brother in law

 

My brother in law

(husband's youngest brother)

became sixty last Tuesday

and we celebrate that fact with a party tomorrow.

 

For a little present I made all the preparations

for another "stitch-and-burn" piece

 

by painting the "lutradur" (kind of thick polyester interface)

the "vliesofix" (wonder under) and ironing 

unpainted vliesofix onto the polyester velvet.

 

 

Cut, ironed

and topped up with polyester sheer pieces

 

 

The fun part is the stitching

with  COTTON (!)  thread

...

but

 

DON'T FORGET TO PUT THE PRESSER FOOT DOWN !

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

otherwise, you'll end up with this nasty mess of loops

at the backside

which you have to undo

and start anew

(do you see the amount of thread, I did it móre than once ...)

This happens  because, with this "quilting" presser foot,

I have to put the foot down in some semi down position ...

which I sometimes forget !

 

I did the burning today outside in the sunshine

(it stinks ! thought I didn't burn out a lot,

I did it outside anyway)

 

You can see the "60" here in the design

though it isn't too obvious in the whole piece

 

(I think ...)

 

 

In this picture against the bright sunlight

 

you can clearly see I used the leftover cut out shapes 

of the circles to complement the square design

...

no initial plan, that just happened

*

 

And in that sunny garden

 

 

BLUE  ! 

 

and a bit of brown



felting exchange

 

I know. I'm a bit late,

but right now my March assignment

for the felting-exchange is finished.

 

I must say it was a funny theme

to make a little felt about ...

"tidy up"

"clear away"

(opruimen)

?

On top of that : I must confess :

I'm a no-good tidy up person !!!

I'm very good at making a mess,

but rather lousy in clearing things away

(ask my dear husband and he totally agrees with me on this)

So I decided to make something with two sides :
one : a mess,
the other : tidied up
 



As you can see (I hope) I started with the tidied-up side

(the mess lies next to it)

 

Then I covered it with white, the next layer was gray,

and on top of that the "mess"

 

Loops and free standing parts on this side

 

"order" on the other side 

 

It wasn't a simple one this time I think,

I hope Anneke likes it.

(I think I like the messy side best  ;-) !) 

Tomorrow it will go in the mail

 

(with some extra precautions to keep the "mess"

nicely standing up, instead of lying flattened out in the envelope)

mending a hole

 

There was a hole in a brand new trouser

of little grandson

(someone probably snipped off a thread

and snipped into the fabric as well)

 

Although daughter is a good seamstress herself ...

these kind of things always end up on my plate

 

Then

I had an idea !

The little one likes books,

now he knows there is always someone who will read aloud, and

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

is his favorite of late :

he loves to poke his tiny fingers through all the holes

 

First some interface on the inside

 

my green embroidery floss and a cup of tea

and a sharp needle

.....

 

and this is what I ended up with !

 

(so sorry the little one can't see the caterpillar on his bum ...

or ... I might make the butterfly,

if he gets a hole on his knee)

?

 



... the quick brown fox ...

 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

.....

what an amazing sentence this is !

 

And who ever invented it ???

 

I remember when I first saw it

(waaaaaaaaay back in highschool probably)

I could hardly believe

that all the letters of the alphabet

are in such a short sentence !

(ha, check for yourself, if you don't believe me)

 

Here is another brown fox (though not so quick)

still soapy and wet

but nearly finished !

 

Making daughters wet felted cats was so much fun

that I couldn't wait to give it another go 

a fox this time.

(though Gabi's PDF is for cats,

a fox should be made in a similar way)

 

I love foxes

I love the way they walk, love their wit, love their colour.

 

I know : when you have a farm with chickens,

you probably don't love foxes.

It's a predator no doubt,

but lots of other beautiful animals are.

...

 

"The making of the fox" .....  with an interested spectator ...

(ah, the white blob on Bagheera's face was a spec of soap on the lens)

 

It'a a challenge to get two equally large ears !

 

Although I didn't have any black "Bergschafwolle"

the dark gray colour with which I " built" the frame

worked well enough

 

Here he is (or she) rinsed, dried in a towel, shaped again

and waiting till he's totally dry.

 

(Then the last akward job : making the nose mouth and eyes !

with a felting needle this time)

 

 

 



40 !

 

These last weeks I've been busy,

but nothing of that ever appeared here

...

because it was a secret !

 

Today daughter celebrates a special bithday :

 

*  40  *

 

Oh my ... 

yes, that means :

 I've grown forty years older as well,

since that sunny Spring day she was born !

No, the time didn't pass in the blink of an eye,

we've had lots of wonderful times together

 

(and some not so wonderful, but that's life)

 

and she "gave us" also three wonderful grandchildren.

 

These wet (!) felted cats were one of her presents today

They are look-alikes of her own two Birma cats

(that stay at our house at the moment)

 

 

 

 

I made them with a PDF tutorial

I bought from my German blogging-friend Gabi

her felted animals are awesome !!!

 

 

But there was another present.

(I did this before, for two friends : and it was always a big succes !)

 

I had a little heart-shaped book

and asked a lot of family and friends to write / draw

something for her in it.

 

The book started its journey

but very soon I realized it wouldn't be finished in time,

if it was really sent to every person on the list.

...

So I started sending out double pages

to people who lived far away,

and asked them to return the finished page to me,

that helped a lot !

Ha, it was so special to recieve an envelope and open it !

 

But you can't imagine how many people thought

they weren't "creative"  enough ...

but let me tell you :

all the pages were special !!!

 

Then ...

the little book started to loose pages like leaves in autumn

GRRRRRRRRRRR

 

I finally solved the problem by buying a good sketch book

from my art supplies shop

and swithched the pages into that ... saved

pffffffffft !

 

 

 

 

 

 

A random selection of the pages

(so don't believe it when people say they're not creative)

 

Instead of drawing  I did some (thin) stitching

(which I had to hide when daughter payed us

an unexpected visit)

 

The fun part (for me) is

that there are bits and pieces of far-away blogging friends in it

(thank you Jude, Eva, Sus and Heike)

 

It was really a special gift !

I want to deeply thank all those people who participated

to make it a succes

 

!



sun .... ? (14 - 3 - 14)

 

Sun or no sun

what a big difference it makes.

 

The last few days were really spring days :

warm sunshine and and new colours in the garden.

 

bluuuuuues !

 

And fresh greens (daslook)

so fresh and green you could eat them ...

and that I did !

Last year I learnead from Lynne of the Textile Treasury blog (UK)

that she found lots of this plant along the road

(I think she called it bear leek)

which tastes like garlic 

She made pesto with it and put it in a salad

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

Today

the morning started gray and rather cold

 

but what a special sight it was

LOTS of spiders had been very busy !

 

 

There even was a magpie

that didn't flew off the minute I took my camera

like aaaall the others did !!!

 

Ha! no wonder : he didn't see me :

I took the picture from the kitchen window,

he was on the other side of the street !

 

 

But there is always a little Rainbow very near 

 

 

;-)