Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone, I wish you all a wonderful, cozy and healthy Christmas time!

Merry Christmas | Twice the fun

The past few weeks have been crazy.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Long time no sew...

... or rather long time no blog. I actually did a little sewing, I just couldn't get myself to sit down at the computer and write. Again, there are so many things I want to work on, design, create, research and write that I can't get beyond the stage of sorting through everything again and again, trying to find somewhere to start. Is procrastination an art in itself? Then add that to my hobbies ;-)

But this week is different. It's Kid's Clothes Week again! Since I missed the last season *sniff*, I've been really looking forward to this one. I had everything planned out in advance and was able to start cutting on Monday! Whoohoo!!!

kid's clothes week

I've finished a

Saturday, June 21, 2014

On the road again...

As we're approaching our summer vacation, memories of our last road trip with the boys are sending shivers down my spine. Really, last year's trip to Sweden wasn't much fun at all, at least until we had finally got there and past the first night. The rest of the holiday was wonderful. But that car trip...

So this year, although we decided to stay within Germany to cut down on driving time, I wanted to be very well prepared for that long ride. Enter Pinterest. I collected gazillions of ideas and tips and resources on how to prepare for road trips with small kids. And here's what I've prepared for tomorrow:



Finished.

I'm proud to report that I finished some of the projects from my UFO list just in time for our summer vacation. I've already written about the knit top I've made for myself. Now here are the other projects I completed over the last two weeks:

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

It's a plus.

Okay, first of all something fun: I sewed two great tops for myself. The first one was a test version made from some inexpensive brown cotton jersey I got from the bargain bin at Karstadt a while ago. I added a small piece of lime green cotton jersey to add a little pop - just in case it should turn out wearable. What shall I say? It's not only wearable, it became my favorite shirt right away. So I felt pretty comfortable cutting into some more expensive turquoise and white chevron cotton jersey. I found it a little harder to pick a fabric for the waistband, but finally settled on some red and pink striped jersey I had in my stash. Add in an hour of pressing and cutting, and a few hours of switching between the walking foot and the overlock foot on my sewing machine, and tadaa:


I love, love, LOOOVE this shirt! The fabric

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Dinosaurs!

I stenciled some plain white shirts with "Blopens", a crossover between felt tip pens and airbrush. Quick and easy, and the boys love them. When they're a little older, I'll let them make their own shirts, but for now, I get to have all the fun ;-) Will probably make some more, I'm thinking of guitars. But I'll have to make my own stencils first (the dinosaurs were included with the set of pens). Will have to try out if freezer paper stenciling works with these pens...

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Kid's Clothes Week in July

Hey, I just signed up for Kid's Clothes Week in July. That means I've committed to sewing clothes for my boys 1 hour a day each day for 7 days, from 21 July to 27 July. Read more about the challenge on the KCW blog.

kid's clothes week

I've got a few projects in mind, but so far haven't got any ideas for the theme "Kid Art". Projects don't have to conform to the theme, but I think it's really cute and has great potential.

Anyone wanna join in?

Saturday, May 31, 2014

UFOs everywhere

As promised in my last post, I've started putting together a list of all my UFOs - unfinished objects - or at least those ones that I'm still keeping and trying to finish...


Saturday, May 24, 2014

And now for something completely different - hand embroidery

I've been doing quite a bit of applique and embroidery on my sewing machine over the past months and have improved quite a bit. But when I wanted to quickly embroider a loop scarf last week, the tiny curves just didn't turn out as I had envisioned them, and I couldn't find a stitch that worked out. So I thought it was time to try out something new: hand embroidery.

Hand embroidered loop scarf | Twice the fun - doppeltsolustig.blogspot.com

I got some very nice light violet cotton and linen blend from a sale and it was just perfect for making two loop scarves. Unlike the other ones I've made so far, I decided to do these single layer, with a french seam and rolled hems (with my sewing machine's rolled hem foot - easy peasy :-)). Tutorials for these techniques can be found at Oliver + S (french seams) and Craftsy (free mini class on sewing machine feet with Steffani Lincecum). The scarves came together in a breeze.

I then looked for a cute embroidery design, and fell in love with this one I found on Pinterest (well, where else? ;-)) As I wrote above, I first tried embroidering it using my sewing machine as usual, but neither the satin stitch nor any of the other decorative stitches I tried turned out well. Luckily, I had bought a couple of skeins of embroidery floss a while ago, had a suitable needle and some fusible embroidery paper at hand, so I was all set to go. I signed up for the Craftsy class "Design it, stitch it" with Jessica Marquez (I was really lucky to get it while it was on sale! :-)), watched the introduction and the part on backstitching, and started stitching. It didn't even take me as long as I'd expected, maybe 2 hours all in all. I guess with a little practice I can even pick up some more speed.

So I'm planning to embroider the second loop scarf for myself (I gave the one above to my mother-in-law). Maybe with "Twice the fun" in a nice font and a twin motif? What do you think? Oh, and maybe my next post will be about all my unfinished projects? Would be nice for myself to see a full list of everything I've already started, not to mention everything that's on my "really wanna make" list...

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Work in progress... erm, regress

Anyone wanna see what I'm currently working on?


I hate, hate, hate picking out stitches. And today, I'm extra "lucky" as the flatlock stitch I used here not only turned out terribly uneven, but is next to impossible to rip. Do you see all those little "x"s? It seems like I have to use my seam ripper on every single tiny stitch here, that is FOUR times per "x"!!! Wish me luck that I get this done before midnight. Or at least before sunrise. I really want to finish this pair of sweatpants (from Ottobre design 1/ 2014, size 98). And as soon as I've completed the second one, I promise I'll never ever use this stitch again.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Happy mother's day

Just so that this week doesn't pass without a single post, here's a quick snapshot of the fingerprint painting I made with the boys to give to our beloved grandmas on mother's day today.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Meow!

Here's one of the very first projects I made for my boys: two cheeky little tomcats from Bettina Schons' book "Meine Kuschelfreunde: Die wunderbare Nähwelt von HerzensTREU" (in German, rough translation: "My cuddly friends: the wonderful sewing world of HerzensTREU"). Yep, I had twice the fun sewing one for each of my boys ;-)) As far as I remember, it took me several months (although definitely less than nine) from choosing fabric to the final assembly.
 


Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Car caddy (no. 1)

While I was writing my last post about the little pinafore that I did some applique on, I had to think of my first applique project that turned out quite well (after lots of failures, will write about this sometime). So here it is.

I found this wonderful tutorial for a car caddy over at Homemade by Jill, and I decided to try it out for a birthday present for one of my boys' friends a while ago. What shall I say? It's FABULOUS. Really well explained, sews up easily and quickly and you won't need much beside an old pair of jeans and some small pieces of fabric.


However, I did not follow instructions exactly, but made a couple of design changes. For the inside, I picked some bright green corduroy - oh, I so love sewing with corduroy! I find it easy to cut (just follow the lines ;-)), and it's wonderfully soft to the touch. It can be a little tricky as it has a tendency to shift in one direction, but careful pinning does the trick.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Pinafore

Less words, more pictures today :-) Last week, I sewed up this pinafore for our friends' cute little girl.


I had been tempted to buy this lovely fabric (from the Nördika Collection by Jeni Baker for Art Gallery Fabrics) for a while, but never really knew what to do with it. Now seeing how it looks in a little dress, I guess I'll have to buy some more for myself to make a skirt - or even a dress? ;-)

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Joining the buzz on childhood magic

I wasn't actually planning to get "philosophical" in my blog, but as this article about childhood magic is popping up everywhere now, I guess I'll put my two cents in. Basically it's about why I've just started this blog, so if this isn't the right time to talk about it, I don't know.

Yes, I'm one of these crafty moms who "scour Pinterest for the best ideas" and collect tips and tutorials for rainy weather, for spring crafts, for garden fun, for sewing projects and thousands of other things. I just looked it up: I have nearly 5,000 pins on my 65 Pinterest boards. Does that mean I feel in any way pressed to try all of these things myself, or with my kids? No. Do I think "Ooooh, I wanna make this" often? Yes, all the time. That's why I pin these things. And then I pick only one or two of the coolest ideas and actually break out the scissors and glue and paper muffin liners and fabric and sewing machine (erm, no, not all of these at the same time, that would be a strange project, I imagine). Do I think "So many things to do, so little time!"? Yessss. But I don't need Pinterest for that, or craft books. I have a "to do" list (or "wanna do" list, or most likely "would like to do but probably never come round to" list) of my own ideas that would keep me busy for a lifetime or two. Already. And still growing. I just feel that all those fantastic blog posts and tutorials and beautiful craft books and magazines provide me with some inspiration and background knowledge. By spending my kids' nap time reading blog posts about how to make bias tape or the best recipes for homemade finger paint, I not only do something I enjoy, I also learn something that might (or might not) be useful later on.

And that's one reason why I craft with my kids.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

We're in kindergarten now!

Okay, so here it is. My first blog post. I've been planning to start this blog for quite a while now, but never really found the time to actually get it going. And suddenly, I have a tiny little bit of time to myself. Because my boys are now in kindergarten! Wow, what a huge step. Guess I haven't quite realized what it means yet.

But well, time for my first little show-and-tell. Ta-da:


I sewed little backpacks for my boys. The pattern is lillesol & pelle's "Kindergartenrucksack Rudi". I bought the ebook 1 1/2 years ago, knowing that it would take me some time to finish the bags. And then (suddenly?!) the big day was there - and I had to sew until 6 in the morning to make it in time. Kindergarten started at 9, so I still had time for a short nap, a cup of coffee and a shower. Strange how I need close deadlines to complete some projects...