More puzzles

God, am I being repetitive... but when I get a jigsaw puzzle, I just have to solve it. This 1000-pieces one took me about eight hours.

If the winter will not come to Mojcek ...

... then Mojcek must go to the winter.

A perfect day.
Merry Christmas, everyone.

Christmas cards

Now that most of the Christmas cards have been sent (and hopefully received!), it's time to solve the card mystery.

First clue:

Second clue:

And the solution in silver...

and in green:


Yep, a pencil shavings tree. A tree has become a pencil and a pencil has become a tree. Now THAT is recycling!

Oh, if you'll ever want to make your own tree: Jolly silver pencil is the best. By far! Believe me, I have tested 21 different pencils.

Baby cap

We have a cap for MiniMojcek Nr. 2 but it is made of cotton and it is too cold for winter. So I copied the pattern and made a cap from polar fleece, using the remains of the fleece from the buggy blankets. A simple pattern, the side pieces cut 4-times and the central piece twice.


The finished product:




I could not resist putting the ears on the cap :-)

Yoga Mat Bag

After joining the local yoga-pilates class, I needed a bag for the mat. Using some left-overs from the laptop sleeve, basically I just made a tube, added a pleated pocket for the keys and the phone and a shoulder strap. Can't wait till Monday to test it!


The zipper of the pocket is a bit too bright but that was the only one I had at home. Oh, well.


But at least the pattern on the pocket matches perfectly!

Elegy for a Dead Admiral

There's been a lot on my mind recently. Something very good (hopefully, keeping fingers crossed) and something really bad... And everything in between. That's why I needed a distraction.

What can be better than a 1500 pieces jigsaw puzzle :-)

I got Elegy for a Dead Admiral by Jack Vettriano, who is probably my favourite contemporary painter. If I had to pick one piece that I like most, it would probably be this one (In Thoughts of You):

Borrowed from Berliner Bilder Galerie

Anyway, back to the puzzle. The beginning:


And the end:


The puzzle (By Ravensburger) is pure joy! Pieces fitting perfectly, with a huge variety in shape, obviously carefully made with great attention to detail. Love it!

Christmas-card teaser

With Christmas rapidly approaching, it's time to start making Christmas cards. Without ruining the surprise, I'm just posting a teaser. Can you guess what I'm making this year?


Well, no, you probably can't ;-)

More to follow in a month or so ...

Update

Curious cat

I'm slowly running out of my customised Tux penguin stamps, so it was time to order some new ones. As I don't have much spare time recently, I purchased a picture from Shutterstock and altered it a bit. Here it is - a peeking cat:


A whole lot of peeking cats:


Now that I have stamps, it's time to move on to the Christmas cards, right?

Agatha, again

51. PARTNERS IN CRIME (Tommy & Tuppence)
Tommy and Tuppence read mystery novels and play detectives! Unfortunately I don't know most of the detectives they impersonate, but the whole thing is fun to read anyway. Interesting short stories with clever endings, what else!

Memorable quotes:
-"I was brought up to believe that men - especially husbands - were dissipated beings, fond of drinking and dancing and staying up late at night. It took an exceptionally beautiful and clever wife to keep them at home. Another illusion gone! All the wives I know are hankering to go out and dance, and weeping because their husbands will wear bedroom slippers and go to bed at half past nine."
-"'If you must be Sherlock Holmes,' she observed,"I'll get you a nice little syringe and a bottle labelled Cocaine, but for God's sake leave that violin alone."
-"If you disperse energy in speech, it doesn't leave you too much over for action."
-"It is a great advantage to be intelligent and not to look it."

Favourite Guest Character: Una Drake from The Unbreakable Alibi
Favourite Episode: The Man in the Mist. And The Case of the Missing Lady is funny.
Mystery: **
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ****
10/15


50. APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH (Poirot)
An American family with a tyrant mother visits Petra in Jordan. While everyone frowns upon her behaviour, everyone also agrees that something needs to be done. For someone, it needs to be done before it is too late!

A great book but the latest film adaptation is a huge disappointment. Why change the plot? And the motive? And the murder weapon? even the murderer? Also the setting? I was so hoping to see Petra again, but got Syria (or, as a matter of fact, Morocco) instead.

Memorable quotes:
-"To have too much power is bad for women."
-"And I'd very much like to have a look at the Rose Red City of Petra, a most remarkable natural phenomenon, I believe that is, and right off the beaten track..."
-"If anything is to be accomplished, mark my words, it is women who will do it."
-"The illusion that freedom is the prerogative of one's own particular race is fairly widespread."
-"Women do not look their best in the desert."

Favourite Guest Characters: Sarah King, dr. Gerard, and Nadine Boynton
Mystery: ****
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: ****
11/15


49. DEATH IN THE CLOUDS (Mr. Air Kule Prott)
A plot somewhat similar to the Orient Express - but this time it's in the air! Poirot is one of the passengers on an air-liner, together with some pleasant and some not so pleasant passengers. And a wasp. As an old lady is killed, it's time to dig up the past to find a motive.

Memorable quotes:
-"Oh, my dear friend, when a girl is nervous it usually means a young man - not crime."
-"Nothing can be so misleading as observation."
-"Mon cher, practically speaking, I know everything."
-"Stupid, to read the same thing over and over again.... As though the words might alter their meaning."

Favourite Guest Character: Jean Dupont
Mystery: ****
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ***
11/15

Ninjago sweatshirt

MiniMojcek Nr.1 is celebrating his 5th birthday!

I decided to make him a Ninjago sweatshirt. In red - just like his favourite ninja. I got fleece in very German colours: red, yellow and black:


I sketched the eyes...


I cut the fabrics and sew the eyes


Added the 'face' of the ninja onto a very simple raglan fleece sweater.


When he got the sweathirt, he said that he will never take it off again. In the last week, he only took it off when taking a bath... In a way, I'm happy :-)

With a red ninja goes a red strawberry cake:


A delicious strawberry-yoghurt cake!

Buggy blankets

Summer is definitely over and MiniMojcek Nr.2 needed a new blanket for the daycare buggy. So I made it. Actually, I made two - the second one for MiniMojcek's friend.

As I couldn't find polar fleece thick enough, I made a double-layered blanket: black and 'Burberry'.


Black on the inside and the pattern on the outside. I added a zipper at the bottom and one of the sides, and the holes for the belt.


The finished blankets looked gorgeous - until the first biscuit was eaten in them :-)

Gormiti

MiniMojcek Nr. 1 announced today that we need to make dresses for his Gormiti figurines. I had no choice.


As Michael Kors would say - that crotch is insane! But I should add that these figurines are about 5 cm (2 inches) tall and that I was given about 10 minutes to make the costumes with constant Are-you-finished? in the background. But that goes without saying.

P.S. In case you're wondering: yes, I did have blue and silver spandex at home.

Zippered pouches

I started thinking about this year's Christmas cards and presents and I remembered I haven't written about the last year's. These are the ones I made for my cousins. They were literally sewn in the last minute: when the family was already having Christmas lunch, I was still at home making them. I managed to make two in time and the third one a bit later. Quite a bit later, actually.

They were all made from this wonderful fabrics by Anthology, following the wonderful tutorial, the same as another pouch I made last year.

Bracelets

Almost 25 years after I got my first friendship bracelet (and about 20 years after everyone around me was making them) I decided to make one. Basically just to see if I can make them and well ... to make them.

My first try ever:


The second try:


And a finished bracelet:


I know it's not perfect but definitely good enough for me. It goes well with my brown collection :-)


I feel 15 again.

Half-time

One year has passed since I started reading Agatha Christie's collection of books. I've managed to read about half of them and I'm looking forward to the other half!

48. MURDER IN THE MEWS (Poirot)
Four short stories with Poirot: Sir Chevenix-Gore commits suicide and breaks a mirror. But someone hears a gong a few minutes too early. Plans for a bomber disappear from the desk but noone could have taken them. A widow commits suicide on Guy Fawkes night. Did she really? A love triangle at Rhodes - when Rhodes was still Italian - is not quite what it seems.

Memorable quotes:
-"Life is only one of the Great Illusions."
-"As you are on the scene, it probably would be murder."
-"One's always hearing this nation and that is bankrupt! But they carry on just the same."
-"I think a woman smothered in cheap scent is one of the greatest abominations known to mankind."
-"Murder can sometimes seem justified, but it is murder all the same."
-"Men are so wonderfully loyal - that's what I like about them."

Favourite Guest Character: Hmmm. Valentine Chantry?
Favourite story: Triangle at Rhodes
Mystery: **
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: **
7/15


47. SLEEPING MURDER (Miss Marple)
A house seems strangely familiar to Gwenda who moves to England from New Zealand. She knows immediately how to furnish it, which wallpaper to use - only to find out that exactly the same wallpaper has been used here before. But it's not just the wallpaper she remembers - she remembers someone being killed! How? Who? Why? Miss Marple's advice is to let sleeping murder lie, but Gwenda won't listen to this. Not until it's too late.

Memorable quotes:
-"Children are odd little creatures."
-"Skeletons should be kept in their cupboards."
-"You know, a nice safe person to marry - but you don't really want to."
-"Children give life to a house, that's what I feel."
-"Women causes a lot of trouble in a man's life."
-"It really is very dangerous to believe people."

Favourite Guest Character: Gwenda
Mystery: ****
Final Solution: **
Entertainment: ***
9/15


46. CROOKED HOUSE
A crooked man in a crooked house full of ruthless family members. He is eighty, has plenty of money and a wife fifty years younger. When he suddenly dies, it's kind of obvious who did it. Or is it? Charles becomes involved as he wants to marry into the family but she refuses to do so unless the murderer is found. One word of advice: If you don't know who the killer is, ask your dad :-) Because really, anyone could be the murderer.

Memorable quotes:
-"Does the real thing ever have the perfection of a stage performance?"
-"Curious things, rooms. Tell you quite a lot about the people who live in them."
-"I think people more often kill those they love than those they hate. Possibly because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you."
-"There's often something about a second child - they start handicapped."
-"Women never have any faith in mechanical things working properly."

Favourite Guest Character: Hm. Josephine?
Mystery: **
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: **
8/15

Brown baby shoes

MiniMojcek Nr. 2 is growing up and he needs a pair of shoes! What could be better than a pair of soft-sole leather baby-shoes? I made several pairs for MiniMojcek Nr. 1 (and of course kept them) but Nr.2 deserves his own, right?

So, adding to the collection of all the brown fabrics: brown leather.


It took me a while to remember how to sew all the pieces together...


in the correct order!


But I'm quite happy with the final result. Let's hope MiniMojcek likes them!

Not perfect

I got a new puzzle!


However, not everything was perfect...


First of all, there were two pieces missing. I've never ever owned a puzzle with a piece missing and this annoys the hell out of me. This is just not right!


And second: the majority the pieces were identical shape-wise. I understand if you want to make a super-difficult puzzle you make all the pieces equal but I fear this was not the case here. Even after the puzzle was "made", I spent about half an hour rearranging the pieces so that they were on the right position. Well, at least I think they were. There should be a special place in hell for designers who design puzzles like this!

Giving money - Euro chess

Sooner or later it happens to everyone that one is asked to give money as a present. I really don't feel like giving just an envelope with money in it - it has to be something slightly different. That's why I/we made a Euro chess!

You know, different Euro coins for different chess pieces.


Our pieces were:


king: Belgian 2 € - with King Albert II
queen: Dutch 2 € - Queen Beatrix
rook: German 2 € - an eagle
bishop: French 2 € - a tree with Liberté, égalité, fraternité
knight: Slovenian 2 € - France Prešeren
pawn: German 1 € - an eagle


king: Spanish 2 € - with King Juan Carlos I
queen: A commemorative coin 2 € - Treaty of Rome
rook: Greek 2 € - Europa and a bull
bishop: Italian 2 € - Dante Alighieri
knight: Austrian 2 € - Bertha von Suttner
pawn: Austrian 1 € - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The board is simply a piece of cardboard with black self-adhesive paper squares on top.

Now, I don't know if the recipient ever played a game, but it was great fun going through all the pockets, backpacks, drawers, bags looking for different coins.

By-product

For the past few months I've been working on something remotely work-related... My colleagues and I wrote a text book on natural science and now it's basically finished. 118 pages of a wonderful book! The reviewers are doing their job and we're hoping they won't be too harsh on us. Since the book has been consuming all my time lately there are no sewing updates. I do have plenty of new photographs as a by-product of the book though. Enjoy!