they run along our streets and the park together with their stick horses. Both horse lovers can't stop doing so. I like them being outside this often, barely taking time for a break to eat or drink. The sulky was made by the two of them. In the end F helped a bit fastening the wheels. And there they run!
Btw, did you mention this post of Vervlogen dagen? I so hope L will once like a party like that.

Do the clutch - end

This third clutch was made for my sweet niece Sietske.

The clutches were made in the same order as shown to you. The pattern was just drawn by myself and was changed after clutch number one to get a slightly larger one. I loved to pick the fabrics with M, having the receiver of the present in mind.

After three clutches I wasn't bored at all! It's great to play with the patterns and to try to make the pattern continuously. The yellow pattern of this fabric was familiar to me, being one of the patterns in this book.

Let's finish these clutch series with some tips:

1. These Prym press fasteners are easy to cover. Cut a small circle of your fabric, baste along the edge, pull the thread to cover the upper part of the fastener.
2. It's better to reinforce the fabric on the inside for the lower fastener part. As the upper part is going through the flap with the volume interfacing, it is not necessary to reinforce here. 
3. When you make the wrist strap according to this tutorial and you're about to keep the swivel clip from sliding around, I recommend to stitch across the strap near the swivel clip exactly on the seam (that you made by connecting the two ends of the strap). Doing this will make the seam invisible. Something for purists, I know.
   

Wanna swap?

These fabrics of my stock, 50x110 cm of canvas cotton Pop and Popstar of Kokka, are apparently not my favorite. I thought that maybe one of you is into a fabric swap? Please let me know!

Do the clutch again

Today it's Christina's turn, who got 7 years old last Monday. Don't make it too flowery nor too pink, that's not like Christina, L assumed me.

We added some elastics and a hair band inside.

Do the clutch

Last weekend three clutches were made, two for two birthday girls of 14, one for a birthday girl of 7. Where were would we be for such presents without Sofie? The only little changes I made: the slightly bigger press fastener was covered by fabric. I'm not sure about Sofie, but for this clutch I used volume interfacing, that was attached to the lining.


Today it's Jula's turn. Now I know she liked it. As did M, who gave it to her.

Approved

The day before yesterday we went to the Plaswijckpark in the north of Rotterdam. Strange weather because, yes, L needed her new coat on her bike, but during the day it was on and off again. In the afternoon L was playing in her underwear because of the heat (she loves to feel the air upon her skin!), but some later she was very cold again.

We were glad her coat was finished in time!

Summer collection

Last week I just had to sew. My hands didn't take it anymore. Totally in the mood. A new coat for L was about to be born.
After a satisfying winter coat I decided to do the same trick again using this pattern (page 6) with a self-invented lining. This time no long search for the right fabric, but just a glance in my fabric stock, that was quite recently refilled with new fabrics from the Stoffenspektakel and from the Fragile fabric sale.

A bit more about Fragile. As I have some favorite dresses of Fragile I was keen on their fabric sale. So on a Wednesday afternoon I took half a day off to jump on the train to Antwerp, listened for almost an hour to a live band performing on the great station, went to buy Fragile fabrics and visited the city center afterwards, all alone and happy. Catch of the day were quite of lot of knit fabrics and this viscose.

But let's go back to the coat. At first I planned an ocher colored coat, but all of a sudden this plan changed and a Fragile fabric was used. It has a bit stretch, but appeared quite easy to sew.

Funny to combine a non-crease fabric on the outside and a crease one on the inside: for the lining I used a rose linen fabric, which I love because of the visible weaving. The peeping details were made in a Petit Pan leftover of this dress.

The back of the coat got a box pleat. The coat has a zipper to keep the wind out for my cycling daughter. To get an extra accent the front was finished with covered buttons and loops made of a bright cotton fabric.
Today was the first day of the coat into use. We discovered that the sleeves are a bit too long - so allow L to grow - and that the pockets could have been placed a bit higher. Wondering how it is on L? Come back later!

Sewing daughters

Sofia of Erika stayed overnight last week. As always Sofia took along her typical Mikodesign doll. The day after M and Sofia were both so eager to sew the I love Paris doll set I had still laying around. Without any help because I was in the office. They solved sewing machine problems together and learned each other how to sew. This is so great! In the meantime doll clothes were made as well.

Good timing because this doll will accompany M to Paris in less than two weeks! Erika spent hours with me to well prepare our Paris visit. Thanks, Erika!