Colour Red

Yellow is my all time favourite colour but I do love this shade of red as well. Just perfect, don't you think? Recently I also bought some red fabrics. When my daughter saw the fabrics she demanded that I would make a skirt for her. That was not what I had in mind, but I thought I will give it a try. We chose the Bo Peep Skirt pattern from Anna Maria Horner's book Seams to Me. I wanted to make it big so that she wouldn't out grow it too fast. We decided together on the fabrics and how we would arrange them. 

I like it and don't like it. All the fabrics used where quilt weight cotton which I think is too thick for this pattern. I also don't like the elastic waist, I actually wanted to figure out a more complicated solutions which I guess is progress! I mean, me sewing clothes and hoping for a bigger challenge - yay! Not so long time ago a straight seam was a challenge :)

What I really love is the ribbon. It was my daughter's idea. I have never been too keen on ribbons. I could not really find any use for them. Now I really want to figure out something to use them for. Any ideas? 

All in all it was a fun project. The children are using the skirt as a dress up costume when playing and I think it is just perfect for that! 

Baby Boy!

For the last couple of months the blog has been a bit quiet and after 20+ weeks to the pregnancy I finally feel confident to share the reason. If everything goes well I will give a birth to a baby boy in July! He will be our third child and most probably the last one (sniff!). This is the first time we asked about the sex of the baby during the ultra sound and I'm glad we did. I grew up with two sisters so having a family with more boys than girls feels quite funny - 2 girls and 3 boys adults included.

For the third time I was taken by surprise how much energy pregnancy costs, at least for me. It feels so ungrateful to say but I'm not good at being pregnant. I'm having hard time accepting that I can't do everything I want, that I need more sleep and have to take things more slowly. Also the hormonal roller-coaster during the first three months seems to send me right back to the puberty and makes me very moody. I really try to be mindful about it, but it is still hard.

I'm sharing this because the first time I got pregnant I had no idea that pregnancy could be like that. I thought I would just be happy all the time and dress up in a beautiful pregnancy clothes and have all the energy in the world. Instead I was nauseous and so worried that something would happened to the baby. I was not enjoying it and on top of that feeling very guilty about it. It would have been so great at the time to read somewhere that it happens and it is fine.

I'm very much looking forward to the summer and the little baby. My almost four-year-old daughter is so exited about it and I just love that. We already bought some baby clothes together with her, she so sweet! I'm not sure how much my two-year-old son understands about the whole thing, but he likes to talk to the belly making funny questions like "baby, are you peeing?". My silly guy!

Mistakes and Being Good at Something

There was a time when I would say I'm not good at sewing. I had tried it, actually I had to do it at school, so I knew. Not any good at it at all. And why did I thought that? Because I made mistakes. And apparently I have this firm belief that if you make mistakes - well then you are just not very good at doing that specific task.

About two years ago something happened - I can't recall what it was exactly - and I got this urge to buy some fabric and start sewing. I bought this small pack of scraps and sewed a patchwork blanket to my daughter's doll.  It was so much fun and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I knew I wanted to learn more. I started to google around and discovered blogs for the first time. All this people making beautiful quilts with amazing fabrics. Fascinating!

One day I was watching a video on youtube where a woman who had made quilts for 50 years (!) was explaining the basics of piecing. I was astonished when I heard her saying, that she keeps a seam ripper in her pocket, since you always will have moments when you just have to rip the seam and start over. After been sewing for 50 years she still needed the seam ripper. She was still making mistakes. I started to pay attention and between post showing beautiful quilts there where stories of mistakes and frustration. All these talented people were making mistakes! And they were not embarrassed to share that.

Sometimes I hear the advice that you should do what you are good at. Since I have that crazy idea in my head that being good at means that you make no mistakes I have decided to not to follow that advice. Here is my advice for me: do what you feel so passionate about that you are willing to learn from your mistakes and carry on. Even if you are not any good at it ;)

Instant Embroidery Bags

Happy 2011! Or is it a bit late for that? Yes, I'm one of those bloggers that have been putting of the first blog post of the year thinking it should be something super deep and meaningful. I'm not so sure this will be one of those posts :)

I have had so much fun embroidering canvas tote bags. I'll be sharing some more designs soon.  A really great project to do if you are looking for some instant gratification. Well you have to stitch it first, which is OK since that is the fun part, right? And then you are done! I have also some white cushion covers waiting to be decorated. Can't wait to get my hands on those!

p.s. just in case you  are curios, the fabric peeking behind the bag is from Marimekko but I can't remember the name of the fabric or the designer. Can anyone help me with that?

Christmas Cards for Inspiration

These cards are from last year. They where so much fun to make! I just love it how the fabrics pop-up in these. I glued the fabric on the cards and add some beads with thread and needle. For more scrap card inspiration here are some nice ones from Rachel from Stitched in Color. 

Blog of the Month - Plain and Joyful living

Plain and Joyful living follows the life of a family who has chosen to live more simple life. In the mist of the holiday season I love to follow Tonya's simple ways to celebrate. You don't need to have a lot of resources to celebrate the holidays. If you do, enjoy using them, if you don't, get creative.

Happy holiday season to you all! 

Yellow Blue and Black Christmas Embroidery

Some less wonky embroidery I have been working on. If you want to learn some new tricks I warmly recommend Mary Corbet's Needle'n thread -website. It has really great video tutorials, short and clear!