The Christmas Madness Continues

Hey there, lovelies! Christmas is almost around the corner and I've been a busy little bee, baking cookies and getting all of the Christmas deco ready. I'm especially proud of the Christmas mobile that you can see in the picture below... It turned out really pretty :) I also like the wreath I made, although our door is quite an ugly shade of grey. But you make the most of what you have, eh?

I hope you're enjoying the Christmas prep as much as I am <3

-With love, Lilje

Our little shrine has a new resident for the Christmas time :)

The Christmas X-travaganza

I love Christmas. Completely and totally. I love the decorations (yes, already in November), the lights that brighten up the darkness outside, the smell of baking wafting from the kitchen, the carols, buying gifts and receiving them, getting together to enjoy cups of mulled wine with friends or family. Lighting candles and curling up under a warm blanket to watch whatever is on TV, knitting, listening to music... Get the picture? :)

Last year the Christmas Lover in me got to play second fiddle to the Tropics Girl. Thailand was lovely even in Christmas time, but somehow hanging a couple of baubles on a clothes line in our jungle hut didn't really fulfill all the Christmassy cravings in me.

So, this year I decided to go totally overboard. Christmas for everyone! Cookies! Deco! Candles! Presents! And I got started early to be able to enjoy it all as long as possible.

So, here a couple of pics of the deco I've come up with so far and the first cookies. More to follow.

Hohoho!

With love, Lilje

The Purse Mania

The summer is finally here in full force, and I just started my holiday! That's the good news. The bad news is, that next week Berlin is going to get a heat wave from Sahara, and guess where I will be then? In Finland. Where we're lucky if it's above +15. Oh well. But at least there will be friends to keep us warm both in body and spirit. So yay for holidays. And yay for gifts! It goes without saying that I cannot go see my friends and family empty handed. So, when in doubt, sew purses. Lots of them. In all colors. Who could resist them? Not me :)

Something weird happened while I was sewing, though. Remember when I told with the last batch that I really didn't need such a big gap there where the purse frame ends and the purse begins? Well, I did remember, and left less space there. But when I'd finished glueing the frames in place, guess what? The gap was even bigger than before! Graah! So more hand-sewing for me. Next time I will add no allowance between the frame hinge and the purse. Let's see how it works then...

I finally got to use the owl fabric that I bought ages ago!

Nom nom feed us!

//

Läjä söpöisiä pussukoita viemisiksi Suomeen <3

With love, Lilje

The Gift Tags

These little beauties I made in the recent craft night. Julie had sooo many rolls of lovely washi tape and cute papers that just had to be used. So, gift tags. And to top off the loveliness, she dug out a box of small craft jewels. I tihnk I now have enough gift tags for the next couple of Christmases at least :)

 //

Ihanista washiteipeistä ja kauniista papereista syntyi askarteluillassa söpöjä pakettikortteja. Nyt on parille joululle kortit valmiina :)

With love, Lilje

The Craft Night

I was recently invited to my very first craft night at the lovely Julie's place. She had found some ceramic plates that someone had thrown away (!!), so we started the evening by painting them. I'd never painted ceramic before and I'm really crap at drawing or paiting anything so I was a bit apprehensive, but the little plates turned out very cute! At least now I have a couple of white(ish) plates for food photography... our black and grey plates really are not at all suitable for taking nice food photos.

Julie had also made this amazing gluten free cheesecake just for me. The portion was HUGE but I almost managed to finish it during the evening. Soooo delicious...

Besides the ceramic painting Julie had sewn these little Berlin TV towers, so I filled some of them to take home with me. So cute! And she had a gazillion rolls of washi tape which just had to be used for something, so I made some gift tags. Or a lot. But I'll make a new post of them, because they deserve a post of their own.

All in all the night was everything I had hoped for and more. Hopefully there will be many more such nights to come :) //

Ihana Julie järjesti askarteluillan. Maalattiin lautasia, täytettiin TV-torneja ja askartelin vielä pakettikortteja. Supersuperhauskaa! <3

With love, Lilje

The Dotted Basket

It's raining, it's raining again. So Her Wonkiness is sewing, sewing again. This time I tried to make this one (in German, sorry). Somehow even though both fabrics had dots, I managed to cut the pieces wonky. Oh well, it doesn't show (too badly) in the end result. Also the basket is a bit too large for the storage of misc items lying around in the living room, but it's still pretty so hey, size isn't everything! The cute iron-on is one of Sukie's again. //

Ompeluhommia jälleen, tällä kertaa säilytyslaatikkoa. Vähän liian isohan siitä tuli mutta vallan söpö, niin palvelee kyllä tarkoitustaan silti (eli siis pikkusälän säilytystä).

 

With love, Lilje

The Zippery Pouch

The sewing mania continues. After the difficulties I had with the owl pillow zipper, I thought it might be a good idea to practice some more. So: a pouch with a zipper. Namely this one. Seems like an easy peasy thing to do, which it was, but I still managed to use several hours for the projects. Well, it was raining, so what else is one to do. And it turned out super cute (with a really prettily sewn zipper *cough*)! In hindsight it would've been better to add the interfacing to the main fabric instead of the lining, but it still looks nice. I have no idea what to put in it yet, but I'm sure I'll figure something out. //

Meni niin hermot vetskarin ompeluun pöllötyynyissä että harjoittelua selvästi tarvittiin. Tässäpä siis harjoituskappaleeksi pussukka. Söötit kankaat ja soma pinkki vetskari (joka vieläkin kettuili mutta kuitenkin asettui lopulta nätisti). Mitäpä sitä ihminen muuta tarttee :)

With love, Lilje

The Owl Pillows

Hi there! How's life treating you these days? Here the weather doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind about whether or not it is summer or not. It seems every other day is super autumny with cold wind and rain and every other nice and sunny. Who knows, maybe we'll get our summer at some point. But while the sun is playing hide and seek, it's a good time to stay indoors and sew, sew, sew!

Remember the cutesy owl fabric I bought a while back? Well, now it's been transformed into two adorable pillow cases. They are 50 x 50 cm and I love them! But oh my god what a PAIN in the ass sewing zippers can be! I think it's been like 10 years since I last sewed in one. And now I remember why. Despite using the proper zipper foot in the sewing machine, it still seems to be nearly impossible to get the zipper hidden so that the fabric covers it. Superblah! Well, I managed it somehow, and you can't really see the zipper in these babies anyway, so problems schmoblems, who cares :D I just loooove the fabric, I can't stop fluffing up the pillows and admiring the print.

How do you like them? And do you have any tips for the madness of zipper sewing? //

Nyt on pöllötyynyt, jee! Ihan hirmu soma printti tuossa kankaassa, en voi lakata hypistelemästä tyynyjä. Mutta vetoketjun ompelu ehkä hidastaa vähän seuraavaa isoa tyynyprojektia. Tsiisus että voi olla ärsyttävää hommaa! Ärräpäiden kera sain vetskarit kuitenkin paikalleen, mutta huomasi että edellisestä yrityksestä oli varmaan kymmenisen vuotta aikaa. Puuh. Ehkä harjoitus tekee mestarin. Vinkkejä otetaan vastaan!

With love, Lilje

The Summer Tote

As I mentioned a few posts before, I've been bitten by the sewing bug. There's no cure; you just have to accept the fact that you will be buzzing all your spare time away with your sewing machine. But I don't mind, as there are still more little gifts I want to make for friends and family before our trip to Finland in a month.

Here's the next project. When I saw the tutorial for this inside out bag I knew that this would SO be the next thing I'd do (over and over). I've never sewn a tote bag before even though they are super easy to make, but this one combined bias tapes with the design, so there was a bit more to do than just sew the seams together.

I am completely in love with the colours! Yes of course there are spots that don't bear looking at too closely and it's not completely straight, but all in all I'm very pleased in how it turned out. The bigger pocket panel on the other side of the bag is a bit floppy as I didn't use interfacing, so I'm thinking I might add a button there just to prevent it from collapsing in use. 

The final touch that makes the tote really pop are the überlovely iron-ons by Sukie that I found as a little book from a crafts shop. Such adorable designs! I guarantee that you'll be seeing more of them later on. //

Lisää viemisiä: aivan supersuloinen kesäkassi! Ja niin helppo tehdä. Piste iin päällä ovat nuo Sukien silitettävät kuvat. Mielettömän söpöjä printtejä, ei mitään järkeä. Hehkutanko vielä lisää vai uskotteko jo? :) Tätä kassia kantsii kyllä kokeilla! Paitsi ehkä jos käyttää taskukankaaksi ohutta kangasta niin kantsii laittaa myös tukikangaskerros. Nyt on isompi tasku vähän liian lerpsu, siihen pitää ehkä laittaa nappi ylälaitaan.

With love, Lilje

The Accidental Finnish Baskets

Oh, the summer is here! I know I have no place complaining about the cold weather as I've been enjoying the warmth of Thailand for (almost) all of the winter. But the summer here and there are completely different animals. How everything smells, how the wind feels on your skin... Needless to say that as a complete summer girl I love them both.

Did I already tell you we're going to Finland for a holiday in the summer? No? Well, we are. And I'm so excited: it's always such a thrill to vacation in your home country, because you almost never do it. At least I rarely do: when it's time for a holiday, I pack by bags and go somewhere else. But now, I'm gonna go and enjoy Finland as the holiday makers might: long summer nights at the summer house, sipping wine (or bad cider, who am I kidding?), eating fish every day, meeting friends and family.

And that brings us (finally) to the crafts project of today: what to bring with me when I see all the lovely people again? It's pretty lame to bring foodstuff as you can pretty much get the same stuff in Finland as you do here. But luckily I'm a crafty little wonky person and already busily preparing little gifts, yay! Here's the first one:

Ok, yes, I know: they are completely in Finland's colours. But that was an accident, I swear! As I ordered the super chunky textile yarn, I was looking for ice blue or something a bit lighter in shade anyway. But Finland colours I got, so Finland colours I'll use. Plus I'm sure my mom will love them :)

I hadn't crocheted after primary school, but the basic stitches (double crochet and chain stitch here, mainly) are so easy peasy that it was no problem to do these little baskets. I looket at instructions from here, here and here. The pages are all in Finnish, but I'm sure there are gazillions of instrucions in English as well, just google for crocheted basket. The only thing that caused me some problems was the fact, that as the baskets are crocheted as a spiral, the finishing edge and the colour change spot will be a bit uneven. But wonky is good, right? Plus I figured out if I finish the edge with a slip stitch, it will be more even. //

Projekteja kesätuliaisiksi Suomen-reissulle, kas tässä. Ekana virkatut korit, joista tuli ihan vahingossa suomiväriset. No, äiti tykkää, kun laps ajattelee Suomea ulkomailla... :)

With love, Lilje

The Revenge of the Purse

Yes, you guessed it: there's more. Soooo cute fabrics. I'll just have to remember to fasten the ends of the thread after sewing: even though my sewing machine has a function that's supposed to do the fastening off for me, it apparently doesn't work very well... Had to sew in the gaps under the purse frame hinges by hand this time as the stitches started to come loose. Also there's no need of 1 cm gap there, I think 0,5 cm would be just fine... Just as a note for the next batch (tee hee). //

Pussukat pussukoi menemään. Mental note: päättele langat, älä luota ompelukoneen päättelytoimintoon. Myöskään ei tartte senttiä kehyksen saranan ja ompeleen välissä, puoli senttiä riittänee. Seuraavaa erää odotellessa...

I think they look like fish with their mouths open. Omnomnom feed me, they're saying.

With love, Lilje

The Mother's Day

It's Mother's day soon, and for the first time ever decided to make the cards for my mum and my future mother-in-law. They turned out quite nice! And now I really want to make something else out of paper. Is it like this with you as well: when you try a new tecnique or wander into the realm of new material, you can't seem to get enough of it? Luckily I didn't buy much more paper... (but there are shops...). Of course I had to post them only after the day itself so as not to spoil the surprise. I'm sure you understand :)  PS. Oh! Almost forgot to tell you: I also bought new stamps for the letters. Very cool, although hard to get aligned... //

Äitienpäiväaskartelua, olkaapas hyvät. Hyvissä ajoin tehty mutta viekkaasti vasta äitienpäivän jälkeen postattu. En oo koskaan oikeen tälleen kortteja askarrellu, ja näistä tuli oikeen kivat! Harjoittelu jatkukoon siis... Ja uudet leimasimetkin ostin, kirjaimet. Vähän hankala saada samalle kohdalle mutta kauniit <3

With love, Lilje

The Purse Returns

Hello there, how's things? Here, it seems I'm living in a purse factory. Ok, I might have gone a bit overboard. But when you have purse frames and nice fabric lying around, there really is no choice. They whisper into your ear and won't shut up until you've used them all. Plus my friend was carrying her new mobile phone around in an old mitten. That of course won't do, when you're friends with a DIY person, so the other pouch is for her. I was a bit worried that it'd be too small but it turned out to be just perfect. Yay for pouches! //

Pussukkatehtaasta päivää! Vähän ehkä on vimmaa ilmassa nyt mutta mikäs siinä, on kevät ja kaunista kangasta ja pussukkakehyksiä. Että näitä nyt sit vaan tulee...

With love, Lilje

The Fabric Mania #2

Hey, it's me again. I have to tell you of a shop called Frieda Hain. It's here in Friedrichshain and it will be the end of me. Well, financially at least. It is stacked from floor to ceiling with the most amazing colourful fabrics, buttons, ribbons... you name it. And let me tell you, they are not cheap. But luckily they have a basket full of small swatches for the smaller projects. So I might actually have some money left to buy some food as well. And wine. And ice cream. Oh, you get the picture. But just look at these! <3 //

Ihan sairaan ihania kankaita tuolla Frieda Hain -kaupassa. Mutta myös ihan sairaan kalliita. Ei uskalla kovin usein käydä että leivän päälle riittää muutakin ku ylähuuli. Mutta kattokaa nyt näitä! Miten näitä voi vastustaa?

With love, Lilje

The Fabric Mania #1

Hi there! Is it already spring where you're at? It is sooo nice here now: the trees have sprouted leaves in two weeks, there seem to be more sunny days than cloudy, and the temperatures have climbed to almost +20 or even above, like this weekend. The Berliners are out and about in their shorts and flip-flops which seems really really weird and crazy for someone like me, who can barely take off her winter coat before the thermometer reaches +25. But hey, you need to enjoy the nice days while they last, eh?

So, enough of the weather worship. I've actually managed to do something as well and not just bask in the sun. There will be a couple of posts, so bear with me!

Is there a saying for how good spring and sewing go together? No? Well, there should be. It seems that all I can think about this spring are fabrics and what I could (and should!) make of them. I've gone slightly bonkers in the fabric shops... Here are a couple of lovely ones. Aren't they precious? I don't know how ANYONE can resist something like this. I sure can't! Stay tuned for projects from these lovelies <3 //

Ilmat on lähiakoina kovasti hellineet berliiniläisiä. Rohkeimmat (eli lähes kaikki muut kuin minä) vetää menemään läppösissä ja shortseissa vaikka ei täällä nyt oikeesti ihan niin lämmin oo. Oon tehnytkin jotain, mutta siitä enemmän myöhemmin. Tässä ensin iiiihania kankaita: eiks oo söpöjä? Iih! <3

With love, Lilje

The First Purse

So, I promised you some crafts as well. Recently I've been daydreaming about sewing and making small, cute things which I could give as presents. On Sunday a small scale web shopping frenzy struck me, and I ordered a bunch of stull that will come very handy indeed for this purpose. Yesterday I received the first package with purse frames and immediately had to rush to the fabric store to get interfacing (Bügeleinlage/tukikangas. You learn new words everyday when you're crafting in a foreign country.)

I got so far as cutting the purse pieces and ironing on the interfacing yesterday, and today (despite I had work to do) I couldn't wait any longer: so out with the sewing machine, and one-two-three-SEW!

And lo and behold, only about half an hour later:

It is soooo pretty! Isn't it? And how easy was that! I dreaded the part of glueing the frame on but it was a total piece of cake as well. The instructions for this lovely purse can be found here in English or here in Finnish. I orderer the purse frames from Dawanda shop Bügel-Kram, but I'm sure you can find them close to where you live as well. 

I am totally hooked onto making these now, so stay tuned for more lovelies. I have just the fabric for it as well... I'll show you later on :) //

Kauhea ompeluvimma on iskenyt, ja pussukoiden tekoa on pitänyt kokeilla jo pitkään. Vihdoin sain tilattua näitä kukkarokehyksiä (vai mikä lie niiden nimi on) ja KATSOKAA MITEN HIENO SIITÄ TULI! Ei vitsi että olen onnessani. Ja niin helppoa! *kevättanssi* Nyt kaikki heti kokeilemaan, linkki ohjeisiin löytyy yläpuolelta jostain.

With love, Lilje

The Berlin (Photography) Bloggers

Hey you! The spring is finally here, or so it seems. Every other day it's warm and nice, and every other day you wear the same clothes as the day before and almost freeze to death. I'm teetering on the verge of a spring cold, but trying to avoid it by drinking tea, using my neti-pot and eating a ridiculous amount of vitamins. And of course crafting. But more of that in the next post.

Right now, let's go back to last weekend. On Friday, a bunch of photography-minded Berlin bloggers got together in Friedenau (really far away from where I live...) to share a glass of wine and discuss blogging and taking pictures. There were about a dozen of us there, and I'm sad I didn't have time to talk to each of you (needed to leave early for a gig). The list of participants can be seen here. The highlight of the evening for me was to finally meet the lovely Julie of Julie's Schöne Welt. She was every bit as great as I thought she would be, and we immediately made a second date for the beginning of May. Yay!

Thanks again for the great opportunity to meet you guys, and I'll definitely make sure that I can stay longer in the next meet-up.

//
Viime perjantaina valouvausinnostuneet bloggaajat kokoontuivat länsiberliiniläiseen Friedenauhun. Hauskaa oli vaikkakin riemu loppui omalta kohdaltani lyhyeen kun piti lähteä kaverin keikalle. Ens kerralla sitten enemmän!

With love, Lilje

The Three Dropped Stitch Wristwarmers

So guys, Easter is over. I know I promised you pictures, but what can you do: when the night is dark, the wine a-flow and four people are crammed in a kitchen barely designed to fit one, sometimes there aren't any pics to show for it. I am deeply sorry.

To apologise, I decided to share with you another wristwarmer project of mine. The pattern is Amy Gunderson's Deconstructed Mitts taken from Knitscene accessories 2012. As you look at the picture below, you might wonder, if I have forgotten how many hands a normal human being usually has. The answer is no, I intended to do the normal two mitts/wristwarmers, but as I am her Wonkiness, things went a bit awry...

The mitts used dropped stitches and stitches knit and purled through back loop as emphasis on either side of the dropped stitch. I knew how to knit through back loop. So, how hard could it be to purl through back loop? No need to check for instructions, right? 

 

So, this is what happens when you don't know what you're doing: check the difference between the upper and the lower mitt.

This is not how you do it

This is how you do it

And apparently the fucked-up through back loop purls also affect how the dropped stitch unravels. Who knew! Well, now I do. And I've learned my lesson: if you don't know how to do something, check out the instructions. Don't wing it.

But these little ones were quite fun to knit, and even though I did stuff differently than in the instructions, they still turned out quite nice. They'll be a prezzie for a friend of mine, so hope she likes them :)

Don't know what to do with the third one, though. Any suggestions? //

Pääsiäiseltä ei jäänyt kuvatallenteita, sori. Yritin korvata tekemällä kahden ranteenlämmittimen sijaan kolme. Aina kannatta katsoa ohjeita, opin taas, yritettyäni värkätä taka"loopin" kautta eli kääntäen neulottuja nurjia silmukoita. Ei se menny ihan niin kun olin kuvitellu, kuten kuvista nähdä saattaa. Jos on vinkkejä, mitä ton kolmannen epäonnisen kanssa vois suorittaa niin otetaan vastaan.

With Love,
Lilje

Pattern: Deconstructed Mitts

Yarn: Malaysian weirdo

Needles: 5 mm dp and 4 mm dp for the rib

Mood: All good stuff comes in threes

The Easter Mobile

I can't believe it's already Easter! Well, technically not, but when I listen closely, I can already hear the Easter Bunny loading chocolate eggs into her basket (there is a distinct sound to that! Just imagine.) We are totally ready for her to hop along and bring the joy to us all (or wait, was that Santa? anyway...). All the deco is now done, all we need to do is finalize the menu, go grocery shopping (already bought the lamb today!), wait for the guests and then cook and enjoy :)

Pinterest: familyfun.go.com

But the apartment looks lovely already. The final touch was the Easter mobile that I got done yesterday. Long in the planning, I am so happy that it turned out exactly like I had envisioned. I saw an image more like the one I made in a blog somewhere, but didn't bookmark it (silly me), so now it's lost. Here are a couple of pics from Pinterest though, that have inspired me. This is actually my first Pinterest-inspired post: we talked about it with fellow blogger Julie from Julie's schöne welt and decided we'd do something Pinterestey together. So here is the first post from me for that theme :)

                 

Pinterest: whatsupcharlie.over-blog.com

Pinterest: digischool.nl

So what I did was buy some felt and wooden pearls and grab a branch from the forest while visiting the horsey and paint it white. And this is what happened after:

 My very first and own Easter mobile! And super easy and fast to make. The little colourful felt dots in the collage lower left corner were my solution to keeping the beads in place: just twist the thread and make a knot, stab one of the dots with the needle and pull it onto the knot. Voilá: pearl stopper! Plus they look cute.

So, with this post I wish you all Happy Easter! May the days be merry and bright, and may all your Easter-ses be non-white (or white, if you're into skiing). I'll post of our food extravaganza later on (after we've digested it all). Bye until then :) //

Tässä ihkaensimmäinen pääsiäismobile! Tuli just sellanen kun olin suunnitellut, jee! Näillä kuvilla toivottelen kaikille iloista ja munaisaa pääsiäistä :)

Love, Lilje