Chopping up shirts/Mit Hemd, Pullover und Krawatte ...

Although end of September, it's still warm outside, so I can work in the garden.

I'm chopping up four men's shirts which I found at the parish flea market last weekend. One of the shirts is solid natural linen - mmm, this means lots of embroidery fabric ...

The other ones are heavy cotton - I chose them for the texture and for the faded colours. Maybe they would work well as a frame for my deer project?



I also have some broad men's neckties in my stash - and when using my little bias former/tape maker (Prym) the other day, I suddenly remembered that most ties are cut diagonally - what if I'd use them for making unusual bias bindings? They could look quite nice - and it would be repurposing and at the same time saving time and effort, when I don't have to prepare those fabric strips first ...



I bought a big mens' sweater at that flea market too - the price was 1 Euro! It's 75% cotton and the colours are off-white with a touch of brown inbetween, machine knitted in stockinette, the yarn consisting of three threads - two of them are straight cotton, the third one is a bit of a moderate bouclé.

As the seams are cut and overlocked, unravelling means getting a lot of ends - which is quite bad for knitting, but good for sewing. The straight natural white/light beige cotton threads will give me loads and loads of threads to handsew with - it's the perfect colour and the perfect thickness!



So, what are you waiting for, ladies? Hubby's not around? Where are those scissors ...?

(German summary: Am Flohmarkt habe ich einige feste Herrenhemden billig erstanden - guter Stoff, gute Farben - zum Nähen, Embellishen und Sticken - dann noch die Idee, aus alten, breiten Krawatten Schrägbänder zu nähen - und die einzelnen Fäden eines Baumwollpullovers für's Handnähen zu verwenden ...)

New start into autumn/Neuer Herbstanfang

Crisp, foggy mornings and red apples hanging sweet and shiny from the trees in my garden ... This year's Indian summer slowly turns into autumn and I realize it's been quite a while since last, dear friends ...

But it's been a great summer, warm and sunny, with friends and family visiting, some of them for several weeks. I've done a bit of this and that inbetween - maybe I'll show you some of those projects later on.

Things have happened: Elizabeth at Landanna is back blogging with fresh inspiration - Sara has moved to Argentina and told me in a mail, that there are lots of interesting textiles to see in Buenos Aires - Clare has visited a free-hand machine embroidery workshop and will certainly come up with new projects on that - and in other blogs, I've seen a lot of beautiful natural dyeing experiments, which look very exciting.

I think we are blessed to have this medium to share and inspire one another.

Two days ago, I received a very much longed-for, late big-birthday present from my Dad: a new sewing machine, a Bernina 350, to replace my still-working, but 50-year-old Singer. (Men understand the point better if you remind them that cars have improved a bit too during the last 50 years ... ;-).

I'm overwhelmed with this wonderful, new tool - and today I started playing with it, using the darning and quilting foot, exercising on a dog print fabric I had at hand:



The picture to the right shows the back - I think it looks rather funny too, almost like a newspaper comic!

Here's another one:



I did a couple of free-motion flowers as well - maybe for a greeting card - using an automatic machine pattern for the border:



And of course I had to try out free-hand writing on the machine too!



There are some books on this subject that might interest you:

- "Free & easy stitch style" by Poppy Treffry
(German title: "Das etwas andere Nähbuch")

- "Scandinavian Stitches" by Kajsa Wikman
(also known as Syko: www.syko.typepad.com)

- The "Impatient embroiderer" by Jane Emerson
(German title: "Einfach maschinensticken")

- "Textile Natur/Textile nature" by Elsbeth Nusser-Lampe
(German and English text)



And while working, I had this somewhat crazy idea to simply colour some white thread with markers to get striped and dotted thread ... Of course this is more convenient to use for hand-sewing, as you will have to renew the pattern from time to time, when unravelling the upper layer - but it's fast and easy and it even looks decorative on the shelf!



(German summary: Herbstanfang und Neuanfang. So viel Neues gibt es bei euch, liebe Blogfreundinnen - schön, daß wir dieses Medium zum Austausch haben. Ich habe seit ein paar Tagen eine neue Nähmaschine und spiele jetzt vor allem mit der Freihandstickfunktion - einige Buchtipps zum Thema, drei Titel davon auch auf Deutsch - und eine verrückte Idee, mit einem Edding das Nähgarn auf Zebra zu trimmen :-)

Mini summer project IV: Paper crane/Mini Sommerprojekt IV: Papierkranich

I finally made them!



Still on holiday - that's the excuse for having been so lazy blogging lately - I'm just popping in to share my joy with you for finally having managed to do some of those Japanese origami cranes!

Strung on a string, with a bead below for a stopper, I'm sure they'll make a lovely window decoration!

For those of you still struggling, here's a tutorial I found!

(German summary: Oh, ich hab's geschafft! So lange wollte ich schon einen japanischen Papierkranich falten können ...)

Mini Summer Project III: Tiny neck bag/Kleines Sommerprojekt III: Winzige Umhängetasche

Since it's raining cats and dogs almost every day lately, I decided to do the best of it and curl up under a warm throw on the couch and amuse myself with listening to audiobooks while knitting or crocheting ...

After having treated myself to a small MP3-player I now needed some kind of tiny bag to hang it around my neck - so I came up with this:



The whole bag is quite small, only 9 x 9 cm, still it can hold both the player and the ear phones along with the cable.

I took some sock wool scraps and a 3,5 mm crochet hook, doing 10 chain sts and working scs for three rows, then connecting the rings to one another with a couple of stitches, using the yarnend left.

The neck string is simply done with double yarn and chain sts - this is the 'backside' of the bag:



(German summary: Diese winzige Umhängetasche haltet MP3-Player, Ohrhörer und Kabel bereit für meine Hörbücher - sie ist aus Sockenwollresten gehäkelt und nur 9 x 9 cm groß.)

Mini Summer Project II: Flower Doodles/Kleines Sommerprojekt II: Maschinenstickerei

This was quite fun to do!

While helping my daughter with her jeans bag project, I had some time inbetween to try out some doodles/free embroidery with my sewing machine. This time, I wanted to find out if I could do it on the plain no-name household sewing machine, which hasn't got any additional equipment at all for doing this type of job.

And it worked! All I had to do was putting some sticky tape over the transport feeding/feed dogs, adjusting the stitch length to zero, removing the fabric foot (but still lowering the lever for sewing) and start moving the fabric around!

It helps, of course, if you double your fabric with some vilene first and/or mount it in an embroidery frame (flat side down) before stitching ...



(German summary: Dieses mal wollte ich ausprobieren, ob man auf einer ganz einfachen Haushaltsnähmaschine ohne Zusatzfunktionen auch frei sticken kann - und jawohl, es geht!

Einfach die Transporträdchen mit Klebeband kaschieren, den Nähfuß abmontieren (und trotzdem nicht vergessen, den Fußhebel beim Nähen herunterzulassen!) und die Stichlänge auf Null stellen - und dann den Stoff mit beiden Händen hin- und herbewegen - sanfte Bewegungen und Finger weg von der Nadel!

Natürlich ist es eine zusätzliche Hilfe, wenn man den Stoff mit Büglevlies verstärkt und/oder noch den Stoff in einen Stickramen spannt - Stoff flach nach unten )

Mini Summer Project I: Brooch/Kleines Sommerprojekt: Brosche

While sitting in the garden and chatting with my Mum, I worked on this small brooch -



- all by hand and with scrap materials found in my glass jar. I think it looks a bit folkloristic Scandinavian, especially with this white blouse.



(German summary: Nur eine kleine Brosche mit Material aus dem Resteglas, das ich gemacht habe, während ich plaudernd mit meiner Mutter im Garten gesessen bin - ich finde, es hat etwas Skandinavisches, oder?)

Have a nice summer holiday!/Schöne Ferien!

Did you know that a yarn can almost make you feel the sea shore nearby? Well, I think these yarns do:



When wandering through the net, I discovered Susa's shop and her beautiful handdyed yarns - this is a 30/70 silk/wool blend ... as you can see, I just couldn't resist ...

I have started knitting already, but as I'm still experimenting with it, you'll have to wait a little bit yet.

School's out and the kids are at home, my mother is here to visit - so I'm a bit busy right now - but I will be back in a while :-).

Enjoy your summer too!