Magpie

Rasmus is like a little magpie that loves to find and collect small antiquities. Yes, he's special and having his birthday party tomorrow. L is invited and she will bring this naturel leather pouch, not for his pens but for his finds.


The leather is bought last Saturday among a lot more beautiful pieces. Thanks Kristel, for the great day! And say congrats to me, making something out of it this soon ;).

Like a goose and giveaway

Almost a month ago L turned 9. Our house is perfect suitable for a Ganzenbord (or the Game of Goose or Goose board) birthday party, we thought. We have so many stairs and surprising nooks and crannies. The idea is that all around the house are numbers, from basement till the upper room. We made 63 yellow envelopes, some of which are yellow bags. L helped a lot and loved to write the numbers. Inside the envelopes the kids found an instruction to do or make or guess or play or collect something. Apart from the instruction they found some supplies as well inside the bags, like a tapeline or some goodies. For this birthday party L had to invite eight friends, to be able to make three groups of three kids. With one dice for each group off they went to be occupied for many hours. The kids loved it, it was a big hit! And of course especially our basement filled with clutter was the most popular place to be.

For the Dutch readers among you: nu liggen de tasjes en enveloppen hier en, omdat de voorbereidingen best veel werk kostten, vroeg ik me opeens af of ik misschien iemand met dit feestje blij kan maken. Laat maar even weten in de reacties. Bij meerdere reacties zal ik iemand trekken.

Wanna throw a dice?

Is 'Ganzenbord', or the Game of Goose or Goose board, known all over the world? This game we played with eight friends of L, that she invited on her birthday party. How I will tell you next time (and if you, Dutch speaking blog readers, are interested: I will giveaway this birthday party, so please come back later!).
Together with L we made these invitations, with all we had already around. We even made the yellow dots ourselves. Just because it was raining outside.

Melted

When I saw the doll that a friend had made for her daughter, I melted. These days sitting on the couch, doing some crochet and avoiding complex thinking, are best for me. But I'm not experienced in crochet at all. Apparently that doesn't matter with this free pattern. You could give it a try too! And mind the other ones, that are great as well! Everyone who knows Ravelry, knows these dolls. But I didn't untill now...

This one is a birthday present for L.

As in my mind

Some weeks ago I was attending a dentist visit with my youngest, and while waiting I was flipping through a magazine. When my eyes fell on the picture above, I knew all of a sudden how L's birthday dress would be. And this idea was there to stay; the egg hàd to come out soon after.

At first I was thinking about the fabric. It had to be cotton and stepped or at least have some embossment. As our fabric shop only sells polyester lining fabrics, I considered to buy and use this coverlet of Ikea. Finally I decided to make the stepped cotton fabric myself, and was able to choose color, thread and topstitch.
A relatively thin fiberfill layer was added between lining and outer fabric. I first cut the pattern pieces, as used before and found in this book, and then topstitched horizontal in the color of the fabric and on 60° with yellow thread.

The circular skirt I turned inside out to avoid a seam at the bottom of the skirt. After finishing the body piece, I measured it's bottom line to be sure about the size of the circle I had to cut out of the skirt. How to make the cap sleeves I found as well on Griet's blog.

For the accent edging I chose yellow and a salmon pink in the color of L's cheeks. As you can see I wanted to avoid a shoulder seam in the yellow part of the edge.

About the topstitching a final note: my head wasn't able to finish this laborious job. I decided to decrease the number of yellow lines of the skirt. And I was happy about that: the handmade look of the fabric is more obvious now and I like the change of embossment, something you might not see at once, but only when you look closely. This kind of perception on different scales is my cup of tea.

2015

2015 has begun. That deserves an overview of the last year of Lightbluegrey!
At the same time, let's be open-hearted: the second half of last year I got ill and I won't be back at work soon either. The collage shows that the level of productivity on my blog wasn't that high. I'm happy to tell that recently something came out of my hands again, and that made me happy.
But there are doubts. Doubts about blogging. Doubts about showing things to the world or keeping them privately. After all those years I have doubts about sharing things and my longing for approval. Do I need this? Anyway, as I'm not able right now to decide to quit or not, I will bother you with some blog news soon :).

Thanks for visiting my blog in 2014. Wishing you all a creative 2015!

Favorite fabric

Jil, our sweet girl next door, let me know that she would love to get a drawstring bag in the fabric of the pencil case that I made for her two years ago. This Heather Bailey fabric was used long before for the tree in M's bedroom.

Looking at my remnants stock it appeared that I had to do my best. Remnants were there, but there was little left and their shape was strange.
This fact brought me to this free formed patchwork. Remnants just came together as I found them. Their shape remained. Made it more special to make this easy project (following this tuto; thanks Mieke).

Different

As each year (2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2010) parents of L's class were gathering to make a Sinterklaas present for their child. The teacher asked us to make a pen case for their new fountain pen.

The teacher drew a typical model with a small flap on the blackboard. Not enough inspiring to me if I may say. So I made a different one.... Works perfect :).

Heart's desire

This one is an oldy. I mean, I made it already in January of this year. Meant for L's birthday, but only finished recently! F fixed the frame with wheels and (very important!) pull out handle. Sometimes it just takes long...
For years already L was begging for it: a roller case. I don't know where her desire comes from, as we don't have one and simply love our backpacks. I refused to buy one for her before because none of us likes the available ones with awful pictures of Walt Disney, Pokemon or what so ever. A solution that came up: make one myself.

You'll recognize parts here (thanks Debora!) and here, but after this post my hands were really itching (thanks Riet, for the inspiration!). The significant parts, wheels and handle, come from a cheap Marktplaats (Dutch eBay) buy. I just replaced the ugly case. 'Just' turned to be quite a job. I think this thing was the hardest ever. It just didn't come out of my hands like that and I had to redo about every part of it. I declared myself for crazy several times, but at the same time I very much enjoyed making it. I even laughed when I discovered late at night that I made the whole thing upside down (so zippered pocket and text were wrong). The embroidered words (like done here long time ago) are going to be typical I believe...

Denim was choosen for the outside, a sweet Petit Pan fabric for the inside. The color of the piping I so love! It's super bright as I noticed before; I can't even catch it by camera. Both inner and outer fabrics were stiffened with the most stiff fusible woven layer that I could find. But in the end the case still wasn't hard enough. So finally a strip made of polystyrene panel for the corners attached to foam board for the sides had to be added between the layers. Still I'm not satisfied. Who wants to tell me the secret of all those super hard looking little cases made by you, Belgian bloggers? Although I'm pretty sure I won't make another one...

In the early morning in January L found only one present on her birthday table. After unwrapping she discovered in every pocket some more (like my iPhone!). Among them this toiletry bag.

Now it's finally hers. This way she left for Vlieland. And she walked like a lady!

Three times a charme

My eldest daughter M is 13 now! Yesterday she had her birthday during schoolcamp; the best birthday ever, she assured me today.

She is such an animal lover! That's why she got two kittens today, one for her and one for her sister. Kittens that didn't agree with my initial present idea to make a bag for M with the kittens inside.

Last week M was that enthousiastic about this bag, that I decided to make another one for her. She might be kind of young for a leather bag like this, but on the other hand she will be going to secondary school after summer and she's no more a little kid!
This bag is a sum of the bags I made before. I learn each time and now I'm satisfied with the result. There was no more left of the beautiful cotton straps I bought in Paris and that you saw before, so these leather straps came in. Ordinary glue was a secret friend this time.