My brother's cat needed to be looked after. We offered to stay in their house for a weekend. A good opportunity to have another mother-daughter-weekend. Our youngest had been asking for it ever since J. and I went there earlier this year. I planned some activities, but N preferred to stay in to play with the cat. I only managed to persuade her to take the bus to the city and make a boattrip through the canals of Utrecht. She's interested in means of transportation and their velocity. In the boat she asked: will we be taking the plane after this?
The cat is still recovering
My brother's cat needed to be looked after. We offered to stay in their house for a weekend. A good opportunity to have another mother-daughter-weekend. Our youngest had been asking for it ever since J. and I went there earlier this year. I planned some activities, but N preferred to stay in to play with the cat. I only managed to persuade her to take the bus to the city and make a boattrip through the canals of Utrecht. She's interested in means of transportation and their velocity. In the boat she asked: will we be taking the plane after this?
In season
When they start growing, they grow fast. What to do with so many courgettes? We like to eat them from the grill (sliced, oil on both sides, grill until they're brown and soft, sprinkle with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, eat warm or cold) or cooked (cook 20min in water, press liquid out between two plates, cut in thick slices, spinkle with garlic oil, salt, pepper and basil, you'll be amazed). When we can't handle the quantity we put them in the freezer. In slices or as soup (bake 1 onion in olive-oil until soft, add 2 sliced cougettes, a small potato, 1 cube of vegetable stock and 1 l water, cook for 20 min and blend). This soup is a perfect base for different variety's: with creme fraiche, dill and salmon or with pasta, dried tomatoes and fresh italian herbs or with smoked chicken and mushrooms or....
Not styled
Right now our new kitchen is being made. Time to document the old one. When we came to live here we only replaced the regular cupboards by the purple one (made by my father in law). We left the rest as it was with the idea that we would soon order a new kitchen. Well 'soon', became three years. As you can see I'm a rather messy cook doing too much things at the same time. For example (some of you have been asking where I find time to do so many things) the ironing board shows that I iron between cooking. Maybe a stylish new kitchen needs a better cleaning regime too...
Two Phoebe's
Two bags for two girls for the next schoolyear. Lots of changes. Less playing, but lessons in reading and writing. And gym-class in another building. They'll be needing a bag for their gym-clothes. Since they're such good friends I chose the same fabric for the outside, but different colours for the lining. Here's the tutorial for a bag like these.
Taking part
The programme of the Textile weekend in Tilburg is now on the site of the Textielmuseum. Check out the exhibitions and workshops! The theme of this years weekend is Re-spect. One project is called Re-bag. You can send in a piece of fabric of 40x90cm, made from re-used materials. A women's collective will sew handbags out of each sent in piece of material. The museum will hand them out instead of plastic bags. Today I mailed my piece of 'art'. Will you too?
Thank you, Ali!
Our daughter's teacher is retiring after many, many years of teaching 4, 5 and 6-year olds. Since I've kids of my own I admire teachers of these first classes even more. As a thank you we, three mothers, decided to make a bunting. Each triangle has a coloured and white side. We asked the kids to decorate one flag. They did a wonderful job. A matching giftbag made the present complete and ready to give to Ali.
A small glass of champagne
I've been working on this for a while, but yesterday I finally signed the contract with my publisher. Time to celebrate and share this with you. I'm writing a book! 'The big do-it-yourself-book for girls'. Also for grown-up girls ;-). Unfortunately for some of you it will be in dutch. It is scheduled to be in the shops in february 2011.
Third life
I meant to post this dress a while ago but forgot to take pictures. The dress was made for my parents 40 year wedding anniversary. Made from a dress my mother wore when she was in her early twenties. I kept the neckline, made the top smaller, cut out the middle part of the dress and sewed the lower part to the top. It was a surprise for my mom. She loved it! She told me that she had already made the dress I used from a wider dress. Apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Beets, carrots and onions
Our vegetable-garden looks awful! It was so warm these last weeks that I thought I'll remove the weeds later. Not a good idea. Weeds all over. I couldn't find the leeks between the grass anymore. Luckily some vegetables didn't mind and grew anyway.
For Iris
These last weeks I've been drinking a lot of coffee with the man who paints our house. He even brought my girls some toys that his grandchildren had outgrown. To thank him I made this phone or mp3-player cover for his granddaughter he was telling me about. 16-year-olds are particularly hard to please, but I hope she will like it.
Transformation
Since I couldn't part from the last bag I felt obligated to make some Morsbags that I will give away. The fabric of an old tablecloth I once bought in France was perfect. I managed to make two sunny shoppingbags out of it. I will drop both in a local supermarket that has a bowl near the entrance where you can leave your spare (plastic) bags for others to use them.
Instead of 80 plastic bags
Recently I came across these projects from Eloleo and Morsbags. Making fabric shoppers (and using them) in the war against plastic bags. They both provide a tutorial. Since I'm always using a shopping bag from Susan Bijl, I thought I'd make at least one bag for someone else. I took this pattern of Nan Iro. I am fascinated by the pattern and coloursceme. I left out the frayed ends. Now the problem is: I can't give this bag away.
Sunny
Another present for another little girl. I found the tutorial over here, at Nested. The label is printed with a 'priceless'-stamp, bought at Nothingelegant via Etsy.
Can you find the dress?
A cute dress for a cute little girl. Julia will soon be three years and our girls are invited to her party. This will be one of her presents. From this japanese book. Want to try a japanese pattern too? And not ready to order a book yet? Go to the site of Nan Iro/Kokka. There you'll find some wonderfull patterns. It is a bit of extra work because you have to construct your own patterns, but worth while the effort.
Little green bag
On the school playground a woman came up to me and said 'I see your girl also has such a beautiful schoolbag made by Neeltjes mother'. She was a bit embarassed when I told her that I am the mother of Neeltje. Then she asked whether she could order one. So this rabitty bag will be hers (or better her sons) soon.
Walk in the park
Last friday afternoon it was too hot to play outside. Instead the girls made collages for their cousins Pepijn and Floris. The best magazine for collages appears to be Flow. It's filled with great colours, pictures and patterns.
Blogging from the museum
Aren't they looking professional, my own teatowels in red? Made at the 'textielmuseum' in Tilburg. Make a note in your agenda: there's a 'textielweekend' again on 2&3 october. I'm invited to be a live-blogger from the event. You can find me on sunday afternoon in the library of the museum. I hope to meet you there or (when you're on the other end of the world) step by on this blog. The museum also put together a list of interesting sites and blogs around the topic of textile.
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