Pillow cases

Here're the pillows. Frontside - linen coated with fabric paint, appliqué and free motion machine stitching. Backside - greeny Finlayson fabric with flower ornamental motif. They have zipper and are lined so that they are not so soft and get better in shape. Actually I've finished them using the same technique how I make my pencil cases and pouches.

Making-of: MOBILE

These are the elements of the future mobile. Now I'm thinking of how to arrange them properly to hang that piece. I'm still having that birch branch I was talking about two posts ago, but cannot help but thinking that it's not that good. It's big and roomy, and sort of over-dominating. It's nice on photo, flat and without its real volume, but it doesn't work in the real life. I'd rather take a piece of a drift wood, but here I have absolutely no chance of finding it here - the see is calm, always calm, no storms, no big waves, we can barely find some seashells, not to mention heavier pieces. Hence, I gotta figure it out in the days to come....maybe going thrifting could help me out. Let's see.

Going on with the BLUMENFEE

Here's the basic idea how this "tasku" (pocket) would look like. What I need now, is to find an appropriate decorative strap, to bind it around the waist. My little girl could slide her notebook or whatever into one of two pockets. I'll keep you posted.

Die Blumenfee

Hey! My intention of writing like about two to three posts a week remains still an objective to achieve.

The month of July has been full of visits of our family and friends, we've spent some days in Helsinki, which means my work was anything except normal. And now we're back again to the routine, simple family life, here in Rauma, just four of us. Playing. Houskeeping. Gardening. Working.

And now there's another theme that I'm exploring, I'd call her a little BLUMENFEE (german for "flower pixie"). This creature came across as I've worked on decorating my little girl's room, first on pillow, then on mobile and now here - creating a "tasku" (finnish).

A couple of days ago browsing in a huge book store in Helsinki (love-love-love this Akateeminen Kirijakauppa), I've seen this piece in a book on Finnish traditional costume. I've already heard about it reading about Polish costumes. This is a fun little accessory - sort of extra pocket, that is bound around the waist with decorative strap to keep some personal possessions, little notebook or keeping some hand work.

Well, this is the surface - a piece of Finlayson middle-heavy fabric, coated to imitate the colour of natural linen, but not too thick, so that the original ornament is shining through, and then that BLUMENFEE as appliqué. That's it!

Mobile - making of

Today I'm sharing another idea for my little girl's room - this time a sketch for a mobile, that I would hang above the bed. I've cut the birch branch today and now playing around with it in Photoshop adding some decorative elements - let's see what comes out in real. Besides - in the background the desk's got the new paint - yellowy greeny something, being not quite easy to describe. Stay tuned.

Pillow cases

Here's still a bit more of radio silence, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. I'm writing my plans, a week in advance, I'm trying to stick to it. Yes, I have to omit a LOT, and there're days I'm accomplishing a bit (a big bit) less, or really less as to what I've expected to, but it's working. And I'm continuing to believe in it. It's only a matter of time to get used to and better control my time.

And you know what? I write down a lot, about nearly everything that comes along and needs to be done, and in precisely that moment my head gets free. I simply put like "bath" or "fabric cut" or "clean strawberry bed" or "chapter read" into day X, and that's it. Needless to think about it any longer. When the day X comes, I simple make it without trading about "do I have to make THIS in those fifteen minutes or maybe THAT or SOMETHING ELSE?". Because THIS has to be done on day X, and THAT would be in two days, and SOMETHING ELSE is scheduled for, say, saturday. Simple. Easy. Effective. Satisfying. If it's not done, well, I'll put it into another day, or next week.

Here's the making-of pillow cases for my little girl's room.

Finishing new mug rugs

And another couple of mug rugs - shared "in progress" last week and only finished yesterday, for I was not that persuaded how the surface looked like. So I've ripped out the knitted part, started all over again with new colour, adding some asymmetrical details and more colours, and that's it. 

Pillow drafts

Here's the final drafts for pillow cases for my little girl's room - the main colours of furniture are aqua, red, and some yellowy green. So I tried to keep those dominants in mind. And yes, there HAD to be a princess. And I am SO NOT about fairylike skinny princess images, I'm more into strong and expressive statures , both bold in colour and drawing à la Kveta Pacovska, in that case I do not mind putting a princess into my work. And it was a nice change from what I'm mostly doing speaking in terms of FOREST FRIENDS serie. Now I need to work on surface - I'm thinking of taking some heavy linen and rolling the blue/green shade onto it. The rest would be application/free motion stitching.