Summer fabrics

Just before flying to France, I made myself a new summery dress. 

A lovely floral Jersey with orchids.

  

 And slightly puffy sleeves. 

 

And as soon as one dress was finished, I acquired new fabrics :-) 

Sewing time

MiniMojcek Nr. 2 wants to learn how to sew. However, all the summer courses we found were full - and not quite what he wanted. He had no interest in sewing pillows or simple bags...

He wanted to sew shorts. With a pocket. With a zipper.

So he learned how to sew shorts with a pocket with a zipper in seam.

And the fabrics? His choice, of course.

:-) again

Remember my post from February - now it's time for an update:

I already used 2 out of 3 fabrics.

I used the concert tickets.

I used the plane ticket.

 

But in the meantime I acquired:

5 new fabrics

another concert ticket

new plane tickets

Me happy :-)

:-)

Recently I acquired:

3 different fabrics

2 concert tickets

1 plane ticket 

Me happy :-D

Reupholstering kitchen chairs

After ten years, the kitchen chairs really needed new fabrics.

And as you can guess by now, I am not a beige person.

 

So the chairs are no longer brown and beige, they are brown, yellow and green :-)

 

Reupholstering an office chair

What do you do when your chair falls apart?

 

You reupholster it, of course. 

A few hours later (these few hours include driving to the shop, buying the fabric and new foam), the chair looks as new.

And yes, we also did the backrest, I just haven't got a photo.

 

Now I should do the same on kitchen chairs, right?

Cultural Holiday

I don't know how many countries celebrate national cultural holidays but since we do, I celebrate it as well.

And I went to see an exhibition on Coptic textiles at the National Museum of Slovenia.

Which I strongly recommend. Highly interesting and very well done!

 

 These two photos are from the National Museum homepage.

 

So, so pretty!

Arizona green tea dress

What do you do six hours before the airport shuttle picks you up?

You make yourself a new dress.

Of course.

A lovely soft jersey. Lovely, but difficult to sew.

And since the fabrics reminds me so much of the Arizona green tea packaging, I'm calling the dress the Arizona dress :-)

Update C

I am still going through family stuff that I inherited, including clothes from my Mom - and me, when I was young. Here are some wonderful examples of how fashionable we used to be.

In the sixties:

 In the funky seventies:

 And  fluorescent eighties:

 And here's is what I wore in the seventies and the eighties:

When did I change to jeans and black T-shirts?

I was probably the best dressed at the age of 2-5!!!
Maybe I should do something about it?

Vintage obi purse

An almost-niece of mine is a huge fan of Japan and everything Japanese. So when she was celebrating her 16th birthday, I decided to make her a vintage obi purse. Made from the Fukuro obi my brother brought from Japan a few years ago.

 I cut the fabrics so that one side is red and the other green.

It's not 100% perfect but I had such troubles sewing through 16 layers of fabric I broke a needle... Ooops!

Leopard Kimono

When I started this blog, I said I'd show "an occasional penguin". I promise there will be more penguins coming soon but now it's time for an occasional leopard.

Not just an ordinary leopard - a leopard kimono!

Made as a birthday present for a friend of mine.

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 :-)

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!