swallows return

cloud pocket top

New top added to shop - 100% cotton Japanese fabric in a yellow floral with vintage fabric cloud pocket. Available in sizes 2T-5T.

seeing red.

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I seem to be gravitating towards red more than I used to, maybe a sign of changes ahead.

bloomers

Some fresh bloomers in the shop. They're made from a lightly textured Japanese cotton in these three colourways, sizes 2T-5T.

What a week it's been. Entertaining a five-year-old who's home from school with a broken arm is keeping me on my toes. Luckily, some friends and I have our pedicure day this weekend - can't wait!

I'm also fairly obsessed with Finnish artist Klaus Haapaniemi's work:

Accipiter Striatus, silkscreen on paper

Crane cushion, hand printed on linen

Bat and flowers silk crepe scarf

Bat card tree decoration.

 

minter gardens.

Lady slippers, rhodos, wisteria and aquilegia - a favourite nursery on a rainy Victoria Day.

autochromes

I'm finding these century-old autochromes particularly beautiful. I never could imagine the world in colour before conventional colour photography. A glimpse of it by way of these images has stayed with me for days.

"Autochrome Lumiére" was patented by the Lumiére brothers in 1903. The technique itself of creating these prints is fascinating. More examples here.

Images above:

yellow orchids - c. 1910 (Charles Corbet)

her daughters in Japanese dress - c. 1914 (Etheldreda Laing)

his daughter Christina - c. 1913 (Mervyn O'Gorman)

On another note, we have a sad little five-year-old this week as he broke his arm on Monday. I got that phone call from school that all parents dread. We're settling in to the idea that there will be no swimming or soccer for the next few weeks. I envision us learning to play chess on a sunny May afternoon...

One of my favourite spots outside the city - Reifel Bird Sanctuary. Wide open spaces, salty ocean breezes, the scent of warm pine trees and swallows and herons and cranes and goslings.

tana lawn + vintage fabric tops

Two new tops for the shop. One with a Liberty of London tana lawn yoke, the other with a pretty vintage floral yoke.

maurice sendak

from Pierre, A Cautionary Tale in Five Chapters. Sad to hear the passing of a great author of children's literature. If you haven't seen this yet, do look.

New top added to my shop: 100% cotton double gauze with birds in tree print - available in sizes 2T-5T.

A great weekend: Aquarium, helping build a giant Lego R2D2 and a new play table for home (Ikea Lack table with Lego base hot-glued on top).

mix.

Feeling the need to buy some fresh eucalyptus branches.(image: Pinterest)

My five-year-old's cheetah and volcano drawing (the cheetah likes volcanoes).

Paper crystal street art. (image: plentyofcolor.com)

kids clothing week challenge: day 7

KCWC wrap-up: pullover hoodie with cloud pocket. I designed some girls' cloud pocket tops for my Etsy shop and my five-year-old son wanted one too. Crazily enough, the botched front legs from this pair of pants from days 2 and 3 made great raglan sleeves with a little trimming here and there. I grabbed and cut up an old grey t-shirt of mine and...voilá...a cloud pocket hoodie was born. To make the raglan shape, I relied on Craftiness is Not Optional's raglan tee tutorial; for the hood I used a scaled-down version of a McCall's raincoat pattern hood.

Couldn't pass up taking a photo with the matching pants.

So...in conclusion...finding an hour to sew every day this past week was dang HARD but I guess I managed to keep my head above water. Being part of a collective sewing frenzy was awesome. Seeing via Flickr and Pinterest and blogs what other moms out there are making for their kids is really a wonderful, wonderful thing. A thank you to Meg from Elsie Marley for creating and hosting KCWC. Would I do it again? Hell yeah!

Lastly, I thought I'd include a photo of me and my sis wearing dresses my mom made for us. Thanks mom for making clothes for us and for instilling a love for sewing in me!

kids clothing week challenge: day 5

KCWC projects for day 5: black and white striped t-shirt refashioned from an old one of mine with purple ribbing around neck and sleeves and a scalloped border on the front hem. I traced the scallop template from this make-it-yourself curtains book (yep, haven't made any curtains yet).

Cotton patch-pocket pants with a burnt orange waistband and hem. I added some piping around the pockets hoping that they'd pop out a bit more. Wishing I had more of the dot print; I'd love to make the Oliver + S sailboat top with it.

Have you checked out all the amazing clothes on Elsie Marley's flickr group? Seriously inspiring.

kids clothing week challenge: day 3

Hooray that I finally churned something out by day three! This is my first  KCWC and I am learning LOTS like don't start cutting up patterns after 10:00pm or you might chooch it up. I so wanted to make these pants (snellebroekjes means fast little pants, yeah, I gotta work on that) but I cut the curvy yoke on the front the wrong way and the end result was just so, so wrong, like wearing your underpants over your pants kind of wrong. I spent what seemed like a good portion of this afternoon picking apart the stitches I so giddily sewed late last night, cut out the last remaining yardage of navy blue cotton and bamboo terry and settled for a wide contrast in front and a narrower one in the back - no curvy yoke. I did, however, add some in-seam pockets. My guys love pockets and little boys look adorable standing around with their hands in their pockets (even if it only lasts for 5 seconds, hence no photo of hands in pockets).

The second thing I've learned so far is as long as your kid says they like it and they take off what they're wearing in order to wear the shirt that you made to school that day, it doesn't really matter if you feel discouraged, you've succeeded! He will not be obsessing over the wonky stitching on the neckline or baggy armholes. "It's comfortable, mom," he said. It's made from an old one of mine; I added some purple ribbing around the neckline and a blue pocket. He genuinely liked it! Day four tomorrow - bring it on!

galiano island

Spent the weekend on Galiano Island with lovely friends, delicious food and kids galore. It had been way too long. I forgot how the beach smells like kelp and how soft the forest ground feels under your shoes, just bark and moss and earth. The kids even discovered a deer skeleton!

the dirndl

Lena Hoschek

wax print dirndls: Noh Nee

Sportalm

The dirndl and its' (some may beg to differ) awesomeness as it presents itself today.

showers + flowers

A rainy spring day on the west coast. I love it!

persian block print & clematis

I was very good this weekend and managed to restrain myself and NOT bid on this beautiful Persian block brint panel. Got the last of the seeds started, milkmaid nasturtiums, took the boys to the beach and moved the clematis. Some grand inspiration:

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cloud tops.

Just added to my Etsy shop - handkerchief linen tops with cloud pockets and eyelet trim.

easter traditions

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Making things was a large part of my childhood and making things for holidays contained the most excitement of all. My favourite Easter tradition from when I was young was to decorate eggs in the Ukrainian style - "Pysanky". A method whereby one uses a "kistka" to draw designs on the egg with melted beeswax. First you would draw out what you wanted to stay white, then dip the egg in the yellow dye, then draw out what you wanted to stay yellow, dip it in the yellow dye, and keep going down the spectrum. The smell of melted beeswax still takes me back to when we'd sit around the table, jars of dye lined up from lightest yellow to darkest violet and then black, a candle to heat up the wax in the tiny little pot on the kistka. I'd keep them on a shelf in my room for months.

My kids are still too young to try this kind of thing right now (we're still in the Paas kits with wild animal stickers stage) but I'm hoping we can in a few years time. I even found this.

What are your favourite traditions for Easter? Hope you're having a great spring weekend!

scissors

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One could always use more scissors...right?

gardening.

Transplanted 30 tomato seedlings today. Most will be given away to friends. Also got these in some starter mix:

- castor bean

- hyacinth bean

- cardiospermum

- bunny tails

- bells of Ireland

This year's gonna be all about getting lots of leafy results fast!