The Twin Shirts

"Sew September" continues:  this week - long sleeved shirts:

... with turtlenecks!

(this tutorial here helped)

It is the same "Erbsenprinzessin" pattern like the Play Shirt (here), but this time I wanted to add some warmth around the neck. I also like to add an inch to the bottom line, so the shirt really covers the back. The new skill I tried was hemming with a twin needle (here) for more professional looking results:

The Lil' Pink Flower Shirt on the little person music fan that is to be kept warm:

... listening to her favourite song (150 times a day).

... soon to take her own pictures.

Stay tuned for more about the other twin shirt tomorrow.

Pink Moment of the Week

... first time: sewing with a twin needle.

Children & Chalk

... yesterday in front of Oma's house.

(by Clara, her friend and Carolina)

Potatoes

After the zucchini (here) it was now time to harvest the potatoes in Hubby's little veggie garden.

They look like potatoes, the taste like potatoes (good potatoes, for their pure taste best cut in slices and simply baked in the oven for half an hour), but they are something more to us. Our potatoes, from our backyard.

And even though I must have eaten hundredweights of potatoes in my life, only now I understand their true earthy quality, a food so grounding - coming from the ground.

Play Shirt

At the weekend I went back from the pants factory to the initial shirt production.

I worked with a new pattern, Longsleeve by Erbsenprinzessin (here). It was just what I wanted, a basic shirt, that comes in different sizes and can be modified as you like. And I was also quite glad that I had used the fabulous klimperklein e-books to warm up my sewing skills prior to it, because the Longsleeve pattern had only short written instructions. I coped just fine.

With warmer September weather over the weekend my favourite model wore the shirt outside and could be photographed easily from all sides.

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Pink Moment of the Week

... new running shoes, can't help but smile wearing them.

Pants Factory

... not so much blogging this week, but sewing week number 2.

I liked sewing with the klimperklein pants pattern (blogged here) so much, that I made Carolina three more pants. I tried different sizes, colour combinations and a leg cuff variation. Never would I have bought green or striped red-orange ribbing, but was persuaded to try something new and bold apart from pink and purple by the lady at the fabric store. Why not?

I also went down a size to 86 and tried elastic cuffs at the bottom.

Who made it?

(don't think that I am so vain - the labels are just a very good way to tell the back from the front side)

I am very glad that something that was so much fun to sew (getting faster with every pant) can warm my baby throughout the fall. The pants fit, are comfortable and stay up. Thumbs up!

Family Gallery Update

The other day Clara looked at our Family Gallery on the wall and remarked that Carolina has really changed over the last year. Why not draw a new picture?

And while being at it, Clara also updated her looks.

There is no need for a new drawing of Mama-me, she said, I still look the same. Thanks. But Papa could need a makeover. Clara started drawing her Papa, but threw in the towel half way through it. "I can't draw a man, he looks like a boy." And stopped. And wouldn't want to try again.

Clara was also massively opposed to putting a legless Papa-picture on the wall (note what she wrote on the shirt).

So Papa is still riding a horse led by woman without facial features.
No symbolism intended.

Pink Moment of the Week

... new fabric, of course.

Still Sewing

Third round of sewing with horses and klimperklein patterns!

The pattern for the Baby Pants was still waiting in my e-mail-inbox. The horse fleece fabric has also had its waiting time since September last year (here). This time I sewed again the largest size (92) like I did with the Baby Shirt, that fits perfectly. Opposed to the shirt the pants came out like two sizes too long.

But better too long than too short. They will wait for their time to come.

And comfy how the pants are, they are great for romping around.

Now.

Little Pink Riding Hat

Yes, it is sewing week!

It is like a positive addiction, but most of you know it. And cooler temperatures usually trigger my hat-making-mechanisms. As I had some fabric leftovers from the Horse Shirt, this hat for Carolina was just the perfect little project for my increasing sewing disease (but actually it is not a dis-ease, it is a pleasure).

For some of you, the shape of this hat might seem familiar, it is the same pattern like Carolina's birthday hat, I just went a head size up. The German pattern is like the shirt also by klimperklein, again with excellent instructions. A breeze to sew.

The hat is reversible, 

but the pink inner hat will probably just be the lining.

After Carolina's afternoon nap, 

the hat was finished and we went grocery shopping.

And you know what? Just at the entrance of the supermarket we met Lena of bootshauskind who had made Carolina's birthday hat. I hadn't met her since the delivery of the hat last November. I could proudly show her my version of the hat and we chatted a bit about sewing and her new blog.

It's a small sewing world.

Oppe Oppe Aita*

* Carolina's version of the German nursery rhyme "Hoppe, hoppe Reiter" (English translation here) and her way of saying Pferd/horse

Look at this. I have really sewn something. Do you know how long my sewing machine had been abandoned?... since before Christmas. And even though I thought I am a sewing-in-summer-knitting-in-winter-kind-of-person, the change of the seasons has made me want to sew. What was it? A cooler wind, a slight feeling of restlessness, a look at this blog here, a Kundalini Yoga set for Balancing the Brain, whatever, when Carolina woke up last Tuesday night and I nursed her back to sleep, I knew that I have to sew her some long-sleeved thing.

The next morning we went straight to the fabric store, and I thought horses might be fun. Her big sister Clara goes horse riding and watches Bibi & Tina videos, so Carolina knows her horses.

The German pattern is by klimperklein and has been waiting in my e-mails since last November (together with a couple of other patterns I bought on an online sewing shopping spree...). Sewing with it was like a walk in the park thanks to the very detailed pictured instructions. It felt that I might not have lost my sewing skills altogether.

Oppe Oppe Aita

And it was really high time for me sew this shirt, because it is called a Baby Shirt and Carolina just fits into the largest size of the pattern.

 And she is too busy to be properly photographed, of course.

But a very proper shirt for our Sunday outing to the annual horse market.

 (undercover-horse-shirt because of rain)

PS: A question for my American readers:

How do you Americans call this kind of neckline? It is called American neckline in Germany, I have learned.

Pink Moments of the Week

This week I BOUGHT myself a KNITTED HAT. Can you believe it? What is happening to me? Just the idea of buying something you could make yourself so easily and pleasurably would have been an absolute no-go for me just a couple of months ago. But on Monday I saw this hat, or more exactly the pink pompom and had to have it right away. No yarn searching and no knitting involved this time.

But I am getting over the initial mild shock. I even wore that hat Monday night riding my bike on the way to yoga class.

And then summer came back in the middle of the week and something must have happened inside me to compensate for the not-knitting:

More about my way back to sewing next week...

Lost Mushroom

Mushroom collecting time has started... but before you think I get all botanical again, remember it is crafty blogging week.

It happened that I randomly flicked through Oldenburg's local newspaper and read a daily column, where the author writes about a woman who knitted covers for the bollards in front of her house.

Actually, she crocheted them... I found out when I went there.

The newspaper column stated that one of the covers got lost, was stolen, went missing.

Have you seen it?

Back to Craft Class

After being all botanical last week, the blogging will get crafty this week (is catcouch still knitting?...). It's been nearly four weeks now since school has started again for Clara. And as for me, with the school routine also teaching the children's afternoon craft class has returned.

There are some changes with the craft class. There is two of us teaching the class now, another mother I know from sewing school joined with fresh ideas. After crochet and sewing last semester, we have started knitting. We got knitting looms for the kids, they can make hats, scarfs and cowls with them. Yes, it's a fall/winter semester!

After a female majority last semester, the girl/boy-ratio is even this time (the children choose their extracurricular activities for themselves and there also was football/soccer).

From the first day the class split in two tables.

Can you guess where the boys and where the girls sit and knit?