Painted baby onesie

One of my favorite things to make is baby gifts. There is just something so special to have handmade, one of a kind things for your baby, and they are sure to be treasured by the parents. I usually try to make things that can last for a while, perhaps a lifetime, so they won’t be buried in the piles of newborn stuff but hopefully played with and enjoyed for years.

However, I also like to make things for the parents, but not in an obvious way. Of course, we all know that newborn clothes are for the parents, as babies don’t really have much of a fashion sense. So when my old roommate had her baby, I couldn’t resist making a little shirt with her cats (her two babies for many years now!) and the new baby on it! I hope the new addition to the family will not outshine the cats for too long 🙂

I used non-toxic fabric paints and a permanent laundry marker to draw on a plain white onesie. I had some left over paint, which I never like to waste, so I cut a piece of soft flannel enough to make a pair of pyjama pants for the boys, and drew little squares on it. Photos of the new pyjamas will follow soon, hopefully!

Kat

 

Upcycled duvet covers

The boys got duvets for Christmas from grandma and grandpa, and yesterday I made 2 duvet covers for them. I used 2 very soft and cute sets of flat crib sheets we have had for a while, but didn’t use much as I prefer fitted sheets for their mattresses.

It was an easy project with minimal cutting, as the sheets were the perfect width and already hemmed. All I needed to do was to cut the excess fabric and join the two pieces together. I used the hemmed side at the bottom for the opening, and sewed along the side hems all around. For the blue one, I sewed along the top and bottom of the yellow band, but for the off-white one I left the bottom side open, thinking they might like to play with it.

I am really happy with the result, and so are the boys!

Kat

Owls

I love owls! Owls decorated our coins in Greece ever since i can remember. It is a symbol associated with wisdom and the ancient goddess Athena. Its figure was used in the ancient coin of teradrachm   from 480 BC. and it never stopped being there, on coins, for more than 2500 years, either on drachmas or euros.

Yet the reason that owls appeal to me so much is because I’ve seen a real owl up close, and fell in love with her. She had fallen from the sky on a friend’s balcony. She was alive and my friend had put her in a box to take her to the vet. I slightly opened the box to look at her. Her round yellowish huge eyes (compared to her tiny body) were extremely expressive and penetrative. I was hooked! She looked like the one in the photo below, which I found in a Greek blog.

It is a lovely bird and a tremendous source of inspiration of all kinds! So I was thrilled when I attended my weekly crafting workshop “Atelier textile” in the coffee shop Κουμπί last weekend and we did a project on Owls.  I created a small pencil  case or for any other use case/bag and gave it to my daughter.  It’s an original design and still open to experimentation! :-).

The weary owl and Bobo the sleepy cat!

With a velcro opening this poor thing was given to my teenage daughter. Hopefully she liked it!!!

You can find Kat’s drawstring bags as well as zipper cases in our shop.

Buttons and hearts

Today I made a trial button-practice for the boys, with a couple of buttons on a piece of felted sweater for softness and sturdiness. There is room for tweaking, as the toy was a success, at least in terms of how curious they were when I presented it to them and that they came back to it after our walk. It was a failure, though, as my contraption doesn’t do anything, or lead to anything, so they don’t quite see what’s the point of it. I think I ‘ll make a bag next!

During our walk we picked lots of pine cones for kindling, and saw a few hearts in the trees. I guess with Valentine’s day approaching, my brain is more alert to the shape of the heart, wherever it may show.

Happy Tuesday!

Kat

With needle and thread

Almost every Saturday at noon, I go to a very tasteful coffee&craft shop in my hometown, Thessaloniki. The coffee shop is called “Κουμπί” which means button. There, I follow a course devoted to hand sewing called “Atelier Textile.”  It’s a wonderful cozy coffee shop, where you can drink your coffee or tea or wine while crafting. I love that stuff!

This Saturday our ‘happy’ crafting team, followed a course on jewelry made of fabric scraps. It is really amazing to see the creations that can be made out of thrown away garments! Nothing gets wasted!
I made the ring and a brooch in the photo above. I really want to make a dozen of different kind of jewelry, as the custom designs and color combinations of thread and textiles are infinite!
If you know the basics of sewing you can try it on your own. All you need is to cut simple geometric shapes and sew them together with matching, or contrasting color threads. You can also add beads or buttons. Hope you ‘ll enjoy it!!!
Zefi

 

 

Fabric blocks

One of my favorite gifts to make for babies is a simple fabric block in bright colors. Babies seem to love them, and even almost-three-year-olds seem to still enjoy theirs, mostly throwing them around or during role playing.

They are also quite addictive to make, especially since every time I am nervous that the corners will come out wrong, but magically they always come out just right. What a thrill! I recently made a bunch of them for some little ones, and they were enthusiastically received by both parents and babies.

 

Journal pen holders

Kat’s pen holder

One of my favorite Kat’s creations is her colorful pen holders!
Since i have to note down my ideas as soon as possible, a pencil has to be always handy!
And thanks to this pen holder it is always there!
It’s available in our Etsy store.

More autumn leaves!

My autumn leaves obsession continues. This time I cut a bunch of 4 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ squares, painted the same leaf with fall colors, and stamped each square with unique colors. It is a rather slow process, but very soothing. Too bad I had to leave after I did about 18, as I had much more fabric to stamp! I am sure a second session with no time limits is soon to follow. The squares are intended for coasters for the shop, but now that I see them all nicely laid out in a grid I am coming up with more ideas. Wouldn’t it be great if I made a quilt, with larger squares perhaps?

Inspired by autumn

I am still on an autumn colors kick! This time I made some coasters in orange and red colors, a combination I tend to like a lot during this time of the year. For the bottom I used some red velvet, recycling a pair of pants that was barely worn – seriously, what was I thinking!

They are very cheerful, and they are for the shop. At the last minute I managed to keep them safe from my husband, who was ready to start using them! I think I ‘ll make a few more for us, since he liked them so much 🙂

Here we go!

This has been long coming, and here we are, launching a blog that Zefi and I have dreamed of for quite a while. Doing things collectively, in rotation, contributing and building upon one another’s work has been something we ‘ve always enjoyed doing. One day I might even dig out some of our earliest endeavors of making cartoons in high school and passing it on for the next half of the frame.

Fast forward some (and then some) years ahead, and today Zefi lives in Thessaloniki, Greece (where we grew up) with her husband, daughter and a beautiful black cat. I live in New York City, with my husband and 3 super-snuggly cats. We still like to make things, inspire and get inspired by one another, and talk about it.  Welcome to Kat and Zefi’s blog. We hope you enjoy the ride!

Pictured above is one of the things I made recently, a drawstring bag made with cotton fabric I stamped with one of my hand-carved stamps. Making it was so much fun, I can’t stop thinking about making more. Good thing they are so useful and versatile that one can’t have enough of them. With Christmas season coming up, I can think of a dozen uses for them. I have made bags for giving as a gift, filled with a handmade or bought object; storing strings and ropes on a sail boat; keeping knitting projects inside; packing shoes inside a suitcase; keeping cables and wires organized…

What would you use a drawstring bag for?