Cover for Project Binder

 

My mind is not able to concentrate on one project only. After years endeavours I had to admit it. O.K. not one project a time, there are more. A sewing basket here, a pile of cloth there, sandwiches waiting for hand sewing stacked on the work table. You know what I mean. One of my first attempts to make it manageable was a project binder. An ordinary office binder with sturdy plastic pockets, one for every small hand-sewing project and EPP project. It proved to be a good choice, it is practical, well arranged and easily portable. Nevertheless, it is not really nice. Therefore, I decided to make a fabric cover.

I used my dyed cloth, some vintage fabric scraps, and two amazing pictures from the Old Made fabric collection by J.Wecker Frisch. Also, thread, buttons, and ribbons were dyed by me. I spent several pleasant evenings stitching, quilting, and embroidering.

 

It works very well, but it seems to be too small for all my not-yet-finished projects:) 

I like it anyway!

Happy stitching

Michaela 

Slow stitching on holiday II.

 

 

At the beginning of September, we spent one beautiful week in Ruprechtov, a very small village near the Spa Karlovy Vary. We made some nice trips but also spent a lovely time in the garden of the pension reading, drinking tea, and (in my case) sewing. I had plenty of time to finish (or almost finish)  two fabric collages which were „in progress“ for some time already.

This is how they were prepared at home:

The bird

And the cat:

And this is what they look like now:

Both, the cat and the bird are to become journal covers, something like this:

Happy stitching

Michaela

 

 

Balloon Flight

 

Every summer we have to take farewell from some colleagues who have to leave Prague after being four years in charge and who have to take the post in another part of the world. This summer we have to say goodbye to a very nice colleague, whom we will miss very badly. Since begin of the year I bothered my head about a gift for him. No matter what I did, the inspiration just didn´t come, until he expressed the wish to take a balloon flight. In no time, a collective voucher was organised by our enterprising colleague Moni, but we felt, it was somehow… only a paper. We needed to add something nice, something tangible.  

And that's when I remembered, there must have been a quilt fabric panel with vintage illustrations of various vehicles and also hot air balloons in my fabric stash. The very evening the balloons were found. 

We did a combat meeting with Moni and decided, a binder cover would be the right thing.

First I had to sew a background for the two nice balloons. I had a packet of 10 inch fabric squares from my beloved Jinny Beyer in the right colour scheme, from greens to blues and greys, which would create a feeling of green landscape, sky and clouds.

As the Czech landscape is mostly hilly, I decided for free-cut curves.

The outcome of my sewing was, eeeh, a bit wavier than I expected. 

I needed a thorough help of my iron and it was clear, that the quilting must be quite dense.

Here my choice of threads.

The outcome was quite nice.

The two balloons were fused to dark blue linen and appliquéd on the background. I used free motion quilting and two shades of thread.

Small pictures were fused and appliquéd on the back side too.

 

The last sewing evening was dedicated to what I call “technical sewing”, which means creating pockets, preparing lining, and sewing all parts together. 

No matter how often I measure and try on the cover, I´m always very nervous, if anything would be accurate enough. Fortunately, it worked out this time.

Dear Franz, I wish you from all my heart only happy flights!

+++

Michaela

My New Phase-6

The Phase-6 is a German vocabulary trainer we used at home a few years ago, a very good one, I must say. First, I used the program to learn English vocabulary, later it was used by my children who started to study French and German at school. It´s a very handy tool and it works very well. The learning process consist in repeating vocabulary six times (simply said), hence the name.

Two months ago, I considered to start using this method again, for English and for German as well. Since I use the computer program „englishme“ already, and  there is also very much working and reading things on computer or smart phone display during the covid pandemic, I decided against the program. But the system works very well, so I thought it over carefully and made six paper envelopes and put vocabulary cards into them and learned, following the old familiar system.  

What is the best time to learn? In the train on the way  to and from Prague of course! The paper envelopes work well in the office or at home, but they are very clumsy to transport them in the backpack together with lunch and other necessities.  The logical next step was creating a fabric pocket for the vocabulary!

I chose some jelly strips from Moda Grunge fabrics and made six pockets. The numbers wouldn't have been needed, but I had stamped them there, just for fun. The left side for English, the right side for German.

 

What fabric for the outside? It was a difficult choice.

I followed the recommendation of my husband and chose a red beauty from my Jinny Beyer stash. 

 

I couldn´t resist and added an appliqué cat… 

 

This week I´m in home office, unfortunatelly, my envelopes are waiting in the Prague office. The practical test will not be until next week...

 

Happy stitching!

Michaela