Jinbei

I can't believe I haven't posted anything for over two months. 

Because I've been busy. 

Because I've been away :-)

One of the things I did recently was a lovely jinbei shirt for Mr. Mojcek.

I had some super comfortable Japanese fabric:

Luckily I had a suitable thread at home :-)

The pattern is super simple, so it didn't take long and this comfy was finished.

I still need to iron it though. Oh well.

Summery

Yes, I feel summery. Joyful. Colourful. Almost like a parrot ;-)

 

Possibly you noticed (probably you didn't) that the far left and the far right dresses are the same pattern. That is because I bought the right one, liked the fit so much that I made myself a copy of it :-D

Zipper war

No, it's not a moment in 19th century history.

It's a battle I'm fighting right now.

In the last few weeks I had to exchange or repair a zip on MiniMojcek Nr.1's school backpack, a zip on MiniMojcek Nr.2's school backpack, two zips on my backpacks, a zip on MiniMojcek Nr.1's sweater and two zips on MiniMojcek Nr.2's jackets.

Enough zips for a while!

Door stops

We've finally got interior doors.

And with the doors, one needs door stops.

I didn't want to drill holes into wood flooring or ceramic tiles, so I decided to make some "bean bags". Well, rice bags. 

 I first made  a cotton bag and filled it with rice.

And made another faux leather bag so that the bags would be easy to dust or wipe clean.

Repeat four times.

Beach tote, part two

Yes, my kids have a lot of teachers. So I made three more bags, these were all for teachers of MiniMojcek Nr.1.

The first one is for probably the best teacher in the world.

I just looove the fabric.
I also like the fabric that I used for the other two bags:

Not a perfectly matching pattern but good enough...

The teachers loved them!

Beach tote, part one

As usual, I'm in charge of the presents for the teachers. This year I decided to make them beach tote bags! And although I browsed through dozens of bag patterns, I didn't find a suitable one. So there I was, improvising without a pattern. Sounds familiar?
 
The first two were made for the kindergarten teachers - one girly and one bold. They had pockets both on the outside and the inside. I was just too lazy to add the zippers. Oh, well...

The first one is for a teacher, who loves butterflies. And pink. So pink butterflies she got :-)

Unfortunately, I don't know the second teacher that well, so I went for a generic striped funky pattern:

I think they liked them!

Penguins!

... and more curtains! These were made for the kids' room.

And I love the continuous pattern - you can hardly notice where one curtain stops and the other one starts.

Enough curtain posts for now -  I'm off to watch a film.

Poirot's Curtain :-)

22 meters...

22 meters of gorgeous fabric.

Some simple sewing and the curtains for our new home are ready.

Well, almost ready, four down, eight to go ...

A simple skirt

Although summer seems to be over, it's still time to write about a skirt I recently made and happily wore in the second half of the summer. A very simple simple Jersey skirt, just the side seams and an elastic band, but it's the pattern that makes the skirt one of my favourites.

I've been wearing it with a blue T-shirt and a Maori necklace :-)

Baa Baa Sheepillow

What do you do when you meet someone who really likes sheep?

a) get to know her better, grow close and have lots of fun with her
b) accept the invitation and stay at her place
c) feel really bad for not writing to her for over a month
d) instead of writing an email, you make her a little present.

Well, I've done it all.

And this is the sheepillow I made for her:

I even managed to match the pattern around the zipper. Yay, me!

Now I just hope die Deutsche Post delivers it before she reads this post!

Monkey see, monkey do!

Two weeks ago, I was making pouches for MiniMojcek Nr.2's kindergarden teachers. Now it was time to make something for the teachers of MiniMojcek Nr. 1!

We got them some really lovely stuff but I wanted to add something personal. And since their class was the class of monkeys, I wanted to make something monkey-related. did you expect anything else?

Luckily I had some monkey-fabric at home, so I just cut the squares, glued them to the bag with a double-sided fabric glue tape and then sewed them onto the bag. The teachers were happy and so was I. Not to mention how proud MiniMojcek Nr.1 was that his mom did the bags for his teachers!

 

Happy summer holidays!

More pouches!

Remember two years ago, I made some fully lined zippered pouches based on this tutorial? This year I'm in charge of the end-of-the-year presents for MiniMojcek Nr.2's kindergarden teachers. Instead of buying something, I decided it would be much nicer to give them  home-made pouches. So ... here they are. First I had to find appropriate fabric and zippers:

Since there are two teachers, I got two fabrics:

Sewing them is actually fun!

And here they are. Each teacher will get a small and a large one: 

I hope they will like them as much as I do!

Angry Birds gym bag

Mini Mojcek Nr.1 has been practicing Judo since September and all this time he was carrying his kimono in an old plastic bag. It has now fallen apart and it was time to make him a new one.

I used the off-white canvas that was left over from the Luke Skywalker costume. First I wanted to make a plain simple bag but it was just so ... plain. I decided to liven it up a bit. Luckily I had all the necessary paints at home...

to paint an Angry bird!

I just needed to buy some rope ...

And voila!

Luke Skywalker costume

This time of year again when all the mothers in this part of the world go mad sewing and preparing all sorts of costumes. MiniMojcek Nr. 1 was very brief: he wanted to be Luke Skywalker. OK.

First I made off-white cotton canvas trousers. Two pieces sewn together with elastic in the waist:

The top was based on his Judo kimono. I never ever realised that kimono sleeves are drafted in one with the bodice! So, so easy to make.

Brown fleece was used to make the belt and the bag. It is perfectly clear to me that the original belt looks quite different and that the belt buckle is totally wrong, but that was one I had at home. Oh, well. I also made two tapes of a slightly different fabric that I wrapped around his legs.

And of course he needed a light sabre. I found this one in a shop.

Once MiniMojcek Nr.1 had one, MiniMojcek Nr.2 also wanted one - although his costume was something completely different. So I made one: a torch light, a green plastic rod and a bit of insulating tape. Done.

So now I have Luke Skywalker and a parrot fighting on my bed. Oh, well.