Johanna's tunic

This tunic was designed and made for my friend's daughter. I had 1/2 a metre of the orange Dobby Dot fabric and wanted to make something for Johanna from it to match the colour of her glasses. A sleeveless tunic seemed realistic to achieve from the amount of fabric available and as a layering piece will hopefully be worn well into autumn.


I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful hand of the fabric and design something billowing and girly. The ruching was easy to sew with this light a fabric. I fussy cut the Small Gathering fabric (leftovers from this pillow project) for the topmost button panel and highlighted the flower print with yellow snap closures.


Neck- and armholes are finished with self-made bias trim from the same contrast fabric. Coincidentally and funnily the print matches where the neck trim meets the button panel.


The hem is simply overlocked and turned. I decided for a 2 cm seam allowance to give the tunic a tiny little bit of weight a the bottom so it would fall more nicely. I'm really happy with how it looks on the hanger and am excited to learn how it will fit. I haven't made many original patterns for children, yet, so I'm a bit nervous about fit and wearability.

baby blanket

I made this little baby blanket for our little niece (and her parents, as I know that they are big Africa and wildlife fans). I used a fabric panel with elephants as the top and the backing is the beautiful and soft Forest Hills in Moonlight from Anna Maria Horner's Folksy Flannels collection. The picture doesn't quite convey how well those two fabrics go together. I'm really happy about this and feel lucky to have found two so beautiful fabrics so perfect for this particular project.


The size of the blanket was dictated by the size of the elephant panel. I cut the backing slightly larger than the front so that the flannel would just peek out from behind and frame the front a bit with specks of colour. I cut a plain white flannel the same size as the front for filling the sandwich. Since I didn't want any stitching to disturb the front design, I decided to do some free motion quilting along the black outlines which is almost invisible on the front. My free motion stitching has room to be perfected, but I hope this doesn't influence the practical use and care of the blanket. I rimmed the blanket with parallel stitching to give it a nice border.


This was a really fun and satisfying project and I like the idea that it looks pretty and will also hopefully be used and drooled on a lot. ;-)

pitiful pillows

As a treat to celebrate my graduation I ordered some Drawing Room fat quarters plus a metre of the Volumes fabric with some colourful pillows in mind. When the fabric finally arrived I was already so hyped up on ideas and inspiration that I jumped right in and cut the fabric with minimal planning and no renewed consideration. My idea was to construct the pillows out of a central panel which would then be sourrounded by a patchwork border. When I saw the strips sewn together, though, I had to admit to myself that this design is too busy for my taste and while the fabrics go well together I wouldn't be able to look at those pillows for long ...

So now I put the project on hold and am thinking about new possibilities. One idea would be to sourround the pillow panels with a solid fabric and use the patchwork pieces combined with the solid for a floor pillow. Maybe it was all for the best ...