syko

dream happy

Helsinki is in bloom and I enjoy it fully! I think the older I get, the more I love this season. Right now the town smells sweet of bird-cherry and soon it will be followed by lilacs. Just look at me! I'm running around hugging cherry trees!

I got some flowers for the balcony too, a rosy Busy Lizzie, a romantic little lady.

 For Mother's Day I gifted myself with this Clematis 'Omoshiro', such a beautiful name, don't you think? I hope it will be happy to live with us, but above all I wish that I will soon have a garden of my own to plant it in... *sigh*

We have found a house (we have been looking to buy a house for a long time now) and I am crossing fingers and toes that this time everyhting go well and we will be moving in June, but more about that later, when I hopefully have some good news to share! Until that I am focusing on:

I hope these two words will help! And the winner, I hear you asking? First I want to thank everyone who participated! The winner of Skandinavische Näh-ideen is: Katrin!!! Herzlichen Glückwunsch!

 

The story of a bag

I have a bunch of stuff left from the market last weekend so I have updated my Etsy shop!

I am trying to use second-hand fabrics in my work as much as I can, it does not feel wise to keep on buying new in a world that is filled with abandoned textiles in good condition. This means that the fabrics that come to me can be in colours or patterns that might not have been my first preference if I had went shopping for brand new fabrics. However I love the creative challenge that working with second hand materials gives me. Very often it helps me to step outside my comfort zone. 

My friend Tuija was very kind to give me these fabrics in burnt orange and yellow from her great stash of second-hand fabrics when I had run out of cotton canvas for my handbags. One of my favourite colours right now is turquoise, so I decided to combine it with the orange. And dots, of course! I am very happy with the 60's look it got. And I had to make a zippy pouch to match it, a little circus bird. 

Felt cake play-food/pincushion tutorial

Tonight is the night I will be on TV (19.30 at YLE TV2), sadly most of you will not be able to see the programme, but I would like to share a little tutorial with you for the felt cakes me and my friends are making in the programme. They both have small kids so I thought it would be a fun little project to take home. All pictures are taken "behind the scenes" at the TV shoot by Viivi Lehtonen/YLE. The pretty felt needle book in the picture below was made by my friend Laurraine.

Ohjeet suomeksi ylen sivuilta.

What you'll need for your cake:

• basic sewing supplies
• felt (we used craft felt, but wool felt would be lovely)
• cardboard (a cereal box will do fine)
• embellishments, like buttons and lace
• wadding 

You can  either sew the cake on your sewing machine, or by hand, if you have a lot of time! 

1.Start by making the card-board circle. This will make the base for your cake and will prevent the needles to go through the bottom of the pincushion. You will need a circle with about 10 cm (4'') in diameter. Draw and cut it out.

 

2. Cut two circles from the felt. Use the cardboard piece as a pattern and add a 0,5 cm (1/4'') seam allowance. Then cut a 5x38cm (2''x15') strip from the felt. 

3. You can either embellish your cake now, or when it is stitched together. I stitched on some lace cream to the side strip of my chocolate cake at this point.

4. Now stitch the top piece to the side strip. The ends will overlap generously so the side seam does not have to be sewn. Stitch the other circle to the bottom (right sides facing) leave a gap big enough for the cardboard piece (stitch about half way). Turn your cake inside out.

5. This is Tuija's pink marzipan cake. She will now start to fill it with wadding. And then close the gap by hand.

6. And the cake is ready! To eat? Päivi's cake does look tasty!

I made a chocolate & cherry cake! What's your flavour?

 

 

 

Happy Easter!

Chicken lovingly handmade by my daughter Elsa ♥

This week I have been stitching up a bunch of happy word cushions from vintage fabrics and neon thread. Now I am waiting for Elsa to come home from school, I will take her shopping in the Spring sun. We want to put the winter clothing away soon! And tomorrow we are travelling to see my family, I look forward to the break! Happy Easter holidays everyone!

Little houses

 

 

Today I've been making these keyrings-to-be. My friend Mari asked me to make some for her shop and I was happy to! I love to be able to use the tiniest of my scraps. Mari and I share the dream of (an old) house. I wonder if my obsession with sewing houses will stop when I get a house of my own? Probably not. I so hope the day when I can say that I am married to the bank will come soon :) We're ready to settle down.

Hmm...when I keep staring at that picture I am not only seeing that the colours are a bit off, but also wondering if I should make a quilt with house patches... 

Oh, and if you are on flickr, you are welcome to add a note to the picture to tell me in which cottage you would like to live, I am curious!

 

 

Wee shop up-date!

When I was a kid I used to say that Autumn was my favourite season! Now, I have changed my mind, it is Spring! I love Spring and the sun and how alive it makes me feel after the long winter. Yesterday the Spring sun helped me with a little shop up-date.

 

 

I know have a few of these Springy, pastelly houses listed in the shop, all made of vintage or upcycled fabrics with some details from my quilt fabric stash. 

 

 

This little bunny loves Easter and cannot wait for the snow to melt so that she can poke around all those yummy tulips in the garden...

 

 

And a brand new design -- a little coin/card purse! I can't seem to get enough of those leafy wines!

 

 

I have to show you the inside, I got to use one of my favourite vintage floral fabrics, it comes from an enormous night-gown, which means there was loads of fabric= lucky me! Love those teeny meadow flowers against the pale pink, so romantic!

 

 

This is Magda! She is a one-of-a-kind fairy-angel doll. She will have friends too, just wait!

And the shop? It's here. 

 

 

It must be Spring!

I must be under the influence of Spring sun or something, it is after 9 p.m. at night and I am feeling inspired and still up, awake and making things...

 

 

I have dug into my vintage/second hand fabric stash to make a collection of word cushions, these are the first two! And, most importantly, I got to use the neon thread the very kind Ulla sent me, I felt foolishly excited to finally try it out :) I hope the sun keeps shining tomorrow so that I can get a better shot of the neon. I also hope that the inspiration intends to stay over night, it would be quite cool to fill the couch with dream, love, laughter and... Which word would you like to have sitting on your couch?

 

 

We love color

I just got an e-mail that I have been waiting for! The collaborative quilt book We love color (Stashbooks) will be released in May! It is over a year ago since I was asked to contribute to this book project, the assignment was to create a quilt using solely Kona cotton solids from Robert Kaufman. It was very inspiring and I have been so curious to see what the other peeps came up with, you can see a few previews on flickr. The contributing designers are: Lisa Call, Alissa Haight Carlton, Emily Cier, Malka Dubrawsky, Amy Ellis, FunQuilts (Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr), Jacquie Gering, Elizabeth Hartman, Rita Hodge, Cherri House, Kathy Mack, Jennifer Sampou, Valori Wells, Jean Wells, Betz White and me!

 

 

And since I am me, I picked up the brightest colours I could find and combined them with white and started playing around. And then spent a couple of very intense days putting my quilt together. Here are some sneak-peeks. I'll show off the whole thing when I have the book in my hands!

 

 

 

 

 

It looks quite cosy there on the sofa, I look forward to having it sent back home, but first I think she will take a tour to Spring Quilt Market in Kansas City, I wish I could go to!

 

 

 

 

Blogistania

I told you previously that I am involved in a lifetsyle/documentary series on TV about creative female bloggers called Blogistania (page in Finnish).

The first programme will be on in a few weeks and last Tuesday we had a meet-up with all the people involved. I very much looked forward to it, but was a bit nervous to meet these gorgeous and fashionable blogging ladies, so Wednesday night I got myself busy making this new skirt.

I have often planned it, but in reality I make myself clothes on very rare occasions. I chose linen (love the wrinkles) and pink hearts...

_______________________follow your heart_______________________

I spent most of the night chatting away with the lovely Karin, planning future joint projects, that will most certainly involve her amazing photograhpy. Do check out her blog (WARNING! it might make you hungry)!

Riikka, who is responsible for the pretty graphics, has her own programme in the series as well, she is an amazing doll house artist.

I wish I would have had the time to talk to each one of these girls, but time went by so quickly! Below you will find the links to all the blogs, I got lazy so I didn't translate the Finnish texts, but click away, these are all visually pleasing places well worth a visit!

• trashionista Outsapop eli Outi Pyy
• Helsingin tyylikkäin nainen Fiona Timantti eli Heli Karhunen
• rokkaavan nukkekotiblogin Riikka Kurki
• Jenkeissä breikannut tilkkutaituri Kajsa Wikman
• käsitöitä tekevä insinööri eli Hupsistarallaan Terhi Viinikanoja
• kirppishullu Karin Lindroos
• ruokablogi Jauhot suussa ja leipuritaituri Jonna Vormala
• Vihreiden vaatteiden Anniina Nurmi
• Jonna Hietala ja sisustusblogi Musta tuntuu
• tunnettu muotibloggaaja Jenni Rotonen

 

Spring birds

 

 

Happy Sunday everyone! I just wanted to pop in to post a picture of these birdy-birds. The pattern can be found in the new 101 ideaa magazine, but there was sadly no picture. The pattern is also in my book Scandinavian stitches. The Finnish edition is called Kajsan iloiset tilkut and the soon to be released German edition Skandinavische Nähideen. 

We still have heaps of snow, but the birds are singing about Spring so I am hopeful, I am very done with this winter!