Making Mondays: Papa Works for the Man Pillow Case

I interrupt illustration show and tell proceedings to bring you this! ;) This pillow case is made entirely from my husband's old shirts and suits!  I'm beginning to think Making Mondays should have a name change to '101 ways with shirts and suits' or 'Papa Works for the Man Crafts'!  (remember last weeks minik minik garland had some 'upcycled' shirt and suit fabric in it and then there was the bread bag and some of the finger puppets were dressed in shirt fabric).

Recently Yashar has been getting quite attached to a certain little pillow - he likes to snuggle up to it at bed time and if he wakes at night he carries it with him and crawls into our bed.  So when we accidentally left it at Baba-Anne's (Grandma's) we knew we were in trouble!

So the morning after an evening of Yashar asking, teary eyed, for his pillow I whipped this up.  I made it with little ties at one end so that Yashar could play with them as he is drifting off. The best part was that as soon as I showed it to him he agreed it was 'guzel' - beautiful and hugged it that night as he went to sleep.  Success!

In case you have a similar pillow emergency ;) this is how I made it:

1.  First I got the pieces ready for the front, back and envelope (the part that stops the pillow from showing at the end).   The front measured about 50 x 35 cm (approx 19.75 x 13 inches).  The back measured 49 x 35 cm (19.25 x 13 inches). The envelope was about 20 x 35 cm (approx 7 x 13 inches). I made the front piece of the pillow using a rectangle of fabric from the back part of an old shirt, which I folded in half for a little extra thickness.  I then sewed strips of blue fabric from an old pair of suit pants (I love this fabric!) to the four sides, sewing then together at an angle on each corner.

2.  For the back of the pillow case I used a piece from the front of an old shirt being sure to pick a piece with three button holes at one end (to be used later for the ties to come through).  For the small envelope piece I used another piece of shirt fabric.

3. Then with fronts facing inwards I sewed the back together along three sides (leaving a short side open).  Then I placed the envelope piece over the open side and sewed it to the other pieces, right sides facing and being sure not to sew up the opening from the front and back. I turned it right way out at this point.

4. I then cut three strips of fabric about 6cm wide and 20 cm long, folded them in half with the wrong side facing out and sewed along the edge.  I turned it inside out using a safety pin.  I then sewed the middle of each strip to the envelope material, behind each of the button holes.  After putting stuffing or an insert in, you should then be able to pull the to ends of each strip through the button hold and ties them in a knot.

I hope this all makes sense!  Feel free to email me if you have any questions!

Peaceful Tunes

This little boy is the second in this series of illustration.  He loves to sit on the moon playing peaceful songs on his mandolin.  I don't know what it is but I have a special spot in my heart for this one!

La Petite Fée de Noël

Phew!  Blogger is working again so I can finally show you some of my new illustrations - yay!  You might have guessed that I'm more than a little excited about these!

I'm planning to have a big shop update next Thursday, October 1st - woohoo!  But I want to show these to you all first.  You have all been so encouraging and supportive to me along the way so I'm planning to work out something extra for the readers here only!  I haven't worked out exactly what yet - maybe a little gift with purchase? I will think about it over the weekend and let you know!

Anyway on with the post ... This first little 'Fée de Noël' (Christmas Fairy) grants wishes for Christmas and all year round!  I was inspired to draw her after looking at gorgeous vintage wooden Christmas ornaments from Seiffen, a small town in the heart of the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) in Germany.  More on this next week!

This photo was from when I posted about the sketches I was doing a little while back - you can just spy her head and wings!

I am planning to make the print available with or without the text 'La Petite Fée de Noël' -the Little Christmas Fairy.   I think the print would also work well with a custom message in it.  I have been lucky enough to do some custom work recently and loved doing it!  More on that soon!

I hope you like her and that she grants you all your wishes!!

Good News and Bad News

Oh no! Blogger in Turkey seems to be having trouble again - possibly blocked. So if you don't hear from me for a few days that is why. :( I have so many exciting things I want to share with you - I hope it gets fixed very soon!

In the mean time I am trying to get my lovely sister to upload this and some photos because I couldn't resist giving you a peek at these. When I got them back from the printers I was so excited! He did such a wonderful job with them!

I have been busy working on these(and a few more)illustrations for a while and am looking forward to introducing each of them properly over the next week or so. I will put them in the shop once I take some proper photos of them - the weather has been miserable here lately so the light hasn't been great for taking photographs.

This is the first time I will have cards, postcards and gift tags for the Light Garden. Yay!

And by the way, iyi Bayramlar everyone! (Ramadan has now finished!) I hope you are having a wonderful break.

Friday Dreaming: Getting Organised

This Friday I am dreaming of actually being organised! We have Ramazan Bayram this weekend, some very lovely guests arriving next week and I just finished a huge (for me!) group of illustrations and have sent some of them off this morning to our local printers for cards and other goodies. I hope to show you these very soon - needless to say I am both nervous and excited ... I hope they turn out just how I wanted them too! So now I am in the mood for getting organised...I think it has something to do with all those little things I kept putting off while I concentrated on drawing...it's a good excuse!

There is an article on Design*Sponge: Biz Ladies -Time and Calendar Management that I am dreaming of being organised enough to read ;)

And of course to be organised I would need some of these from The Black Apple.  If there is a Narwhale involved it must be good!

I bought some of these to do lists for my mum when she was getting her house ready to sell...I'm sure they made everything run much more smoothly and looked gorgeous along the way!  Susie Ghahremani is such a talented illustrator and so thoughtful and friendly too.  She wrapped up the notes and a couple of other things I got and put a nice little note in for me.

Hmm, so I'm sure if I could just have these things then I would definitely be organised!  ;)

For the Etsy-ers

Woo hoo!  The 'My Own Elephant' personalised print was chosen for the Etsy Baby Gift Guide - I was am still so excited!

And online sellers and aspiring online sellers you might find this interesting.  A while back I asked a question in the Etsy forums - about people's tips and experience in turning browsers in your online shop into buyers.  This is a topic that both fascinates and baffles me at times!   I put together a summary of lots of other online sellers opinions and posted it in the forums.  Click here to have a look.  I found it so helpful (and it gave me lots of things to work on!).  I hope you do to!

Making Mondays: Minik Minik Flag Garland

So many of the children's bedrooms that I love have gorgeous flag garlands - so this week I finally got to make one for Yashar too.  I am calling this the minik minik garland (minik roughly translates as mini - and is often used to describe a cute little thing - tiny and adorable) because each flag is only about 6cm (2.4 inches) long.

Since it's getting colder around here I thought it would be nice to use some heavier fabrics than what is normally used.  So I sorted through my fabric to find something suitable.   Everything except the linen is actually pieces from old clothes of ours that, for whatever reason, we don't wear any more. 

I especially love the navy material from 'Baba's' old suit - one of the very few benefits of having a husband that 'works for the man' is the gorgeous suit and shirt fabrics I end up with.  And the beautiful lambs wool/cashmere knit makes it a little cosy - the tragic story of my favourite jumper being put in a hot wash and shrinking, by a certain person that is lucky I love him so much, is a whole other story!

I have to admit, I'm no sewing expert.  I tend to guess how to do it half the time and to wing it the rest of the time!  This was no exception.   This is the method I came up with: 

1. First I made two little paper templates.  One for a small triangle about 7 cm (2.8 inches) wide and 6 cm (2.4 inches) long and a second larger triangle about 9 cm (3.5 inches)wide and 7 cm (2.8 inches) long (the same as the small triangle, but with a seam allowance added on).

2. For the fabric that didn't look like it would fray much I just cut out 5 flags from each fabric using the smaller triangle template as a guide.

3. For the fabric I thought would fray a lot or curl I cut out 10 of the larger triangles from each fabric (ie to make 5 flags from each fabric).  For each of these flags I put two larger triangles facing each other and sewed the bottom two sides together, then flipped it out the right way.

4. I gave all the triangles a good iron, and for the sewn flags I folded the top of each flag inwards and ironed it for a nice straight edge at the top.

5. I played around with the order a little and then sewed the tops of the flags on to a long navy ribbon.  Finito! 


Yashar was very excited about it - particularly when I explained that I made it specially for him!

Friday Dreaming: Lavender Lemonade

I'm dreaming of heading down the coast of Turkey to spend a last few warm days sipping on this - Lavender Lemonade - it looks delicious!

You can find the recipe and more gorgeous photos here, as part of the Behind the Bar series from Alissa and Ryan (pictured below) on Design*Sponge. Alissa and Ryan also have a beautiful online shop Horne, full of unique goods for your home.

Oh...and I wouldn't mind swanning around in lavender fields looking gorgeous either!

Photos are from the Behind the Bar series on design*sponge.

We are ok

I just wanted to let everyone know that we are fine, as is my husband's family. The devastating floods are not in the part of Istanbul that we live in (it has just been lots of heavy rain for us).

I feel like I have had to write these type of posts too often during the last year and a half :( Thank you so much to everyone that has already called and emailed to check on us.

The weather has cleared up today which I hope will bring some relief, although there is more heavy rain forecast for the next 2 days.

Swap?

Remember that movie with Cameron Diaz called The Holiday - you know, where they swap homes at the last minute...Cameron Diaz's LA mansion for Kate Winslet's cute little country cottage. My current addiction (by the way, I totally blame my sister for mentioning this site to me the other day) is looking on Homeexchange.com (the website they use in the film) to see who I could house swap with ... ah...if they don't mind coming to an old apartment in Istanbul that is!



I'm dreaming of a little trip to stay in this Paris loft

...which would be perfect with this gorgeous children's room that Yashar would love!

this ocean front villa in Mexico


and then there is this amazing place in Morocco...I could definitely spend a little time by this pool!

*** The lovely Lois from Home Base Holidays just let me know that most locations have home swapping potential (so maybe I am in with a chance! - we do actually live in a gorgeous location with amazing views... just not so sure if people would be in to the old pink bathroom!! ;) And I had a quick look at Home Base Holidays and it looks great - I can see I will be spending many hours on that site already! ***

Making Mondays: Another Thorpe Hat and...

Yes, it's another Thorpe! I love this hat pattern from Kirsten at Through the Loops - you might remember I knitted one for my nephew a while back. This one is for Yashar. I got a little excited at the thought of Autumn and the cooler weather coming and whipped this up...although I have to admit, since that first rainy day of Autumn it has been around 30 degrees (86 degrees Fahrenheit) almost every day here! Today was raining again though - so the perfect day to finish it off.

I followed the instructions for the large size hat but used a size 3.5mm circular needle to make it nice and small. Although my ones seem to turn out much rounder looking at the top that the originals - continuing to make more increases at the top would fix this I think.

This time I decided to try out some matching fingerless mittens using this pattern from Jeanne at Life in Cleveland. To make these 'Yashar size' I cast on 28 instead of 32 stitches and knitted on size 3.5mm needles. I also only knit 3 rounds after the thumb closure before changing to the 'knit 2, purl 2' for the ribbing.

I plan to do more of these sets I think! They actually look much better than in the photos I took - really! In my mind fingerless mitts are perfect for Yashar who is always wanting to pick up stones and play. We will see! I would also like to find a really nice wool to do this set in - the one Jeanne for her mitts looks great -although it is not readily available here. I feel a need to visit the 'yarn quarter' of Istanbul coming on! Although maybe I am getting carried away (as usual!) I haven't even finished the second glove yet!

The finished one ended up fitting pretty well and it will make a very cute little set if I do say so myself! ...now we just have to wait until it cools down about 20 more degrees!

Friday Dreaming: More Making!

grocery tote photos from purlbee.com

Recently I have actually been fighting off the temptation to make these two things... repeat to self, 'no more new projects, no more new projects' (just for the moment while I'm busy on some new illustrations - which I am pretty excited about by the way - hope to show you very very soon!)

The first is this grocery tote on The Purl Bee using a pattern by Italian knitter Elisa (found via Living with Imperfection). I used to have a little fold up bag that always travelled in my handbag so that I never had to use plastic bags. I think this will be the perfect replacement...and it does say 'granny chic' to me ... and you know how I feel about that!...well if you don't know then you should have a look at this. I'm thinking in a linen yarn. Apparently it only takes a few hours.

The second is this adorable little first aid kit from Maya*Made. I'm a big fan of Maya's - so many wonderful and creative ideas on her blog, along with lots of fun and heartfelt posts! Maya's is definitely a 'do not miss' blog! You can find the tutorial here. If I had this then I do believe I would feel like a mother extraordinaire!

first aid kits photos from mayamade.blogspot.com

Maya's is a natural first aid kit which I like the sound of, and Maya tells us what she puts in her kits here... but I would also love to hear what you would put in your natural first aid kit! I hope you share some of your natural healing secrets with me!

Hopefully it won't be too long before I stop dreaming and actually make these!

Ramazan Bayram Finds on Etsy!

Last week I posted about it being Ramadan here at the moment - with lots of people fasting during daylight hours for 30 days. At the end of Ramadan is a celebration called 'Ramazan Bayram' in Turkish - other people might know it as Eid.

Sort of like Christmas, it's a time when families, friends and neighbours get together, eat good food and also help the poor.

You can also give presents to your family members (and/or money to the children). So when I found these shops on Etsy I was so happy - haha - my relatives are going to be so impressed! My husband is Muslim, and he loves Christmas as much as I do - I am more than happy to engage in a little cross cultural/religion celebration too! Even if you are not Muslim, why not surprise your Muslim friends with a card or small gift?

I love these Arabic alphabet prints from Waafia! We got this playful one for my niece and nephew, a cute pink and chocolate one for our other little niece, and a 'deep sea' coloured one for Yashar. And the shop owner was so lovely and helpful!

I have actually learnt the Arabic alphabet and it takes some work! These are a very cute way to help kids learn -or just look pretty on the wall!




These badges from Muslamb are cute and have a great message for everyone - Salam means Peace in Arabic and their 'As Salamu Alaikum' card, meaning 'Peace Be With You' is gorgeous.
These head scarf pins from Jujubehijabpins are so pretty too!

At Summer's End

Goodbye Summer. After what seemed like endless days of heat and clear skies, it is overcast and drizzling. In between showers we made it down to the park, the swing ride (which looked like it was about to fall apart anyway) was packed away, the park was empty.

This is a special little Autumny thing I am working on at the moment - remember I mentioned the squirrels?

Hello Autumn.