One-nap project: fun knee patches

 Sometimes I crave a fun little project that I can complete within an hour or so, giving me instant satisfaction! This whale patch was such a project. 

Patching pants doesn't have to be boring! In fact, the most popular pin from my blog features jeans patched with a bunch of denim stars.

I ripped the outer seam, cut out this whale from an old pair of jeans and appliqued it onto the knee. 

Add some extra stitches to draw the spout, mouth and eye, sew back the outer seam and you're done! 

Instant reward!

A panther in the woods again

Look what I spotted in the woods today! A toothless panther.

M (who lost all of her front teeth) had circus week at school. Yesterday they all dressed up as circus artists and gave a small show for the parents. M wanted to be a panther, of course! 

I recently read some tips online on how to take photos with backlight, and wanted to try it. So we went out in the 'golden hour', just before sunset, and took these photos. It's quite tricky to get the right amount of flare and overexposure, but I like the dramatic effect given by the backlight. And who would guess that these photos were taken in the park, no more than 5 minutes from our house, in the middle of the city?

By the way, the panther hoodie was blogged here. The cape was a present from Sinterklaas (not blogged).

Snow in spring

Outside it's almost spring: snowdrops, crocuses, even daffodils are all over the place. Nature is one month ahead of schedule here in the Netherlands. Despite (or maybe because) of us having the mildest winter ever, I made this snowy sweater for my son. Inspired by an ombre shirt I bought for myself, I looked for ombre fabric to create something similar. I couldn't find any fabric, but then I pinned this picture, and knew what to do with it....

I tweaked the picture a bit in photoshop and then had it printed on a fat quarter of knit fabric by the Dutch company Exprezzit. I only printed such a small amount, since it was the first time I ordered anything there, and I've been disappointed by the quality of other companies before. However, I'm  really pleased with the quality. The fabric is quite thin, but very soft. The colors are vibrant, although they didn't exactly come out as envisioned (there's a bit of a pink haze on the top trees; I blame that on my editing though). The best thing is, when prewashing it, the fabric hardly shrunk and the colors didn't fade at all.  

The tree fabric was used for the front panel of a raglan sweater, using a pattern from Ottobre. 

I color blocked the sleeves to emulate the ombre effect, using some old t shirts and dark blue jersey. 

The same blue jersey was used for  the back panel, bottom band and cuffs.

For the side tag, I used one of the fancy stitches on my machine to create a little snowflake. Ever since I got my machine, I've been looking for reasons to use those stitches, and I've finally found a very good one. I'm definitely going to do this more often. Love the detail...  

 So there you have it, a snowy sweater for spring... Fortunately, it's rather big on him, so with a bit of luck it will still fit next season.

 

Winterland

The idea for this sweater was in my mind for quite some time. And Project Run and Play's theme for this week, Winter Wonderland, was the trigger to finally bring my idea into reality...

It started off with this old knitted baby sweater that -I guess- my mum made for my little brother, over 30 years ago! I loved the colors and the theme. However, as you can see, it had felted and shrunk into weird proportions. Especially the sleeves had become very narrow and stiff. I thought about knitting another sweater, but figured that the time and effort I would spend on knitting would probably not weigh against the time spent by my son wearing it...

So instead I decided to copy it in another way. I happened to have just the right colored knits in my stash, so off I went. 

I used a basic pattern from Ottobre, changed the collar into a scarf collar, and appliqued the landscape onto the sweater. 

I'm really pleased with the result. And apparently, my little boy is too!

Koolhaas hat

Last winter I discovered knitting. 

For me, it provides the perfect activity to do when my kids are around. It requires some attention, but just so much that I can still keep an eye on them, answer their questions, and give them the feeling that I'm there while still doing something for myself.

 

It is also easy to take along to the playground or in the train. And moreover, knitting goes at a slower pace than sewing. Which is a good thing, since otherwise I would produce more than my kids' wardrobes could handle...

 

Nevertheless, after I got smitten with the virus, within a few weeks I had knitted hats for both kids, my husband, and even for the baby that was still residing snugly within my belly.... So I needed a challenging project, which would keep me busy a bit longer. I found the Koolhaas pattern from Jared Flood on Ravelry, and loved it. Especially the crown, which reminds me of a sunflower.

 

The hat was originally intended for myself, but my son confiscated it. And I must say, it fits him better than me. At least, now I get to enjoy the view of the top of this hat way more often than I would if I had worn it myself...  

And even though this is a knitting project I'm nevertheless linking this post to Sew All 26 at No Big Dill:

Upcycled with love

One of the things I love most about sewing, is recycling (or better; upcycling) clothes. It is so satisfying to take an old item that is no longer worn, and give it a second life by turning it into something new.  Especially when the old item has some significance to you, because it once was a favorite piece of clothing from someone you love.

This baby shirt for example. It may not look very special, but it's made from two pieces of clothing that were once worn by two people very dear to me. The blue fabric origally was a pair of jogging pants of my mom. It's this kind of eighties fabric, very soft and a bit shiny (I think in Belgium it's called 'spons').

The striped cuffs are made from an old sweater of one of my moms best friends. Unfortunately, none of them was able to meet the new wearer of their clothes, because they both died a couple of years ago. 

So you can imagine how special it feels to cuddle this cutie in his new sweater, upcycled with love for him and for those two remarkable women.

And check out this beautiful quilt. My very talented aunt upcycled it from my mom's old sweaters (who owned a dozen differently colored St James striped sweaters).

Beautiful, isn't it? It feels special that my kids get to play on the sweaters that were worn with love by their grandma Vera.

Linking to:

Foxes again

Foxes again! For this shirt I used the same Ottobre pattern as for the previous foxes shirt. I like this color combo, very autumny, and the dark brown matches his dark hair and eyes very well!