une escarcelle pour une belle femme

As everytime I do something for someone I love....I freak out. I want it to be as pretty as can be , to show them how much I care. Usually in the process I really go crazy.This belt pouch was no exception.

First things first,  I  imagine how I want the pouch to look like, tolors, form and materials. Lately my favorite pouches are felted medieval-inspired ones and as this gift was ment for a re-enactor well, it fitted perfectly. 

Nooow the tricky thing here is that I'm just learning to make my own crochet patterns and usually after felting I end up with weird forms ooor not exactly what I expected. Once again, this was the case jajaja. I was getting angry wheeeen a lovely bear told me he couldn't understand what was wrong with it "c'est jolie" he said. So after this, I realized I actually liked it even if it wasn't exactly as I'd imagined jeje, sooo from here on, everything was a breeze. Loved the result, hope Laetitia did too.

Voici some pics, let me know what you like or what could be improved.

just out of the washer

felt detail

 adding the cord ( I looove making cord je ne sais pas pq)

 Hand painted buttons, and twisted cord details

 the closure, braided cord and hand painted button

hand cross-stitched linnen lining (tongue twister)

Voilà l'escarcelle que j'adore ^^

my fave till now

Voilà, Camille

After taking forever,  je vous présent Camille my sweet bear.  Why Camille? I have no idea whatsoever, it just felt right for her...her? jajaja Yeah I give name and gender to stuffed animals, thankfully, lots of other people do that, otherwise I might start thinking I've got  issues..jajaja

Today I had class at the airport, so I seized this opportunity to visit Vic and gift her to him, chose a nice baby gift bag, took some quick shots and off I went to class.

Calabaza en tacha

Pumpkins are one of my favorites things of autumn. They've got this huge range of forms, colours and flavours!!! They're just sooo pretty aaand yummy too. You can prepare all sort of dishes, a nice creamy spicy soup,  a luxurious pumpkin-orange bread even bodybutter if you mix the flesh with a bit of coconut cream and almond oil, they are just amazing.

Here in México, we prepare "calabaza en tacha" by boiling it with  Piloncillo ( sort of double molasses) cinnamon and some people add aniseed (I even add a bit of ginger) till a thick syrup is formed and pumpkin is tender.

 

Piloncillo

 

 piloncillo + cinnamon+ aniseed+water +pumpkin

 

= calabaza en tacha

 

habemus ursus....almost

Remember the bear I'm working on, well, it seems that getting the ball's size right was trickier than I thought. Yesterday I ended up with a ball 1 inch bigger than it should....so now I have to  down size it  in order to give my lovely bear a decent body :-p

Mr Google found a very nice tutorial for sewing balls on the internet database for jugglers. I chose a 3 pannel ball and doubled the pattern's size before printing.  Mine is made out of 6 diferent fabrics. Here´s my choice:

Wonder which one's my fave?  I love this one soooo much? It's adorable!!!

This cutie is not sawn up just yet, look how weird the body looks with the big ball inside..jajaja

And in the mean time, Hanna was awaiting for her own ball session ^^

more on baby stuff

As I've mentioned  in former posts, one of the things I enjoy making the most is baby stuff,  the fabrics,  crocheting, sewing you name it, baby stuff. So when Vic told me about his newborn...well I was thrilled. I decided to give stuffed animals a try.

As you may guess, I chose a Bear..jaja couldn't help myself :p When Ximena was born, I bought a  pattern from e-patterncentral that I didn't crochet, hence this was my opportunity to do so ^^ It's a "bear blanket hide-out" this means it has an opening to well, hide a blankie in there, jajaja as Im nooot crocheting a blankie I decided to sew a fabric ball instead ^^

I'm almost through the hole body now, and will be joining this gorgeous little bear, I hope, this afternoon. Can you see it already?

new pics on the same embroidery

I took  new pics of the embroidery pattern as I had to redo it. The first one is kindda small for the towel...jeje

Here, Im trying to show you how the color and stitch sequence,changes the texture and look of the embroidery

 First layer: burnt orange

Second layer: Very light burnt orange

Third layer: light green 

Forth layer: violet blue

latest embroidery

Im kindda wordles today...I'll leave ya with the pics of my latest embroidery.

wordless

German relic pouches,late 14th C.

I cant wait to get started: burnt orange, yellow and blue

I'll give details later :D

My workshop

 Yesterday Dad decided to give me and my workshop an opportunity to show that I'm on my way, by giving me a  "new" 30 year-old cupboard for my stuff :) This was a cupboard my parents had when they got married 33 yrs ago. Its not pretty at all, and I dont have time nor money to renew it buuuut it makes wonders to my piles and piles of boxes of fabric, yarn, paints ....all over the room.  Other nice thing is that I'm allowed to use a small cabinet from an old Oma's bookcase, I've always loooved this cabinet :) Its now the place for my notebook materials and craftbooks

Im happy

Now everything's gonna be handy and ordered....or so I hope...I'll take some pics later..


it's exciting

new books and yarn :D

Last friday mom and I found  this magnifiscent crochet book from leisure arts at our local yarn store.....°_°  It was a must so we bought it.

It wasn't really expensive (round 260MXN), and is worth every single cent of it. InsideI found a treasure of new posibilities for my bags and stuff in general.  There's a small chapter about the history of crochet, all the techniques, how to's of main stiches aaaand....

 Look! There's even a stitch pattern gallery along with pictures, steno and explanations :D makes me sooo happy :D

The real objective of our visit was to get some yarn for a nice baggy mom's been wanting to crochet for some time now. We chose cotton ease from Lion Brand. As if the book wasn't enough, there were some italian yarns on sale, 50% sale!!! linen-cotton-silk blend yarn....Yummy!! It was a must... jejeje Ya know Im an addict and so is mom....as mother as daughter I guess.

Here, I took some pics of the yarns:

I managed to get 300g of this beautiful beige silky cotton

Got 150g of both orange and red

and  my color choice for the baggy...I have just the right fabric for the lining

On other crafty news, my parents gave a really nice present: a brand  new sewing book called "Coser en casa" (sewing at home)....it's a sewing bible that lingers from basics to home decor and such :D missa happy....

Everything comes clearly illustrated step by step. I've already learnt a couple of new tricks for my bag linings :)

sweet!!

Pincushion

long time no see....buuut I just finished my new pincushion. Felt, little bit o' embroidery. Didnt want to take too long on this proyect as I have tons ( by tons I mean a hell lot) of bags to finish up....So came up with this.

I think I might be a bit addicted to paisleys, jajaja. I may use the extra felt to make a nice pencil or cosmetics baggy, what ya think?

love this color combination.

coconut button.

a closer look XD

Crafts Fair....

Today my parents and I visited the Crafts and stationery Fair at the WTC in Mexico city.

OMG!!

Soooooooooooo many people..tooooo crowded....to much pushing, heat, hunger, tacky crafts, lack of oxygen...but also many pretty fabrics, yarns and such to pick from! ...

Here in Mexico is hard to get pretty cotton fabrics, so the quilting stands were my target.  Dunno if it's cause quilting is "in" now or what, but there were like 6 or 8 different fabrics stands, and believe me, that´s a looot here..jejeje.
Some time ago, I discovered this mexican yarn company that has really really nice yarn at quite affordable prices, so Filati was my other target. Oh yeah 600MXN in yarn. That'll make some nice bags: one  brownish-pinkish cotton-wool one, a blue cotton with fancy tape...nice pink-orange tape maybe with leather or fabric and a nice light scarf with a very fancy metallic blue w/ black tape.

Another treat for me was Olfa's stand.  I've longed a cutting compas for ages now and at laaast I was able to buy it along with a pkg of blades, a bit cheaper than in regular stores.   Ah! and I got a cutting board too Yipee!

I was going mental, had to restrain myself soo much, I already owe a big deal to my dad... but hey! It's an investment right? let's see how many things can come out from all these :D

Now I'm into planning so I can get the right number and color of zippers, brooches, snaps, etc, needed.





These are yummy colors!  I'm missing more blues, though.

I bought some felt and beads  some time ago but I still wanted to show them, hehehe. The aqua and the wine ones are specially nice. The beads were on discount, very good one indead: 10 beads for less than a dollar and they're somewhat big, more or less 2cm wide.