Ben 10 jacket

After I made the Ben 10 T-shirt, it was time to make the Ben 10 jacket.


Fortunately, I already had bright green fleece at home, unfortunately though I have already cut the fabrics before I got the "order" for the Ben 10 jacket. Therefore it has Raglan sleeves instead of standard ones. Oh, well. But the rest is exactly as it should be:


Bright green jacket with three white stipes. I used elastic bands and reversed them to hide the shiny side. I also added the front zipper.


(Almost) perfect ten!


And the final jacket with the Omnitrix-Ultimatrix watches.


No need to say that he is VERY happy!

A simple dress

What happens when your favourite daytime-nighttime-anytime-allthetime dress literally falls apart because you have worn it so much?

Well, you make a new one!

You get some striped jersey and just cut the fabric. You don't even need a pattern because it is so simple to make - just the side seams (slightly A-shaped) and straps.


Add some shape at the top but do not exaggerate:


While you're at it, you make another one :-)


Yes, I am obsessed with matching stripes.


Does this fabric seem familiar?

Time still flies...

Last year I posted some of the old photographs that I found in my parents' house. Now I found a CD with another bunch of old photographs. Although they were not (exactly) dated, at least we know who these persons were.

My great-great-grandparents Josephine and Edouard (1890).


And my other great-great-grandfather with his four sons (around 1900):


Now I know where I got my good looks from :-)

Heaven! - updated!

OH MY GOD!

I found the recipe for home-made Nutella. Only that it's far better than the "real" Nutella. The real one consists of 55% sugar. Our consists of 70% hazelnuts :-)

The funny thing is that it is really easy to make. The ingredients:
300 g whole hazelnuts
100 g powdered sugar
10 g Bourbon vanilla sugar
30 g cocoa powder
2 tablespoons of hazelnut oil

1. Toasting nuts: Preheat the oven to 170 deg. Spread hazelnuts in a single layer on a baking pan and toast them for 15 minutes (they turn almost black). When they're done, wrap them in a kitchen towel and rub them until the skins come off. I removed the remaining skin by hand.


2. Process the toasted nuts: We used a Braun hand-mixer to chop the hazelnuts. Then you just keep on chopping them until they turn to liquid :-) Seriously. It only takes a couple of minutes. It turned out that a decent food processor (you know, multipraktik :-) is the way to go. If you process them with one of those, no additional fat/oil is needed.

3. Add the (sifted) sugar and (sifted) cocoa powder. Mix.


4. Carefully add the hazelnut oil to make the mixture spreadable. Mix.


5. Enjoy!

6. As the taste is VERY rich, we added a bit of milk to the mixture just before using it. It was just to strong for MiniMojcek Nr.1. Probably cream would be even better but we didn't have it at home.

Good Food

Just to make your mouth water...

Orange nougat cakes:


Citrus poppy seed cake:


Raspberry fairy cakes:


16 pieces were made: I got 1, MrMojcek got 2, MiniMojcek Nr.1 got 13 of them.



First recipe is taken from Lidl Christmas Book, the other two from BBC Good Food 101 Cakes and Bakes.

Cowboy costume

To continue the costume saga of MiniMojcek Nr.1: I told you already that when he saw MrMojcek dressed as Lucky Luke, he wanted to be one as well. We settled for a generic cowboy costume.

He borrowed MrMojcek's hat that we bought so many years ago in Sydney, I cut a piece of red fabric to make the bandana and I cut an old H&M T-shirt to make the vest. Of course he needed "pockets" for his pistols (to make a long story short: I am NOT buying him pistols so he makes his own from Duplo bricks. Oh, well. Boys will be boys.). I made a very simple fleece belt with holsters and spurs.




He adored the costume and almost ran to the kindergarden to show it to the others. But when he got home, he greeted me on the door with the words:" We will make a pirate hat and sword like MiniMojcekNr.2's-best-friend has."

Notice that
a) he used the word "we" and not "you" and
b) he said "make" and not "buy".
That's my boy!

But this does not change the fact that the costume saga is not over yet.

Magritte costume

My turn.

If MiniMojcek Nr.2 was Mondrian, I was Magritte.

Here are the bowler hat (I got one for a clown and tore away the coloured dots), a fake tie (I just cut a red fabric in the shape of a tie) and the apple (printed one from the internet and attached it with some white thread to the hat and to the ears):


Wearing MrMojcek's white shirt and black coat, I became The Son of Man:


Sadly not many people recognised it, those who did were mostly turists :-)

Mondrian Baby Costume

One should not forget about MiniMojcek Nr.2!

As he got Superman romper for Christmas, we somehow assumed he would be Superman... but boy, does this Superman grow fast! So I had to make another costume, something simple and wonderful :-)

Looking for inspiration from Piet Mondrian, I decided to remake one of his famous paintings. I took an old small pillow case and cut the holes for the head and arms:


Then I cut three pieces of fabric (Lesson learned: Always have a bit of blue, red, yellow, black and white fabric at home. ALWAYS!):


Adding a bit of black duct tape and voila!


The Composition with red, blue and yellow as a costume!


MiniMojcek Nr.2 at my aunt's:

Bob the Builder Costume - Part 2

Bob the Builder needs some trousers! Have you ever noticed that he does not actually wear standard dungarees (bib-and-brace overall) but rather very high waisted trousers with braces?

I bought some light blue polar fleece and made the trousers. Didn't even need the pattern, just cut straight into the fabric and as they are not very fitting, this wasn't a problem. The braces would keep them up and the belt would give them some shape.



BUT: there won't be a part 3 because when MiniMojcek Nr1 saw MrMojcek dressed as Lucky Luke, he immediately changed his mind. (Lesson learned: never make a costume more than one day in advance as your kid may change his mind!)

But basically, all you have to do is to add a yellow hard hat, a belt and some tools. Oh, well.

Bob the Builder Costume - Part 1

Carnival is rapidly approaching so it's time to make a costume for MiniMojcek. As he is Ben10 or a cowboy pretty much every day, we decided to make a Bob the Builder costume:

(photo borrowed from the Internet)

First task was to find a red and orange long-sleeved T-shirt. But I failed. So I bought a plain white T-shirt and Deka Batik and Textile Dye Series L, Orange (39110).


I've never dyed fabrics before and although the process is a bit ... devilish... it turned out superb!



With a little help of the painter's tape:


and after a lot of dying and drying I'm very happy with the final result!


Not all edges are perfect but good enough, I'd say.

Continue to Part 2. I'm warning you, there is no part 3!