Mon Étui

It is the season that makes me feel dizzy - literally... Dizzy of joy, dizzy of the rush to open my eyes wider so to accept all the beauty of this spring without fainting. Dizzy because of the sent of all the blooming flowers and grass. And the green... this green that seems to amaze me every year, as if I am throwing my sight on this green for the first time ever...  

 This mini-quilt I made in an adventurous sew-along with so many talented and creative wonder-makers.

I love the rustic look of this pincushion, I have created with so much love. It took a harsh training of my patience muscle, but I think I behaved well.  

Almost here, almost arrived...

The beautiful season with flowers is not in full bloom in my garden, but the thought of it makes me dream flowers, plan the new look of my garden and sew more and more in colours. 

Before spring arrives, I am already busy celebrating juicy fragrant strawberries. This placemat is inspired by the colourful happy book of Atsuko Matsuyama and although the recipe is changed a little bit, I used her design for the appliquéd strawberries and turned them into a mini place mat - big enough to serve well my little one for her lunches at school.

​When I was a child, I was visiting my grandmother in the village almost every Sunday. It was kind of annoying for most of the visits. I used to find it boring being there and sooo much work to do all the time - work, I was never fond of, since it wasn't anything joyful.

The most exciting thing, or better said - the least annoying, was sweeping the porch, which I was imagining was more like playing with the vine leaves. The porch was covered with vines - old, proud, very delicious fruit giving vines that threw the most interesting, playful shade over. 

It is not St. Valentine. Today is not our anniversary. It is no one's birthday. It is not one of these days that are special, because so many years ago we kissed for the first time, or we looked at each other and sparked the love. It is not the day of the first love letter received, nor the first surprise.

It is a very ordinary Sunday - one of the not so many Sundays, that happened rarely - when we have nothing else to do, but plan for a light breakfast. 

The green, oh the living green - brings always hope. In the long winter days, there is this craving for fresh green, thirst for new life. I can not wait for my first plants to start showing their tiny noses from the ground. And to satisfy my affection for green, I look for inspiring projects.

"Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. "

Ralf Waldo Emerson

... to my sweet, sweet darling Valentine(s) ♥ ♥ ♥

"She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her..."

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

These pincushions are part of Minki's collection of amazing artistic creations. You can visit her place and sink into the delicate designs and perfect makes she has. She is such an inspiration! I have been following Minki for years now, and for the first time dare to try one of her designs - the pincushions. The pattern could be found in Sewing Illustrations.

This case is a gift for my beautiful and loving daughter, who still has a heart of a child and loves everything colourful, adventures and Disney related. She has her moments of favouriting some Disney characters, but the stories of Winnie the Pooh are a classic and very precious to her. When she bought her first laptop herself, she wanted to wait for our vacation to DisneyWorld (yay, soon to be... in March) and buy a case there. I decided to surprise her and make something unique, that she would love. It was meant to be a Christmas present, but unfortunately, wasn't finished in time.

Here it is, a month later, her new and custom sewn, hand-quilted and Pooh and Piglet appliquéd computer case for her to enjoy:

Finishing some hand-quilting on this wonderful project that was meant to be a Christmas present ????for my beautiful, Disney obsessed, loving daughter. Hopefully, it will be done for Valentine's Day. The amazingly textured @haori.taiwan.official yarn-dyed cotton fabric comes to help in that and it is even more fun to salute the Winnie the Pooh day in the @disneystore photo challenge #SoThisIsLove .

​We had selected the spring colors for 2017, and ready have a lot of handmade projects with them!

Another red and gold come together to create a traditional money envelope, that is given to young children by their parents and grand parents for the Lunar New Year celebration.