I just had to try: this...

And then there was the silver lining:

2009-10-01T02:11:00.000-07:00

In gluten free baking there is many a dark cloud. When I wanted to bake some cupcakes real quick, trying to adapt a favourite wheat flour recipe, the cakes didn't tumble from the mold like in the old baking days. Instead I had the whole batch crack and fall apart into crumbs. Ugh. But then these days we have the internet, now haven't we? Just typing in 'what to do with chocolate cake crumbs' led me to The Pioneer Woman.com. I was so enraptured I could hardly wait to try my hand at her flower pot desserts, so I made 'em for our daughter's birthday dinner. Thanks Ree. You've really made our day ;-)

Cupid's wings

2009-09-15T12:59:00.001-07:00

When our eldest daughter entered preschool, it didn't take long before she began asking me for pink clothes, preferrably with bows, ribbons, petticoats, lace and such. Not surprisingly her costume of choice at this year's carnival was that of a ballerina. For her little sister she had something else in mind though: little Lucie was to be dressed up as... Cupid :-)) Need I mention I was happy to oblige? I took some pictures during the process, so here's my tutorial for making a pair of little angel wings. Might come in handy later this year, no? If you need inspiration or a style to choose from go visit Karen Hatzigeorgiou's site, and while you're there, DO take a look at her other pages, she does incredible things with books. Wow!

Fab

2009-06-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

Awww, my little one has just turned two!
The past year wasn't easy on her, or on any of us for that matter. In spite of our best efforts and intentions, she still got glutened at times, and was sick and cranky a great deal. I lost so much sleep that I got pretty desperate. But still, every time things got a little better, I focused ferociously on this one thing: gluten free baking. I need safe foods for my baby, and they have to taste just as good or even better than the stuff that makes her ill! My family and friends were recruted to evaluate what progression I made. I learned a lot. Not only about nutrition and good eating, but also about love. People all over the world are struggling with food intolerances! Many of them enjoy cooking and baking and their willingness to share and help is truly amazing. Every yummy gluten free (or other allergen free) recipe posted is a wonderful gift to all of us. I'm awed and thankful that there's so much love around!
Time to do right by you and post a few links to some fabulous recipes I encountered.
Here's for: quinoa pancakes, avocado ice cream, peanut butter granola bars, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies, and white bread.
The cookies in the picture are by my own recipe I am still working on. The 'white' ones have almond flour, coconut flour, teff and glutinous rice flour in them, the dark ones contain cornstarch, brown rice flour and chestnut flour.
When I'm truly and permanently satisfied with the result, I'll post the recipe on Recipezaar (and let you know ;-))
EDIT #1: The first cookie recipe, for dark chocolate chestnut flour cookies is now available on Recipezaar!

EDIT #2: And finally: here's the second recipe: gluten free butter cookies! Enjoy!

Delightful kids crafts

2009-04-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

These measure only 1,5 inches and were such fun to make! The idea came from Making Friends.com, where all kinds of delightful crafting projects for kids (and their parents) can be found. Originally it called for wooden spools and beads, which I didn't have, but luckily paper beads are easy and quick to make. Just roll up narrow strips of (black) paper with some glue brushed on. There's a clear tutorial on this at: www.tappi.org .

Sweet potato truffles

2009-04-12T03:59:00.000-07:00

The Gluten free Easter bunny breads I tried to bake (twice) turned out not pretty enough to blog about, and for comfort I indulged in... making truffles! I've been intrigued by baking with hidden vegetables lately (you know, chocolate beet cake, zucchini muffins, that sort of thing) so when I stumbled upon a recipe for making sweet potato truffles, it kept ringing around my brain; I just HAD to try this! They weren't very hard to make, but coating them evenly with molten chocolate proved a bit tricky. I used candy molds to freeze the batter in because the mixture wouldn't firm up quite as much as I had wanted it to (could be due to slightly tweaking the recipe, but it worked out fine this way too). The recipe is by Ricky of Diet, Dessert ' Dogs .
For a gluten free version (she used spelt flour) I substituted Annalise Roberts' GF cake flour mix, the recipe is found at the Celiac Disease and Gluten-Free Forum .
Wishing you all a happy Easter!

Letting go...

2009-03-01T08:06:00.001-08:00

When I was expecting my first baby, my mom came to visit me one day, bringing with her this HUGE bag of baby clothes. Cute, tiny newborn clothes me and all my sisters had worn more than three decades ago, a lot of them made by herself. We had moved at least six times during those years and she must have packed them carefully each time, not being able to part with them. I was filled with wonder and very moved when she gave them to me. Now I'm a mom myself I understand. Letting go is so hard. But: here's a cheerful way to recycle those cute baby socks no baby will ever wear again. Mini doll sweaters! When searching for the site where I originally got the idea from (I must reorganize my bookmarks, I truly must) I stumbled upon another too cute sock project: a dog sweater made from a sock. Drool.

Oreos? Not!

2009-02-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

Why on earth I wanted to bake Oreo cookies in the first place I can't remember. Even my local health food store sells gluten free Oreo-like cookies that taste nice, so why bother? But one way or another, I had my mind set on them. Don't they look lovely in the photograph? That is an illusion, I tell ya. These (being my fifth try already) turned out very soft and crumbly, and although they taste quite good, they . are . definitely . not . it. Having tried three different recipes and messing up twice, once forgetting to add the sugar (those resembled leather) and once one of the flours (that one came out of the oven never firming up, hmmm, I think I'll crumble that into the fresh home made ice cream I'm planning to make) I declare I have given up on trying to bake gluten free Oreos :-(
That is unless some enlightened soul directs me to a recipe that works, without rice flour being the main ingredient (I strongly dislike the taste of too much rice flour).
What did work was the recipe for the filling, by the way. It is by LindseyKay on Recipezaar. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that site!!!
EDIT EDIT EDIT: Ooooh! How could I have overlooked this recipe?! I love Kate's blog!

New play dough!

2009-01-08T04:46:00.001-08:00

This was a perfect activity for a cold and drizzly winter afternoon: making gluten free play dough! It kept two quarrelsome four year olds enthralled for at least one and a half hour :-))
The recipe is all over the Internet really, but I found it at: Coeliac UK.
Have fun!

So: gluten free it is now...

2008-06-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

I had already been wondering for some time if Lucie had some kind of food sensitivity. She never yet managed to sleep through the night, and not because she didn't try, but because her intestines where troubling her (or that's what my observations where, she cannot tell yet, poor dear). The aftermath of her first birthday (she woke up screaming, at least 12 times that night) left me convinced. She had always been such an sweet and easy child, and her frequent colds nor her first four teeth coming through had influenced her cheerful mood. But something in her food had. Of late she had become increasingly irritable, her appetite dwindled and she had gotten so restless and hyperactive she resembled a human bouncing ball. I turned to my invaluable Mothering Dot Commune to look for clues, and the allergy board provided some enlightening information on the subject. What if Lucie's digestive system didn't agree with wheat/gluten, eggs or diary? She had hardly been interested in eating any solids until 10 months of age, and that exhausting night it finally dawned on me that her foul mood and colicky behaviour had also started -and gotten worse and worse- over those exact two months, just as her intake of solids had increased little by little. She still nursed a lot and wasn't eating anything fancy: some 'safe' fresh fruits and vegetables, potatoes, bread and occasionally a little plain yogurt. But at her first birthday she had enjoyed rather a large piece of her birthday cake, and when I came to think of it: all three suspicious foods were in there: wheat, eggs and diary. Obviously we needed to get to the bottom of this. I would keep her gluten free, egg free and diary free for some weeks and see what happened, and then one by one introduce them again. She improved quit a bit the first few days: night wakings were reduced by some 80%, and her mood cleared up immensely. After 4 days we experienced a setback that seemed to last and last, and I reckoned that since breast milk is still a major part of her diet, I'd better go gluten free too. Anything to resolve this, and get some sleep! And then the miracle happened. She only woke up once or twice a night to nurse, rolled over contentedly and slept on!!! When we cautiously re-introduced eggs: nothing happened. We also found out she can have hard cheese, plus lactose free milk. So: dairy is in, gluten is out. Over the past 6 months we've been busy getting used to our new gluten free life and although we had many a setback, once we got the hang of it gluten is no longer the party pooper at our house ;-)
Which has left me with a new challenge: gluten free baking! I'll be posting links to some real fabulous recipes I tried, but for now here's a pic of my first try at a flourless chocolate cake. This recipe is found at: thirtyfivebythirtyfive.blogspot.com Baking it, sad thoughts of a life-long diet made way for shiny new horizons: there are thousands of recipes out there, just waiting to be tried (and/or modified)!
Our sweet Lucie is going to eat well, and her home will smell of freshly baked goodies ever so often!

'Vintage' baby shoes

2008-06-08T03:43:00.000-07:00

While Laura (cautious as always) is learning to ride a bike, Lucie is practicing her first steps. She's a tough cookie, that little one: never without bruises or scratches and never, E V E R giving up if she's set her mind on something! I figured it would be wise to make her some soft-soled shoes, to protect her little feet a bit. My mom had my first pair of shoes bronzed, and I thought I'd try to make a replica, using Mark Jenkins' cling foil and sticky tape method to derive a pattern. To make a long story short: the pattern turned out very accurate, so this technique is a marvellous tool if you are into shoe-making and want to copy a favourite pair. The trial shoe (I had made only one) proved two sizes too big, and it took me two more efforts to adapt the pattern so it fits her. To my surprise she seems to like wearing them, because when I took them off, she immediately grabbed them and had me put them back on!!! My guess is that she'll outgrow them in two or three weeks, but that's OK, I'd love to make her another pair ;-))

Present for a baby boy

2008-05-01T02:56:00.000-07:00

This is what baby shower present you're bound to get when your parents named you Rafaël... Although the final result is OK, this wasn't one of my most successful projects :-(
At first I cut out the pattern pieces for a little shirt, but I ruined them at once by trying to sew on those fleece wings with my sewing machine. Both fabrics stretching in all directions of course, why on earth did I think I could pull that off? Running out of time, I bought a ready made onesie, and started anew. I stitched the fleece wings onto fusible interfacing, medium quality, and then zig-zagged the black lines on. That was a time consuming enterprise, argh! That done, I cut them out carefully, ironed the wings onto the onesie and zig-zagged once more around them. When I finished it, it occurred to me that I could just as well have painted the wings on with fabric paint. Oh well...

Animal farm

2008-04-27T11:49:00.000-07:00

When I stumbled upon this delightful (and free!) paper model by Fantasy cutouts.com, I thought my daughter might like to do a room box project with me. A shoebox was found quickly enough (my sisters don't call me Imelda for nothing LOL!). We collected some moss from the garden, and cut out landscapes from an old magazine for a background. With glue and sand we made a winding path to lead right up to the front door of the little shack. The shoe box proved too small for the cottage though, and she kept taking it out anyway, so the project was never really completed, that is to say... in my eyes it wasn't. I guess the concept of making this box 'just to look at' was a bit lost on my three year old ;-)) Laura sees it quite differently: she lets her tiny horses and care bears play in the 'miniature garden', as she calls it, with a swing, a slide and a seesaw. The cottage she just puts up wherever she fancies it, in the window between the plant pots for example. The roof is removable, so the cute little farm animals can stay indoors when it's cold outside. They are also free cutouts, located at Agence eureka (blog entry of January 22). I found her through Meggiecat, who's lovely and generous blog I truly like. Check them out, if you haven't done so already!

Bow hairband

2008-04-18T07:11:00.001-07:00

Half a year has gone by like a whirlwind, with no time to craft, let alone post to my blog! Slowly, ever so slowly, our baby is now learning to sleep through the night, leaving me a little less exhausted than I have been all these months. Arrival of the spring season makes me want to clean up and finish all those projects that had been put on hold! As each year, by the end of winter, mice become a real pest at our house. They raid our laundry basket and eat the stains in the children's clothes, thereby ruining many a favourite piece ;( Ofcourse I'm to blame too: because I can't bear to kill them, we set live traps an expell them from the house when we catch 'em. I bet they slip right back in when our backs are turned ;) Last week I found my daughters bow hairband full of holes, and man, was I vexed!!! Taking apart what was left of it, I proceeded to make a new one right away, taking pictures as I went. This little tutorial came out of it. Enjoy!

She's three...

2007-10-17T01:48:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast it all went... my baby has just turned three. A nostalgic present I made her was this travelling pouch for the little bunny rabbit. I wonder if many of you remember them from your own childhood. I recall making several when I was about 10 years old: cut off the bottom of a plastic canister (shower gel, fabric softener, whatever), pierce holes along the rim, and crochet a lovely pouch in no time! The exciting new thing in it for me was knitting an I-cord. I saw this at knittinghelp.com and had wanted to try it for a long time (just never got to it until now).

Arrrrr!

2007-09-26T06:35:00.001-07:00

My little sister recently gave birth to a little boy, named Flint. That name rang a bell somewhere... Suddenly I remembered the TV-series I watched years ago on German television: Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. I enjoyed it very much, but when I hired a copy of the Walt Disney version sometime after that, I was sorely disappointed: it didn't come close! We're talking 1994 here, no Internet yet, I didn't even own a computer at the time... I knew of no way to get hold of that film. My enthusiasm instantly revived, I did a Google image search for 'Jim Hawkins' and recognised *my* film at once. It proved to be a French/German co-production: Die Schatzinsel (L'ile au trésor). Amazon.de carries it, so I ordered a copy right away. Arrrrr!!!! Anticipating it's arrival with delight, I made this hat for the newborn pirate (here modeled by my sweet and patient DD). It's loosely based on a tutorial at Tomlitoo, but done in fleece instead of paper.
For those of you that love the book and would like to read a few passages: Dead Men Tell No Tales offers the complete novel online for free, and sells tons of delightful pirate goodies too.

Chestnuts and acorns

2007-09-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

How to amuse an -almost- three year old when it's raining AGAIN? The enormous amount of chestnuts in our garden prompted me to do a quick internet search. At Tête à modeler I found a tutorial for a cute little animal. Inka Grebner has some good suggestions too. I came up with this little bug; now ain't he sweet?

Keeping those tiny legs warm

2007-09-02T01:54:00.000-07:00

It comes as no surprise that having a new baby in the house has kept me very busy. What spare time I had left those past ten weeks, went into sewing diapers and covers in all kinds of colours. I had previously made a number of different waterproof diaper covers to find the best fit, they did turn out gorgeous, but... I ended up liking none of them for the red marks they leave on my babe's tender skin. I like the felted wool covers much better (in the picture Lucie is wearing a triangle style felted wool cover, how to make those I learned at borntolove.com and Bright New Baby) and in addition I whipped up a bunch of fleece covers, using Stacey's method to draw a pattern. I also tried various kinds of diaper patterns, and for Lucie's slender thighs, Shar's version of Wee Weka Side Snap pocket adjusted to a NB size had the perfect fit. I left out the snaps and the Velcro though, as I prefer using Meghan Wyant's Velcro closer, which allows me to toss the dipes in the washing machine without having to bother about the Velcro tabs.
So far the only really new thing I've been able to try is making these baby leg warmers. I made them out of children's tights, as they appear to come much cheaper than ladies knee socks ;)) How to make them is shown by Baby Hopes. Can you believe we needed leg warmers in august this year!?!

VBAC

2007-06-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

Now here was something I desperately wanted to try: to give birth to my second child the way my body was made to do. My first birthing experience wasn't too good. Our peaceful homebirth got all messed up. A cascade of interventions (all done in my best interest, yeah sure...) led to an emergency CS 24 hours later, and my sweet little girl I didn't get to hold or even touch the first few lonely hours after they stitched me up. I was grinding my teeth all through this second pregnancy, doing lots of research on VBAC and finding out how this happens to countless women around the globe. Visiting the pregnancy and birth forum at MDC almost every day, I became very well informed on the subject. So when my OB suggested we'd plan for an ERC at 38 weeks gestation, I freaked out. Because my scar didn't heal at all well at the time, she was afraid VBAC would be too risky, maybe even holding a 10% chance for rupture during labor. Eek!!! We asked for a compromise: doing an ultrasound of the lower uterine segment at 32 and again at 38 weeks, to see where we'd stand, and decide from there. And so we did: at 38 weeks I measured 4,4 mm, which is way beyond the cut-off (3,5 mm) most studies state as 'safe'. The deal was on!
We wrote a very clear birth plan, mainly stating that I wanted to be left alone, no drugs, no interventions whatsoever, and no staff in my room except for the (hospital) midwife. In return we agreed to constant EFM (external monitoring only) and promised to show up in hospital as soon as contractions were coming 5 minutes apart for over an hour. Now that was the nerve wrecking part. I knew that I would probably not be dilated much by then, but would need to maintain my calm to make any progress. And sure enough, contractions petered out once I set foot in that hospital room. Grrrrr! I don't exactly remember how I regained my confidence, but after three hours I was able to concentrate again, and things went smoothly from there. We called my acupuncturist and she came over to do some needlework on me. Contractions became much more intense right away, and as I was on the monitor, the midwife came running right in to find out what was going on. She never saw an acupuncturist at work before, and was quite puzzled by the obvious result :)) When the midwife came to check on me a few hours later, I couldn't believe my ears: 9 cm!! It was going to happen! My body did great! Then my bag of waters kind of exploded (really impressive that was, ha ha) and after 12 hours of labour, I was ready to push. Our Lucie was born easily: three pushes was all it took. They placed her on my belly right away, and three hours later we were home!!!
In retrospect I'm really thankful that my OB treated us so respectfully, thinking with me and not for me. And I'm delighted our birth plan was followed to the last detail. Who would have thought this was possible: same hospital, totally different birthing experience!!!

Cloth

2007-05-13T03:52:00.000-07:00

Finally! The first cloth diaper I've ever sewn! I used the free Mamabird pattern for this one, size newborn, and it's so tiny I think it might even work for a (not so small) preemie. The cover seems to fit nicely over it, and is by Meghan Wyant's free pattern, size small. The idea of using cloth for our second baby actually began to take shape a long time ago, when I was slowly getting bugged by the HUGE load of disposable diapers needed for just one (!) child. The need to go to the store to get them, the loads of waste and the cost all seemed to bother me more and more. Maybe I am getting more crunchy with age ;)) or it could have been this essay by Siobhan that appealed greatly to my imagination. Then there was also my enormous stash of fabric scraps in every possible colour.... yum! Something new to try out!!! Something to recycle, woohoo!!! Luckily I inherited a pile of plain white fitteds from my dear sister that will surely get us through at first, but in the long run I'm set on trying many different models, and maybe ultimately modifying some pattern for the perfect fit... But that is still miles away. In searching the net I found many great sites on the subject, of which Oz Cloth Nappies is one of the most resourceful (IMHO). Let me know what you think!

Car seat cover!

2007-05-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

How time flies when you're busy! These past few months I've been sewing a lot for the new one on the way, so no time for interesting experiments, alas! My latest accomplishment might also be quite boring to some of you: a stretch terry car seat cover. The look and touch of the original fabric I never liked, and as our new babe will have to be transported in it all summer long, I figured I might as well try and make a cover that's washable, soft, and comfortable when it's hot outside. So I just traced the thing, used thin elastic for fitting it on the car seat, and fold over elastic to finish the sides where the seat belt goes. To my surprise it was really a piece of cake: it took me only an hour or so to finish. Those of you that use a Maxi Cosy of the same model: feel free to ask for the pattern.

Kitten paws

2007-02-15T00:47:00.000-08:00

Yes, these took f o r e v e r to finish, I know. Not because of this wonderful free pattern by Kristina, but because I had my stubborn mind set on using this fluffy, hairy yarn that would make them look especially kitten-like (or so I imagined). Arrrrgh!! That yarn was EVIL! There was no way to tell the wrapped from the unwrapped stitches, it was even ever so hard to distinguish purled and knit stitches from one another. And impossible to count the rows too. As I'm a severe case of baby-brain at the moment, I kept losing track of how many stitches I'd done, and had to start over again, and again, and again.... But: I love the pattern, and the seamless tips are nice and soft for warming tiny hands. You should be able to do these in a few hours, if you use kind, manageable yarn that is :))

Happy holidays everyone!

2006-12-22T05:17:00.000-08:00

Oink oink!

2006-11-22T01:00:00.000-08:00

Why is it that a woman never seems to have enough shoes? Strangely, ever since I have become a mother, my shoe-hunger seems to have shifted to wanting to make/buy shoes for my daughter all the time. Luckily she needs new ones ever so often, as she is still growing very fast. These fleece slippers I finished yesterday. Made from scraps, using a superb (and free!!!) pattern by Ohelene.
Thanks Ohelene! My girl is very happy with her new slippers!
For those of you that 'suffer' from the same syndrome, there's more links to free and cute baby shoe patterns at Laurie's Old school Acres.

Pretty in purple

2006-11-09T10:58:00.000-08:00

This little cap and shirt I finished yesterday. I sent it to a friend who got a beautiful and really tiny daughter last week. She was born two weeks early and so she is a real featherweight. Luckily they're out of the hospital now and doing fine. If you want to sew something for a preemie (or a tiny newborn), here's a bunch of links to charity sites with great patterns: www.newbornsinneed.org Offers a good Preemie Size Chart.
www.carewear.org Has lovely patterns, and a handy Knitting Needle Conversion Chart.
Barbara Wampler's BWcharitycreations Holds a pattern for a romper, and an open-front shirt.
www.touchinglittlelives.org Sweet preemie sleeper pattern.
www.rayofhope.co.uk Lots of knitting & crochet patterns & links.

Crafted foods

2006-11-03T01:36:00.000-08:00

Crafted foods have always struck a chord with me somehow. When I found my needles had got completely stuck and all rusty (!) in my old pincushion (which I didn't particularly like but had kept over 20 years) I suddenly realized I most definitely wanted a new one. The kind of pincushion that would not only be good to my pins, but put a smile on my face as well. I found inspiration at Maria Binns' One hour craft, and crafted myself SOME tasty pincushion ;0)
Also check out Becky Veverka's cupcake hat and Cinnamon Cooper's berry tart hat. Want something more healthy? Go marvel at Monika Schåfer's veggies! Yum!!!
EDIT: Just a moment ago I read this sweet and moving article, and my mouth literally fell open at the pictures that go with it: just look at those tea cups!!!

Knitware!

2006-10-25T05:50:00.000-07:00

When reading some posts at the knitting forum on Craftster, I stumbled upon Linda's lovely blog. She posted a link to free pattern drafting software which I went to investigate right away. Knitware Design is offered for free, by a company called Great Knit Designs -and it IS great!!!
The demo version can do almost everything the paid version does, and it's not even limited to a trial period! It comes in three parts: Basics, Sweaters and Skirts & shawls. Installing it was easy, and the program itself is not hard to get going either (nope, never read a manual ;)) The green cardi was done with the Sweater program; Basics lets you design things like doll clothes (of course Miepie needed a cardigan too) and even dog sweaters!!! Enough for now, I have to hurry back to my needles...

One, two... three!

2006-09-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

With autumn stealthily approaching, knitting fever hit me again. On visiting knitting-crochet.com I came across this pattern for fast and easy (tiny) baby booties, from Jean Jenner. There was no picture, but when I tried it out it proved so super cute that I wanted to try making a pair that would fit my toddler. The first try came out way too big (of course :P) but the final result turned out lovely, don't you think?
I've drawn a pattern for it, using a very helpful (and free downloadable!) knitting font that can be found at Aire River Design, as I find charts much easier to knit from than written instructions. I'll be happy to share the pattern, or swap it for some other nice pattern/link/tip or trick! Just holler if you're interested ;)

Consider this:

2006-09-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

Setting up and keeping up a website is a time consuming enterprise. Promoting it on the web even more so. Let's say you really put your heart into it, and many hours of your valuable spare time. If you provided your readers with high quality content, and gave them wonderful free stuff to download as well, you'd expect them to be glad, wouldn't you? And just suppose that they are, would you think they'd let you in on it? No they won't! Not even 1 in 1000 visitors makes the effort to let you know they appreciate what you did! So why not be that happy exception and say thanks, or send a pic if you've used somebody's free patterns????!!! One generous lady that has such a high quality content website is Jessica Tromp. She offers countless free knitting charts, patterns, crochet and more. And in addition she helps you out if you're badly in need of knitting help too! So: hooray for Jessica, and all the others that make the internet a wonderful place!!!
The above sweater is done from one of Jessica's hello Kitty knitting charts. Kitty fans: don't miss her adorable hello Kitty felt toy pattern.

Yay for recycling!

2006-08-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

July was hot, August has been cold and wet. Luckily this came back from the cleaner's last week: a little princess seam winter coat I made for my girl.
At first I wasn't so sure designing and sewing a real coat, collar, lining, neat buttonholes etc. would work out, so I figured I'd start by cutting up a blue wool trenchcoat I picked up at the thrift store (a little yucky, so I took it to the cleaner's immediately after I finished it :oP)
What got me all inspired to give the whole project a try was an illustrated work-in-progress report I saw at Natron & Soda's site, where Soda creates a gorgeous pink winter coat.
Following her example, I used an existing pattern (my BF came home one day with a pile of old sewing magazines he'd found when taking out the trash) for getting the sleeves and shoulder parts the right size. And you know what, it wasn't really difficult, (meaning I didn't have to rip too many seams). OK, the collar is curling a bit odd at one side and the pockets didn't work out so I just skipped them, but my baby LOVES the smiley-buttons, and the rich blue looks fabulous on her. Recycling can be such fun! If you're not into it yet, take a look at Flobberdewotsky and get inspired!

Cloth diapers for Miepie

2006-08-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

As our toddler is very verbal, she's quite capable of telling me what she desires.
Her doll Miepie should have a bathrobe just like hers (so I made her one) a bunting (she got it) and now she needed: diapers.
It is very amusing (and sometimes confronting) to observe my girl playing with her Miepie, she so closely imitates my doings.
For the diaper pattern I somewhat followed the tutorial at mama2mama.org
I found this to be a very helpful site, with all kinds of good advice on AP, so I put it in with my favorite links right away!
At Heike's site there are lots of links to more doll clothes patterns to be found (this site is in German).

Way back when...

2006-08-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

This photo I came across today, it's an abandoned old swimming pool, the pavement overgrown with weeds, its basin filled with cold black water. I visited the site only weeks before it was demolished, way back in the days when I used to do some urban exploration from time to time. The memory of it's quiet beauty made me wish I could travel back in time, just to stand there once more, feeling the chill of early morning still in the air: summer at the point of turning into fall.

Boys wear

2006-08-09T00:41:00.000-07:00

For a friend of mine who had a tiny baby boy recently, I finished these yesterday. They match a jumpsuit I made last week -but forgot to take a photo of before I put it in the mail :(
Isn't it interesting how our perception of masculin or feminin is connected to colors? The clothes I made for my daughter were by the same patterns, but look indefinitely more 'girlish' to me. Same as, when I dress my girl in blue and green (which I love) people invariably conclude she must be a boy!

Boohoohoo!! They are too big!

2006-08-04T04:57:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I made these shoes, matching a silk party dress for my little girl I made earlier. They turned out real good, genuine leather soles and all, but when I had finally persuaded her to fit them, they proved too big, sniff...
So: I'll just have to make another pair, and anyone wanting the pattern will have to bear with me until I have adjusted (and tested) it.
Luckily my sister's wedding is still a little over 3 weeks away....
EDIT: The final pattern can be found here.

Socks!!!

2006-08-02T03:16:00.000-07:00

These baby socks I knitted (yes!! I DID!!!) for a friend of mine, who's first baby is due in December. I never knitted real socks before, and it was way easier than I thought!! Just plainly following directions, not making it difficult by trying to figure out why or how :))
As this is just one of my never ending series of experiments (Can I do this? Oh I wanna try that! and so on)
and as they turned out so great, it was the final excuse I was looking for to open up a blog of my own, and share the fun (and the mistakes) I encountered. That's enough rambling for now, this wonderful free knitting pattern is by Patti Pierce Stone
and her site I found through Jessica's superb site (literally tons of free knitting patterns there)