Buttons and origami

Buttons are an irresistible temptation for all sewing lovers.

We have boxes full of all sorts of buttons, but (in our mind) they aren't enough! They look like sweet coloured candies and we are attracted by their variety of shapes, materials, tones.

Do you understand me? Yes, you do :)

So, when I saw Flavia's new shop, filled with a great selection of vintage buttons, well, I had to submit on order.

I bought:

- these adorable flowers in mint

- five emerald squared buttons

- a lot of bright yellow buttons in different dimensions

- elegant gold+pink round shaped buttons

Do you like it? I'm particularly in love with the flowers!

I received them last friday. And I was so happy for the buttons, of course! They were even more beautiful than in the photos.

But the packaging astonished me! It was amazing!

In the bubble envelope I found five adorable paper boxes, folded by Flavia according to origami tecnique. One was decorated by a purple ribbon, the others were into two lovely organza bags. Flavia also wrote a thank you message on a little card with a little button handsewn on it.

A lot of love and care in this envelope!

Look the boxes a little closer; they open in this way:

Isn't it a clever and super cute idea?

I love it!

Flavia added to my order some buttons ad a gift. She divined my tastes and gave me some buttons in one of my favourite color: purple.

I'm 100% satisfied with my shopping experience in Flavia's shop.

If you need some buttons, please, consider her shop as a good place to buy!

Crochet a dachshund pillow: a pattern from the past

Yesterday I was looking for some creative+vintage inspirations reading some old magazines pages mum saved and/or photocopied during 70s and 80s.

Suddendly, in a pile of doilis, borders and odd pullovers, this lovely dachshund came out :)

It's a crocheted pillow. The title says "Toy-pillows" (in red) and "the dachshund full-scale" (in black).
It's great, I love it!!!

So I decided to share it with you.

I've photographed this magazine's cut for you in two different ways: the detail of the finished project and the whole page with all the instructions you need: you can click both the photos to enlarge and save them.

Yes, I know, it's totally written in italian, and this won't help my not-italian readers. 

But I think you can easily copy it or be inspired to realize something similar. Please, don't ask me to translate it, because I'm not an expert of crochet patterns (difficult to understand for me even in italian).

I can't say which magazine published this project: mum cutted only this page and threw away the magazine. But the fonts are speaking to me; I'm sure I've seen them a lot when I was a child, probably this is a page of a magazine my mum often used to buy and read.

With this vintage project today I'm starting a new tag for my blog... "for you". I hope to offer regularly to my reader something you can download.
Probably other vintage projects like this one? Mum saved a lot (a lot!!!) of this magazines' cuts about crochet and knitting, but also patterns for dress making (from the 80s) and embroidery transferable patterns (from 70s and 80s) I can scanner and share with you. Are you interested?

Linen embroidered bed sheets from the past

Hallo everybody!

It's raining a lot out there, I have a pile of sewing projects to work on, but my mind is a bit confused now, I can't decide where to start.

So I'm cleaning my thoughts with some drawing (I'm working on two black&white journal pages I want to show you soon), reorganinzing/washing my new fabrics (amazing floral brocade in different colors, given to me as a gift) and spending some minutes with my little blog.

This post is the third of the "antique embroidered treasures" series (do you remember my previous posts about an antique towel with my initials and two red embroidered towels?).

I have other two vintage embroidered clothes to show you, today. Two linen bed sheets, one has a light blue + white embroidery, one has white.

Mum couldn't help me, this time, and I can't say exactly when these sheets have been embroidered. We only know that a member of my family made them, probably around 1950-1960.

Can you see the light blue drawing under the embroidery?

I love these details, they are a clear mark of their "being handmade". I'm imagining the woman who traced the pattern and then embroidered them :)

Red embroidery on two towels (one modern, one antique)

Yesterday I wrote a post about an embroidered antique towel with my initials I brought from my parents' home to my new home in Sicily.

Other precious things travelled with it in my suitcases and I'm going to show all of them: today it's time to speak about two embroidered (cross stitch) towels.

Yes, again!

And embroidered initials again! :P

V.V. are the initials of my grandpa (mum's dad). It isn't still with us, he died during 1989. I'm happy to have something that will help me to remember him everyday.

This towel has been embroidered by his sister, before he married my lovely grandma (1948).

I have a 63 years old towel (unused) in my kitchen and it has my grandfather's initials. It makes me smile and feel a bit melancholy.

The second towel I want to show you is modern. But it's lovely and hand-stitched, so it's a precious thing for me.

My aunt (85 years old this year!) embroidered it and gave it to my mum as a Christmas gift some years ago. And now it's mine!

I love that red squirrel! :)

I took a close photo of this detail: if you like cross-stitch embroidery, you can probably obtain a pattern from the photo and use it for your works.

These books are (in) a treasury

I'm not a compulsive maker of Esty treasury like someone. No.

I seldom realize a treasury and I'm slow as a snail in making it: usually spend a lot of time looking for the right items to collect around the choosen topic.

But I have a lot of fun the same!

It's a lovely tool to share beautiful handmade items!

This year I'm challenging myself: I'm making treasuries about books I love:

- Twenty thousands leagues under the sea

- The little prince

- Mary Poppins

- Little women

- Moomins

- The secret garden

- Pippi Longstocking

They are all "children" book, but I really like them also now that I'm an adult.

Please, click on my treasury list, enjoy and come here to write me if you found something interesting. All handmade items, or vintage! And sweet memories about amazing books :)

Frames and stamps

When I made my rubber postage stamps, I had the funny idea to use them as frames for dates on my moleskine journals.

I usually start all my writings in it with the date and a tiny drawing (or a written note) about the weather of the day.

These things can stay inside a frame similar to a postage stamp; it is a cute idea.

The "stamp frame" gave me the need to give a frame to all the page and I realized it with other handcarved stamps I made in the past.

And then I filled the page with words, drawings and other stamps. Fun!

In these days I've also looked at mum's collection of postage stamps. Now she dedicates herself to different hobbies, but some years ago she had a real passion for pastage stamps, like a lot of italian people.

I've never appreciated her collection when I was a child, but recently my mind changed; I consider postage stamps a work of art in small scale. And tiny dimensions increase my love. This is a lovely butterfly from Cameroun:

Some stamps speak about the story of a country; look for example at these from ex-CCCP:

I'm happy mum collected them; I'm going to put my nose into her albums full of stamps tomorrow!

Moleskine covers with vintage fabrics

Yesterday I showed you my new pincer for metallic snaps; in the photo I was finishing something: do you want to see what I was working on?
Mairi has guessed: moleskine covers! :)

I designed a new model last saturday and realized two exemplars.

For them I used the same pattern by me and the same materials:

- black cotton fabric

- white cotton fabric for the lining (made stronger by fusible interfacing)

- metallic snaps

- elastic thread (for the pen holder)

- vintage coloured fabric (in green and in pink)

Let's talk about vintage fabrics! They are parte of my family's collection.

My auntF gave me the green one: she bought it probably in the last years of the 70s and used a lot, so now we have only small scraps. This fabric has a simple design of white squares. I love it, also because green is one of my favourite colors.

The pink one has a pattern of white dotted waves, very particular. I remember when mum bought it, in the 80s, from a big shop in Lodi that closed a decade later :(

As usual, you can find detailed description of them in my shop: here for the black&pink one, here for the black&green.

Let me know if you like them and which you prefer!

This is a photo of a sketch with measurements I made for me in my moleskine cahier notebook (do you remember this?)

Well, it is completely in italian and probably not so clear, but perhaps it can help some crafter who want to try make moleskine covers like me!

Write me, if you try!

My sunday: antique fair, sun, friendship and a new bag!

What an unbelievable sunny and hot day!

I spent a few hours outside wearing only jeans and t-shirt!

Crazy weather!

Do you want to know where I have been?

I finally had the time to see my dear friend Alice and we visited a local antique fair in a small village near our homes.

Yeah! Sun, antiques, friend, icecream... these are ingredients for a perfect sunday afternoon!

Alice bought a set of spoons and little forks for 6 € and I had a pair of green vintage earrings for 5 €.

They are really simple, according to my style, and they are green, a color I love!

For this trip I decided to wear a little bag I've finished today in the morning.

It's perfect for me. I don't like to carry big bags, because I go out with only essential things. 

I made it following this pattern by Ithinksew and using one of my favourite fabric.
I think it will be useful for spring and summer.

I'm really happy to have spent some time with Alice and followed my interest in antique and vintage :)