The party is over

After many nights of sewing and painting we were finally able to hold the pirate party that our son has been asking for so long. And I must say, seeing the faces of all the kids, it WAS worth all the work… (but now I’m falling asleep on the sofa every afternoon.) Now when the birthday party is over it's only one week left for us here in Rome, before we move back to Sweden. People have been asking us how we feel about it and the immediate response is scary! Here are some photos of the things me and my husband made for the party:

the pirate flags

the big pirate flag

the pirate bar for the snacks

the treasure map

the fishing game

the treasure bags

and the very happy pirate

More projects...

I've felt inspired lately and I wanted to share with you some of the projects that I've finished.

For my son's birthday I decided to make him a bag for books, cars and beach toys to use during the weekends. I ended up using two famous Swedish Elephant fabrics, one from Svenskt Tenn and one from MAIRO. The shirt he made himself by using textile pens.

Since I still had some leftover pieces of the elephant fabrics (and some other fabrics in my leftover fabric box) I decided to also make a scarf for my daughter.

As a present my son decided to draw a portrait of his dad at one of dads T-shirts. I helped my son finishing it by embroidering the whole drawing with blue thread. The T-shirt quickly became a favorite.

While we were at it we decided to also make a soft animal for little brother's birthday. Again my oldest son did the drawing and I embroidered the lines. As you can see in the picture it is truly loved.

I changed the fabrics...

for the strings at the back of the apron and think it turned out better this way.

An apron to cook with joy

My interest for cooking has definitely increased since I moved to Italy.  Or rather, my interest for shopping food has increased.  It isn’t even possible to compare the feeling of going to the market with the feeling of going to the grocery store to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. At the market I don’t have to ask if something has been produced nearby. I now that the answer I will get is that the strawberries were picked  by his son and the eggs come from his grandmother. Rome is not a progressive city, but sometimes not changing the way of living for many years means that you are ahead of everyone else when they start looking backwards.

Anyway, with this great interest for food me and my husband just bought a new  mixer for our kitchen so we can make our own pasta and, listen to this, our on sausages. And now I thought it was time for a new apron as well. The idea comes from the book Zakka Sewing by Therese Laskey and Chika Mori. Most of the apron is made out of vintage linen. The textiles at the bottom of the picture will become the tying stripes of the apron.

Done!

Finally I was able to finish the baby bed sheets for my friend. They are made out of old never used hand made vintage sheets. Hand embroidered ornaments are sewn on to them and then the text is hand printed letter by letter with the very old printing alphabet that I bought on a market in a medieval town in Italy. Can anything be more filled with history than that?

First request

So my friend saw the other dovet cover that I had done and asked me if could do another one for her god son to be. Fortunately I have until Easter to finish it :-)

The old rubber letters from the market at Santo Stefano di Sessanio