patch... which?

Baby's weekly - Week 1. (1. hét)

2012-02-05T09:13:00.000-08:00

As I promised I am here with the actual picture of the project. Some of you were shocked by the eleven pages, so I have to add some more information. According to my calculation, this is going to be around 96,000 stitches including 40 characters to stitch. So yes, I have to be busy to be able to finish it on time. I have started with the under part (water) - no ark without water. I use dark canvas as this was the one with the smallest holes, I really did not want to make it as big as the whole wall. This is not finished yet, but let me show you how it looks. Thank you for your kind words!

Ígéretemhez híven itt is vagyok az első heti képpel. Néhányan már a 11 oldal hallatán kisebb sokkot kaptatok, így akkor most kiegészíteném a dolgot még egy adattal: számításaim szerint kb. 96000 öltés lesz összesen a cucc, 40 figurával. Van tehát mit csinálni, ha időben be akarom fejezni. Az aljával, vagyis a vízzel kezdtem - nincsen bárka víz nélkül alapon. Sötét vászonnal dolgozom, ez volt a legkisebb szemű a boltban (nem akarok egy egész falat betöltőt, hátha mást is ki akar majd rakni a szobájában.... ) Persze még a víz sincs készen, de azért mutatom, hogy néz ki, hátha felcsigázom az érdeklődéseteket. És köszönöm a sok és kedves hozzászólást!

Baby's weekly - the start (A kezdet)

2012-02-02T02:56:00.000-08:00

Waiting for someone who you really do not know while not believing the things around/in you is a strange period - at least strange. In fact it is much more that I cannot write in words.... Meanwhile making your little empire (the workshop you usually sew) into a child's room makes you sad in a way - or at least it kills your opportunity to sew. So I stopped going to that room, using my sewing machine.... Just to prepare myself.... But I really wanted to make something while 'having a rest' - that I must do. And I remembered this pattern which I found 5 years ago and then I decided to make it once to my baby. A week ago I started.... It is not a quick project and I am not a very fast embroidery maker, but I try to finish it in time, so I am working. In Baby's weekly I am going to show you the project week by week. Hopefully I will be able to finish it before the big event (and after I could make my sewing room into a child's room).

This is the start. Canvas, the pattern (11 pages) Noe's ark with animals, and my threads... Let the work begin!

Várni valakire, akit egyáltalán nem ismersz, miközben még azt sem hiszed el, ami benned/körülötted történik furcsa időszak - minimum furcsa... Valójában sokkal több annál, de úgysem tudom szavakba önteni... Miközben a kis birodalmadból (a műhelyből, ahol általában varrtál) gyerekszobát alakítani pedig szomorkás dolog egy kicsit, de legalábbis kinyírja a varrási lehetőségeidet. Úgyhogy abba is hagytam a varrást, hogy szoktassam magam.... De igazából akartam csinálni valamit "miközben pihenek"- amit ugye muszáj. És akkor eszembe jutott ez a minta, amit még 5 éve találtam, és már akkor elhatároztam, hogy majd egyszer megcsinálom az én babámnak.... Egy hete el is kezdtem... Ez nem egy gyors projekt, és én sem vagyok valami nagyon villámkezű hímzőnő, de megpróbálom idejében befejezni, úgyhogy dolgozom is rajta szorgosan. A Baby's weekly postokban hétről hétre megmutatom, hogy áll a munka. Remélhetőleg képes leszek még a nagy események előtt befejezni (és az után, hogy a szoba átalakult)

Nos, ez itt a kezdet: a vászon, a minta (11 oldalnyi) - Noé bárkája, és a fonalaim... Kezdődjék a munka!

Happy New Year!

2011-12-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

I hope to have more time and mood for sewing in 2012. Have a very happy, cheerful, lucky, healthy New Year full of beautiful threads, fabric, embroidery, ideas and TIME for your hobby if you are my type :D If not, choose someone : ..................................(here) for you for 2012!

Remélem, jövőre több időm és kedvem lesz varrni megint. Kívánok nektek nagyon boldog, vidám, szerencsés, egészséges Új Évet tele gyönyörű cérnákkal, anyagokkal, hímzésekkel, ötletekkel és IDŐVEl a hobbytokra, ha az én fajtám vagytok. :) Ha nem, válasszatok valamit magatoknak az Új Évre: ........................... (itt).

Something in Bulgaria - Apróság Bulgáriába(n)

2011-11-29T00:52:00.000-08:00

As I returned to Bulgaria to a dear friend, I decided to make something for her. Something that goes well with the bag I made in the summer (the orange and green crazy bag). It was obvious to make an orange and green something.

This something became a purse. A tricky one. My friend, Évi has one as her own purse which I hold for some minutes in Határtalanul (it is a big patchwork show in Hungary). I must have had a closer look at it and I tried to memorise the 'how to' part.

As usual I was too late as I started this project in the last evening. I finished the 'machine part' and I put some needles and threads plus the zips and folded edge (is it the name for the piece of fabric that goes to the edges???) into my luggage.

I found some time (instead of sleeping) in Bulgaria in my hotel room to finish this present, so on Sunday afternoon I could give it to Eli on the trip to Rila (which was a beautiful trip anyway).

Here is the purse: Íme a pénztárca:

Pockets on bothe sides (3 pockets altogether) Zsebek mindkét oldalon (3 zseb összesen)

Eli loved it which made me absolutely happy :D

Mivel visszatértem Bulgáriába egy kedves baráthoz, úgy gondoltam, vinnék neki valamit, ami illik a nyáron neki készített narancs-zöld crazy táskához. Egyértelmű volt tehát, hogy valami zöld és narancs készül.

Ez a valami végül egy pénztárca lett. Egy amolyan kis "trükkös darab". Barátom (managerem, pót-mamám, nővérkém, tanárom, példaképem, stb), Évi pénztárcáját a Határtalanulon volt alkalmam pár percre a kezemben tartani, így azonnal a "hogyan készült" problematika feszegetésébe kezdtem, valamint megpróbáltam mindenféle dolgokat (méret, elrendezés stb) memorizálni azzal kapcsolatban.

De természetesen - ahogy az lenni szokott - már megint az utolsó pillanatban kezdtem neki a dolognak, az indulás előtti este megvarrtam a géppel készített részeket, majd fogtam pár tűt, cérnát, zipzárt, és ferdepántot és elcsomagoltam bőröndöm mélyére (utálom, hogy mostanában nem lehet varrótűvel garázdálkodni a repülőgépeken). Szállodai szobám magányában találtam némi időt, hogy befejezzem a munkát (alvás helyett). Így aztán vasárnap délután a rilai utazás közben átadhattam Elinek a pénztárcáját (az út egyébként gyönyörű volt, részletek a másik blogban).

Nagyon örült neki, ami engem abszolút boldoggá tett. :D

The witch is flying - Újra repül

2011-11-10T13:19:00.001-08:00

More break as I am travelling again....

Újabb szünet, mert elszállok.... részletek a másik blogon. Az oldalsávból. Repülj velem! :D

Traveller's purse - Útipénztárca

2011-08-27T02:57:00.000-07:00

Although when I was a kid we spent several hours standing in queues at borders, I really forgot that experience since the EU travelling, when you just see a sign of the next country and that is all. You can count on google maps, its timing works perfectly....

And also the money. You buy some Euros and take some Forints with you.

This year, my B decided to go to Bulgaria by car.... That means: Forint (Hungary), Dinar (Serbia), Leva (Bugaria) plus Euro (accomodation and 'just in case' factor).

I do not know what others do, but I really become frustrated when I go abroad with my purse and suddenly the coins mix and when you try to pay, you spend hours to find the right currency in your purse, while the queue behind you becomes so long and you start to think it was so embarrassing and than it becomes worse and worse...

When I counted the currency types we needed I became frightened imagine myself in the shop/at the petrol station etc. So I decided to avoid this experiance and make something useful for our BIG VACATION.

I decided to design a Traveller's Purse... Early in the morning I started the design process then sewed it and by lunchtime I had my surprise to B. :) He was satisfied but added a new idea which I 'sewed in'.

When in spring my FIL came to visit us from Australia I got a pack of fabric squares (all are flannel) from my favourite shop (Ribbons and Rainbows which were closing. I am sorry about it! Goodbye R and R, thank you for the nice memories! and also bye bye ladies from T nights).

I used the squares (as I do not really sew quilts) to make this purse.

B idea was to add some rubber bands, so we can keep the notes in it as well as the coins. I had colourful ribbon bands so I could add matching colours :D

Here it is:

Bár gyerekként sok-sok órát töltöttem a határokon való ácsorgással, egészen elfelejtettem ezt az élményt az EU-ban való utazgatások közepette, amikor csak meglátod a következő ország nevét jelző táblát, s ennyi. Számíthatsz a Google Maps-re, az időzítése ezen utakon tökéletesen pontos…

És a pénzzel sincs gond, viszel Forintot meg Eurót és kész.

Ebben az évben B kitalálta, hogy menjünk Bulgáriába kocsival. Ez a következőt jelentette: kell Forint (magyar részek), Dínár (Szerbia), Leva (Bulgária) és Euró (a szállásra, meg a „minden eshetőségre fel kell készülni” faktor miatt.

Nem tudom, másokkal hogyan is boldogulnak ilyen esetekben (mert mások biztosan boldogulnak), de ÉN tényleg kínos helyzetekbe keveredem, amikor külföldre utazván az aprók összekeverednek a tárcámban, s amikor fizetni szeretnék, órákat töltök a megfelelő pénzek megtalálásával, miközben mögöttem egyre nő a sor amitől még kínosabban érzem magam, amitől még kevésbé találom az aprót…. és így tovább….

Amikor rájöttem, hány féle pénzt kell magunkkal vinni, már láttam a rémálmomat: fizetni valahogyan, s megtalálni a megfelelő pénzt ennyi közül…. Elhatároztam, hogy kitalálok valamit, csak hogy elkerüljem ezt a helyzetet, s készítek valami hasznosat a nagy utazásra…

Elhatároztam, hogy tervezek egy Útipénztárcát. Fel is keltem korán reggel, megterveztem, megvarrtam, s ebédidőben már B elé állhattam a meglepetéssel. Tetszett neki,l de volt egy jó ötlete, így ebéd után még azt is „belevarrtam”.

Amikor tavasszal az apósom megérkezett Ausztráliából, hozott nekem egy csomag flanellnégyzetet a kedvenc ausztál pw boltomból (ami sajnos éppen bezár. Nagyon sajnálom! Viszlát Ribbons and Rainbows! Köszönöm a szép emlékeket, és viszlát kedves hölgyek a kedd esti varrásról!!!).

A négyzeteket használtam tehát, minthogy én nem nagyon varrok takarókat és faliképeket (önszántamból). B ötlete nyomán néhány színes gumicsíkkal is kiegészítettem a tárcát, íly módon nemcsak az aprókat, de a papírpénzeket is tök praktikusan lehetetett benne tárolni.

July things - Júliusi dolgok (városépítés) Magyarul is!

2011-08-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

In July I was very busy sewing because

1. I was in a patchwork camp in Karcag

2. I prepared several things for our huge trip (a very late honeymoon after 7 years of marriage) to Bulgaria.

I was so busy I had no time to post.

The only thing you could see was the bag for Eli which was ready just at the Bulgarian border, so just in time :)

Tipical patchwitch way....

The only thing I could make ready was this Happy Village quilt. I was interested in this technique (although usually I do not make quilts...). A year ago I gave it a try but I failed. I really did not believe everything would turn out... So I left it.

But this year I gave it another chance. And yes, it worked!

I really knew I did not want to create the 1000th piece of the same city, so I decided to make it in my own way, a monocrome quilt. For this I dyed some fabric, I used the dye Colombus (all the grey colours and the black one....).

I wanted to make it a unique quilt so I decided to make a wide picture which I could not, so this time I made a thin but tall one as everyone else....

I used the regular shapes, but I added the extra 'rock' and 'lighthouse'. I tried to vary the fences and roofs. I quilted it with monofil thread (which was quite tricky as my glue did not work, so several pieces came off when I was quilting, so I had to move the quilt with one hand and catch the 'flying and jumping pieces' with the other.)

I knew I wanted to give and extra frame, it is the keyhole. Now I think my quilt is like watching a town through a keyhole... Do you have the same feeling?

(Plans in my hand with it, but nothing yet.... maybe later...)

Júlisban nagyon elfoglalt voltam, csak varrtam és varrtam, mert

patchwork táborban voltam Karcagon
Készítettem egy csomó dolgot a nagy utazásra Bulgáriába (megkésett nászút 7 évnyi házasság után)

Annyira csak varrtam és varrtam, hogy nem volt időm írni.

Az egyetlen dolog, amit megmutattam, Eli táskája volt, ami épp a bolgár határon lett készen, pont időben, hogy át tudjam neki adni…

Tipikus patchwitch mentalitás…

Az egyetlen dolog, amit a táborban készre varrtam ez a városépítés volt. Ez a technika annak ellenére érdekelt, hogy általában nem készítek quilteket. Egy évvel ezelőtt már adtam neki egy esélyt, de akkor elbuktam. Nem hittem, hogy bármi is ki fog sülni belőle, így félbehagytam.

De ebben az évben adtam neki mg egy esélyt. És működött!

Abban biztos voltam, hogy nem akarom megcsinálni az ezredik városépített képet, úgyhogy elhatároztam, valamit alakítok rajta és monocrome quiltként készítem el. Ehhez festettem is anyagokat Colombussal (a fekete és a szürke összes árnyalatát használtam, az acélszürkéből viszont barna lett, így azt kihagytam).

Egyedi quiltet akartam csinálni, így fektetett képpel próbálkoztam, de az volt, ami nem működött, így az idén maradtam az állóképnél.

A szabályos formákat használtam, de hozzáadtam egy sziklát és a világítótornyot. A kerítéseket és tetőket próbáltam variálni. Átlátszó cérnával tűztem, ami egyébként trükkös mutatvány volt, hiszen a 2oldalasom megadta magát, így tűzés közben szabadon repkedtek az alkatrészek… Úgyhogy egy kézzel mozgattam a képet a gép alatt, míg a másikkal a röpködő darabkákat próbáltam elkapkodni és visszatenni a helyére…. Izzasztó volt (különösen, mert már éjszaka lett, mire idáig jutottam..)

Tudtam, hogy valami extra keretet akarok neki adni (Ismertek, mindig variálok valamit…), így a kulcslyuk mellett döntöttem. Most olyan, mintha egy kulcslyukon keresztül szemlélnéd a várost… Szerintetek is?

(Terveim vannak vele, de mivel még semmi konkrét… egyelőre nem is árulok el többet… majd talán később….)

The true story of Eli's bag

2011-08-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

I went to a patchwork camp as I mentioned before. As we were planning the trip to Bulgaria with my B I decided to make something for my friend (now she is our friend) as a little gift when we visit her.

One day we made a bag in the camp and it seemed just the perfect idea... The technique is called crazy which absolutely fits Eli and me (at least the name :D).

So I decided to ask her about her favourite colour (and I was happy to sew something else as orange, as this bag was not for me). When she answered: orange I was just laughing and found several pieces of fabric to take to the camp with me.

On the bag sewing day I started with the crazy pattern after redesigning Évi's pattern (sorry dear, you know I cannot behave properly...) as it should have been a little bag and I wanted to make a bit better one, not only for theatre but everyday use.

I started with the crazy part. I really did not want to make it total orange, I thouht it would be better to combine it with another colour (green) to fit it with Eli's clothes (the ones I saw in Barcelona when we met).

But that was the moment I realized I forgot the green fabric at home... As a solution I went into the centre of Karcag to find green fabric (in THE fabric shop of the town). The shop was closed that day but I really wanted something good, so with two friends we went into a clothes shop and found something green. It was an embroidered blouse which I cut into pieces and sewed into the bag.

Unfortunately I was not able to finish it in the camp but I worked on in at home where I added some fabric I wanted to use (originally).

The hand sewn part was forgotten (as I am always silly in timing), so I had to finish it in the car on the way to Bulgaria the next weekend. And I could finish it just on time: at the Bulgarian border. Here it is:

Enjoy the bag, Eli! :D

Patch is on her way..../Patch úton...

2011-08-02T03:21:00.001-07:00

Trying to post, but busy with holiday...(In Hungarian now on the patchonplane blog) /Próbálok írni, de nagyon lefoglal a nyaralás... (ezúttal magyarul a patchonplane blogon)

My fairy quilt Godmother

2011-07-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

There is a game on www.paperpanache.com. You have to make choices and finally you get your personal Fairy Quilt Godmother's pattern which you can sew.

Yesterday as I read this game I immediately became interested and made my choices. As I got the pattern I sterted sewing and yes, she is here (she is quite ugly not as nice as the young fairies are, but at least this way I can be a bit more self-confident..:D)

I missed a wart of her nose (ugly fairies need a wart) so I added that as an extra. The name was created by the programme, Boutiqmina... This makes me think she is shopaholic (maybe fabrics??).

And I am off to a patchwork camp, so hopefully I will have a lot of things to show you a bit later!

Finishing my exams...

2011-07-06T00:10:00.000-07:00

Finishing my exams made me extremely happy (of course) and able to sew again.... After making my navy bag (posted 2 weeks ago) I decided to continue this topic (navy style) and made a little purse (the previous one is useless as the zip broke but I really hate splitting...). This was a quick success for me and I used only the remains of the bag... not a single new piece, except the white zip. :)

It is good to have them together as the weather is usually like in autumn or early spring (rainy and grey) so I can have a little summer at least in my bag.

And summer has surely started for me, too.....

Hey, threads and fabric! Wait! I am coming!!!

A cake and an eye

2011-07-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

It is the story of last week, but it is only funny from a certain distance, so I am blogging it out today. Last week my dear colleagues had a new house party for which I decided to make their house from cake. I found some photos, made some plans in secret and started to bake on a calm Saturday night just to be able to finish it for Sunday evening (I nearly failed). I had to start with buying trays for the cake... It was a looong way.

The house turned out to be a very complicated o

ne, so I had to be tricky. I just baked and baked and finally made some fondant...

Just to help you imagine how big this cake was some facts:

24 eggs

750 g chestnut puree

700 ml cream

a whole box of cocoa powder

600 ml sour cream

1.5 kg caster sugar (yeah, fondant!)

and a lot of other things....

It was not that bad at the end, altough it really hated to travel, so one of its walls started to give up by the time we got to their place.

They were very happy with it and the guests liked the cake, so I came home happily with the feeling I had something in my eye. I tried to wash it or see what was inside, but I failed and saw nothing. I just closed it and fell asleep. I woke up in the morning with a scream. The thing was still in it, making the morning horrible. After trying to find it somehow or pick it out I finally went to the doctor and was informed that a piece of a toothpick (with which I put the roof to the cake) was in my right eye. ... The best news 2 days before my state exam. I could hardly study... Yeah, a horrible end for a succesful cake... (Now everything is OK, the exam is over.... it is only a story now...)

Finally :D

2011-06-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

Yay! After finishing my exams (nearly... the last state exam is the only one to pass....) I tried to relax a bit with SEWING!

What a beautiful weekend it was! (next Sunday was the day to finish "Sewing in head" and starting to make my plans real.....)

I had some white fabric and I bought a huge bedcover last year (the blue)... And my fingers were sooooo excited to draw something...

I LOVE blue and white together. Plus in May I saw in Spain that navy is the fashion of this summer. This is the time to sew my navy bag!

I started with the bottom of my bag and drew a little bit...

Then I made the sides of blue and white stripes...

Finally I added the top blue part, I drew some life buoys, put the hadles and added the little bow.

Here is my brand new summer navy bag! I am sooo ha

ppy with it! I hope you like it, too.

Patch on plane

2011-04-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

Patch is going to fly again... You can (hopefully) follow her to Barcelona on the other blog (in Hungarian)...
Byebye!!!

Patch megint utazik, ezúttal Barcelonába megy, és a másik blogon (remélhetőleg) követhető lesz majd magyarul...

Viszlát!!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

This Easter is basicly about typing my essays and things, but ....

But I could not imagine Easter without a little tiny piece of decoration. As I had no time, I asked my B to buy some little tiny flowers to have spring feeling... So went together and bought some... They were just greenies and didn't seem to be real 'decorations' but by the next morning I saw all the little ones blooming:

I gave myself a free day which we spent together with family. We baked a cake with my Mum, I wanted to teach her the fondant thing, so I decorated the cake there and we put it to the Easter Dinner Table.
This was the first time for me to make 3D figures, so the bunnies are not perfect at all, but I was satisfied (I had to try my new Wilton dyes...the green and purple) with the sleepy bunny... It was not a planned design, just started to decorate and the cake turned out like this:

Happy Easter to you all! What do you do at Easter?

Blue cake

2011-04-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

There is a play (a tale with looooots of music) written by two Hungarian authors, Muszty Bea and Dobay András. This play is going to be performed tomorrow by my little Drama Group (11 year olds). The title of it is : The Blue Magic Cake (A kék csodatorta), so I certainly made a blue cake as a premiere present for my kids.

I hope they are going to be fantastic tomorrow, will play and sing wonderfully.

Here is the cake:

From Alpha to Omega

2011-04-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

This was how my day started (the beautiful view from my bed)

And this was how it is ended (my finished thesis)

:)

Cakes

2011-03-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

My March-task was to organise the school celebration for the Hungarian national day. We had a very busy month with my colleague and my students, but it was a great job. We had four 'performances' and all went well (very well - I was soooooo prud of them) , so I decided to make a cake for my students and mini cakes for my colleagues (you can wee the first one in the picture).

Sorry, I know it is not sewing, but I really do not want a dead blog.

Thanks for Kiskukta (you can see her blog in my bloglist) for the inspiration and the recipe of the dough. :)

My students' cake:

One of the mini cakes:

sigh

2011-02-13T00:51:00.000-08:00

The last biiiiiiiig rush (=my last term) at uni, so sewing will be forgotten for some months. No pictures, no designs...

The only thing I will have: 'sewing in my head', but if I will be lucky enough to create I am going to write.

If you have good or funny stories about sewing/hobbies/families, please come and write to me in comments. That would be nice to have some funny things around during the huuuuuuuge work.

And I really do not want this place to be empty for a long time. Let's have fun together!

Christmas summary 2010

2011-01-03T01:20:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year...

2011-01-02T06:51:00.000-08:00

...after a Happy Xmas. I mean, hopefully it will be a HAPPY New Year. Let's have a look at the Christmas pictures. As I had a rest without my laptop (it was amaizing and fantastic to live without Internet for some days) I have lots of pictures to show. But as I really do not want to make you bored I made a little collection of the most important ones.

First of all my Avent Calendar which I got from kaz (thank you so much) from Aussieland. This is the opened version: all the great stuff together:

And this is the last and main handmade present:

Here are the pressies from E and A, my dear friends from the UK. It was a big surprise and a big laugh (when we opened them with B). They were beautifully wrapped (I really did not want to open them at first, but I was toooooo curious):

And here is the cheesecake I made for Christmas dinner with passionfruit and blueberries. I think it was yummi:

I hope you also had Great Holidays!

Merry Xmas!

2010-12-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone in the blog world. Unfortunately I am not blogging from my laptop, so no pics around, but they are coming soon. I hope you all have a joyful time together and friends (like me).

Advent

2010-11-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

How to use simple sugar? As we do not eat it, I found another way to use them...Little white sugar cubes on my wreath... I hope you like it, too. It was strange for the first time but now I like it :D

This other wreath is for my class:
The snowman is especially for my little ones. (Sorry for the quality of the second picture, I couldn't take a better photo...)

Happy Advent!

What a weekend!

2010-11-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

These days I basically do nothing but going to school then university then work at home and finally do my homework. It is really not easy to manage my life these days, but I can enjoy the silent moments more than ever before. I had some of these moments when I found an hour in the weekend to have a rest and make this Apple Crumble. I got the recipe from ym dear friend, Eili so it was not only a nice dessert but helped me to remember the nice days I spent in England this October so I could make my next step (and homework).

Look:

And B baked some chestnuts so we had a nice just-before-Christmas-winter-evening. Thank you, B!

After party...

2010-11-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

Ilyen volt az idén a Halloween - nálunk. Ezúttal angliai utam segített a dekorálásban...

This was halloween at our place this year. This time I got some help on my way in England....

Exactly 1 kg of grapes

2010-11-02T04:16:00.000-07:00

Have you seen such a beautiful fruit?
I went to the supermarket yesterday and chose one of the grapes in the basket. And it was exactly 1 kg. :)
Just to show you how big it was I put a musli bar next to it.

Halloween Cookie Cuts

2010-11-01T00:33:00.000-07:00

Luckily we found some cookie cutters with E. in England so my imagination could 'fly over the kitchen' and I made these. It was a recipe invented by me so the dough became a nightmare soon but later it turned out quite well. After 2 days they are moooore delicious.
Happy Halloween everyone! (I mean I hope you had a happy Halloween yesterday!)

Travelblog start - utazz velem!

2010-09-26T04:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry but this is a quick post for my Hungarian friends and family about my Hungarian travelblog, so I continue in Hungarian.

Patch on plane - cimkém alatt juthattok el a magyar nyelvű utazóblogomra, mely a következő hetekben követi utazásom történetét. Elérhető a jobb oldali sávban a repülő foltos boszira kattintva. Gyertek velem!

40 minutes bag.... - or not?

2010-09-10T07:48:00.000-07:00

This is the top bag of this summer, I think. Thanks for the original idea! It is a really good one, easy, funny to sew and seems cool. I accidentally got this piece of fabric of two friends (thank you girls!) and wanted to make it a bit uniques (we 3 had the same fabric, one third each) so I decided to use a bit of 'desert fabric' (I used it for 'desert' in another sewing the next day) to make flowers. I wanted a bit of 'country feeling' so I used blanket stitch and not sewed at the very edge of the flower to make it more rustic.
Here it is. (Grrr, I hate this rainy weather, these thin bags should stay at home nowadays...):

The other leg of the trousers

2010-08-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

I mentioned my friend's old trousers in my previous post. I finished the bag and I had not too much leftover. The project of the day was a sashiko purse, but I skipped the sashiko part. I decided to use my old jeans (you know I took too many trousers into my big bag :P) so I had to make a good design. It is summer and I bought some string on the previous day (blue and white). I had my blue jeans and part of the white trousers. It is obvious that it turned out a 'sailor's purse'. I needle painted some summer-sea themed pictures and I used my string as junk of the purse. I hope you like it, too.
And what is the connection with the old white trousers? The lining of the purse is made of it. And I had to be tricky. It was just enough, not a single centimetre of the fabric was left.....
Do you like it?

The bag of Karcag

2010-08-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

It is a simple story. I was in Karcag in a PW camp again 2 weeks ago. This was the project of the third day. I used some new fabric I bought 2 days before. (the red one) I used my friend's old trousers for the white parts. It was a pair of huge trousers (she lost weight and threw away her trousers) and I thought half of it would be enough for a bag. I used a bit more but I still had some leftover for the next project. Pics tomorrow...

But now you can see my red and white bag:

Purse, purse, purse

2010-08-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

The summer started with my HUGE problem: travelling with my toothbrush in a plastic bag..... Yes, I am a patchwitch with a plastic bag. It's awful, isn't it? I really wanted to have a purse. I made one to my B years ago. It turned out perfect, he liked the size and also the shape. I wanted to copy it to me a year later but it was not big enough for my brush (huge hair - huge brush). And I really did not want to take a purse plus some things outside or in another plastic bag. I liked the fabric but it was just not big enough.
I bought some new beautiful fabric (I call it 'Norway' as I have the Norwegian feeling when I see it) and I used a Tildas design to make a beach-purse. It turned out even smaller then the first one...... No success...
And this year I was fed up with my small purses so I took the new fabric I got from the Australian Ladies of the Craft Forum (the birthday club) which I love. It has all of my favourite colours: orange, yellow and green. And I made a really big purse - and wow, it is perfect! All my things inside and there is some more places....
You can see them all here:

Summertime...

2010-07-29T02:12:00.001-07:00

It' s been a long time since I wrote a post.... It doesn't meen I do not sew at all. It means I didn't have pics good enough to share with you. Now I am quite busy. Among the summer UFO killing activities I was in Karcag in a PW camp. ... Pics soon!

Have a nice summer!

Spring - time for a wedding

2010-05-09T11:49:00.001-07:00

As the exam time is coming and I am in the middle of the test and exam time, this weekend had just a bit of sewing... My friend had her weddign yesterday and I remembered she liked coffee (and I was right). I had some leftover of my B's laptop bag... (Ah I think I forgot to show it to you, but never mind when the sun will shine again I'll take a pic to you)... So I had that piece of fabric which I made into 6 coasters. Here they are:

Bag for spring

2010-04-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

My friend, A. has a bag. It is not a very nice one, but a simple 'free give away bag of a company'. But the pattern was really interesting for me so I started to think about it.
I designed a Celtic bag. For the handle I used the simple IKEA fabric (black and green). I used a hand sewing technique for the pattern so it took a while (long long time it was). So finally i throw it in a box when I finished the Celtic pattern.
This year before spring came (the official spring of course as the real one is still on its way) I decided to have my Celtic bag so I finished it. I made the pattern (12 pieces I think) and found this Celtic shamrock pattern which I sewed with the 'free style quilting' programme of my machine. (The bottom of the bag has a different Celtic pattern....just for fun!)
And now I wear my new bag happily. My student liked it very much which made me so proud. Do you like it as well?

This is the front of the bag with 2 zips.

And this is the back with the 'old' handle and the mobile pocket on it.

Let me introduce her...

2010-04-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

She is our newest friend, Ingrid. The story started 2 weeks ago when we got my mum's old car (it is a new car for us). My B told me to sew someone into the car to be a traveller partner for him all the time. We wanted a small someone not too disturbing on the mirror.
She is very small, a Tilda design, but I made her really tiny.... She is 7.5 cms tall.... bourdon (as the car) and white. She has her dress of my favourite fabric-combination.
Let me introduce our newest friend, Ingrid:

The bottle-house bag

2010-04-10T10:58:00.000-07:00

I know that some of you remember my bottle bag.... It is a small bag for my mineral water (1.5 litres bottle) during the hot months when I have to carry water. I am economic in a way - I do not like to buy 0.5 l bottles.... and also comfortable - I hate carrying things in my hand... The bag was my invention (I thought) as I never saw anything like that before. But I know I cannot be the only one. Some of my students love that bag. One of them asked me to make her one when she will leave school (it is an important ceremony here in Hungary when students get presents....) It will happen in the future....But then March came....and I got a phone call..... It was a secret call as a surprise birthday party way organised for her as she became 18.... (another important day, the beginning of adulthood here)... I was invited! I was so surprised as I am her teacher and I was in that not-too-big-group around her on the birthday..... wow...So I changed my mind and make her the bag for her big day....It was designed for her.... the colour, the patterns, everything....The blue one is a hand painted fabric (made by me) and I used free motion stitching for that.... It was a big rush (I worked during the nights) but she was so happy.... the bag was worth it.... :D And now she is in a trouble..... she is thinking about what to ask for the school leaving ceremony.... :D

Food, glorious food....

2010-04-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

Two days ago my B didn't feel well and slept not too much during the night. I wanted to surprise him with a unique breakfast to make his mood a bit better. I woke up quite early so went to the supermarket and got goods. This is a recipe we tried years ago but somehow it was obvious for me to make it.... I bought two pieces of bread so we ate the second one this morning....
He was happy to get it so the idea turned out very well....
Just put anything you like between the slices and put the whole thing in the oven for some minutes.... We ate it with fresh vegetables like spring onion (there was some in the sandwich too), cherry tomatoes (also in and out), pepper and cucumber.
It was a very good spring breakfast!

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T03:56:00.001-07:00

We got the Easter ham from Mum yesterday and also the eggs boiled in the ham's water.... Yumm, they are wonderful with smoky taste..... I hope your Easter is Hoppy, too!

Spring is here at the door

2010-04-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

Last week I let spring in.... We still had the winter wreath with snowman and penguin, but last weekend I finally finished the new one.
My favourite fruit is strawberry so I decided to use strawberries for the wreath. I found some nice ones in Tilda's books. (I love it as some of you know) It was not easy to get a pre-made wreath this spring what made me surprised. Finally I got this very simple brown one which was too small for the spring angel I made. Then I decided to make the swing to the girl so now she is swinging happily.
And some things about the girl: she is also a Tilda pattern but I made her a lot smaller. Her trousers are made from green fabric I got as a present from Maple (a patchwork friend of mine), the jumper is also made of a present fabric (got from my mum's colleague). The cherry one is a Luxembourgian fabric as I call it. I visited a patchwork shop with a kind Lulu patchwork lady who I met through the net and later there personally. The kind owner gave me that fabric because I was a customer from 'so far away'. This fabric was waiting for the perfect project to be used, and I think this is very good because I can see it every spring. This angel is mostly a collection of nice memories for me.
I hope you like the wreath as well. Happy spring!

Still living

2010-03-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hello again, sorry for the long break....

I was busy during the break, so I am sure I'll show you some things. We had the last snow a week ago and yay, now it is spring, so time to start to feel the 'spring spirit'. Today we got rid of some old clothes and other stuff. Last week we sad goodbye to the christmas tree and other decoration, now I am busy with making the new one.

Plus spring means the beginning of 'theatre term' for me, I am also working on accessories for the plays.
Unfortunately it is too dark now to take photos, so you have to wait a bit more for them.

But: HAPPY SPRING!

Carnival

2010-02-17T10:58:00.000-08:00

So we had a carnival in school. Last year i made a huge mistake - I didn't have a costume. My class was a bit disappointed and I didn't want to make them upset this year. But I had not too much time (and not a single idea).... for weeks. Then I had a small talk with a little girl. We talked about old nursery signs of our childhoods and the idea came: MUSHROOM.
So I decided to make this 'half an hour mushroom costume'. I had an orange sun-hat which I covered with a piece of red fabric and some white spots on. I asked my B for his white T-shirt and I wore my brown trousers (mushroom on the ground:D ).
That was it. My students loved it and me too. I hope you will like it as well.

Ball of 2010

2010-02-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

On Saturday we had the usual school ball of the parents and teachers. I had some problems with clothing (as usual). I have only one beautiful dress to wear (and I was in that last year) so I tried to change things a bit. At least the accessories. So I made a necklace and earrings from the fabric I had to cut down (the skirt was too long) and I finished the bag (I started it last year but because of the flag - if you remember I had to postpone the plans). I also made something (a huuuuuuuge scarf to wear), thanks for the idea, Kicsoda!

Snow, snow, snow...

2010-02-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

I still love winter. And snow. I am happy every day when I see things like this.
Enjoy!

The biggest little hearts

2010-01-17T01:21:00.000-08:00

This is a present I want to show you. And a little story behind:

There were two sweet little girls going to the same school. They had an English teacher. Just before Christmas they learnt Christmas words and a bit about the English traditions. Among the pictures there was a gingerbread man. The teacher mentioned her favourite was this little brown creature. The two little girls went home and baked Christmas cookies together. They made this little cookie for the teacher and they 'draw' a gingerbread man on it. And have you noticed the little hearts around? :D

Christmas 2009

2010-01-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

After the first (extremely busy) week I have to write the last post of 2009. This is the summary of Christmas time and mostly sum of the whole holiday period. Actually it was much better than I can show in the pics, but I really wanted to write lots of posts and got lost because of my tasks...... Most of the nice yummies were not made by me but my mum and friend. The normal food was made by my B. How lucky I am! With these amaizing people around! Now let's go back to my studies. I hope you and I will have a fantastic New Year!

Summary of 2009

2010-01-03T04:38:00.000-08:00

Here comes some important things from 2009 which were to post before Christmas of before New Year but I failed (as usual) so they are here at the beginning of this New Year.

First of all: Here is my Advent Calendar from Tina, Australia..... open... It was a magic Advent. Thanks for you, Tina!

And here is the final present I got on the 25th December from Tina, too:
This was present no.1 which is a handmade mistletoe banner, part of my Christmas decoration:
This is an amaizing thing (one of the pressies) I ahve never seen before: An apron, DIY with instructions and pattern printed on fabric. I am sure, I'll sew it for the next Christmas! :D

And here is the present I sent to Lenke in Ahama's 'Karácsonyi húzogatós' game:

And here is what I got from Márta, who was absolutely gorgeous with finding out what I like:

Thank you Ladies! Have a Happy New Year and a wonderful advent in 2010!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T01:34:00.000-08:00

Dear Blogging Friends!

I hope your Christmas was wonderful, holly and jolly (like this) and you are going to have enoguh time in the New Year to have a rest after Christmas. I'd like to wish you a Happy, Cheerful, Healthy, Funny and Lucky new Year for 2010!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T13:20:00.000-08:00

Still in the middle of preparation...Yes, I am a last minute person - and currently not on my laptop, so pic later...Sorry.... :)
But I'd like to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas all around the world!

Mindenkinek Nagyon Boldog Karácsonyt kívánok! (Én még mindig ünneplésben és előkészületekben, mert igen, kissé rtalán utolsó pillanatos vagyok...) Élvezzétek az Ünnepet! :)

Busy Christmas 2.

2009-12-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

As a little helper of Santa Claus I also did some china painting. For the first time. It was very easy, just a pencil, the plates and me. I painted snowmen and snowflakes to our best friends as they love them. Then I baked the plates for 90 minutes and that's it! I hope you like them too!

Busy Christmas

2009-12-20T07:51:00.000-08:00

It seemed I did nothing in the last few weeks.... Among my exams I did a bit of craft... Only small things... And as I took the pictures when I was at home (very early in the morning when it was still dark) they are not too good. I am really sorry about them.
So the first crafty things were the postcards. I am not an expert card maker but here are the ones I sent to friends all around the world.
The favourite colour this year was blue and I made 2 traditional ones (green and red).
I hope they arrive to my friends soon!

Advent calendar

2009-12-02T11:58:00.001-08:00

So my Advent calendar luckily arrived from Australia.... Hurray! I opened the huuuuuge envelope and saw these treasures:

Then I made my Christmas 'table' (actually it is a suitcase) and put all the presents there..... Aren't they beautiful? I am the luckiest person in the world! Thank you Tina!!!!

Advent again

2009-11-29T14:10:00.001-08:00

It is the time again...

I cannot believe it, it is Advent! The first Sunday was wonderful... A bit of chat with my crafty blog-friends then some time with my B, a bit of sewing (and I try to forget all the horrible things happened today in connection with exams, homeworks, books to learn and so on..)

Yesterday we spent the day with my best friend in totally Christmas mood. I enjoyed it so much!

On the way home it was high time to decide what kind of Advent wreath we would make... I was thinking and thinking... And then a beautiful picture came into my mind with snow, ice, polar bears, snowflakes. I wanted to make my polar friends happy so I decided to make a wreath matching the winter curtain in the kitchen (which is still in the wardrobe but I am going to change it soon.... I promise...)

So this is a blue- white- snowflake wreath, a very new design. I have never made anything crazy like it, but finally I was satisfied.... when I came home with it (it was still hot because of the hot glue...) a bit before 1 o'clock in the morning, my B was sleeping so he couldn't see it. He got up earlier than me today and took some wonderful pictures.... :D And made me happy in the morning with it.

He said something like this: When I saw the wreath these things came to my mind: coffee and biscuits in wintertime. Here is his pic:

WV Minibus - a big dream in small

2009-11-14T13:25:00.000-08:00

Just 40 days until Christmas and I am still busy with birthday and nameday presents....
I didn't forget the October UFO but it is still a secret (just about 4 days), it is a birthday present....
I am in Christmas 'work'... I have already sent the advent swap parcel to Oz. I hope it has already left Europe...
So here is a bit of Christmas just to start this period :D I wrote these words some days ago...Then I did not have time to put them on (I have too much homework these days...) Then this day started....

So this was the birthday of my dear colleague who got this present. His big dream is to have a WV minibus so I tried to help somehow.... I found some good pictures and a modell pattern which helped me with this project. He was so happy to get it! I am really very happy now after his birthday dinner with other colleague-friends. Hey, see the minibus! (Actually it was a surprsie even for me when I finished... It is about 40 cm long and 20-25 cm tall. It is a pillow filled with silicone filling. I hope you like it, too!
And yes, this was the October finished project:

After Halloween

2009-11-01T01:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T07:32:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of pumpkin carving and cooking.... Just 2.5 hours till the guests are coming... Photos tomorrow!

Everyone, have a happy Halloween!

More Halloween

2009-10-30T00:05:00.000-07:00

I got up in the morning and I decided to start Halloween program immediately. I formed these marzipan figures to the cakes.... Soon a plan of another cake came into my mind. Won't be three deserts too much? Let's see.... I am sure we'll need a cake for the spiders...But what about the ghosts?

But to tell you the truth it was not a big work this morning as I got the marzipan from a confectionary....

Here are the spiders:

And the ghosts:
Have a happy day!

Halloween is continued

2009-10-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

I 'made' some more decorations.... Not much, but I wanted to post something Halloweenish today as well :)

So this is the welcome suitcase at the door. I think Sir Henry matches Halloween as he is a black cat but unfortunately he is not spooky enough.... At least he likes guests....

And I renovate last year's wreath and added some extra pumpkins to it. This is for today :D

Halloween time starts....

2009-10-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

I mean, started.... When I made these invitations to my halloween guests. Did I mention that I love the orange-black combo.... with spiders?

Adventures of my ice cream balls

2009-10-26T23:31:00.001-07:00

The story began in September when we had the Procion party at Kicsoda's. We worked with fabrics but the knitting ladies decided to dye yarn. I got a big yarn ball from Ahama so I tried to dye too. I used Kicsoda's bowl and hid my little pieces in them. She washed mine too and on Friday she brought them to me to the meeting.
They were beautiful, I loved them in the first moment. We made little balls (this is all I had.... yes, I am wondering now why I didn't make more...) and they were like ice cream balls.
Do you agree?

The only thing seemed 'makeable' was a short scarf. Kdatta gave me the idea about her short scarfs so I made one.

I tried it on but my B was not very happy with it and neither I when I looked into the mirror.

So I decided to start again with a normal scarf. But the first one was too wide so the yarn seemed not enough. Then I started again.... This is the 5th version I made at the weekend.
It is wide and long enough to wear (I think).
And yes, it is very simple but I like it. (With home coloured yarn you do not want to use a complicated pattern, I think it is colourful enough - at least for me.)
The only problem: the edges. I followed the 'inverse before the last' rule but it is still not good. I really do not know what to do with them.....

Wedding present

2009-10-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

This is an old topic in a new post. On the 3rd Oct one of my friends had her wedding. She is a really nice girl and I'll never forget what she did for me on my wedding. She is a good musician playing the flute but she was nervous all the time playing solo in the church. But as a present I got a wonderful flute solo. She played Ave Maria on my wedding and I started crying I was so surprised and happy seeing what she did for me.

Now it was our time to give her a present so our choir stood together after about 5 years and we sang during the ceremony. It was something like travelling in time plus I was happy to do something for her. This is a small something I sewed her as a present.

It is a 'Home blessing'. I got one for my wedding from another friend's mum. (It was a small paper one and it is still on our fridge.... I can remember I. all the time I see her present).
So the idea came and I started to sew. I used my favourite kitchen combo (the 3 fabrics together). Luckily I had some leftovers so I could start quickly and finish before the wedding! (Amaizingly this time I was not in a hurry).
I hope she likes it.

Australian chocolate cake

2009-10-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

Years ago we got an Australian cook book from my brother-in-law. There are wonderful recipes in it. I found this some weeks ago when I wanted to bake something for my colleagues' birthday. I changed the recipe a bit, here is my version.

(serves:8)
Ingredients:
125 g butter (vaj)
165 g caster sugar (porcukor)
2 eggs (tojás)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (vanilia kivonatot használtam)
80 g blackberry jam (áfonyalekvár)
165 g flour (liszt + 1 csom. sütőpor)
60 g cocoa powder (kakaópor)
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (szódabikarbóna)
250 ml milk (tej)

Chocolate buttercream
50 g dark chololate, chopped (étcsoki aprítva)
25 g butter (vaj)
3 teaspoons cream (tejszín)
30 g icing sugar (porcukor)

1. Preheat the oven 180 Celsius. Grease the base and sides of a deep 20 cm square cake tin and line with baking paper.
1. Melegítsd elő a sütőt 180 fokra. Vajazz ki egy 20 cm-es négyzet alakú tepsit és béleld ki sütőpapírral!

2. Beat the butter, sugar with electric beaters until it is light and creamy. Add the eggs gradually. Add the van. essence and jam until combined.
2. Elektromos robotgéppel verd fel a vajat és cukrot, amíg világos és krémes nem lesz. Add hozzá egyenként a tojásokat, majd a vanilia esszenciát és a lekvárt, míg összeáll.

3. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl. Using a metal spoon, fold the combined sifted flour, cocoa and soda alternately with milk. Stir until the mixture is just combined and almost smooth.
3. Tedd a keveréket egy nagy tálba. Egy fémkanál segítségével keverd bele a lisztet, kakaót és szódabikarbónát tejjel felváltva. Keverd, míg összeáll és sima lesz.

4. Pour into the tin and smooth the surface. Bake for 45 minutes, or until skewer comes out clean. Leave in the tin for 15 minutes, then cool on a wire rack.
4. Öntsd bele a tepsibe és simíts el a tetejét. Süsd 45 percig, vagy jó sütéspróbáig. Hagyd a tepsiben 15 percig, majd hagyd hűlni egy rácson.

5. To make the buttercream, combine the chopped chocolate, butter, cream and sugar in a small pan. Stir over low heat until the mixture is smooth and glossy. Spread the chocolate buttercream over the top of the cake with a flat-banded knife.
5. A csokikrémhez tedd az aprított csokit, vajat és cukrot egy kis lábosba. Alacsony hőfokon kevergesd, amíg egységes és fényes krémmé szelídül. Egy lapos kés segítségével kend a tortádra a krémet. Nem klasszikus édes torta, keserűkedvelőknek ajánlom! Édesítésként tettem rá a habot. Jó étvágyat!

Old jumper

2009-10-02T22:28:00.001-07:00

This is a jumper I wore once. I was a college student when we had a kind of knitting magazines I liked. (It was a German one published in Hungarian only for half a year or so...) I found this pattern there and the phylosophy lessons were just perfect to knit it (we had a very clever teacher, I think she should have been very clever but awfully boring..... It was not easy to not sleep, but knitting helped as it kept me awake and I was able to make notes while knitting...)
So I kitted this patchwork jumper (at that time I didn't know what pw was...). I had to make the little squares and then sewed them together.
I started it too late so it was hot when I finished, and I waited for the next winter and then the jumper disappeared.....so finally I didn't wear it......
2 years ago I found it, (it was too small - unfortunately) but there was no people around me to give it to. But the daughter of my sweet colleague grow a lot in summer it fits her now. I was so happy she liked it. (She is in it since she got it even when they danced :) )
I quickly made a pic on the last night when it was in my home:

Present 3 - for Orsi

2009-09-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Orsi was my only PIF volunteer and I was very happy to make a present for her. After some not-good-enough ideas I decided to make a wallet for her. I used the same pattern as the Piano wallet, but I changed the technique which made it totally different.

I used my favourite red fabric plus this country red one. It is a very simple design, I didn't want to make it too fussy. I sewed some button flowers which fit the country design I like so much. Here it is:

Traditional dyeing party at Kicsoda

2009-09-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

The best thing ever (for me) is to meet other crazy ladies on a Sunday and chatting, eating, loving and dyeing fabric. We used Procion as usual (but we have new plans for the future...hihi...)
This time we decided to dye fabric and yarn (for the knitting ladies :D). I was lucky enough to get a yarn ball from Ahama, so I also tried it.
I had some awful pieces which had a washing acident last time (ah, by the way, Kdatta, I still not have those beautiful spring greens you mixed to me last time so I'll beg you to try again later, too. :)))) so I tried to re-dye them.... with more or less success....

I had a plan to which I needed the colours of the seasons. Well.... I do not feel totally successful but with a little more hep I think I can make those. Autumn is unfortunately nothing, it has no colour, it is too bright. Winter is OK, but has too much white parts. And no spring green... (Kdatta, I told you...without you I simply couldn't mix THAT green...) But summer can be OK.... I am going to change my plans a bit or finding new colours to use.

So Ladies of my beautiful Sunday:
Here are the result as I promised. I took the photoes in morning light, not an absolute sunny place.

The light part with yellows and greens:

Here are the blues and browns, thank you for the help Évi:

And the blue yarn: (they should be really different coloured...)
In real life the colours are much better but I still have probs with colours in the pictures.

Something, the second

2009-09-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

Yay, finally it is time to show you the second secret something I wrote about. It is a purse (or wallet?) for my colleague (one of the favourites) for her birthday. We had the party last Friday night. It was cool.

J had a very old purse full of .... let's say things..... She really needed a new one but luckily she didn't get anything fit her. So I decided to make one. But it was not easy. I had to spend a lot of time on finding a good pattern which I luckily got from a friend. I had some fabric from the USA ( I ordered fabric once and I was lucky enough to get it all) which has musical instruments on. This is just perfect for J as she is a piano and organ expert. I was so happy to see her smiling!
Here are the photos:

Yay, I can show you a something!

2009-09-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I gave one of the presents away so I can show you something! One of the three.
Last week I went to a 'fabric shop' for fabric for my classroom decoration and I found this one. It is a 'leather like fabric' which I've never tried before. It was not very easy to sew, but my Mum was so happy it was worth the work.
And I have a black and white bag (which I think I forgot to show here) which I lended to my Mum as they were invited to a Black and White Party. She enjoyed wearing the bag and told me a lot of nice things about it.

When I saw this fabric I got the idea to make the same pattern of that magical fabric. I found a little piece of vanilla leather like fabric which I got in summer (actually it was a really very small piece, it was enough for the two flowers only) plus I used some nice multicolour thread to decorate the bag (leaf pattern - free mashine stitched) The inside part is brown musleen. It was quite a big rush and I made a mistake in the middle which I recognized when I nearly finished the whole bag, so I had to start again.... which made the whole process an even bigger rush, but finally it is ready!

Yesterday I gave it to Mum on her nameday (yes, we calebrate namedays here)
Here are some pics about it. (In real life it is a bit lighter I think)

Secret projects...

2009-09-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who was absolutely not satisfied with me... She sad I was lazy to write so rarely.... Yes, I am really disappointed these days, I have no visitors, no comments.... but yes, maybe you are right... It is boring to read the same post for a week...
So yes, I really wanted to write and show you some photos, but they are secret projects for one more week. I am working on presents at the moment. 3 at the same time... I love working on more things. It is a bit dangerous as they easily turn to UFOs but when I have a new idea I am sooo excited. I usually try to not start the new project immediately but at the end I usually start something new.... I cannot change my mind. I really try but it is impossible.
And I am trying to work with Via and the FlyLady programme, thanks for the link Vacskamati and thanks Via, too!!

Everyone, have a nice next week and I am coming with new pics!
(And till that would you please leave me a comment if 1. you jumped here and want to make me happy 2.you have something you want to read here 3.you have any ideas about this blog)

Summer is over...

2009-09-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

I could read in several blogs that summer is over with the horrible thing: the first day of the school year.... Yes, I feel the same. Another school year, everyone is sad to start again, summer is over, evenings colder, my allergy is on high level....
So it is time to show you my summer wreath (it is still on the door.... just a bit more of the feeling.... I will not change it till the real autumn with the falling leaves etc.... actually I do not like that part very much)
So this is a bit of summer with the help of Tilda. I changed the sizes but left the pattern...
Goodbye summer!

Finished project -August

2009-08-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

This is nearly the last day of August, so it is high time to show you my finished project..... I liked the idea od the quilllow so much I made one more.... One for my B to ba able to travel with it... My B likes spiders and I like Halloween and orange, so this fabric was the best one I found in the shop. I used simple black with it.
This time I was a good girl and used Evi teacher's Bento box technique without changing everything. I wanted to finish it in the camp but unfortunately I couldn't (I would have needed one more night).
The best part (the one I enjoyed the most) was the quilting part. I decided to use spider webs and found an orange thread (silky bright). It was fun. I started with the pillow part then quilted the huge spider webs. Finally I quilted some spiders with black thread to the Bento box blocks.
My B was happy with it and I think it suits him very much.

I really hope you like it, too.

Karcag - the only project I finished there....

2009-08-18T22:09:00.000-07:00

In the camp we made a key-holder with Beugrólány. We had a pattern (which I changed of course) of a street.... I designed the little houses and appliqued them with machine I used some embroidery, too. I used free machine stitches on the bottom (the street)... We bought the frame and painted it...
We had the 'wire' which we made into holders....
Here is mine ( I really have to learn how to take good pics....):

After the camp.....killed UFO - July

2009-08-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

I spent a wonderful week in Karcag with half of our topic, too.... In the fisrt part of the camp teacher Evi forced us to make a quilllow..... I have told you several times that I am not for making quilts.... not at all..... But this is a great idea, it seemed funny for me.... So, here you are: my first quilt!!!! (and luckily I managed to finish it in July so this can be the July project.....sorry for the long break, I had no pic than no time to complete this post....)

It should have been a Bento Box quilt but as usual I changed things a bit to make something unique, so I simply designed the quilt in a different way.... I know it would have been easier to sew this pattern with the log cabin technique but I wanted to learn at least the way of Evi's project so I used the Bento Box technique....

I used two yellows as the shop ran out of the one I wanted, plus the green (a very tricky one, I had some problems with that fabric) and a cheap IKEA yellow for the background.

As usual I quilted in with Evi's Bernina and I free stitched it... That was fun, you know, just drawing with the machine... I really enjoyed it, but for the arms it was like being in a gym.... But I am sure you all know it...

This picture was taken in Karceg when we tried the block orders.... Evi taught a method which made our life easier.... We put all the blocks on the floor and took a picture with a digital camera of them then looked at the 'quilt' on the camera.... Looking at a small pic was a good idea, we could make decisions easily... So here is mine:

As I mentioned before I am a slow sewer so I could finish the quilt but I could sew the pillow part only on the train....
Here is my quilllow in quilt form at home:

And here is my quillow in the pillow form:
The colours are quite different in the pics, the first one is the closest...

Drawing

2009-08-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

Just back from the patchwork camp which was awesome and the guildmeeting (at lake Balaton this year) which was hilarious!!!!!
Happy and a bit tired.....
Nothing much happaned in the last week, but before that I started a lot of things (in the pw camp in Karcag) but finished only one..... Now it is time for finishing them before they become UFOs forever...
I still have no pic about the July finished object but coming soon...:)

This was a small something which I made..... I got this T-shirt from a colleague and te fabric was too thin (transparent a bit)... so I decided to draw on it a bit with my sewing machine....
Here is the result...:

Ice cream weekend 1.

2009-07-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

This is the time of ice creams for me I think..... (poor trousers and skirts..... ) I found a recipe on Fűszer és lélek blog which was a kind of drink. We (with my B) decided to make ice cream istead of a drink so we changed some things, but I think the original recipe can be also good.
Here is our recipe:

Melon ice cream with gorgonzola:
1 melon (normal sized but very nice one) - stick mixered
2 dl cream - half mixered
5 dkg gorgonzola - cut with a fork and add to the cream
1 pinch salt

then mix everything and put it in the ice cream maker.... I cut some tiny little melon cubes and added it to the mixture while it was in the machine. Enjoy!
And thank you Eszter for the original idea!

PS: Unfortunately there is no picture about it (yet) as I have no camera at the moment....

(Not easily) killed UFO - June

2009-07-17T07:43:00.000-07:00

I know it is an absolutely late post, but this summer is 'an always late' one....

So this is my sewing bag..... I started in a patchwork camp last summer and since then it was a pain.... I wanted to sew it but then I overcomplicated it, so.....
But I finished it this week... I know it is July now but I had so many things to do.
OK, no more excuses, here is the bag. Actually it is a plastic file covered with fabric.... The inventor is Dióhéj and my mentor in this thing was Méhike...
I used my favourite star textile for the outside part and I embroidered my name for the back page.

The fabric inside are my treasures from Wales and Luxemburg... (this was a good enough place for them). The scissor holder and the needle holder can be removed and used alone. (By the way the needle holder is a Tilda design). (sorry it is an awful picture taken during the sewing process......)
It is not packed yet and I have to add one more thing (an iron place), but I have to finish it this weekend as the bag is coming with me to the patchwork camp next week.

7 things....

2009-07-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

Vacskamati asked me to take part in this 'game', and I was so embarrassed to forget it, so no more excuses... It is high time to write 7 more things about me....
Hmmm... it is not an easy thing at all.... but let's try .... and I am sorry if I've already mentioned some of it.

1. There were 3 jobs I always wanted to have (and some more...khm.... funny ones... which I do not write about this time...) teacher, actress and tourist guide..... I can live without the last one but I think I need the first 2.... The only way I can imagine life without school is when I can stay on the stage..... but I think it is too late.....

2. I am a strange person (I think). I did lots of 'interesting' things (eg. diving) at my young age but didn't do trivial things (eg. going to a pop concert)...

3. I love all handcrafts. I cannot crochet... I always forget how to do it and when I want to make something, I learn the waqy to make it, and in some weeks I forget everything again....
There is no problem like this with patchwork, knitting, embroidery, decoupage, jewellery making etc....

4. I have looooooots of energy for a long time (like 5 months or so), then I just lay in an amrchair for days without doing anything..... isn't it abnormal?

5. I hate being in silence (yes, I can imagine your face and laughs) so I always have to have something noisy around me, like radio or TV... I couldn't study without my radio when I was a pupil.

6. I love bags.... very much.... I want to have a lot, but then I am too lazy to change them day by day, so I always have an actual favourite for some weeks (or months) then I change....

7. I am too slow as I do too many things at the same time, so I will not ask anyone to write about the 7 things....
But I loooove coffee (I blame my B for it!) and I got this frappé this morning before he wnet to work.... I am the luckiest patchwitch on earth :D

I hope Vacskamati, you enjoyed reading it, and I am sorry for the long waiting......

An amazing morning

2009-07-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

Today it was high time to defrost the freezer so we decided to skip the shopping. I wanted to use only the food from our fridge before switching off the machine. Here are the things I found:
cottage cheese, milk, egg and some chocolate sauce I made some days earlier, cream and strawberry in the freezer.
Ah and the ice cream maker was in the freezer, too! (surprisingly :D )
So we made 3 things:
coffee of course

pancakes
and strawberry ice cream.

And here are 2 more pictures:

the 'ice bed' (jégágy) I mentioned in a previous post

The ice cream maker for Kicsoda. Do you have the same machine?

Black and white party

2009-07-05T23:35:00.000-07:00

I had a free night on Friday so I decided to have a black and white party. I have to tell you it was not an easy project to organize. Actually it seemed much worse as it was. It is a very good way to improve your creativity.... I decorated the living room and dressed all furniture in black and white, all the guests had to wear black and white clothes and we had black and white food and drink (unfortunately I was not a good barista, so the black and white latte came brown too soon....) And we had some more things which I forgot to take picture of.

Recipe: the coffee ice cream

2009-06-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

Finally here is the recipe of my coffee ice cream (2 posts before this...). The original recipe was taken from Elise, we changed only small things... But I have to write it in Hungarian as the original version can be read by the English speakers....

Kávéfagyi (az eredeti Elisénél, ez a miénk kis változtatásokkal):
1. Másfél bögre tejbe beletettem fél bögre fruktózt (megjegyzem, ez is nagyon sok, csak negyed bögrényit tennék, ha most csinálnám), egy csipet sót, fél bögre tejszínt és másfél bögre egész kávészemet. Én kubai kávét használtam. Igen, jól látjátok, egész kávészemeket, és itt kell megjegyeznem, hogy csak óvatosan, mert 1. az íze igen kávés lesz (nekem ez csupa pluszpont) 2. a koffein is átszivárog a fagyiba, nem is kevés, úgyhogy jól meg kell gondolni ki, mikor és mennyit...
Ezt az egészet melegíteni valami lábosféleségben, csak gőzölgésig, nem kell főzni!!!! Befedve hűlni hagyni kb. 1 órán át.

2. A maradék 1 bögre tejszínt jégágyra tettem (sok jeget egy küblibe és arra rá a másik fémküblit, amiben a tejszín van.... így kellemesen hűl a drága...), és már ekkor odakészítettem egy szűrőt (merthogy ezt mondta a recept...)

3. Újra felmelegítettem a kávészemes kotyvalékot (még mindig nem kell forralni!) Közben, hogy ne unatkozzam egy újabb pitliben felvertem az 5 tojássárgáját. Ráöntöttem a kávészemes kotyvalékot (itt erősen kell figyelni, hogy fokozatosan öntsem és ne főjenek meg a tojások, az nem igazán lenne sikeres fagyikészítésnek nevezheő ha kávés rántotta alakulna a tálban...) és összekevergettem. Ja, és vissza a lábosba!

4. Közepes hőmérsékleten kevergetve főztem kb. 10 percig, amíg besűrűsödött.

5. A besűrűsödött fagyikezdeményt a szűrőn át beleöntöttem a jégágyon pihengető tejszínbe, jól odanyomogatva a kávészemeket a szűrőhőz (na nem azért, hogy kilyukasszam a szűrőt), hogy minél több íz menjen a fagyimba. A kávészemek ideje lejárt, mehetnek a kukába (persze én megpróbáltam elrágcsálni, mert alapvetően szeretem a kávészemeket rágcsálni, de borzalmas lett, nemcsak az íze főtt bele a fagyiba, de az állaga is kimondottan gumis lett... nem ajánlom senkinek). Mehet a fagyiba a vanilia (én vanilia pasztát használtam 2 késhegynyit, de a vanilia rúd bele gondolom pont ugyanilyen jó...) és a negyed teáskanálnyi őrölt kávé (én mozsárban törtem, így aztán hosszan tartó mennyei illat lengte be a lakást jó darabig...).

6. És ezután ment az egész a fagyigépbe, mi pedig szájtátva bámultuk, mi fog történni... Alig tudtuk kivárni, míg végzett, és aztán nagyon gyors kanalazással elpusztítottuk az egészet....
Na jó, nem egy gyors recept és sokat is kellett mosogatni, de NAGYON FINOM volt!

Jó bíbelődést és jó étvágyat!
Van valakinek jó fagyireceptje????

Treasure

2009-06-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

I finally left school on time this week so I could go to that little 'shop' what Pjulcsy mentioned before. I know there were some more cheap things before but I am very happy with those many-many zips and thread. I can greet summer with sewing now!
Thank you very much Pjulcsy!

Finally it IS summer for me....

2009-06-25T22:27:00.000-07:00

The last 2 weeks were still aaaawfully busy but now I am here... Hopefully I can stay and write again....

The recepies are coming I promise.... (I have to frustrate my B to think about that as we didn't wirte down the recepies...... sigh.....)

But this post is about my last real school day. On Saturday we had a big day... I gave the very first certificates to my Class (end of the 1st year to know).... And I had to say goodbye to my Class 8 group...
I got lots of presents from the students but this year they were very creative.... and they found very funny presents which I loved so much and I laughed a lot....

I have to show you the pictures with some explanations... I am usually embarrassed when I got presents... It is my job to teach so presents are a bit.... not expected.... I am happy to get pictures and drawings, little handmade things, but.... OK I do not want you to misunderstand me, being embarrassed is the good word for what I usually feel....and I would be totally happy with handmade or without presents.....

BUT this year they were so kind to think about things I which are in real connection with me... Let me show them to you.

I am usually an 'easy person', you buy or make something orange and I am totally happy... And most of my students know about my 'orange mania', the ones who listen....
So I got orange flowers... and flowers in orange pot.... :)

I wanted to take a pic about all the pictures but there were too many, I couldn't. I got a really nice 'garden bouquet' as well. So here are the variations for orange flowers :D

My class bought me a huge orchid (and it was stormy wind outside so I worried about taking it home but my colleague took me home by her car instead of trying the bus...) It is beautiful I hope I will not kill it.... I am not a big gardener, but maybe I can manage (my B immediately said he could take care on it on his work desk.... maybe he'll get it...I am not sure...)

And now the funnies are coming:

A mini basketball, orange and basketball :D... 2 in 1, it will be very useful in 'gólyatábor' (camp in August for the new students which I organize) at lake Balaton.... the other one is a bottle of perfume....it is called Halloween, and yes, my students now how much I like Halloween, that is my favourite festival...

This is a sign to my desk. I got it from a boy who I sent to find things on my desk several times during the school year (when I was in a hurry and forgot half of my things in the teachers' room.... khm... yes, I know.... I am not that perfect teacher type....) Is says: Everything is on its place on this desk. If you touch anything you are in danger.... (Did I mention my desk is awfully untidy, full of books, papers, flashcards, puppets, and objects for the theatre groups like elf wings, treasure box, necklaces etc....?)

I got 2 books (they remembered how much I love books..) a Wodehouse one and one about Irish pubs (I told them I do not drink alcohol, now I can read about it! :D). The card next to a book was written by a parent of the child (I always said 'wow, what a nice sign!' when I saw the parent's sign on the girl's tests...) which gives more heart for the present.... Ah, and the pen... I love calligraphy and on the last lesson we talked about art pens with a girl who is an art competition winner artist in the group.

And from a boy who I teach 7 years ago but unfortunately (for me) he will go to high school after a successful entrance exam.... the squirrel jam!!!!! (and he is in another group... not the one was mentioned in the previous post....:) )
I was very sad to say goodbye for these humorous students but they made me laugh on our last day.... I hope their lives will be full of laughter later as well!

SUMMER HOLIDAY, YAY!

2009-06-15T11:46:00.000-07:00

Hello, I am back again after this amazing spring time.... Luckily I survived.... I had a main role in our school play with 2 successful performances then the very first performance of my new high school drama group, Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's dream. The students were amazing!

In the mean time I had my birthday, but I did not have time to enjoy that as I was too busy with theatre. I had my best week ever (my bday week) with 5 theatre nights in 7 days.... Yay that was the thing what worth living for....

Here are some of my memories of this time....

For my birthday I got an ice cream maker from my B, so we had to try recepies...
The first one was coffee ice cream...yummmmmmm
And here are the coffee beans boiling in some milk......Aren't they beautiful?

And then we made strawberry ice cream...... (It is the first step not the ice cream...)

And I had my last lesson with my old Class 8 group (we have been together for 6 years), so I made them some goodbye presents.... It is a long story, you know when you spend a lot of time with someone you have something like a language among yourselves... We had our same funny words and sentences of course.... One of these words was squirrel (actually 'squirreljam' of a Hungarian theatre play...a funny one of course which I played when I was young....), so I made them some squirrels which they loved.... Actually it is totally my design and not a very realistic one but they loved them.... I used plasticin for them (just like in the previous post). My first plan was sewing but I had only a Tilda designed pattern which seemed quite complicated and I had not too much time to make 17 of it.... Here is one of them:

Schoolplay

2009-05-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

This year we are going to perform again. We: my colleagues and me. We made a theatre group to collect some money for the school foundation.
The play is a comedy written by a Hungarian author, Heltai Jenő. It takes place in the renaissance when King Matthias reigned. It is about a young soldier who falls in love with an Italian rich lady and has big adventures because of her.

For all Hungarian friends (and for the ones who are in Hungary :D): I' d like to invite you to see our performance!

Május 21-én (csütörtökön) és június 5-én (pénteken) a törökbálinti Művelődési Házban a Tan-Art bemutatja Heltai Jenő A néma levente című vígjátékát. Kezdés: fél 7-kor! A jegyek ára 1200 Ft, a bevétel az iskolai alapítványt gazdagítja, a Tan-Art nevű társulat jótékonysági előadások bemutatásával foglalkozik. Jegyek az iskola Titkárságán (és nálam)! Gyertek!

Orsi asked me in a comment so here is the

COMPLEMENT: the little things (keyrings now) are the present for the premiere, I have made the characters of my colleagues. I made it from plasticin and I baked them.

KIEGÉSZÍTÉS: A képen látható figurák (most már kulcstartók) a kollégáim premierajándékai, hőre keményedő gyurmából készítettem őket, a karakterek, amiket játszanak vagy ha egyéb módon segítenek, ők, maguk vannak megformázva gyurmából.

More Norway....

2009-05-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

As I read Ahama's comment I realised I would be so happy to be back. Norway is a beautiful place like Fairyland in my imagination. The coming pictures show the 'human part' as I couldn't make pics of the trolls and gods.... But maybe once in the future....
Enjoy!

Cross on an old church in Maihaugen:

The duckie after taking some pictures.... He was a really good model....

The sea..... I love the sea.... Anywhere...... Anytime....

the best advertisement from Captain Seagull (a name given by me of course...)

The view of the Silver Mountain:

Back again....

2009-05-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

As you see I didn't write in the last days..... I had a school trip which was quite tiring (3 hours sleep per day) then a beautiful trip in Norway with a wonderful company. And I changed my blog template again, the other one simply didn't work. So sorry for the ones who liked it...

And as you see I didn't have time for blogging at all, but I post some of the pictures about the Norwegian trip. Enjoy!

My 'Norwegian mum' (she is a good friend of mine and I lived in her house for the third time this year, she became my Norwegian mum about 4 years ago...) has a cabin next to this lake. Isn't it beautiful?

As you see in Norway it was still snow last week..... I made 2 snowballs immediately :D

Sunset in front of the Sister churches (a famous place we visited several times), here you can see only one of the churches:
And here are both churches:

And the beautiful landscape:
Houses in Mainhaugen (it is something like our Skanzen...there are traditional old houses with furniture and you can go in and try...):

This is a picture I made in one of the houses in Mainhaugen. I will make a quilt based on this pic once:

(M)Ilyen vagyok? - Ildi's game

2009-04-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hát, az úgy történt, hogy Ildi még januárban játékra hívott, ami nagyon tetszett, így örömmel vágtam bele....
Néhány héttel később sokkos állapotban újra meg újra elolvastam a játékszabályokat, és ekkor végre jött az ötlet!!!
Mivel NEM valósághű, hanem vicces képet kellett készíteni, megörültem, amikor eszembe jutott, hogy még évekkel ezelőtt Szentendrén rajzolt rólam egy fiú egy karikatúrát... Épp itt volt az ideje előkeresni.
Mindig is szerettem volna tűfestéssel alkotni, szóval úgy döntöttem, ez lesz a jó technika. Fogtam a "szuper mosható" filcemet és átrajzoltam a képet a textilre. Meg kell állapítanom, hogy a filc hazugság, hosszú órákon át sikáltam a végén,de csak nem akarta elengedni az anyagot...
A narancssárga anyag egyértelmű választás volt, mindenki tudja rólam, aki ismer, milyen jóban vagyunk ezzel a színnel. A fekete meg nagyon jól mutatott rajta, a szürkével lehetett árnyékolni, de valószínűleg sokkal többet kellett volna még dolgoznom rajta, azt hiszem, majd olvasok és kérdezek még a tűfestésről....
Ildi Exit sorsolta nekem, akivel februárban találkoztunk is... Ezt a szerény és visszafogott hajgumit viseltem, ami nagyon tetszett neki, és azt kérte, legyen ez is a képen.

Sajnos nem sikerült, mert a karikatúrán lévő fonott copffal nézett ki jól a kép... De valahogy azért mégiscsak szerettem volna rátenni a képre legalább valami hasonlót....Ekkor jött a "keret" ötlete. Sajnos nem kaptam zöld fonalat, de a sárga is nagyon jellemző rám és jól kiegészítették egymást a naranccsal.

Szerencsére Exi már régen megkapta a kis csomagot. És én is megkaptam Sue csomagját, aki nekem küldött. Köszönöm! Ildinek is a játékot!

There was a game organized by Ildi in January. We had to sew selfportraits, but this should not be a realistic one. After some shocking weeks I found an old drawing.... This was made in Szentendre (a beautiful little town) some years ago. I copied the drawing onto the fabric with superwashable pens (but it is a lie, I had to wash the fabric for ages till I could remove the ink...) and then I started to sew. I wanted to use the thread painting tachnique but I know I have to read about it a lot more, this was my first try. I used the orange fabric because I love that colour. The black thread goes well with it and I used some grey for the shadow.... In February I met Exi who was picked for me (we sent these pics to each other as Easter presents) and she saw the orange-green hairpiece in my hair (look at the photo above), she asked me to put it somehow to the picture. I tried, but in the pic I had a long pony tail so I decided to use some extra thread for the border. I could buy that green but yellow is another colour which I like, so I used them.
I also got my parcel from Sue so you can check her picture in her blog! I like it!

On its way.....

2009-04-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

Exi, good news! Your little envelope is on its way to you..... I have just came back from the post office.... I hope you'll get it soon :D

And in Hungarian:
Exi, jó híreim vannak! Kicsi csomagocskád úton már feléd tart... Éppen most érkeztem haza a postáról... (persze nem sikerült tökéletesen a küldés most sem, mert a levélkét sikerült kifelejtenem a borítékból.....-mostanában mindig ez történik..... azt hiszem, azt majd átküldöm neked mailben....pirul.... :D )

March - finished things

2009-03-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Here are my finished things for the challange in March. This month I made lots of birthday presents. Some are the finished objects....
Mum's bag:

I have made it for my mum. I learnt the zip-it bag from kdatta but I changed some things so mum can close it. I had to add some hands for it.

It is a simple purse, the fabric is from my Aussie Advent Swap:

And this is a pencil case for my colleague who is a chocolate lover....:

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

2009-03-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

It seems I could kill my blog..... I tried to change template but it was a mistake... a huge mistake... Now I am too frustrated to be able to find and redo everything I lost so sorry but I stop doing anything with the blog for now...

I am really sorry for the links I lost ... I try to find you again....hopefully.... in a better mood .... once...

Before picture

2009-03-21T02:13:00.000-07:00

I take place in a game of Quilt Otaku. Marisa asked us to take a photo of a handmade project then read her instructions about taking photos and make a new pic.

Here you can see my 'before picture' .
It is a holder I made for my new camera. I didn't like to take it with my in a towel or something... It was khm... embarrassing a bit....

Finished project - February

2009-03-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

..... I wanted to say, nearly February.... I know I was a bit late but I was very busy with birthdays..... Lots of birthdays in March.... Actually the most important birthday - or let's say the most exciting was in connection with this project.
My colleagues' new born baby..... I have decided to make this baby quilt for him for his very first birthday.... He was said to be born last Thursday but luckily he was a bit late so I could finish this quilt on time. (on Saturday)

The first idea was a country quilt with farm animals... (As a teacher I wanted to make something teachable :D :D) But I couldn't draw the mouse and my B decided to look for pics on the Net. I have found the 'mouse on Mars', I drew it and then a Hungarian character, Frakk the dog came. So I changed the original plan (in January) and I used the figures of the tales from our childhood (I mean our childhood with the young parents).

I wanted to use the tale equivalent of the farm animals, but as you can see I couldn't (I had so many ideas)... Tiger is the favourite of the young father, Tom is his name too and he likes bears....

I used flanel for the backing and thick vlies inside. The quilt is applique but I machine embroidered Tiger's stripes. I quilted some of the background (free machine quilting) like the tree, stones, clouds etc.

Then on the blue stripes I quilted with blue thread. I am really proud of it! I think it is 85x105 cm, but I am not sure as I forgot to measure it! (I think I will have to ask them to measure it for me later...)

As you know I do not make quilts (very rarely only) so I am really proud of this one. He liked it, I hope she and the little one will, too.

Sewing and baking

2009-02-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

This weekend I looked like a housewife (nearly never....normally...) I tidied the flat (yuck!) then I could continue my secret project which meant cutting and drawing this time...... Today I decided to make something yummi!

On Monday we went to a cookbook shop (it was one of the presents of my B on his nameday) and I was the one who got present :D (OK, he got something too!) So I got 6 tiny baking plates or whatever they call them in English... I always wanted something like these...
I found a nice recipe in our Australian cookbook (delicious lemon it is called) so I decided to give it a try. I should have used one big dish but I had 6 small ones so I was a bit worried about it, but it turned out well. And it is a kind of soufle which I never made before....
Here you can see the small dishes before going into the oven:

And here are the result of the baking, the beautiful (and yummi) soufles:

And finally this is the view of my sewing room, inspiring me these days:

Last week

2009-02-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

Last week I sewed some things, it is one of them.

In a clothes' shop I saw this cheap T-shirt. One of my favourite shapes, a very simple black one. I have this in 2 other colours but when I saw the black one I started thinking. I saw a T-shirt with embroidery on it, making it unique and a but more tricky.
I decided to give it a try, so I bought one.

At home I found my special Metzer threads, the black-grey-white one some vlies and started to embroider (free hand stitches or something, sorry I have problems with its English name). I was quite satisfied with the result especially the next day when my colleagues said nice things about it.
I also made a necklace and two earrrings matching my new T-shirt and I was so sorry when I didn't find more of it in the shop.... sigh... maybe next time?

Ah, and again: sorry about the photo I could not take a better one in the room...I had not enough light for the black colour....

Born today....

2009-02-17T11:22:00.000-08:00

As you could read in the last post I was nearly frozen when my colleague saved me.....
She gave me bed and pyjamas and a warm smile. She saved me....
To show my gratitude I sewed her this tiny Dream angel (as I call her). She is a Tildas design. My colleague (let's call her M) has a wonderful bedroom with cream carpet, orange-red walls and white furniture. (sometimes some grey-black electric things, too)
That's why I chose orange fabric for the clothes and cream for the body. The moon is cream and the stars are grey.
To show you how tiny she is I took a picture of her when she was standing in the tulip bunch... She will go to M on Thursday, I hope they will like each other.

The craziest thing ever....

2009-02-15T13:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday one of my colleagues organized a party for us.... It was said to be a table football party but actually it was my surprise - nameday (it is something like a birthday - we celebrate this in Hungary too) party. So we had a lot of fun, I got this beautiful tulip bunch with some little hair decorations and an orange vase.
My favourite colleagues were there so it was fun! At the end of the party we wanted to go home of course (the party was in a small town outside the capital...) and looked at the bus timetable on the Internet. We had the chance for the last bus only so we were in a hurry to reach it. After 45 minutes of waiting (and asking 3 different people to look at the timetable on the Net) we gave up. Nothing came..... It was freezing cold with wind, I had no gloves but the vase and the tulips in my hands (which were frozen to the vase...) and not too warm clothes (at least not warm enough to wait for 45 mins in the cold wind)... So after a while we called the hosts and they offered us beds... (I was sure they saved our lives with this decision...) And we went back (around 3 o'clock) and slept in their warm and nice home....
In the morning I could go home finally. I wrote a letter to the company... It was not the friendliest and happiest letter of my life.... But I tried to be polite (of course).... At least it turned out that the night buses have different routes in that town so the bus we waited for exists but it went on the other side of the town.... (OK, we should have asked the teenage daughter of my colleague instead of browsing the Net...)
Hmmm..... not the best night in my life....but at least a good (?) story to tell....
Enjoy the picture of my beautiful flowers!

Ball with a flag

2009-02-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had a ball (Charity for the school foundation).... I wanted to sew a nice bag for my ball-dress from the piece I had to cut as the skirt was too long. But I had no time to finish it as I got this task a day before the ball. This year we had a decoration of London, so I had to sew a huge British flag (2m x 3m) It was impossible in my tiny flat (I could not see the whole thing...). I spent 5 hours with the blue and the white part and then I nearly gave up when my colleagues found out the trick (we pinned the red part in the school, so we could see everything, plus two little girls helped, so we had 8 hands instead of my two...)
Luckily 1.5 hours before the ball we finished, so we could use this huge flag.... Picture was taken from the table where I sat.
And one important thing... it is not my best work, just I wanted to show it to the ones who kept their fingers cross for me to be able to finnish it on time. Thanks Girls!

Faboluos blog

2009-02-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

I got this award from ahama! (thank you!)
So I have to tell you 5 things which I am addicted to:
1. coffee (thanks for my B!)
2. social life (friends, colleagues, nice people around me)
3. hand crafts (many kinds) and designing
4. chocolate and marzipan
5. talking/communication (written as well...like this)

And now I have to nominate 5 faboluos blogs... It is not easy and lots of blogs I like got this award before, or maybe each blog I follow? So now I do not give it to anyone.
Ahama, the other game is coming later as our scanner is on strike.... :)

The killed UFO - January

2009-01-31T09:36:00.000-08:00

One of my biggest enemies are my UFOs.... They are very difficult to continue and I have quite a lot of them.... As I am a "more thinking than sewing" type, so I have lots of ideas in my mind. When I have a new idea I want to try it immediately.... but the UFOs are there and keep saying: "hei, you have to finish us first! It is not good to start too many things without finishing them...." The typical me...I am just doing too many things at the same time....

So today is a happy day somehow...I finished one! As you can see on the left side I am part of a Challange this year, we have to finish something each month. As this is the last day of January (did I mention that I always finish things in the last possible minute????) I can proudly show you my finished UFO (sorry, but it is just so nice to write it down....FINISHED UFO...)

And here is the story.
As most of you know I am not a fan of making traditional quilts with well-known blocks.... I love making practical things... practical things which I have plans with... e.g. I cannot make something "just for practise" or "only to try it", I have to see its later life, like present for someone or something I need... (That's why I am usually in trouble when I need something handmade urgently... I have no storage here of handmade items which I can send as presents....So I am always in a hurry....)
There was a camp in summer when I had a special teacher. She is my best friend/manager/second mum/big sister/best teacher from the quilting world (her name is Évi, you can see her blog here). She taught a beginner group which I joined of course (mostly because of her and the company). We made a quilt, not a very difficult, but I have never made anything similar before. I chose some fabrics and suddely I fell in love with them. I was working on it for 2 days I think (day and night - did I tell you I am slow?). After coming home from the camp I forgot it...(OK, I tried to forget it but now I finished quiilting so it is not a UFO any more) I had plans with quilting cups on it but when I looked at it today I simply thought that would be too much, I have not enough "white" place to fill... I know it is not a nice work! It has some problems with the angles of the triangles etc. but I still like it! And I am proud of me because I could make it (no plans, seems useless) and finish it. Thank you Évi!

Nothing, but...

2009-01-13T10:56:00.000-08:00

Nothing much to say but.....
I have made a "New Year Piggy" (a Tildas design of course) and a small sewing set....

And made 2 postcards... (sigh, forgot to take a picture....) and counted my notes..... Me and my sweet friend Pungi, so we wrapped 343 presents before Christmas (I only made notes on the last week pressies)

Anyway I have the "Mid-winter" tiredness... Or I simply do not know..... Actually it is term end in the school which means death.... Just grades (which I hate), exams, tests, meetings (the worst thing of all!) and correcting.... brrr....
Anyway when I have some time I am working on the 3 plays which I direct this year.It is very exciting (but a bit tiring too, I need lots of time and energy to do that).... One for the Class 7-8 students (Twist Oliver play with songs), one for the high school students (Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare who is my favourite writer so I am very frightened about the play...sometimes I feel I was too brave to start that, but I work with wonderful teenagers - 15-18 year-olds - so it is fun) and one for the Teachers' group (A néma levente - Something like 'A silent valiant' it is difficult to say an exact word as I am not very good in the soldiers and their names...I have problems even in Hungarian) which I play in as well....

So sorry... I write quite rarely but I hope this will be enough for some days for the 'hungry eyes'.... I hope you have more time...

Still happy in the new year

2009-01-02T09:58:00.000-08:00

As you know I had serious problems with timing and finishing things before Christmas.... I could not show you too many things. But finally I have finished our door hanger (it wanted to be a wreath but now I am not sure...) I am happy it is not too 'Christmasy' as I do not want to put it away so I think it will hang there till spring.... I wanted to put on a gingerbread man (of a dyed fabric from my drawer) but I changed my mind. I am still thinking about it so maybe next year they will get a new friend.... Who knows?

And my Christmas presents.... I got lost of wonderful and beautiful things....Angels were very kind this year (too), I do not know if I were this good...hmm.... I do not think so....I am sure my best friend talked to the angels before shopping, so they could buy these things for me... (or make or wrap?)
So these are Tilda's fabrics (I have never seen them, only in books) and one with snowmen, the new Tilda book,

some 'Tilda Basics' (I didn't know there were available things like those)

and some Tilda ribbons... (They were used in the last book...)

I am still so happy when I look at them!