A tiny comedian in the sunshine

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Today has been sunny and beautiful. Frida and I have spent some time in the garden – she loves it when I push her on the swing, and playing with a ball is the best. We had a wonderful day – which is good, because she doesn’t care much for sleeping during the day at the moment… Again…

Some of the last flowers in the garden

Frida has kind of a comedy-stunt going that is ridiculously entertaining. She is always on the go, from one toy to another – one kind of trouble to another. Typically, she will play with something, throw it over her shoulder and move on to the next. And then, when the first thing hits the floor with a loud noise, she turns around with eyes that say: “Who made that noise – what’s going on back here?”. And the best part is, she does this over and over… Man, she makes us laugh!

Some of the last flowers in the garden

A while ago Mads and I agreed, that we needed a break from him working on the house. Or maybe I agreed..? Anyway, we had a break, and now Mads wants to get something done again – fair enough. This house is dated 1912, and there’s still a lot of work to be done.

The previous owners had a fence around the small yard out back. We wanted to take that down in order to open up towards the garden, so we did – long ago. This weekend, Mads removed the foundation for the fence, which could have been an easy job, had they not thought it necessary to cast a concrete foundation 40 cm into the ground for the entire length of the fence. Geeeez – talk about unnecessary solutions…. So instead of it being easy, this is what went on in the garden.

Working again

And now it’s gone – the concrete foundation, that is - thanks to Mads and his very noisy and shaky device.

Eventually, we’re going to cover the yard with new garden tiles, but for now, I think we’re settling for an expansion of the lawn, until we have the time and means for the solution we really want.

First day of autumn

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This morning we had bright sunshine and blue sky, but now it’s rather windy, and the sky is grey. Yesterday, when the calendar was still on the summer page, I got a shot of Frida wearing her flower girl dress.

Frida in the garden 

She was in the garden trying out the baby walker, however pushing it in the mossy grass proved a little too tough. Ronja was blowing soap bubbles as she very often does!

Blowing soap bubbles 

I have been sewing again today, but I’ll get back to that later.

Flower girl dress

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Sewing time is hard to come by at the moment. Frida doesn’t always sleep a lot during the day, and when she’s awake, she’s all over the place, crawling and standing up. She doesn’t pay much attention to her toys anymore, it’s all about discovering the world. Which keeps me busy! Also, with all my current running and training, I’m running out of (got that?) evenings…

Still, yesterday I managed to make this for Frida.

 

It’s the “Nasta” pinafore dress from the latest kids issue of Ottobre. I wanted it to be short enough for Frida to crawl, so even though she’s almost a size 74, I traced the 74 for width, and a 68 for length. And then I detached my head, and started to cut the fabric. Consequently, I forgot the seam allowance for the bottom hem, so it’s definitely short enough – maybe more of a top than a dress.

I chose a twill for the dress, even though the pattern recommends a knit, and it’s working perfectly - I have no trouble getting it over her head. I used striped rib for the binding, which also works nicely – I like the look of the two materials together. The twill is “My garden” in blue from Superbuzzy – it’s deliciously soft and I loooove the design. I’ll post a picture with my little flower girl when I get a chance.

 A few days ago, I made my first bias tape, using a Clover bias tape maker from Smaatekstiler.dk.

Homemade bias tape 

Now this is my first attempt, and the quality of this IKEA fabric is quite sturdy, but I still like the dramatic design of it, and it was so easy to make. I definitely recommend giving it a try!

Pick a number

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 I think the mailwomen around here have been kind of confused for a while. And people we know (who know where we live) have passed our house, when coming to see us, because it doesn’t look like it used to – and there has been no number.

The new house number 

There is now! We were lucky enough to find it second-hand at frou-frou.dk - it’s kind of expensive to buy new, and now we get a number with a past, allowing us to guess where it has spent its previous life… I’m going to see if I can make a name plate for the mailbox in photoshop to match the design of the housenumber. Again, it would be nice to buy a real one, but that’ll have to wait, because the name plates like that cost a small fortune!

Mads installed our new front door yesterday and fixed the finish around the door this evening. The door actually isn’t all that new, since we bought it along with the new windows way back in August 2006. It has been living in the garage ever since. It has windows in it, and yesterday I was going for the door several times, thinking someone forgot to close it. C’mon, girl – that’s just your new light in the hallway… :) I do love the way it lets lots and lots of light into our hallway, but we still need to get used to the fact that you can actually see through the front door – amazingly, it works both ways, so you have to consider how you look before people come up to the door, and not just after they ring the doorbell! That’s right, we also put up the doorbell, which has been down since the house was sandblasted late April. Once we get the lamp back up as well, I promise I’ll post a picture of how it all looks. In the meantime you’ll have to do with my anemone japonica.

Mother and child 

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At least the bees were busy…

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Bumble bee in a lavender  

Today has been kind of a slow and calm day. Mads left early for a meeting in Jutland, and he dropped off Ronja at kindergarten on the way, so I didn’t need to think about that. I was really supposed to host the meeting in my mothers group today, but with Frida still snotty, and me having a sore throat, I didn’t want to risk passing it on to all the babies. So the mothers group for today was moved to Rikke from the group, who lives just around the corner.

The pencil I use for tracing patterns 

While Frida was taking her first nap, I made myself a cup of coffee, and started looking at patterns to possibly make something for Ronja. The morning passed while I traced the pattern, cut the fabric and sat at the sewing machine. What you see above, is the pencil I use for tracing patterns – it just has to be a good karma pencil, don’t you think? Picking it up puts you in a creative and quite cheery mood. It’s actually Ronja’s, but she doesn’t mind my using it – much… Frida got up at one point, and in between her eating and playing on the floor, she was a great help! ;) And for those of you who spotted it already, the fabric is Sandi Henderson once again – coincidence really, she just makes a lot of beautiful fabrics. I’ll let you know what I have made tomorrow.

Frida was a great help 

Mads got home in the afternoon, and we walked to the kindergarten to pick up Ronja. The weather has been nice and warm, and Frida was sitting in the pram, squinting in the sunlight, and clearly enjoying the walk. Mads had taken Ronja’s bike to the kindergarten when he dropped her off this morning – we sometimes do that because she loves to bike home. It doesn’t happen that often, that we both go there to pick up Ronja, but when it does, she just lights up when she spots us, and it’s a joy to see! So we walked back again, and spent a little time in the garden, where the bees were busy going from flower to flower, and I snapped a few photos.

 Bumble bee in a flower