Podaegi - Korean baby carrier

Now I'll show you a different kind of baby carrier, the Korean podaegi.



This is my version of a podaegi, but it can look in many different ways (it can be wide, or it can be narrow, like mine). What all podaegis have in common is that there is no waist strap, instead there's more fabric behind the baby's back than in a mei tai and by crossing the shoulder straps under the baby's bottom a little "pouch" is created in which the baby sit securely. (Below you can see one example on how to use it. The youtube-video is in Norweigan, but there are plenty of videos in English on youtube if you prefer that.)

Nora's drawing book

I guess it's already quite obvious that Nora loves drawing and painting. I want to show you her "drawing book" that I bought in January. Drawing books are such a great way to save drawings in a nice way, I think.



She's not always using this book when drawing. I guess I pull it out once or twice a month (because we tend to forget it). Sometimes we draw together, sometimes she's drawing alone. The illustrations above are from last winter until this summer, I think. The one down to the left is, according to Nora, me. ;-)

Swedish childbook - Lena Andersson

Today I want to show you two child books that I (and Nora) love. Lena Andersson is an author/illustrator who's been one of my favourites since I was little. Back in the 80s I read her books about Maja who learns about nature, and another one about a rabbit (but I have forgotten the title). The two books I'll show you today are not more than ten years old, so for me they are "new".



The main charachter is "Kotten", a female hedgehog. I love the sweet illustrations in soft colors and with so many details that appeal to me. Like the red tea cup with white dots on that Kotten is often bringing around her house. She has several friends who comes to visit, and she's friendly and generous. I've read three "Kotten"-books and in all of them she's inviting at least one of her friends to eat with her. (Just my kind of girl ;-) )

Kottens hemlighet (Kotten's secret) is about her being busy all day, not having time for her friends. They realise she has a secret and they hang around outside her house until she's finally ready. Her house is swept, she's made gooseberry compote, and now she'll show them her secret. What it is? Well, Kotten's secret "is wonderful" (as said in the book). It's a little baby.



In the other book a little pig is visiting. She's lost and she doesn't know how to find her mom. Of course Kotten helps her, and Kotten's friend "Pigga Grisen" (another pig) falls in love with the sweet little pig girl. They find her mom who is a confectioner and she rewards Pigga Grisen with 100 buns. Pigga Grisen loves buns, but most of all he loves his new little pig friend.

What makes Lena Anderssons book special is not just the illustrations, but how they interact with the text. She's writing in rhyme and she's really mastering it.

New pants for Nora

I can't deny it. Fall is here, and it's here to stay until winter. And Nora needed new pants.



If you're not Swedish you probably don't know Bobo & gnuttarna. It was a comic when I was a child. I found the fabric of Bobo (the little boy/troll with - his magic - binoculars) and gnuttarna (the white fluffy little creatures) at a flea market a couple of weeks ago. I had other plans for this fabric, but there was enough for a pair of trousers as well.

I believe some of you have already seen Anna Maria Horners "Quick change pants" (small picture). They are reversible so you can quick "change" them into another pair of pants by simply turning them inside out. When sewing the Bobo pants for Nora I wanted to make them warm enough for this season and I came to think about Anna Maria's pants and made Nora's reversible too (however I used a pattern from Ottobre). The inside is maybe not so beautiful. It used to be a sarong and I used it for those pants since it's really silky and soft.

I used another Ottobre pattern for those two pants (below):


The striped fabric I got from my aunt a while ago. It's a knit, but quite heavy. I like those pants the best, I think.

I also made those teddy bear pants out of left over fabric I found here at home. They're maybe not the most fancy ones, but I'm thinking they're nice a cold autumn day or even maybe under oil cloth pants when going for a walk in the rain.

Mood board + mei tai

I've been working on a mei tai (mt), this time in recycled fabrics. Inspired by Leslie at a creative mint I tried to capture the mei tai and its colors in this collage (or mood board, if you prefer):



It was really fun to put it together, and I'm thinking of using the idea, although a bit altered, when presenting a new collection of baby carriers. Not for every single one, though. No matter how fun it is, it'll not be possible if I should also have the time to sew and earn a living ...



Detail of fabric:

Links & inspiration for you

Today I want to share some creative links with you.

• Make your own playdough from The Magic Onions.
• At Bakerella is a good instruction on how to make cupcake pops.
  
• Sally Bazar is in Swedish, but there are colorful + inspiring photos.
• Nursery art at Lil Blue Boo.
  

Photo by Nora

I talked the other day about children & photografing and I want to show you this photo Nora took last week. I haven't done anything with it, except putting it in a digital frame and added text, but I really like it. It's abstract and colorful and there's movement in it too. It could have been relaxing, but it itsn't. Something is happening there.

:: creative Sweden ::

I'm still a beginner at sewing baby/toddler clothes, but I like reading blogs on the subject and I'm always so inspired by the pictures and impressed by how many good seamstresses there are out there. From the beginning it seemed quite hard to find fabric of good quality and pretty design (if you didn't want to buy from abroad), but the last two years something has happened and I see fabric with playful patterns at several webshops. I want to show you some of them.



The designer/illustrator behind the fabrics above is Johanna Ahlard. The three fabrics on the top are sold at Znok, the two down to the left at Mjuka Tyger. The one down to the right, Iris visa, is my favourite. You can find it at Strömming design, which is also an inspiring blog by a talented seamstress. You can see more of Johanna's fabric designs here.



I think, but I'm not sure, that it was Jenny over at JNYdesign who was the one who begun this wave of fabric designing. Her fabric is of good quality. (In my shelves I've got the fabric to the left, but black on red. I plan to sew something for Nora.) Her patterns with rabbits and those with clouds have become very popular. Check them out at her webshop.

Both Johanna and Jenny are talented illustrators and I love their fabrics, but I must admit I'm looking forward to more illustrators/designers entering this scene, to get a mix of different styles and patterns.

draw around, around

I was cooking and Nora was bored + hungry + tired. That's when I came up with the idea of drawing around her.



We had a roll of paper (from Ikea, but any roll of paper will do, wrapping paper would have worked fine too) and some crayons, pens and pencils. I instructed her to lay down. She didn't want to (as I said, she was tired and hungry and not really in the mood for anything), but as soon as I explained what we were about to do she was positive. After following her body with a red crayon a first time she was hooked. She wanted me to do it again, and again, and again. I had to continue cooking, though, so I suggested she'd draw around objects. I showed her how to and she begun looking for things to draw around. (Green lines in the picture below.)

Friday favourites

Friday evening. There's chicken with lemon in the oven, rice on the stove, and there's broccoli and carrot soon to be put in a bowl. The candles are lit, the water is in the decanter already on the table. And I am hungry. We haven't had chicken for ages (because I had a hard time to find one that has been treated in a good way/organic, but now I finally found it). Here are some more reasons why Friday evening is nice:



* Magnus is home from work, weekend beginning.
* My mom and her boyfriend bought a house yesterday, after searching for over a year. This one has swings in the back yard and Nora immediately, after seeing the photos, took her shoes in her hand and said she was going to "momo" to play.
* I'm almost finished with a new mei tai made of repurposed fabric and I like it!
* On Sunday it's election. It's exciting.
* There's raw chocolate pudding awaiting in the fridge. Yum!

What are Friday favourites? I hope you'll have a nice weekend and see you on Monday!

The photos is some raw tomatoe soup I made the other day, and some flowers Nora have picked.

Junk box

Do you have a junk box? I have one. (Well, actually several, but let's forget about that for a moment ;) ) The other day I was looking through it (and found so many inspiring things) while Nora was beading (playing with her beads).



After a while she became curious, of course, looking at all things in there. I know most people would say the majority of the things are crap, but I could think of so many things to do with them. And even if I don't have the time to use all of them, it really is inspiring just to look in the box.

In our kitchen

Welcome to our kitchen. We spend a lot of time here as we love cooking and Nora loves helping us out (+ doing the dishes, water is always fun).



Salad wrap with carrot, cucumber and pepper and on top of that a sauce made of sundried tomatoes blended with cashew and spices. Yum!

Below are herbs from our garden, drying in our kitchen window.



Chop chop chop. Nora and a zucchini:





Home made raspberry/banana icecream. Just slice the banana, put in the freezer for a couple of hours, then blend it with frozen raspberries and some vanilla and you have instant, creamy (and healthy!) icecream. The secret ingredient is the frozen banana ;-)

Sweden, september

1. Stockholm, Sweden 060 - Lake Mälaren - Sunset, 2. Falltime in the park, 3. Abandoned wooden House in Swedish Landscape, 4. Nature on fire

Reminder

Harvest festival

When I saw in the local newspaper that there would be a small harvest festival I immediately decided we would check it out, and hopefully buy some vegetables. I didn't expect much since the place where we live is rather small, but it turned out being more fun than I had imagined.



I ended up with carrots in my bag, no other vegetables, but there was so much to see and do. Nora especially loved two things: to draw and to look at the hens that sat in a trailer. There was live music and plenty of food and we could get information about mushrooms, fair trade, and the building of new houses in our area. Nora got two sunflowers and a carrot and seemed very happy with that :) I bought us some indian food and waffles with whipped cream and strawberry jam. Yum!

Someone in this family loves to draw, even more than I do.

Fairy garden

Ever since I was little I've been fascinated by fairy gardens. I decided it was time for me and Nora to make one that she can play with. I explained the concept to her and she helped me find materials. I made suggestions ("we can find sticks and use them as trees"), but let her decide where to put the "trees" and "stones" etc. It was also her idea to create a wooden fence for the horses. I made a little pond. She wanted a swing, so I made her one. In a shell we made a little bed.

Working at home and being a mother

It's been a crazy busy day, still I can't say I know what made it different from other days. Just that it was different. Maybe it began with me oversleaping (and Nora too). I almost never do that, but Nora is a girl with a lot of energy and have never needed as much sleep as many other babies and toddlers do. This week she's fallen asleep later and later and yesterday she fall asleep only 15 minutes before midnight. Normally I try to get up at six in the morning to get some work done, but after a few nights with too little sleep I guess that's the reason I overslept today. And missed my blogging time of the day.

I haven't worked much at all today. We needed some wheat for my new wheat (bag) animals. I'm working on some prototypes and so far they are a success - Nora steals them before I have a chance to fill them with wheat and lavender ;-) Anyway, so we went to buy some wheat. Since the weather was so beautiful - autumny, I would say, even if that's maybe not word? - we spent some hours outside with Zam. I also managed to make some patterns, to cut some fabric, and to make dinner.

The house is a mess and I left too many things unfinished. I'm new to the working at home thing, and to combine that with taking care of a 2,5 year old and make her days meaningful is a difficult thing to learn. It takes time. I hope I'll make it, because it's so worth it.

(The cake above I made yesterday, it's a raw food peach cake that I call "Sunny". I'm not much into raw food, but this week it's been an inspiring challange to try make some raw food desserts. More on that later.)

I'm leaving you with this link, it's some useful tips on easy hand sewing for kids on Sew, Mama, Sew. Have a nice weekend, and see you again on Monday!

What I love: sewing mei tai and wrap

Do you know what I love? I love creating things that people actually use, that make their life easier, and that make children and parents closer to each other.



A simple black baby wrap (new owners on the photo).


This mei tai (below) is a hybrid (buckle waist band). It's acutally deep purple, but the light was too strong and I didn't notice until I looked at the pictures late in the evening.

walking

I've always loved being out in the nature, and so does Nora. Since we have a dog, our toller Zam, we are forced to go out no matter the weather. And that's a good thing, because I realized that once outside, the weather is almost never as bad as it seemed from the kitchen window. As most parents know, water is very interesting for little ones. To hear the drip-drop sound from the rain, to jump in puddles, to make mud cakes ...



Sometimes we are in a hurry, but often we have time to look at all small things, to make sheep out of pines and sticks, to watch a caterpillar cross the path, to examine a mushroom (but the one on the photo is a no-touch one, we only look).



While walking there's time for Zam, too. We make tricks, we hide treats (look in the tree).



Time for all of us to play.

And sometimes I feel a bit stressed, I say "come on, let's go", but then I ask myself why I'm in such a hurry. Are we heading anyway? Do we have an appointment? Are there more important things to do somewhere else that have to be done right now? And most of the time, the answer is no. No, we don't really have to hurry because most things can wait another ten minutes and we, Nora, Zam and I, will stay more peaceful if we have the time to play first. Hurrying is, often, just a bad habit.



Picking flowers is a good habit. At this time of the year we often have fresh flowers on the table, thanks to Nora.



And this is our favourite spot. Right under the oak tree there are two stones and when passing by we always sit down for a while. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we sit in silence. Sometimes I tell Nora a story, it can be about a tiger (her favourite) and his friend, the elephant.

I love, now:

~ going out in the woods with my family and see how Nora runs, runs, runs, then wants me to carry her for 15 seconds, then continue running until she stops to look closer at a mushroom or to pick some blueberries.

~ to see how Zam relaxes when we sit down in the green moss all together, how he, too, enjoys being in the woods.

~ to read about food, to learn new things, and to cook.

~ to think about what I'll make with the wool I bought at the craft fair the other day.

~ to lit candles and not the electric lamp. It's cozier this way.

At Ulva craft fair

The first weekend in September is Ulva craft fair. It's a historic and pitoresque place close to Uppsala. Mom and I have been visiting this fair almost every year since we moved to this region nine years ago, but since Nora came I haven't been there (and neither have my mom). This year we finally made it again, and it was a nice surprise as several new crafters attended this year.



There's a woman there every year who makes trolls, gnomes and other creatures out of wool. They are so beutiful and this year was no exepction. I especially love those "vittror" who carries their children on their back:



At one table, though, I saw some decorations that were so ugly that I couldn't imagine anyone at all wanting to buy it. It was small figurines glued on to stones, togethere with glitter and other small items. But then Nora saw them. And she fell in love. Oh, she looked and looked and wanted to touch all of them. You know, there were dog and cats and glittery stones. Can a little child ask for anything more than that? So, well, obviously someone likes it.



I love attending craft fairs. It gives me so much inspiration for my own crafting. I hope I'll have the opportunity to sell there myself one day. Maybe 2012 ;-)