Sing with me

You might have noticed the Craft for China thumbnail on the left? I have donated this little quilt for an auction to benefit orphan girls in China. The auction will begin June 1, 2008, I will let you know when! Please spread the word about this! Artists such as Rob Ryan, Elsita and Carla Sonheim have made contributions to it. I can't wait to see what they have donated! You can see a list of all participating artists here. Business on etsy has been slow lately. I have tried not to freak out and have been creating and listing new stuff. I also opened up a new shop(!) on DaWanda, which is Etsy's European cousin. It is based in Germany so I will have a good opportunity to use the German I was taught at school and never really used. Except for when I went to Switzerland and I had to start all the way from the beginning, the pronunciation is so different! The prices on DaWanda are in Euros so I feel like home. But not as home like I do on Etsy. Not yet.

One of my not so secret talents is that I have a song for every situation, songs just pop into my mind in various situations, songs that I often did not know I knew. So here's the first theme song for today, why don't you listen to it while you look at my latest creations (please)! I bet you will sing along! I call the mini quilt above Up, up and away, as you might have guessed. It is one in a series of three. One will stay at my exhibition over the Summer. One is still available on etsy.
*edit* It sold, I should stop complaining...
This is a new zippy pouch, I think I need to take a new shot of it, the dotty background makes it look a little dull. T suggested this tune by Pink Floyd as a theme song for it ;)
For this bag I guess I should have picked Sail away by Enya, but since I have a fear of having it ringing in my head the rest of the day I thought it best to introduce to you the Finnish band The Rasmus and Sail Away.

Have a wonderful weekend!

The party is over

I can finally hear the silence from the kids room... It is not easy to fall asleep after a wonderful day like this! Big E had a birthday party for her friends from Kindergarten today. She turns 6 June 25th, but many of her friends start their Summer vacation from the beginning of June so it is a tradition to celebrate her birthday a month early. She does not mind! I forgot to take the before shots, sorry! I made simple party bags for the kids to take home from white tulle and a piece of ribbon to tie it, fast and pretty! Our daughter does not like strawberry cake with whipped cream on top that is usually served at parties in this country so the dad (aka ice-T) opened up an ice cream bar, which was very popular. Big E was very content with her day, especially since her "littelest pet shop" family grew with a butterfly, a cat and a bird that is "soooooo cute".
So apparently there was no sewing to be done for me today, tomorrow I will quit the party planner job (I did enjoy it!) and go back to crafting. First I will finish these small quilts. Then I will make some patchwork tote bags in navy colours, a project I started a year ago, but those colours are always in this time of year, aren't they?

Young artist and a mini quilt

This proud little girl has finished the first project she has ever sewn on the sewing machine. With a little help of course, and the little brother helped to stuff it (wanted to be involved very badly and now wants the pig for himself...). As you see on Big E's pattern it was supposed to become a waving teddy bear, but at some point we just came to the conclusion that it wanted to become a waving little piggy. I found a blank card among the lot I got from the printers on Monday so Big E drew this little piece of art for her grandparents. You can see little piggy sitting on the back of the bike.
Lesley, who made me this lovely quilt, received her swap quilt today (in time!) so now I can show you the whole thing. Close-ups here and here. So glad it arrived safely!

Summer in print

Today two boxes filled with postcards arrived at my doorstep. I felt like a child on Christmas Eve ripping them up to see how the Summer cards turned out. Do I need to say that I am very pleased with the result? And how lucky I am to have such a great brother who can make these things for me! The theme of the cards is things that are SUMMER to me, like watching my seeds grow, hanging out the laundry to dry, the sound of seagulls, the smell of the sea and the taste of herring... They are for sale in my shop as a set of eight, with two of each designs, but you can mix and match as you want with all the cards I have for sale.
Now I feel inspired to work with the Summer exhibition, funny how you can get inspired by your own work... There is just something special with fabric in print. I nearly managed to put together a quilt top for the exhibition this weekend, quite amazing really, since T spent most of it in bed with a fever and I took care of a reasonable amount of laundry, made food and vacuumed (half of) the house. Things I try to avoid during work week (it comes quite naturally to me). Talking about sailing boats (did I?) I have very much enjoyed following the process on knitalatte's ship jacket on flickr during the last week. Read about the process on her blog.

A wreath and a quilt

I have been very lucky recently. A couple of weeks ago I won this beautiful yoyo wreath for Mother's day that Nathalie made. It arrived on a day I really needed some cheering up, thank you!I had a very nice coffee break the other day, sitting out in the sun enjoying the Askinosie chocolate Nathalie enclosed, I also took the time to read the facts about it and learned that it has 65 times more antioxidants than broccoli! And it is ecological and fair trade. So you people that can get your hands on this goodness, eat as much as you can if you want to live long! The trims were very much appreciated too, of course! I have borrowed Nathalie's beautiful photo of the wreath, (hope you don't mind!), I wish I had a red wall like that! You can find more great shots of the wreath (and the sweetest tutus!) at Nathalie's blog!
This is a sneak peak of the little quilt I made for Lesley Moogsmum (as you can see from the monogram) for the Lucy Locket swap, I am very happy to have finished it. At one point I thought I wouldn't be able to make anything, after spending weeks making custom work I felt overwhelmed by the opportunity to make whatever I felt like. I decided to take a deep breath and play with fabrics, I hope Lesley will like the result! If anyone would think of asking: Yes, I think the sofa makes a great pin cushion, I have at least five pincushions but this is so practical! T does not agree...

Cheer me up part 2

Just when I needed some cheering up I got this parcel in the mail from Lesley, aka Moogsmum. And it helped! All of you who took the time to leave a note on my last post helped too, not that I loved to hear that many of you had crappy Mondays too, but it is such a relief to be reminded of the fact that you're not the only worn-out mum (+ a range of other not so flattering titles) in the world. Hope you are feeling alright today, and if you're not, just allow yourself to have a grumpy day!

Lesley used her 7 year old daughter's drawing as base for this cheerful little quilt for Lucy locket's swap. I love the simple and fresh design! But I adore the wasps, they are brilliantly drawn and sewn, such great cooperation:And the label in the back is also a masterpiece, Lesley even stitched my logo, thank you! And thank you for these goodies. The recycled home made felt by Monda will be used very soon and the blue fabric will go into one wave or too in one of the quilts I'm making for my little exhibition this Summer. Now I have a week left to make my quilt, tomorrow I hope to have some time to sit down and play with fabrics and decide which idea to work on...

Cheer me up

Coasters, originally uploaded by -syko-.

Today I just feel like complaining so this will be no long post. This is supposed to be a happy craft blog :) One thing I AM happy about is that I did some planting with little E on Saturday so now we are waiting for sunflowers to turn up in our pots (got to take pictures next time we get our fingers dirty). How I love gardening! We've had some wonderful warm Summer weather for over two weeks. Today was cold and windy, which suited my Monday mood.

I did some coasters with houses too, they can be found in the shop. I made the houses of small scraps with Vliesofix, I get a lot of them making my appliqués. The steam is hand stitched. I love embroidery very much, but since I don't have the time to sit down with anything big I have to keep it very small! This way I can sneak out to my chair in the sun in the middle of the work day to sew some tiny stitches and work on my tan... Now tell me something nice YOU have done today!

Follow your heart

One of my most popular photos over at flickr is the one of two turquoise linen dresses for little girls. I have been meaning to put the follow-your-heart appliqué on other things too. Orders, life and time has kept me from doing it, but today I decided to make some cushion covers for my shop. I just needed to follow my heart, instead of my to-do-list, today ;) There will be more cushions during the coming week, I'm off to shop some more linen now. Meanwhile I suggest you take a look at Sara Ahearn 's work, so beautiful!

Oh, and that chair, I know you are going to ask, is from Ikea. I bought it last Summer.

Cake for everyone!

We are back home after a long weekend spent with my parents in Vaasa. The weather was warm and sunny so we almost felt like we were on Summer holiday. Yesterday morning we celebrated dad's birthday by having ice cream and waffles for breakfast. A heavy, but oh so yummy start of the day! The cake is for all of you kind people that take the time to read and comment on my blog, thank you! Thank you for all the nominations and memes I've got lately too! I highly appreciate it, but I will not nominate anyone particular for anything today I am just serving all of you some tasty fabric cake. The cake will become a printed card soon. I told 7 seven random things about myself a year ago, I am still quite the same (except that I'm one year older...), you find my answers here, if you're interested.

I am very happy to tell any Finnish passers by that some of my stuff is now available in Elina's new web shop patio.fi with beautiful things for your homes and gardens. This lovely message board is on my wish list!

If you are not yet in the draw for a pikapackage, be sure to visit Pikaland today!ck

I'll be back soon with some crafty news!