This evening we got home from a perfect sunny family weekend in Southern Jutland. Now, the children are in bed, and I’m seated in the couch with my laptop. I thought I’d tell you about some of the things I’ve made recently. I have made most with the help of tutorials, so I have some nice links for you as well.

This first one has become a favourite of mine already. I used a tutorial from mmmcrafts for a basic messenger bag and this tutorial gets my best recommendations – it’s as good as any pattern you can buy. Thumbs up, Larissa!

My inspiration for my rendition with the bias tape around the flap came from this beautiful version that she made herself. I widened the strap a bit to make sure it’s comfortable to wear, and I used sew-in interfacing to add body to the bag. I’m not too sure about the flower on the flap, but it’s a bit too late for that now. We’ll see what I come up with next time I make this.

This is a bag I will be making again for sure!

So second up, I made doll diaper bags for Ronja and Frida. It all started because I had promised Frida to get her new diapers for her Baby Born doll – I got her diapers for premature babies, because they are much cheaper than the ones in the toy stores. When I got home with the diapers, it quickly came up that she didn’t have a diaper bag to carry them in. Sooooo, I promised I’d make one for her. Ronja heard. Ronja hardly ever plays with that kind of dolls anymore, but if I was making a doll diaper bag for Frida, she needed one as well. What can I say…

I made these two diaper bags in an evening following the Pretend and Play Diaper Bag tutorial here. The girls picked the fabric themselves. The construction of these bags is slightly different compared to the messenger bag above, since the shell of the bags is quilted with batting, which is also what gives them kind of a diaper bag “feel”. The bag has one big room on the inside, and a small pocket on the flap. The tutorial doesn’t mention measurement and placement for the pocket, but I measured the feeding bottles to get it right. Make sure you don’t place the pocket too high, though – you don’t want it to go reach to the top of the flap.

I was planning to make some other stuff as well, changing pads and sewn wipe cases with fabric wipes in them, but I was called to the kindergarten, because Frida had fallen over and hit her head pretty bad. So I spent my afternoon in the emergency room where Frida got stitched up, but at least, when we got home I could cheer her up with the new diaper bag. Both the girls love their bags, so they were worth the effort! And Frida’s head is fine as well.

The latest thing I made is an iPad sleeve.

I actually treated myself to an iPad 2 two days ago (LOVE), and I wanted to bring it with me on the family weekend, however I didn’t have anywhere to put it. I whipped up this sleeve in just under an hour (well, that’s quick for me!) based on this tutorial.

The tutorial is great, I followed her measurements exactly, and the result is good. However, the fit is a bit too tight, and if I were to make this again, which I just might in order to get it quite right, I would take out half a centimeter from the fleece lining compared to the outer fabric on each side. I made the fleece the same size as the outer fabric, and it’s just a little bit too bulky on the inside which means it takes up room that was meant for the iPad. Also, I would add an extra centimeter to the length of the outer fabric. If I make this again, I will let you know the measurements for the iPad 2 that I find to be the right ones.

As usual, I try to gather the tutorials that I like right here – you might find something you like as well!

It definitely makes me want to sew summer clothing, so yesterday I made another dress from the latest Ottobre – this time for Frida. I picked out 5 or 6 fabrics that I would be happy to sew it up in, and Frida made the final decision, which is a beautiful design from Heather Bailey’s Nicey Jane collection.

The dress is #18 (design B) from Ottobre 3/2011, and in spite of the simplicity of the design, it has the piping at the neckline and the bias tape at the hem to add a few nice details. I traced a 98 length and a 92 width, and it’s a perfect fit. The bias tape I used for the hem is Michael Miller gingham, and I used it for the piping as well, cut in halves. I even managed to find som matching daisy buttons for the dress – it could not be any more summery, and Frida loves it.

I haven’t made piping before, and it’s not perfect, but it’s not bad either – I found it a little hard to work around the strap roundings, I probably should have stretched it a little more through the curve. Anyway, this is the perfect summer dress!

Meanwhile, it’s always hard to predict what will happen to the stuff you sew, isn’t it. Take the tulip dress – I almost had to bribe Ronja into modeling the tulip dress… Why? Apparently, it’s scratchy. If any of you guys have a quick fix for scratchy linen, let me know, because I’m afraid otherwise there is no rescue for the dress. But here she is wearing it – at least she looks content.

Ronja hasn’t been measured for a while, so I did just before I started tracing, and it turns out she’s a size 116 according to her height, but only a 98 width – phew! I decided to add room for growth, and traced a 116 height and 104 width for her – still I had to concentrate while tracing to make everything match up. I always highly recommend measuring before you sew up Ottobre garments, because they tend to be quite wide in the sizes, but they fit perfectly if you go by measurement.

I used linen for the dress and spiced it up a little with Amy Butler’s “Daisy Bouquet” for the sleeves. I added two appliqued tulips in order to create a link from the sleeves to the main fabric, and I think it works fine, even if the edge stitching of the tulips isn’t the best I’ve ever made – for some reason the fabric didn’t quite move properly while I was sewing. Other than that everything came together just fine, and it’s a perfect fit for Ronja.

I haven’t made this kind of pleats before, but I find them such a neat alternative to gathering – a beautiful design detail (yet slightly more time consuming). This is a wonderful summer dress – and it’s original name “Sunshine Sailor Dress” goes so well with the fact that we will be spending this year’s summer vacation on our boat!

Mads is away for a few days, which means that tonight I’m home alone with the girls and a sore throat. I put the girls to bed a while ago, and Ronja actually lost her first tooth, while we were brushing her teeth – that is quite an event for a 6-year old, and she proclaimed she will be expecting a visit from the tooth fairy. I don’t remember tooth fairies from when I was a child, but I guess I should probably find a coin or something.

Today has been spent on the couch under a blanket, sleeping and drinking lots of tea with honey, and yesterday was rather similar. The next few days I am attending a conference called New Media Days that takes place in Copenhagen once a year. I love going there to expand my knowledge on current development and the future of digital media, and I am so hoping to wake up tomorrow just a little bit better.

It’s been a busy week, this past week. I spent a couple of days in London – it was work related, but we had time off as well. I like London a lot, and I would love to go back there before long. We didn’t overdo sleep, so Friday back at work was a long day.

The origami crane mobile you see on the left, are some that I made Saturday (if you want to learn how, you can find instructions here), when I went to yet another blogger meetup with the inspiring group of crafty, blogging women that I am lucky enough to be part of. Those days are great, and it’s always hard to leave – we spend an entire day talking, laughing, sharing, doing different kinds of crafts, enjoying snacks and great food – and well – joining in conversations about all the things that we have in common, as well as the things we don’t. Thanks, girls! The glass bead at the bottom of the crane mobile was made by Anne, who has taken on glass crafting – she makes some gorgeous stuff.

The week before this one, we went to a check-up with Frida. As some of you recall, she was born with a cleft palate, and had surgery when she was 18 months. We have been visiting a speech therapist to make sure her language would come along as it should, and also to determine whether she would need further surgery or not (elaborated here). Getting all the sounds right has taken a while for Frida, but we are so getting there. This time, visiting the speech therapist was just so much fun for Frida as well as her proud parents. She went through an entire book, describing what she saw in a bunch of pictures, and her pronunciation as well as her attitude towards the task was just a pleasure to witness. The therapist told us she had no reason to believe Frida would need another round of surgery, and I so hope she is right. We can do without.

When you look at my blog, it does indeed look like nothing much is happening. However, going through my recent calendar, and my recent pictures you would be getting an entirely different impression. I was just checking to see what should be included in a much needed update, and from that, I can totally see why I haven’t had time for blogging.

I miss my blog, my blog reading, and all of you guys out there (if anyone’s left), let me just say that first. However, these past few months work has been terribly busy and quite energy comsuming, which is good because I love what I’m doing – it just takes a few sacrifices. And as if business at work wasn’t enough, we also took on a project in our family – more about that further down.

I’ll give you a picture wrap up – so let’s see what we’ve been doing the last few months.

So – briefly:

Mallorca in July

Canoe trip to lake Immeln in Sweden in July

Ronja starting school in August

Ronja’s 6 years birthday in August

I made these adorable goodie bags from Minimega’s printable pdf for the occasion when the class was visiting – just had to show you!

And now in this look-back we’re approaching September, and of course, in our family we just always need 2-300 things keeping us busy, so we started looking for a sail boat (this is the project I mentioned at the beginning). Our new love will be a separate post (or several, of course), now that I hope I will keep up the posts just a little more than I have the past 3-4 months.

We spent all of our spare time for a month driving around the country (and southern Sweden as well), dragging the children onto all kinds of sail boats that were more or less fit for a family of 4 – in all kinds of weather. Which is a lie, actually, ’cause it was raining almost all the time. We finally found the boat model Shipman 28, which is a good Swedish design by Olle Enderlein from 1969. It seems to live up to the things we were looking for in a sail boat, that is meant to host future summer vacations, and numerous sails during the sailing season – within the price limit we were willing to spend. So check this out:

We named the boat ANNA after my amazing grandmother who died 4 years ago. She was a woman who radiated warmth, wit, interest, and just a presence that anyone around her felt and was struck by – she always had a strong ability to gather the family. So those are the qualities we humbly want our new love to possess – or perhaps rather the name stands for a lot of positive things that we want to carry with us when we are sailing and spending time on the boat.

We have spent quite a few weekends with her by now, and we all love it. The girls are getting used to saling step-by-step, and we cannot wait to spend a summer vacation with Anna.

On to the next thing:

Frida’s 3 years birthday in September

All these things have put quite a strain on the calendar, and remember, this is without the stuff that has been going on in our work lives, which at least in my case has been quite a bit. And did I mention we started renovating the bedroom?

This post reflects very much my need to do a wrap-up before I can move on to the next blogpost. It may seem like nothing, but this is just not really what you want to be doing when you have a blog – you want to write whatever enters your mind at the moment, right? Not much crafty stuff here, and the time-issue is in part an explanation for that, but I have been doing minor things. I’ll let you know more soon.

Anyway, today she went to get her Nintendo DSi – and she has been spending the afternoon playing with it. We will definitely need to make some kind of rules in that area, but we didn’t today. Now she’s in bed, but we’re going to be spending the weekend at my Mom’s, so I had to make a pouch for the thing, of course.

I found the perfect tutorial over at Mad Quilter, and it took me around 45 minutes to make it. I used heavy sew-in interfacing which worked well and velcro for the closure. The fabric is from the Danish fabric store Stof & Stil.

The tutorial is super-easy to follow, and the pouch is just the way it should be. Next time I make this, I may add a strap to it, so she can carry it easily. Other than that – it you have a child with a DS and no pouch (or you are missing one yourself) – get to it!

Finally I just want to show you what Ronja and Frida ended up looking like last Sunday at Fastelavn (carnival).

This is after they came home, and Ronja’s hair has dropped a bit. I think Ronja was really happy with her costume, and even though Frida initially had a bit of a “I-want-to-be-a-ballerina-as-well” trip, when she got to choose the colour of Pippi’s freckles (purple), and a flower on her cheek, she seemed alright with it.

As for the organza for the pettiskirt – I cannot advise anyone to use it, it frays too much, and the seams will fall apart eventually. I will be making two more skirts for sure – this time using the right fabric. It costs a fortune to have nylon chiffon sent here from the states ($50 shipping alone), so if any of you wise women out there know of a way to get it at a more reasonable rate, please let me know!

I have been sewing for most of the day today – geeeeez, there are so many yards to go over!

I should share the details, because I have been using quite a few resources, and learnt a few things during my sewing. I know I link to this tutorial/video in my section of tutes that I want to try. I did watch the video in the link, as well as read through the instructions, but I needed a bit more than that. A link in the comments led me here, and that tute did it for me. But you know, I do tend to Google everything to the extreme, so I’ll share a few more links.

• Best free tutorial (that I’ve found) by Kerri of Kerri’s Kreations

• Martha Stewart tute video with Kandi Lightner

• Overview of pattern pieces at Made By Bronwyn

• PDF with some great tips on how to not make it too hard on yourself

• Fabric source for nylon chiffon

Oh, and if it’s just too much to spend hours reading online before you can get down to business, Kerri has a photo tutorial here as well for purchase.

Let me tell you right away – I got the fabric wrong. And it wasn’t because I didn’t know what was recommended, no actually I was just way too late. Ronja needs the costume by tomorrow, and I didn’t go fabric shopping until yesterday afternoon. Noone has nylon chiffon in the shops, polyester chiffon is supposed to fray a lot, soft tulle wasn’t an option since the shop I went to didn’t have it in pink (the requested colour), so I had to take a wild guess on what would work. I left the shop carrying a bag of organza and some satin.

Organza does have the right lightness to it, but it still frays terribly. It’ll do the job, but you will be tearing your hair out over why you didn’t get the right fabric from the beginning – I know, ’cause I have been doing just that all day.

I got myself a gathering foot for my sewing machine, and I must say, I couldn’t have done the pettiskirt without it. I know some would – but they would have to be much more patient than I am – and not have kids. You are supposed to be able to attach and gather at the same time using the foot, but I tried that with the tiers, and it was a complete nightmare. The organza kept slipping out of the foot, and I had no control whatsoever. Soooo, I cut 9 new 4½ inch strips of organza, and decided to just be happy that I bought enough. Then I gathered first using the new presser foot, and attached afterwards using my regular presser foot.

It does take a long time, but still it’s a fun project, and once you get it, it’s not difficult.

Ronja loves her skirt. She wasn’t overly enthusiastic while I was sewing, but she definitely was when it was finished, so I just had to show you right away in spite of the lack of light for photos. Tomorrow for shrovetide celebration the rest of the costume will be a simple improvisation. I will tie her hair up in a bun if she’ll allow me, and I have sewn some of the pink ruffles to an undershirt to go with the skirt. A bit of facepaint and she will be ready to go.

The only problem is, that after Frida saw this skirt, she is not quite happy anymore, that she is going as Pippi Longstockings. Do I need to say that I will be making more of these?

We’re back home! Moved back Sunday after two weeks in the Bed & Breakfast, and let me tell you: Two weeks of four people living in a one-room B&B can work if it needs to, but it’s not something I would do for fun. Even though we have nothing but a raw concrete floor in the kitchen area of our house at the moment, I just love being back home!

So what did you miss? Let me see – oh yes, Ronja had a wonderful birthday, and thank you so much for all your sweet birthday wishes!

We celebrated her birthday morning as usual, waking her up with a birthday song, presents, and breakfast. After breakfast we had to hurry outside, because Ronja got roller skates as well as a big trampoline (together with Frida who will be 2 in a month) – it all had to be tried, of course. Mads had set up the trampoline in our garden the day before, and even though it was still wet from dew, it was a huge hit with both Ronja and Frida. She caught on to the roller skating easier than what I would have thought, but it was still a bigger challenge than what it appears below…

Back in our house, Mads has been working hard. We now have a concrete floor in the kitchen, and yesterday after work we went to choose some tiles for the floor. We’re already pretty much decided on what kitchen we want, and finding the domestic appliances is coming along slowly – we don’t want the kitchen to get too expensive, so we’re trying to get us some good bargains, as we would rather not compromise too much on quality or design. For those of you who are dealing with similar projects, there are so many people out there who bought something for their house, and then realized they made a mistake for some reason. That way, you can get new stuff relatively cheap (25-50 % off compared to the price in the shops) at places like eBay or the like – in Denmark we have DBA.dk. Mads and I use that a lot.

I have added a few pictures from the process below, but if you’d like to see more – go here. It seems that you guys have as much faith in Mads as I do, so let’s see how quickly our kitchen will take shape.

]]> http://www.connectingthedots.dk/2009/09/02/no-place-like/feed/ 10 55.411485 12.141007 http://www.connectingthedots.dk/2009/08/22/its-been-5-years/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=its-been-5-years http://www.connectingthedots.dk/2009/08/22/its-been-5-years/#comments Sat, 22 Aug 2009 22:28:54 +0000 Astrid http://www.connectingthedots.dk/?p=956 This little girl is 5 today!

Where did time go? Seems this was just yesterday…

But then it also feels a bit like she’s been around forever – and at the moment, we wonder if she has arrived early at her teenage-years…

But I really just wanted to say this:

♥ Happy Birthday, Ronja – we hope you have a wonderful day! ♥

When I came home with the girls this afternoon, it was windy, but still very nice weather. It may not have been quite warm enough for Ronja’s new summer dress, but she really wanted to try it on, and I didn’t put up much of a fight.

It’s getting more difficult to take good pictures of her. I don’t mean that she’s growing to be less beautiful, but she’s becoming increasingly conscious, meaning that the second I get out the camera, she starts to pose. Now, I may be difficult that way, but I don’t want children to be posing in pictures. I’d much rather get a shot of our girls quietly (or loudly – I did say our girls) playing by themselves, totally consumed in whatever role they’re into at the time. The nature of modeled shots definitely makes this challenging, but with Ronja’s present conscious modeling-mode, that’s just plain impossible. She makes funny movements with arms and legs, that are supposed to resemble a cross between what she has seen in magazines and the neverending grace of the princesses of “Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses”. Ehhmmm – hopefully that’ll all get better with age.

I like this one, though – and there she is wearing her new sunflower dress.

There’s nothing pink about it – and she loves it all the same! There’s another one here where it’s a bit easier to actually see the dress.