...tomte-making with my assistant.
Little did I know when I moved my studio home last Summer that I would have so much to sew during nap-time! I didn't want to spend money on the rent while satying at home with F. Back to where I once started it feels! I opened my Etsy shop 9 years ago when my son was one. Baby F will turn one the 15th! Time flies by so quickly!
I have a weak spot for old, embroidered textiles, the more traces of life they have, like coffee staines and holes, the more I like them! Now, in darkest November I find that creating unique fairy-angels out of these much loved old fabrics a very good occupation. Greta here looked a bit scary before she got her face and hair-do.
I made Greta's dress from a linen table cloth. The hand-embroidery on her pocket comes from an old tea-towel. She's got linen hair too.
Now here she is, with a hair-do suitable for an angel named Greta with rosy cheek in close conversation with her friend Matilda. Can you hear the chit-chat? I find myself talking to and laughing with (not at!) my new friends! For Matilda's dress I used a worn-out tea-towel with a very pretty monogramme.
Greta and Matilda with their tomte friend Ulla-Britta! I think they are waving to you! Hello everyone!
This is my favourite spot to sit in my studio. It is where I sit down with a cup of coffee to check my e-mails in the morning, where I do my books and where I sit and stuff my tomte softies. Yes, it's elf season again! The very comfy chair was a gift from a friend and the chalk-board door I found at a flea-market. It inspired me to take some new pictures for the shop!
But first there was some sewing...
...and elf stuffing going on. These little guys are very hungry.
What I enjoy most at elf making season is combing fabrics for these little patchwork fellows.
In the shop I am selling them in groups of three, because they are not very used to be alone. I have a feeling that there is some serious giggling and whispering going on in the studio when I am away.
For the bigger tomte softies I have been collecting Christmas fabrics at flea-markets the whole year. Torsten here got a pretty dress with snowflakes and toad-stools.
And here is Elmer on my favourite chair!
Have a nice weekend!
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:
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?
This morning I got a very disappointing call from the estate agency, to make a long story short, we will not be able to buy the house we wanted to. Crappiest crap EVER. Since I am me I had already decorated the whole house in my mind... I guess we will just have to keep on looking, I am hopeful that we will find the house this Summer! So that was my bad news.
And the good ones? Obviously I was feeling quite down about my broken house dreams and it didn't help that it was raining wet snow outside. And then I got an e-mail! I got a grant from the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland for writing my next book! Woohoo!
Oh, and if you're wondering who that is in the picture, it is Rosa Viola, another one-of-a-kind fairy angel. She is a true romantic and refuses to wear anything else but a dress, by the end of the day she often ends up with green grass patches on her knees and tends to lose her gingham hair-bands. She loves to climb in trees too! Right now she is hiding in my Etsy shop.
What a very strange day! I hope there will be no more surprises. Any happy or bad news you would like to share? I'm all ears!
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.
Last Friday and Saturday I held a workshop in a town nearby for kids and families. Most of the girls were ages 7-8 years and had just a little sewing experience. I don't really bother about details like that when I have my classes for children and I find that my approach works well :) I just take it for granted that everyone knows how to design and sew and children do! I did help them with the machine stitching, but everyone who wanted to could have a go on the machine!
First I asked everyone to draw a tomte (= Santa's little helper, elf), a gingerbread man or an angel. And then we turned the drawings into sewing patterns, I helped to add some seam allowances and then we started sewing!
The girl who made this anime-inspired tomte was 14 year old, she came with her two little sisters and was a big help! Two hands isn't enough when 10 little people need help at the same time!
The kids where eager to see the result of their efforts and kept asking me for the time, they were afraid we were running out of it and wanted to finish their stuffies in time. "This is so fun, I'm going to do this at home!" "Can I take this home with me today?" "This is going to be a gift for my mummy!"
Aren't they just so charming!! Such talent! (The weather outside is so poor, we barely get any daylight at all and haven't got any snow yet).
I have been saving up my scraps in Christmas colours all Autumn. We used them to make Christmas balls and wreaths in decoupage technique. I came up with the idea last Christmas when I was asked to have a workshop at a Kindergarten. I remember a little boy who had only just turned three who made such a pretty wreath to take home! I really recommend this for children all age and grown-ups alike! Perhaps I should make a tutorial?
The kids also made holiday cards, these are my models :) Happy Christmas crafting everyone! I have a bunch of last minute tomte stuffies to make for two of my resellers today.
Hello my friends! I wish I could tell you I've been on a long vacation, but the truth is my computer broke down a couple of weeks ago, I've missed you so! I am having a precious moment at T's computer while the family is asleep now. This computer break-down was the kick I needed for the decision to start offering ad-space on my blog, after all this blog is a very important part of my little business and I know that if it will generate some cash I will have/find more time to jot down my crafty doings in this space. Money -- how boring to talk about, but how hard to live without.
I will add another sidebar to the right for the purpose, I will do another post with more info, but you are welcome to contact me by mail @ kajsa dot wikman at gmail dot com if you are interested to know more right now!
Let's move on to something else! It's been hot! Too hot for my taste, but luckily our apartment is cool and we have enjoyed going by bike to the beach. This lovely beach cabin stands at the beach in the small town of Ekenäs (where I hope to live one day, hopefully in a bigger house than that, though...).
Ekenäs has a wonderful marketplace where local farmers sell FRESH veggies, aren't they beautiful? Make me want to sew something!
So I did! This little fellow was made for my cousin's little baby boy. I'm very happy with how the face turned out, that's always the most difficult part! In his pocket hides a tiny...
look-alike! I had so fun I might just have to make a few friends for him!
I'll talk to you soon again! And not just about advertising, I thought I'd show you some lovely fleamarket finds and give you my best tips for thrifty fabric hunting!
On Saturday I had a workshop for a group of school kids. They designed and made their own softies, mascots and monsters. "This looks so much better than I thought it would", said one of the girls when she was finished with her owl :)
We started by making sketches on large papers,by that I tried to avoid the tiniest pieces!
Most kids did some kind of raw-edge appliqué on their stuffies with my assistance. With black thread, of course! Then there was some machine and hand stitching...
...and a some running around...
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...and some pretty cool new creatures were born!
Here's the progress so far on my new hobby project! I'm liking the colours a lot, but I do like the squares with a white inner circle more. The yarn is Drops Alpaca from Garnstudio (pattern link here, the yarn I use is much thinner than in the pattern). It was a great relief to move my studio out of our home earlier this year, because our apartment was crammed with my stuff. I have noticed though that I quite liked to work from home. So in the future I wouldn't mind having a studio connected to our house again. I am the kind of person who needs to get busy with my hands all the time so now when my work is out of reach at night, I have suddenly been in an "I have nothing to do"-situation, which is very rare to me. This is why I've taken up crocheting :) This is and stays a hobby, I've promised myself not to make it a jobby too...
At work I've been doing a lot of this lately. Today I sent one village to Spain and another one to Portugal! Tomorrow I will start to working with a large quilt for a new project I'm very excited about (more about that later). It is not everyday that I have the time to make larger quilts so I am quite eager to get started with this quilt. As soon as I get my fabrics from customs... Remember this quilt I made last year? It is now hanging above our dinner table brightening up this darkish corner. The fox and the snow had to go, it's Spring!
The sun is shining from a blue sky today in Helsinki! I hope you are well where you are!
Artist, crafter, mother of two, blogger, small business owner... Author of the sewing book Scandinavian Stitches. (Stashbooks)
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