Green Beans

This year's unexpected harvest from Hubby's herb garden.

Looks like beans. Tastes like beans.

Hubby's Veggie Garden 2.0

Hubby's garden activities started later then intended this year, 

but now they are taking form:

Zucchini, pumpkin and self-sown potatoes from last year.

A new addition:

 tomatoes

... and built just yesterday:

a herb garden

with rosemary, oregano, thyme, parsley, cilantro, chives, ruccola

and a bean plant.

We'll see what this season brings!

Carolina's Garden Art

She asked for rose petals and collage paper, 

got herself some white paper and got to work.

the proud and happy artist:

Have you seen those amazing

flower mandalas here?

Beauty for the moment.

Little Pleasures

this week: 

sunshine

flowers

(and chocolate!)

from yoga students

knitting

and the Yarnharlot's long-awaited new book

Always in February

The first snowdrops,

 spotted on February 8 in Oma's garden.

2012 February 21 (here)
2011 February 8 (here)
(curious about 2013?,
me too...)

A Touch of Green

It is January.

 It got colder this week, 

with temperatures around 0°C. 

While a little pink of bright always brightens up my day, 

I am having a longing for green these days. 

Some plants, flowers, herbs and leaves. 

For this "kitchen collage" I used magazine clippings (from happinez and we love living), decorative paper, acrylic paint and white paint pens. I just love those antique botanical prints (great drawings for download and print you can find at The Graphics Fairy here).

With green paint left on my fingers,

also my knitting tells a tale of spring.

A Green Sweater

They've been coming from Clara's room lately, these murmurs and indignant shouts: "Everything I have is pink! I want to wear something else." So last Saturday, when all she wanted was a green sweater, we went shopping. Or we "rode" shopping. The four of us, on bikes, downtown.

 We found some clothes.

And a green hoodie.

Clara's act of emancipation from pink didn't affect me in the slightest. My newest dress looks likes this:

Wild Vine

When I did my pink plant prints with the creeper leaves that entwine our house (seen at the end of this post here), the leaves were still all green. That was about four weeks ago.



Now the leaves have started to turn into a beautiful red.



And the print has become (yet) another cushion.

Kimo-No?, Kimo-Yes!

Last week I wrote, that I love sewing for the girls most. OK. That is not all true. I actually love sewing for myself just as well. To dig into a more demanding project that takes some time to sew. Often over a couple of weeks from idea, to finding fabric, cutting it out and finally get going on the sewing machine.



This dress here was my summer project. I showed bits of the fabric in Mid-July (here) and used Carolina's afternoon naps in Rostock to figure out how to develop and trace the pattern. It comes from the awesome Japanese book I am cute Dresses (do all the books I sew from recently have "simple" in their title?). I did a version of the dress on the cover of the book, my dress is all linen, no lace. And similar to Japanese knitting instructions there are just a few words (7 short sentences as construction steps), but lots of very detailed and precise drawings and sketches from start to finish. I loved it! As I am not your average Japanese girl, I dropped the hemline by 10 cm / 4 inches. The dress is comfy and special.



Hubby liked it, too. And he got it all right. He said, it was cute (like the title of the book promised) and when I asked him "Which country?" he said "Japan."

There is just one drawback. I can't wear it right now. It is not breastfeeding-friendly. My dresses these days need a button-down front or a wide neckline. But just wait another couple of months... then I can sew all the other cute dresses in the book!

Just a Bag

The beginning of school for Clara offers sewing opportunities for useful things. Sure, you could buy it, but what is better than sewing something that is really required.



Like a gym sack.
Matching her school bag. Yes, horses, fabric picked by the school girl herself. It is just a simple, easy-to-sew drawstring bag, I found an instruction in soulemama's book The Rhythm of Family. But it is something mama-made. In this new school world.

To the Herbary

For my birthday I got a voucher from two friends/yoga students for an organic herbary (their website here) in Oldenburg. Eventually I got myself and the girls organized to go there (actually it is just a 15 minutes walk...). On the way to the herbary we even met one of the friends who gave me the voucher - a good day for green energy.





An overwhelming variety of plants!





To make it easy I asked a lady who worked there what she could suggest for our garden. We got herbs like rosemary and thyme, cilantro, lemon balm, yarrow for bellyache tea and leafy greens like rocket and red chard. Clara had her own ideas about "her garden" and wanted flowers.



We went home with flowers with funny German names: "Maedchenauge" - Girl's Eye (English Tickseed) and Fetthenne - Fat Hen (English Sedum).



Two chicks with girly eyes.

Garden Love

Loving:



Lark Charisma Blush Fabric by Amy Butler (oh, those lovely details...)



witch-house-come-ice cream parlor



Field Study: the new fabric collection by Anna Maria Horner





a little future garden girl





Soul Garden Spira Fabric inspired some afternoon drawing with Clara





some more baby-afternoon-nap-plant-prints



Three things remain with us from paradise : Stars, Flowers and Children. (Dante Alighieri)
As for the stars, hope you have also been showered with shooting stars lately!

Afternoon Naps / Plant Pillows

How to have a 8-months-old-busy-baby and make two plant print pillows in 1 hour 45 minutes:

Day 1:
time: 45 minute baby afternoon nap



* set up printing materials on the patio in baby's hearing distance
* gather leaves in the garden
* print until baby wakes up



* nurse and clean up

Day 2:
time: 1 hour 5 minutes



* set up sewing machine away from baby's near hearing distance
* gather sewing kit
* concentrate, pin and sew first envelope pillow cover - 45 minutes
* sew second envelope pillow cover - 15 minutes
* clean up - 5 minutes

Enjoy.



Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. (Edmund Burke)

On a Summer's Day

Outside:



Summer Lilac is called "Butterfly Lilac" in German (Schmetterlingsflieder) for a reason...

Inside:



View from my studio onto the garden (with the last-for now-tea towel used for other purposes than dish drying) - but who can stay inside for too long in this wonderful weather?



A summerly sparked interest to know and classify all those flowers, butterflies, plants and trees around us.



Bringing the garden inside by plant printing.





Inspiration is all around.

Case Provencal

A little whip-up sewing project combining my recent love of tea towels, traveling and summer feeling.



Old-fashioned (in a good sense) travelers write postcards. Wouldn't it be nice doing that in handmade style?



Similar to my Yoga Fan Case, this fresh French tea towel just wanted to be folded, sewn and filled.



I am already sensing some more French tea towel action for the weekend...

Towel Tote

First things first.



Two tea towels made two presents.

That means I took two tea towels with the same pattern, but different colours, cut them up and sewed them together again in a new way. One present became a neck cushion for my father who had his birthday in June and the other one a tote to hold my mama's other presents. The good things - no leftovers, already hemmed edges for the inside of the tote and matching presents for my parents. Garden-inspired for garden lovers.



Tomorrow I will show you what went inside the tote...