// SALE //

I'm happy to announce that I'm having a sale going on in my shop.
Looking for a birthday present or having an early start at Christmas shopping, hurry and make sure to check it out here!

Back

We're back!

School will start in about 10 days from now and the girls are really looking forward to it.
Summer is almost over and yesterday for the first time I realized days are getting shorter again which got me a little sad.
There were so many things I had planned for this summer, which we didn't do.
But we did have a great summer. With plenty of quality time spent with family and friends.
It was also a summer where I realized the girls are growing up fast, so fast... soon they won't need their buckets and paper flowers to be taken to the beach, but that's life I guess.

And right now, life is good! And summer ain't over yet!!

Sewing with kids :: the easy tote bag revisited

It has been a creative summer, somehow. We haven't been home much, but when we were, we spent our time creatively. The girls rediscovered their sewing machine. This nice tote which M. made for one of her friends is only one of the results - it was a special request, actually, from her friend who loved the first bag so much she asked M. to make her one too. Doesn't it look fantastic?! The only difference with the first bag is that this one has only one strap. For the full tutorial click here. To finish it off I made her her own label with some twill tape and stamps.

A nice back-to-school surprise for one lucky friend if you ask me...

And yet another clothes hanger tutorial...

You might start wondering if all is well with me...
Another clothes hanger tutorial?! Really!?
What's so interesting about a clothes hanger, you'd want to decorate it anyways?


I know, I know! Just one more to add to the list and then I'll stop, I promise... (hmm - I'm no so sure about the last part...)
But to be honest - I like these wire clothes hangers. Because of what they are, because of their simplicity, the bareness, the fact they're reduced to the essential. And yet they have so much potential. To hold clothes for one thing. But it's also a perfect frame to work around and to play with.

A couple of nights ago, my hands were itching - I felt the need for something creative but something slow (it'd been an eventful day - I'll spare you the details, but eventful it was). How about some embroidery with that hand dyed wool floss I got myself, I thought. I've been fascinated by Sachiko embroidery lately (for a nice tutorial, check out this post at the Purl Bee). I like the contrast between the little stitches and the fabric, the combination of simple straight lines into stunning patterns. I just wanted to give it a try. The clothes hanger cover that I had still in the back of my head seemed perfectly adequate for that matter.

You've probably seen these clothes hanger covers before. They are easy to make and I think they are useful for hanging slippery shirts or dresses. So, that's what I have for you today. Turns out that I'm not the kind of person for large symmetric pattern embroidery, so my Sachiko embroidery experiment soon became an exercise in free style embroidery. But it still was fun and definitely asks for more.

What you'll need:

- wire coat hanger
- piece of cotton or linen
- embroidery floss + needle
- sewing machine
- iron
- pins, scissors, ...


Steps:

1. Trace your clothes hanger on a piece of paper and cut out (pic. 1.).
2. Transfer pattern to double folded fabric and cut fabric taking into account a 1-1.5 cm seam allowance (pic. 2-3).
3. Pin the bottom hem of both pieces (pic. 4.) and sew on sewing machine(pic. 5).
4. Pin the two pieces together and sew on your machine leaving an opening at the top (pic. 6-7). Make small cuts at the rounded parts, perpendicularly to the seam (pic. 8). Turn and press with iron (pic. 9)
5. Using some embroidery floss decorate the cover. Add a little button, if you like. And done.



You could of course decorate the cover in many different ways, embroider or applique names on it, have your kids draw on them with fabric markers or paint with fabric paint, tie dye, ... Or why not transfer one of your kid's drawings onto the cover and (have them) embroider the outlines. This could make a nice and easy, personalized gift for the holidays (holidays!? already?)...

I mentioned the new Flickr pool already a couple of times. If you made something with the help of a // Between the lines // tutorial or got inspired by something you found on this blog, don't be shy, and show us what you made! Check out this luxury version, for instance, of the clothes hanger covered with fabric strips, made by Cindy.Aren't these lovely/! And I think the hangers covered with Japanese masking tape are really clever! Thanks for adding these, girls!

Free style crochet and a wire coat hanger :: a tutorial

Some of you might remember my free style crochet experiment from earlier this year. If not, just head over to this post (but make sure to come back after!). At that time I already played with the idea of decorating a coat hanger that way. I even tried, but I wasn't patient enough at that time and it didn't work out too well, so I tore the whole thing down and put the idea and the hanger on hold. Until some of you mentioned their crochet-decorated coat hangers in the comments on my last tutorial, that is! As a matter of fact, I used to have one of those when I was a kid - with a red and blue pattern if remember well. So, you had me going again! Thank you so much! Only this time I wanted it to work out. And it did!
Sure, it took me a fair part of my Friday afternoon (the other part I took the kids to the local pool) but I do like the result a lot - and so do my girls "Can I have it mommy?".

What did I do different this time to make it work, you wonder? I guess I was less time-constrained (even though we went to the pool) and the tying of some string as a guide-line made a huge difference. And here is a - very - short description in case you want to give this a try as well.

What you'll need:

- a wire coat hanger
- yarn, string or... kitchen twine, aka butcher's twine. Since I couldn't find any yarn that I found suited for this project, I used the latter. It was the first thing that I could find that came close enough to yarn and its slightly rough texture with pieces sticking out here and there is just perfect for this project.
- crochet hook
- optional: buttons, ribbons, beads, colored thread



Steps:

1. Attach the end of the twine to the hanger and now start going criss cross with it, wrapping and tying as shown in picture II. This net will form the structure for your free style crochet. Don't over do it as you will need "space" to work around and add detail.
2. Stop knotting somewhere on the wire, make a loop, slip your crochet hook through it and start crocheting around the wire using a simple crochet stitch (picture III). You don't need to go all around the hanger at once - this project is a little wild and crazy. Consider it like a road trip where you take little side roads whenever you grow tired of using the high way. So, start to work around the net that you created inside the wire, using the different stitches you know (chain stitches, single crochet, double crochet, ...), and alternate by doing parts on the wire and on the inside of the hanger.
3. Optional: As you can see in picture IV (and the many other pictures below), I didn't cover all of the wire nor the entire net. I wanted to keep it "airy" and it left me some room to further adorn it with little treasures. I used little buttons - I intentionally didn't cut off the end of the twine but attached a mother of pearl button to it instead - a silk ribbon, a tag with my blog's name on it which I found lying around, a bead, some red thread... You could add many other things like pieces of wood or sticks, shells, dried flowers... I found this to be the fun and relaxing part.

I hope I made myself somewhat clear. If not, let me know.

I clearly couldn't get enough of my new clothes hanger as I kept on photographing it from different angles... So, here are some more pictures.

Note: Did you make something with the help of a // Between the lines // tutorial? Post your pictures here! I'd love to see your creations!