Another Advent Calendar

 

A week ago I got a phone call from my good friend, a proud mother of a five year old young man. She saw the pictures of the advent bags on Facebook and would like to have some for her son.  It was only a week before the beginning of advent. But I had the time, I was in the right mood (my overlock machine was also still in the good mood by the way), there were still many pictures by Anni Downs and I could find also the needed pieces of red coloured fabric. I could start!

 Unfortunatelly, there were no 24 different pictures, so I had to play a bit with the appliqué.

        I love the mice!

 

Ready to handover

 

Happy stitching!

Michaela 

Advent Calendars

 

If you like it or not, there are only three weeks until advent, the „countdown“ for the children is going to begin. There is the highest time to start preparing’s: to find the old advent calendars in the very far corner of the cabinet, to prepare the filling of it, some sweets or small pictures, small toys or other surprises. As my children are adult now, there will be no filling of an advent calendar any more for them, but I can proudly say, that the calendars I made for them years ago (being supported by Jackito all the time)  are really nice. 

 

 

 

But of course, every year in the time before advent, the idea of sewing one for friends or family comes in my head. 

This year, two sets of small advent bags were created. There was fabric enough to cut 50 small bags in red and in green.

With the friendly support of Norioka I could choose 50 suitable pictures from Christmas fabric by Anni Downs. 

 Then, the most difficult part of the work had to be done: persuading my Singer overlock machine to deal with the fine cotton fabrics and to make a nice edge. It costed me two evenings but I won the battle!

 

In the meantime, I was able to cut also the fabric for cotton gift bags, which my friend asked me to make for her.

This weekend, both tasks were completed! I find the result very nice. 

The two advent calendars are leaving tomorrow by post, I hope to please the two girls of our Norwegian friends with them (let´s hope that the post delivers them in time:)).

Happy stitching to all of you!

Michaela

 

The Finished Needle Cases

 

Do you remember my blog about felt?  And the blog about working on needle cases? The first one is from April, the other one from August. Today I can proudly announce, that all of the needle cases I started in July and August are finished!

 

Both parts, the outer one (I call it „a panel“) and the inner one, are made from the beautiful woollen felt. The panels are embellished with scraps of my beloved fabrics, quilted, embroidered, embellished with small beads. Everyone is different, everyone is just beautiful, and I like them all very much. Inside you can find a small pocket for threads and buttons, a bigger pocket for scissors and the middle sheets for needles and pins. The romantic charm is stressed by satin ribbon, which plays the role both of a closure and embellishment as well. 

No.1 - The picture is a part of a panel from J. Wecker Frisch, appliqued by machine and hand embroidered.

 

 

 

No.2 - An amazing cat button from Lynette Anderson, the inner pockets are from her fabric as well.

 

 No.3 - a composition from an old silk collar and a fabric with Parisian motifs, embelished  with my hand dyed thread buttons

 

No.4 - a part of fabric picture by J. Wecker Frisch (the black background with text)  in combination with pink parts of my former jacket. The jacket was so lovely that I just couldn´t throw it away, part by part, I use  every piece of it.  

 

No.5 - a collage made from scraps I got from my friend Iveta Nedomová - a great fashion designer

 

No.6 - Here I used scraps of fabrics from Tim Holtz and (in the very backgroud) scraps from a shirt of my former boss (thank you Miloš, I really love your old shirts!)

  

No.7 - The linen scraps from Iveta again

 

No.8 - A beautiful old piece of lace, made by an old lady who was a great  master of crocheting, here in combination with wooden buttons by Lynettte Anderson.

 

No.9 - Some scraps from Iveta (hand dyed brown scraps in the background) and Tim Holtz (the rulers)

 

 

No.10 - Scraps from Iveta again!

 

No.11 - Scarps of very fine silk from Iveta and an other old master piece of crocheting in the center

 

Happy stitching!

Michaela