Wildlife Paparazzi

We have some amazing wildlife in our small garden. We enjoy regular visit from frogs, a Robin, and a Blackbird couple to name few. We also have lots of butterflies. I'm especially happy about the butterflies. The butterfly population is struggling partly because people have less flowers in their gardens. I happily make our garden butterfly-friendly by planting flowers, but we also have other treats available for hungry butterflies:

I was not in time to harvest these too figs but after seeing at one point five Red Admirals enjoying the rotten fig I stopped worrying about it. Lazy gardening makes a wildlife friendly garden!

The sunflowers have also been a joy to watch. The bigger ones were popular amongst the green Rose-ringed Parakeets. I couldn't believe my eyes when I first time saw green parakeets flying around here in the Hague. Apparently once upon a time some of them escaped from their keepers, and really liked it here. Now there are thousands of them. 

We also had smaller sunflowers that were very popular among small birds like Great Tits and  House Sparrows. I didn't get even a blurry picture of them, they were just too quick to me. 


The only thing I have done intentionally to attract wildlife are some butterfly friendly flowers. The rest has come naturally by growing lot of eatable things and not having the time and energy to keep the place too tidy.

The Making of Baby Blanket II

I was inspired by the beauty of the spring season and wanted to catch some of that on fabric.

I used contact paper to make some stencils.

Getting ready for printing at my little "home studio" at our dining table.

Test prints on a piece of muslin

Work in progress on a white organic jersey

I hand quilted the blanket along the lines that you can already see on the previous picture if you look closely. The lines where drawn with a HB graphite pencil. I assembled the quilt  in such a way that no binding was needed.

I finished the quilt the night before my baby was born.

Here it is wrapped around my little boy this afternoon

Harvest Time

I have been a very lazy gardener this year but I still have some harvest news to share. 

The fig tree has been very active and is producing more fruit that I can handle. The fruits are gorgeous but since it has been raining here a lot this summer (and still is) they are very watery. So far I have cooked them a little and mixed with yoghurt. I will try that again soon using my own yoghurt and by adding some spices to the fig confiture. ( I bought a yoghurt-maker and we are now having fun trying out different yoghurt cultures.)

The below picture makes me a bit sad. I had these wonderful green tomatoes and I was looking forward to making this excellent jam of them. After picking the tomatoes I didn't get to the jam making on that same day. Two days later when I finally wanted to start the they were all covered with some nasty brown stains and I had to throw them away.  What a shame.

Luckily we are not even planning to make wine of the grapes. We eat them as they ripen and nothing gets waisted. They are very sweet and tasty this year, which surprises me since we have had so little sun.

We also planted some borage to improve the soil (no idea if it works). I really love the small blue flowers. 

They are especially beautiful in the evening light. Below an attempt to capture some of that magic. 

Diving in

Hurray, I'm a mother of three! For a month now - time goes so fast! My little boy is doing very well, sleeping eating and growing.

I'm so so relieved that I'm not pregnant anymore. When I'm pregnant it feels like half of my brain just shuts down or gets completely occupied with the little one living inside me. There seems to be so little space left for all the stuff that I normally like and enjoy doing. Almost instantly after the birth I feel like myself again. I'm back! And loving it.

Just few days before my little one was born I was sewing the below block for the do.Good charity bee (not the best picture and I did not take the time to iron either...). Rachel asked for ocean inspired block. I truly enjoyed making this block, it was something new and not too complicated (having my brain taken over by the pregnancy...)

The last weeks and days of pregnancy are so hard, you are just waiting and waiting for it to happen. The block was such a nice distraction. The ocean theme was also a perfect match. I had been reading about a birth technique called diving and as I was selecting the fabrics and arranging the bubbles I was thinking about water and ocean and waves - and about giving birth. I know, it is all a bit woo woo, but the diving technique really worked for me. At every contraction I imagined that I was diving in to a deep ocean and that got me through the pain. I couldn't find any information about the technique in English and I'm thinking I should try to change that.

I just love the idea that this block that became part of my birth story is sent out to the world having a life on its own!

Back to Sewing!

Being pregnant has effected my sewing and all other kind of doing much more I ever would like to admit. But the last month or so it feels like I'm back again! Really nice feeling, I must say. 

A fabric store near us is closing down and they are having huge sales. It is of course very sad that they have to close but I rarely find anything there that I like. Also lot of the fabric is synthetic, which I don't prefer. But I did managed to find this brownish fabric that I really like and I bought 6 meters of it! It was only € 2.50 per meter...

I made trousers to my little boy using the Quick Change Trousers -pattern from Handmade Beginnings by Anna Maria Horner

And a maternity version of the Smashing Smock from her first book Seams to Me.

I really do like the fabric and I like to sew with it. The only problem is that we will soon look like the von Trapp family, so I guess I will take a break from this one for awhile. 

First Rhubarb Pie of 2011

We had a amazing April and begin May in the Netherlands, like a mini-summer. We spent the time well enjoying our backyard and our home-grown rhubarb among other things. The first rose came up on mothers day, how sweet is that!

I'm not sure if this really qualifies as a pie. I made Finnish pulla with the children (sort of sweet bread) and used part of the dough for the pie. Making pulla is a state of art that I by no means master, so I don't feel confident to share any how to's.  Here is one recipe that is quite similar to the one I use.  When you have the dough you can make all kind of things of it, rhubarb pie being one of them. I just buttered the pie dish and filled it with rolled out dough. I cooked the rhubarb with little orange juice and some sugar and cinnamon. When it had softened (that happens in minutes) I removed it from the heat and added some potato flour. You can also use corn starch, although I'm not quite sure at which point you should add it. Then you just put the Rhubarb-compote on the top of the dough, brush the edge of the dough with beaten egg or milk for shines and bake it in 200 C for about 30 minutes. You can use a much thicker layer of rhubarb, this was just all that I had. Enjoy!

Project Selvage - Vote for your Favourite

I would have loved to write "please vote for me!", but I didn't make it to the semi-finals with my entry that you see above (not in repeat here). There are however 75 other talented designers hoping to be Michael Miller Fabrics next fabric designer. So head over to Spoonflower and vote for your favourite. I like this one. Katarina, the Serbian designer, also has a beautiful blog 

None of the more abstract designs where selected to the final 75 which I think is a shame. But I guess they picked up designs they think will sell. The voting ends April 6th.