Creation d'Isis: 2016

Friday, November 25, 2016

Project 18: A cardigan for my father's wife

My father's wife had sewn several things for me and in one instance she finished a jacket that just wouldn't wanted to be finished. So I decided to make here a sleeveless cardigan she can wear while working. Keeping her warm and hands free at the same time. I adjusted a pattern I found online (insert link), bought yarn (way too much) and started knitting. It came out rather nice I can say. I crocheted around the arm openings to ensure the edges wouldn't roll in too much

Project 17: Congratulations card

Friends got married and I tried to make a card with my ScanNCut. Only the machine acted up and nothing came out as I wanted. In the end I took a pair of scissors, looked at pinterest and made this card.

Project 16: Alexei as the "fou de roi"

Alexei wanted to be the "fou de roi" for carnaval in March. Couragous, how many kids would dare so.
He looked great

Project 15: Alesya as a fairy

Carnaval in March.
Made Alesya's outfit - end result beautiful

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Project 14: Creative diary

For years I have been creative and did not keep track of everything I made. So I wanted to keep a creative diary in the form of a blog. Also this year I have challenged myself to finish/do 52 projects and this blog is a way to follow my projects. As have now finalized 17 projects, decided to name my blog project number 14. So over the next days will need to blog on projects 15 - 18. Stay tuned.

Project 13: Cushion cover for Slava's friend

Slava's bycicle was to small. And it was too early for either a birthday of Christmas gift. His friend saved the day. Her bicycle was to small for her and she goodhearted let Slava use it. We went to return the bike with a small gift: a cushion cover made from African fabrics and her name on it. Small detail - both sisters now each have their own cushion cover. She was very happy with it.

Project 12: Photography course

I bought a fancy photo camera in 2007. I took lots of lovely pictures with it, however I never took the time to read the manual and get myself acquainted with all the features it has. Nor do I take pictures in the manual mode. So time to change this. I signed up for a one-day photo course in Geneva and I loved it. We had some theory in the morning and after lunch we walked through Geneva. We had four sets of pictures to take: 1) portrait; 2) landscape (for which we went to Parc the Bastion); 3) city life and 4) more city life focusing on taking pictures of people. The latter was a real challenge as I am not used to take pictures of people I don't know.

There was a feedback session a week after the course during which we would receive feedback on our best 12 pictures. Some of the pictures were well received, others less. Some were well organized, maybe too well as the instructor asked me if I have all my garden magazines neatly organized, adding that my house myst be really nice and organized and neat. This really made me laugh, as I don't have garden magazines, nor is my house very neat. With three kids??? So take home message is to take more pictures and try to have them less structured/organized.

Shopping girls

Reflections

Southern style

Trees in window

City landscape

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Lemon coconut cupcakes

Sunday was Alexei's birthday and he choose the menu. For desert he wanted a fruit salad which made completely sense as we were going to have a raclette. Clearly he had forgotten about the 10 candles, no way I can stick these in a fruit salad, although come to think of it, I could have cut a big slice of pineapple and stuck the candles in it.

So I made 2 dozen of cupcakes, half chocolate and half something without milk ..... mmm what to make this time. I wanted something sweet, but not to sweet and a creamy touch. I took the basic recipe for cupcakes and replaced the milk with coconut milk and lemon juice. The result: delicious.

Recipe

Ingredients:
110 grams butter (one stick)
200 grams of sugar (one cup)
2 eggs
275 grams of flour (3 cups)
1/2 a packet of baking powder (4 grams, 2 teaspoons)
100 ml coconut milk (less than half a cup, 0.4 cup to be more precise)
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Preparation:
Pre-heat your oven of 180 degrees C (350 degrees F)
Cream the butter and the sugar.
Add the eggs one by one.
Mix the flour with the baking powder.
Add the flour alternately with the coconut and lemon.
Line you muffin pan with paper cupcakes.
Fill the muffin pan and place your cupcakes in the oven.
Bake for 25 minutes until golden.

Notes:
The recipe requires more sugar (225 grams) but used less.
If you mix the coconut milk and the lemon juice it will curd, this does not change the taste, just the texture

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Project 11: A cushion cover for Alesya's friend

Alesya's friend invited her over for a play date. It was also the day of her birthday, so we needed a gift. Why not make one ourselves, Alesya agreed. So while she was having her siesta I cut up some fabric,and as I was sewing it all together thought something was missing.

So I added some pink fabric tiny strips on two sides of the cushion cover. As I was sewing I also ironed out all the seems so it would look nicer once stitched on the seems.

To finish off, cut her friend's name from vinyl and Alesya helped me ironing the letters on the cushion cover.

Both Catalina and her parents loved the home made gift.

Friday, February 19, 2016

Project 10: Blue bed cover finalized

My bedcover is finished and it turned out so beautiful. The fabric catching some sun makes it even more stunning.

Finding the right colour for the outer trim was quite a challenge as where I live fabric stores are not widely available.

Am very happy the way this has turned out.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Project 10: Bed cover

I just love African fabrics, they come in so many colours and designs and not necessarily only in the West-African batiks that we often see in pictures. My dear friend Sue who works in Africa regularly brings me some fabrics. Including this beautiful royal blue with white flowers and black rims. This blue is so my colour blue. When my friend saw it she knew she had to buy it for me.

I did not have to think long for what I would make of this gorgeous fabric: a bed cover. I took the measurements and started thinking how I would tackle this project. African fabric in the middle, a white board around it and then some more blue (or black) to finish off.

If I would use the same batik for the edges I would finish all my fabric in one project and I was not ready for that as I had some more ideas slowly growing. So I figured that time would tell what the outer ridge should be. I bought matching blue uni cotton and had to decide how wide the white strip would be

Almost done

Project 9: Doll house

Alesya has a dollhouse from the 20's or so based on the colours (or could be 70's, opinions differ). It needed a bit of modernizing and in September we went to the hardware store to choose the colours. I should have taken"a before picture", but completely forgot. We chose red for the roof, pink, blue and violet for the inside walls and floors, and the outside walls are for now in off-white. The modernized dollhouse is now in her room with the furniture in place. It could do with some curtains and pictures ........ my project list will never get shorter ........

Project 8: Bulletin board for Alesya

Alesya had a hard time keeping track of the days of the week. And each day we had to ask her what day it was and remind her of what activity she had, or where she would be going. She has a very busy schedule between twice a week speech therapy, once a week ergo-therapy and judo. So I bought a cork bulletin board from Ikea

The idea was to cut the days of the week from iron on vinyl. I had ordered the colours, and was going to iron these on a blue cotton fabric. The challenge was how to add the cloth to the bulletin board. I tried to remove the frame, but could not do so without damaging. Then {lightbulb}: the board is made from cork and cork is heat resistant. What if I would iron the letters directly on the board. I tried it out on a cork coaster and nothing went up in flames. I did use parchment paper just in case. It worked and it stayed on. So now all I had to do was decide if I wanted to hang the bulletin board horizontally or vertically.

The activities were cut from the same vinyl, placed in a plastic envelop, heat sealed and cut.

Project 7: Coat knobs

As the kids grow and get bigger, so do their coats. The coat-rack I had made in 2010 was getting fuller and fuller and too small for their winter coats. So needed a new solution. I ended up buying drawer knobs and mounted these on the wooden window shutter that we use for the kids coats, well we had to do something with the shutter ..... [pic forthcoming]

Project 6: Chair for Slava

Slava was still using the plastic high chair we had bought for Alexei in 2010. And yes it was on my list to buy him a "grown-up chair", if only I could get motivated going the shop on a Saturday morning, find a parking place, go in and face the crowd, wait my turn, order the chair hoping that they would have it in stock, drive to the warehouse to pick it up, knowing that it would take me easily one hour waiting ...... So on a Friday morning drove out to the shop and was done with the whole process one hour later ........... OK, so not a creative challenge, however very satisfactory to be able to remove this from the list [pic forthcoming]

Project 5: Cardigan for Elise

Last year I had bought pink yarn for a cardigan for Alesya that a friend offered to knit. I had miscalculated the quantity needed and ordered way too much. So last year made a cardigan for my niece and still had plenty left. Elise's birthday is in January so made a cardigan for her (she is the daughter of a friend from the children's school). The yarn is Phildar Impact bright pink. I hand knitted the boards and used the USM (Bond) for the rest. The front side is crochetted using DK by Stylecraft.

Project 4: Christmas card

And another project that was very due in January. A few years ago, my Christmas/New Year's cards would be made in November and send out early December.

Project 3: Yearly calendar of the kids

Ever since the kids arrived in France we have made a yearly calendar for the family. Each month a picture from the previous year. Usually we are done in December so we can offer them at Christmas. The 2016 version ....... was made in 2016.

Project 2: African quilt for Alexei

A few years ago my friend Sue brought me some African fabric (Nigerian if not mistaken). I had made curtains for the boys room and last year made a lamp shade. And still a lot left over. As I wanted to learn how to quilt (improve my skills) decided to make an African quilt for Alexei. In December the two of us went to the "lapjesmarkt" in Utrecht and choose the colours to go with the African fabric: bleu, yellow and red. The quilt was made in January. As I was sick (flue) and couldn't do much else, finished the project in one week. A learning curve ...... for my next quilt need to do some reading and video watching to improve.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Project 1: Finishing Slava's cardigan

In December I knitted a cardigan for Slava. The yarn I had bought in October 2014 in the Netherlands, 300 gr, not very expensive. As I had only bought the BOND USM in 2013, I figured best to start with cheap yarn. Well, the yarn had to wait for more than a year. And then again for a few weeks as I was almost done, almost. And after our Christmas holidays I took a needle and some left over yarn, a pair of scissors and sat down. Not allowed to do anything else but finish. OK, staying put wasn't too difficult as I was quite sick and the weather was horrible.

Fiftytwo projects or more ......

A new start of the year and the list of UFOs (Un Finished Objects) and new ideas gets longer and longer and longer. The pile of fabrics, yarn, beads, paper, ..... gets bigger and bigger and my studio is overflowing. Time for a clean-up. I challenge myself this year to finish at least one project per week. No idea if this is feasible at all. So in January as I am on a break I decided to get started with the list and see how far I get. I wish myself good luck :-)