Playing with dolls

If you are following me in the last years you should have noticed that my crafty hobby includes different kinds of being creative.

I play with fabrics, paints and I play with dolls.

You heard right...I play with dolls. Don't worry I'm not crazy at all.

Playing with dolls is a very creative hobby. It's not that you "play" with them in a usual kind of way like you did as a kid.

Playing with dolls means to me...sewing and working with files and sanding paper.

Blythe is that kind of doll which can make you use all your creativity in different kind of ways.

They are fun and cute looking dolls which can be easily transformed in your mini me or any kind of dolls you like.

I started to love Blythe back in 2006. I bought my first doll from ebay from my dear friend Wendy.

At that point we didn't know each other but our passion for Blythe make us become real friends.

Now we know each other for nearly 6 years and Blythe isn't the main topic anymore. We talk about everything what happens in our life and we meet 3 times already (2008 in Japan, 2010 in Hong Kong and Singapore 2011 in Hong Kong again). 

Blythe brought me me even more friends like Serene, Mo, Jo, Helen and all these other lovely people I met in the past years.

In the past years I wasn't playing with dolls a lot but since BlytheCon Berlin I really enjoy "playing" with them again.

I got myself a few ne Blythe to try my carving skills. Working on Blythe is fun and easy. It means I don't need my sewing machine. Just my needle files and a good movie on my Mac.

I still have a a few Blythe which I'm working on right now. I'm still waiting for stuff to get them ready.

But finally this weekend I was able to finish one of my recent projects.

I really enjoyed the whole process and I'm more than happy with the finished doll.

 

I changed the look of this doll already 3 times.

I think this time she is keeping her new look forever.

I even drafted a new Blythe pattern for a skirt and a matching shirt just for her.

It's a long time since I made doll clothes and since I lost all my Blythe patterns (I have no idea where all my great patterns are ) it was fun to make sth. completly new.

I added the outfit to my shop. So if your doll is in need for a new outfit go ahead and grab it. 

I can really wait to finish a few more dolls. But I'm slow since I'm working on some sewing projects too.

I will keep you updated.

Brochette quilt

Do you remember this post ?

It was back in september last year when I finished my Marshmallow Brochette top from Threaded Mess.

I had this quilt top on to do list since such a long time and it's finally done.

 

But I have to admit that this quilt is already finished sincejanuary but I had no time or energy to post about this baby.

 

Since february we use this quilt quit often. It's a very cuddly quilt because I used some flannel for the backing.

I tryed to use color from the top and I really like the outcome.
I quilted it free motion with a loopy design.

 

It's the fave quilt of my husband because of the cuddly and warm backside.

 

I had to promise that I will use flannel for our big bed quilt as well. I already ordered the flannel but the top is still not finished yet.

It's the summer quilt along top from last year which still needs some aditional blogs to get a bigger size.

 

Untill this we are using the  picknick quilt and the brochette quilt to keep us warm in our bed.

You really need some extra blankets in germany because it's really cold and doesn't feel like summer at all.

To make the cold and rainy days I try to dress myself in bright colors.

I love this colorful headscraf because it matches so many outfits.

It looks good with blue, pink and yellow...or all three colors together :)

BlytheCon Berlin

I'm just back from the BlytheCon in Berlin.

I started my short trip to Berlin on friday. I packed my dolls and mr. artistic and took the rusty old Ford Ka for a 4 hour ride to Berlin.

We arrived pretty late because both of us went to bed really late the day before because of the soccer game.

awesome !!!, originally uploaded by crafting with loove.

Sadly I wasn't able to make it to the pre meet so I was really nervous meeting all the peeps at the BlytheCon on saturday.

Mirella

 I'm very shy when I meet people the first time so I didn't talk as much as I hoped.

I totally enjoyed every minute and it was fantastic to see the flickr peeps finally after so many years.

I really hope that there will be another BlytheCon in Berlin in the future.

Stellina

I have to admit that Blythe is growing to me again. Maybe I'm taking them out from the shelf much more often now.

Tomorrow I'm having my third Chemo. I wish I could hide and skip it. But no chance ...

duffle bag

Do you remember the sneak peak ?!

I'm finally ready to talk about the finished project.

I'm not sure if anybody tryed to guess but I turned this little quilt sandwish into this awesome duffle bag.

I always wanted a really big bg for the weekend trips and I was thinking about the perfect pattern.

My first choice was the weekender from Amy Butler. But I'm a little bit afraid that I'm not able to manage all the layers of batting and I will definetly have hard time finding all the batting in germany. Most shops don't sell the batting which you need to give the bag the stable look.

So I discovered the duffle bag from Jeni's post. I loved the look of the bag and it seemed not to hard to sew.

So I bought the pattern from Studio Cherie and started to look for some fabrics in my stash. Sadly I don't have to many bigger pieces of fabric so I had to piece some of them.

I really wanted to use the stuff I had on hand and went with the nautical theme. The fabrics are already 5 years old so why not finally use them for a fun and useful project ?!

Sadly I didn't have enough fabrics so I had to order the blue dotted linen for sides of the bag and the jute webbing as well.

I had really hard times finding the webbing so I had to buy it from etsy. It was the most expensive spending for the bag. I think I paid around 30 € for the jute plus shipping.

I think I washed the jute 15 times and it was still bleeding like crazy. I tryed different stuff like vinegar or different types of detergent but nothing seemed to help.

At the end I let the jute "bleed" for 4 days in a bucket with chlorine.

 The zippers are from my stash of zippers so no need to spend any money on that. It's not the perfect match because the big zipper ist dark green but you won't notice from far away.

The pattern is fun and easy. You work with squares which makes the cutting and sewing pretty easy. 

I made a little mistake with the pleats of the zipper pocket but you won't notice if you don't know the pattern.

For the lining I was able to use some fabrics in my stash as well. I found this fun hawaii print in a box with fabrics which I still have from clothes sewing. 

I still have another one which I tryed to turn into a Tova tunika but I look like a cleaner in that dress. The blue color of the fabric with a hint of pink makes it look like a apron dress. Not very attractive ...lol.

Maybe I will show it on my blog.

A quick project

Between all the quilts I'm working on I still have time for some small projects.

My handbag is always a mess. As I told you two days ago my bag has only one inner pocket so it's hard to sort my stuff inside the bag.
The charger and my headphones where always a mess with tons of little knots.
It always took my ages to tackle the mess.

I was in need for a little bag to store the chargere and the headphones so I drafted a quick pattern for a small bag.
The good thing in small projects you can use tiny scraps and left over binding.

This time I used the some mushroom scraps which were a gift from Katha and left over binding from my vintage table runner.

It'a a quick and easy quilt project and the best thing no cable tangle in my bag anymore.

stripes quilt

This blog post is overdue since 6 months .

The quilt I'm talking about was a christmas gift to my sis in law.

Her family room is completly in black, red and white and I wanted a matching quilt for her.

Since I'm lacking of black and red fabrics I had to buy a Lost and Found 2.5" Rolie Polie to make a matching quilt for her home.

Since I didn't have a lot of time before christmas (I just returned from my Hong Kong trip) I had to go with a very simple design.

I took the Rolie Polie and added some red and black stripes to make the quilt a bit bigger.

I just sewed all the stripes together and quilted it with simple lines.

The back is a mixture of Lost and Found and Kona solids. The binding is kona black  to keep it simple as well.

This year I added a matching pillow to the quilt. It was my easter present for her and I was lucky to have some fabrics left from the backing. I always liked this block design and I can see myself making more pillow cases like this.

 

I hand quilted the pillow cover and bind it in black kona as well.

 

I love stripe quilts but I rarely make them because most fabrics in my stash are FQ.

I used to buy only FQ back in time so the oldies but goldies are ti small to use them like this.

a simple bag

Sometimes avery simple bag can turn into your fave accessory.

I got this simple bag for free a few years ago when I bought a bag from skunfunk.

I rarely used the bag I bought so I passed it to my little sis.

When my older sis was here for a visit a few weeks ago we discovered the simple grey bag in my stash and I completly fall in love .

The large handle is perfect to have you hands free for taking pics or eating ice cream.

The grey goes perfect with nearly every outfit and the print is so so cool.

The only thing which bothers me a lot was the reason that there was no seperate pocket to hide things.

The bag is completly open so very easy for thieves to take out my money.

Because it's no problem to make a lining I searched in my stash for a simple but cute lining. I was looking for sth. bright grren but sadly I didn't have anything matching fabrics in stash.

So I went with a whithe fabric with some brown and green print.

I added a a little zipper pocket to hide my money and mobile phone and used a matching green silk thread to add the lining to the bag.

I'm using this bag every day now and I still love it.

This weeked I started a nnew project. I choose some nautical fabrics from my stash which are waiting in my cupboard since many years already.

This project is already done and I will show it to you later this week (need mr. artistic to take pics of it.

Can you guess what this is going to be ?!