Day fifty five: Ms Poppy

 
The summer seems to be over, but I'm just not ready to let go. I had a tiny garden on my balcony this year featuring some pretty lush cornflowers, a few lanky poppies and a couple of 1-meter high immortelles (I had no idea they're called like this, but it certainly makes sense). The poppies didn't survive the heat well and were the first ones to wither, but just yesterday I noticed  10 tiny new sprouts in the pot ready to give it a second go. Good to know I'm not the only one who isn't prepared to give up on summer :) 
So the new addition to my linen & lace collection is dedicated to poppies - those vigorous and charming redheads brightening our days and ways throughout the summer.

Day fifty four: searching for a spark

One of those mornings when I woke up with Bruce Springsteen in my head singing "I ain't noting but tired... man, I'm just tired and bored with myself", I realised I can't go on like this. I MUST sew something or I will snap. I had just scheduled lunch with my friend Olga who had her birthday a month ago, so I couldn't resist making a little gift for her. Olga is an amazing lady blessed with lovely smile, sharp mind and courageous heart. She also was the one who introduced me to Dobet Gnahoré - a singer from Côte d'Ivoire. Olga knew her from the time she spent in Zambia and suggested I should go to her concert in Luxembourg in 2012. I did and I am still so happy and thankful for it. I remember myself crying like a baby in this concert. Dobet's music is so powerful, gentle and tough at the same time, I had this feeling of a dam being broken inside my heart and all the trapped streams were suddenly free to run wherever they pleased. She saved me from burn-out and exhaustion then. So I listened to her CD* again that very morning which started with me being "tired and bored with myself" and felt the life flowing back into my veins. Thank you :)

*One of my favourite songs from the album "Djekpa La You".

Day fifty three: picking flowers

Meanwhile, I'm still developing the linen & lace collection I mentioned before. I keep adding new colour combinations. These two come straight from the fields: a sunflower and a cornflower, both sweet and simple, yet gracious and irresistible. (Poppy is next in line, I can't wait to make that one.) Alas due to my intensive language course the photos of my recent creations keep appearing here with quite a delay. For instance, the blue&white tablet case has already been sold :) and I have even sewn another one which looks very similar, just the zipper is on the long side of the bag and the lining is different. Well. One step at a time. July is on its way :)

Day fifty one: threads and puzzles

Oh, I love doing jigsaw puzzles. For me there is no activity as calming and meditative as this, and some say it's also beneficial for one's memory and coordination. Recently, I discovered these magnificent puzzles inspired by the paintings of a Korean artist Sung Sam Park - there is a whole series of them, all depicting beautiful sceneries. I have already done a flower market in Paris and a channel view of Venice, and I hope to get my hands on the next one soon. 

The only problem is I cannot stop until I'm done. It takes a great deal of self-control to stretch one puzzle throughout a week :) And once a puzzle is finished I usually leave it on a table for a couple of days before putting it back in the box. So... since my living room table is still covered in Venice, I really had no choice but to include it in my latest make-up bag photo shoot.

Day fifty: linen & lace

I've been toying with an idea of opening my own e-shop for some time now and I have finally decided to go for it. Yes! However, in order to open a shop one must have a stock, right? This seemed like a perfect occasion to start working on my own collection featuring linen and lace and inspired merely by nature around me. So here is a sneak preview: the very first set of zip pouches I created with this concept in mind.  
This is my walk in a forest: mosaics of million leaves, tender moss carpets, toughness of a tree bark and cheerful crackle of cones.

 The larger bag is originally designed as a tablet case, but there are plenty of applications for this format: for instance, why not keep all your tickets, maps and documents at one place while travelling? The smaller pouch is perfect for so many things: stationery, make-up, meds, money, candy... you name it.

Day fourty: hold the phone

I have a friend who calls me now and then from work just to say she passed my old office or heard my language somewhere and that she missed me. She keeps calling me up despite being well aware that talking on the phone gives me the creeps. And I  love her for that :) I realize that her schedule is so tight that it's either this or no communication for weeks. So I get a short 'thinking about you' call from a stuffed bus, I don't hear half of it and probably respond like an imbecile, but her trying to reach me warms my heart. We used to work together, in fact we even started on the same day and from that moment on we instinctively took care of each other the way we could and understood. When we meet, we talk for hours, and hours are never enough...

So she called again today and despite me being a total moron on the phone again we somehow managed to arrange a lunch for next week. Miss you to pieces, busy bee.

Day thirty eight: collect a whole set

Sometimes I wonder what it is about women and constant pursuit of 'matching things'. I'm not very good at this myself, mainly because I find the whole concept a bit troublesome. This might not sound very ladylike, but there are just too many fantastic things and colours in this world for me to stay consistent :) In nine times out of ten I would choose three different things over three matching ones. Or if I really like a piece of clothing (which doesn't happen too often) I'll just buy it without making a fuss over the contents of my wardrobe and chances of finding anything there that might actually go with the thing I'm about to acquire. As said before: not ladylike at all... However, when it comes to sewing there's no fuss at all. If the fabric has inspired me I'd easily make a set of matching things in a heartbeat. Maybe this is the first step towards appreciating match-making after all?

Day thirty five: here to stay

When I was 5 or 6, I wanted to become a painter. Teaching seemed like fun, too, but drawing was the one and only path I was willing to pursue (right until my first drawing class at school when I was suddenly told what I was supposed to depict in my artwork. Gosh! A tree bark? Seriously?) Anyway, while I was still into art, I once drew a greeting card featuring a rather decent hill, some jumping/flying animals, gigantic flowers and a sun with a huge smile on its face (I can’t believe I still remember this). I was supposed to bring the card with me to a friend’s birthday party, but I was so overwhelmed by the success of my creation I just couldn't part with it. I might have even cried a little over it, when my mum finally suggested that I could draw another picture for my friend and keep the first one if it's so precious to me (mums rock!) 

Yet 25 years later it happened again. I made this green linen zip-pouch for the Christmas market and fell hopelessly in love with it the very instant it was finished. Somehow I managed to convince myself I'm not a child anymore (oh yeah?) and placed the pouch in a box with other things for sale thinking to myself that it would be a bit sad to let it go, so I should hope I will like the person who gets it. Imagine my surprise when people were browsing through the basket of purses, some buying a thing or two, but nobody - not a single person - even touched the green linen pouch. So this is how mental earmarking works! Finally, I gave in to my inner child: YES, I love the things I make, so why not celebrate it? The green pouch stays with me : ) 

Day thirty three: steady heartbeat

I know. Judging from the frequency of my posts it may seem that I have given up on the whole sewing idea when in fact it's the exact opposite. I've been sewing like a maniac for the past few weeks :) My creative frenzy has resulted in many nice things and it will probably take me two days to take photos of each and every item I've finished so far. The reason for this bustle is the upcoming Christmas market, which will be my first attempt to sell my creations. That means running a stand for the whole weekend with a very vague idea on how it might go, but it's certainly keeping my hands busy and mind bursting with new projects, and I must say I'm enjoying this process immensely. My living room looks like Santa's workshop with fabrics, bells and ribbons all over the place and happy me in the middle :)

Day thirty one: summer breeze

 
So I sat down one morning to make a tiny gift for a very dear friend of mine [ciao, Aija!] to remind her of summer during the dark ages we're stuck in until March and to say grazie mille for her creative support :) Love towards nature and a dream of owning a garden one day is among the many things we have in common, that's why I chose the plant theme for this little project. The pouch was quickly done, no hiccups whatsoever. After measuring the rest of the fabric (yes, leftovers is my sweet spot, what can I do...) I realised that it was just enough to make another purse. Of course, I couldn't resist.

Day twenty nine: Venetian sunset

 

For the last couple of days I'm chasing daylight and keeping myself busy with my hands on the fabric and my mind all over the place. Despite being completely predictable, not to mention inevitable, change to winter time annoys me every year - what a silly custom it is to fiddle with time like this. The shorter the days and the gloomier it gets outside the stronger is my need for colours, so on one particularly grey afternoon I went through my precious collection of scraps and put together this splash of colours. It was indeed enough to regain hope of an early spring :)

Day twenty six: cute and cuddly

After spending half a day choosing Christmas fabrics (and then doing it all over again after my virtual shopping cart magically emptied itself) I'm ready to admit: having no choice sometimes can be easier than having too many options. If we lived in a world where there is just one kind of Christmas print, I'm sure we would all just take it and make the best of it. But instead we can (and we do!) spend hours and hours browsing and wondering until some of us just end up overwhelmed and overinspired and/or broke :] Anyway, I have done my best to scrap a bit from everything: I'll have my trees, my hearts, my candles, some dwarfs and an occasional reindeer, so I should be all set for seasonal sewing. While I'm waiting for all that to arrive (oh my) I spend my days creating these cute zip pouches and dreaming of all those friendly-looking forest creatures entering our home. 

Day nineteen: a crocodumpling

 
'Let's make dumplings,' Michelle said, and adventurous me thought 'Let's indeed'. Great was my astonishment when I printed the pattern and realised that it's much smaller than I anticipated, but I didn't mind too much since it was my first attempt anyway. Then I discovered that this XS creature requires a pretty long zip (yep, 30 cm), but the longest one in my stash was a sturdy 28 cm (and red!) - maybe not the best option, but just to keep my spirits high I decided to proceed :) The zip length was more than sufficient, but the sewing turned out to be rather tricky. Two hours and one bent needle later I ended up with this funky croco[dile]dumpling. I still cannot believe how tiny it is!