Fabric just for me me me!

I'm always creating for other people, or my kids. Well times have change, I"ve decided to sew something for myself. I've bought this four lovely fabrics from stenso (summer 2010 and the grey one on the right:winter 2010):

I wanted to make half circle skirts from the fabric for our holiday in South Africa. Okay I wanted to sew 4 skirts in 5 days apart from having to pack for 5 people, get the house tidy, feed the household and prepare all the animals for our going away. In my lunacy I drove everyone mad and of course my most favourite (far left) got caught in the knives of my overlocker. My two year old try to comfort me when I was crying in dispair. My 8 year old gave me 4 different solutions to rescue the situation. IN the end I've sewn the "v"cut close with little felt flowers in orange and pink and nobody saw any evidence of the accident. I've finished the buttons and seams in South Africa with my mother's sewing machine. The skirts looked very colourfull and I was very happy I did go through all the trouble to finish them. Here is a tutorial for making a half circle skirt.

Here are one of the skirts, photo taken in South Africa

Pencil cases for little girls

I needed gifts for two different parties, both girls turned 10.

I've decided to make pencil (or fill it with whatever) cases. I can't find the tutorial I've used but it is similar to this one. May it be obvious that I had fun making them:

• I've made the rose with a yoyo maker from clover.
• The leave I've made with felt and sewn some veins on it with my sewing machine

felted tulips from Amsterdam

My husband's grandmother passed away just before we went on holiday to South Africa, in October. I wanted to send flowers to his aunts and nieces but couldn't find nice online bouquets and especially for the prices, flowers seemed to be so temporary. I don't know how but I came across the idea to look for felted flowers. I just love their texture and they appearance had enough weight to convey what I feel without using words. I couldn't find flowers though especially because I had just 3 days. Etsy had a couple of beautiful ones but the delivery time was just too long or they weren't white, which I wanted. I've decided to make some myself and found a webshop (Het kleine atelier) with three white tulips. There is enough material enclosed to make 5 tulips. The technique used is dry and wet(white part) felting. I attached three circle labels made with my scrapbooking stock and attached it with an off-white satin ribbon. I wrote on the labels a small poem I came up with, our condolences and names. Though I really didn't have enough time it turned out well.