Barcelona

Last Thursday evening my brother and I drove off to Barcelona. It is a long driving from Madrid but we just missed our niece and nephew so much that we took advantage of our Friday school day off and did not think twice. We got there quite late and was a nice surprise for them to see us in the morning and nice to take them to school. After that we went to the city, strolled about for a few hours and discovered the lovely atelier shops in El Born. I especially liked the atelier-loft of a shop called Weaving: they have such cute bags and the loft is just so inspirational that living in one of those creative spaces has become in my new dream.

LaBicha Creativa

weaving

El Calaix

Giving Clothes a second chance

I have been wearing stretch jeans for the last six years, due to they are mainly what you find in shops but they are also comfy and nice to wear boots over them. However I always find hard to find jeans that fit me just right: sometimes they are so tight that my thighs look like stuffed meat. I do not have thin thighs, I have is a small waist instead, which is not a good combination when wearing jeans, due to most jeans cause a huge gap in the back of the waist! Jeans should absolutely not do this. The perfect pair of jeans must fit my waist, hips and butt without exposuring any skin. I found MY jeans in H&M years ago, I am not a fan of that shop but there they were and bought a couple of them in the same year. I love their colour and how they fit, however I have worn them so much so long that they are complete worn out...Guess where, none other than on the inner part of the thighs. My mum mended them for me by adding a piece of fabric underneath. It worked for a while but they eventually broke again.

I do not mind going shopping and buying new ones but I really find frustating to try on a million pairs and not finding a simple one that fits me properly, I just do not feel like. The solution has been googling and finding a video tutorial to be able to long-lasting mend my jeans.

Here is outcome. I have already worn them a couple of times after the mending and seems I am going to wear them for long while giving them a second chance in my little crammed wardrobe.

Talking about giving clothes a second chance: I have a white sporty type cotton top that I have worn so much that it just tore as I was rolling up the sleeves of one of the cardigans I usually put on over it. This happened to me a while ago and kept the top in order to rip it and make cleaning cloths. I remembered it as I was mending my jeans and I decided to give it a second chance as well. So I cut off the tear part and sewed it up with the cuff. Although the other sleeve was ok, I obviously had to cut it off as well. So now I have a white cotton top with shorter sleeves.

Have a lovely week!

Quilt!

I know my two most faithful followers were looking forward to seeing the finished quilt of my last post. They also know I finished it a couple of weeks ago but I had a problem with my camera, which is not really an excuse due to there are two more professional cameras at home, but no idea how to use them, to be honest. Anyway the thing is that I am using a new canon EF 50/1.4 USM lens for the first time, my old lens broke and it was more expensive to fix it than getting a new one. 

I really enjoyed making this quilt last Christmas holiday. The last part of it was relaxing indeed: I used to get up late (sometimes at 12 am!!) prepared a cup of coffee and sat down on the couch with the quilt on my lap as I hand-sewed the bias.

No more going to bed late now however I will try to make the most of my weekends. One of my new school year resolutions last September was to improve my IT skills, but besides changing the header of this blog and using "picmonkey" a couple of times I have not done much as this regard... I am taking it easy though, I have a whole year ahead! 

Happy 2014!

I am starting this new year by making a quilt. A year ago I treated myself to a baby quilt kit I purchased at Saidos da Concha's etsy shop. I had always wanted to have something made by her however as soon as I got it I kept the kit in my wardrobe for a whole year waiting to find a good moment to relax myself by making it. I must say I am enjoying it and am looking forward to sitting on my couch with my new retro style quilt on my lap.

Elise

This baby girl set is quite the same I made for my ex's newborn, the only thing that changes is the bias binding on the hooded towel. The adressee of this new baby set is Elise, a half French baby I am looking forward to meeting, hopefully before the year ends.

A few weeks ago I came across this lovely tutorial and could not resist to give it a try. Is not the cutest hen?

Elephant

In between of a crazy period of work and family issues, I have finally found a little time to take some pics of the four piece baby girl set I made  for my cousin's baby in born. These are two towelling bibs with a heart applique, a changing mat and a hooded towel with an elephant applique. 
You know how much I like grey, and think the combination with baby pink and white is kind of relaxing, do not think?
The elephant applique was meant to be for a bag, it ended up on the hood of the towel though. The ear relief makes the set funnier. 
The lovely tags I have been using lately are about to finish (only four left). I would like to get some more but it is getting hard to be able to go to craft fairs, where I know I can get them for a nice price. Last weekend a great craft fair took place in Madrid and had the best of companion (the sweetest friend willing to dive herself in the sewing world) however I could not make it in the end...
Work, family, more work, tiredness,... my issues and feelings lately. Fortunately, Christmas break is just around the corner!

Change of mind

I got this flowery fabric because it reminded me a cheap version of the liverty fabrics of London. As I mentioned in my last post I got it to make another lunch bag... Nevertheless I thought it would be nice to use it to make a baby set of hooded towel and bibs for a newborn baby girl. I am happy with the result and hope the new parents also like the fact I avoided the typical pale pink for baby, which I also love it, by the way. Yet it is good to do something different for such special little people. 

The bad thing comes when I got to the shop this morning to get some more of this fabric and it was all sold out :-(  I still got a piece of it, but not enough for the lunch bag I had in mind. 

Fabric Stash

The polka dot maroon colour fabric has become a protagonist in both my lastest posts and my hearder. I got this (expensive) fabric in this shop and I have already run out of it. Neither to say I really have made use of it. To take the most of the last pieces of this fabric I had of it I made another piramic pouch (this time for my aunt).

The flowery fabric is from the same shop and made a heart-shaped lavender bag with the left-overs. The inspiration for lavender bags comes from Yummy Lavender, who makes them in dozens for events such as weddings or Christmas.

Finally I want to share this new (and unexpensive) fabric I purchased with the aim to make another lunch bag, yet do not really know when, since my wish-to-make list increases as much as my working time. Anyway, where there is a will there is a way, do not think?

Lunch Bag

Working life is not leaving me much time to enjoy doing things that make me disconnect, such as sewing. I finished my first lunch bag a while ago, but as I was not happy with the cord I had I did not post the pics before. Yesterday, I got up early and went to the centre to my favourite supplier shop and got a nice cord for it.  I also got some towelling to make some hooded towels and bibs for 3 three newborn girls, who are welcoming the world next month.
It is a pleasure to follow Pink Penguin's tutorials: the outcome is always gratifying.

Working on a new bag

I have already used Pink Penguin fabric bag tutorial a few times (click here, here, here or here), but it is the first time I am using the lunch bag tutorial. If you have not used any of her tutorials yet, I do recomend you to do it, including those amateur seamstress around the blogosphere, like me. They have plenty of great pictures that guide you gently through the process. The problem I found was that I am not familiar with inches (and my tape measure either), but I use an on-line inch-cm converter and piece of cake!
Ayumi also uses a lovely rich range of fabrics. My fabric stash is quite limited, so I am just going to use a three fabric convination.

The outcome in the next few days.

New Header

Yes, I have changed my header... but do not really know if I am keeping this design... 

Anyway, the "back to school" is just here, and getting ready for it is what I have been into for the last few days.  I have a new school year resolution, or I should call it challenge... whatever I call it I just want to improve my I.T. skills and be able to use them both professionally and my leisure time.

I have attended to a few teaching seminars in which you could see how motivating and useful I.T. is for teaching and have had in mind to create a teaching blog for my students, in which they could participate posting the great projects they make for the class. However, it is taking me a long long time, especially because I am just useless at I.T. and do not want my students know it!

As I have been on holiday I have had the blog and my sewing projects a bit apart, but on my aim of becoming "fluent" in I.T. I designed this new header for my blog yesterday, just to practice editing with "picmonkey". The most difficult part comes when my aim is to create buttons to external links of pdf documents... I have come across some useful blogs with lots of blogger tutorials, but when they start talking about html codes I cannot help but start yawning... but I will not give up!

The header is not the only thing I should change on my blog but it is the first thing I have got rid of, even though I must confess I was fond of it since it was with me since I started my blog, in December 2009.

r.i.p.

Pyramid Pouch

Just a quick post to show you this little pouch I made for my sister: it is a pyramid pouch made with a Michelle patern (before known as a Keyka Lou). Initially I wanted it to be a flowery pouch and use the spotted fabric for the linning. However, I find the spotted one so nice that I thought it deserved to be seen, so I used for the flap. I was not sure it I did right, but it could be unsewn and re-sew the flap the other way in case my sister did not like this way.