Start Sewing Club

I'm following this awesome blogger Hanna, in her blog she shows her refashions of clothes and sewing projects (and many more topics, which aren't important to this post right here). She's just such a sweet & creative person. I love to read her blog and always wanted to try one of her refashions (but never actually did). So when she announced she would give a "start sewing club"-course, I instantly wanted to join it.
I recently earned some money, which wasn't planned for in my budget, so when I saw an "Early Bird" Special Price I instantly decided to really do it. (I haven't used a lot of money on creativity). But I felt confident that it was a good way to spend my money based on Hannas Blog.

The course starts off with Sewing Basics, like understanding the machine, different stitches and stuff like that. I know a lot of sewing basics, I've refashioned things myself before and I'm crazy impatient so I skipped these videos. I started some of them but couldn't finish them, because I knew too much already, but if you're a beginner: It's perfect and thorough!

I went shopping for this, I wanted to make it out of fabric I have at home, but nothing was big enough. After being in the fabric shop I was happy I did buy something. It made me really giddy and much more motivated to really do this (I sometimes have trouble to follow through, especially when I have a bad episode of depression). Here's my fabric choices:

First thing to sew was a skirt. Without a pattern, just with our own measurements. We learned to make and sew pleats. I had quite some obstacles because of my impatience (not checking the measurements, not being perfectionist with the pleats...), but I managed all of them. Here are some pictures from the process:

Trying to manage the pleats

just laying it out on my bed, to get a idea of the look of the differently colored waistband

ironing down the last pleat

Now on to the finished garment. I need to warn you, I was very uncomfortable in front of the lense. It was much easier when I snapped the pictures myself, but we do not have a full-length mirror, so I needed the assistance of others. And the cap I wore in this picture is my brothers, and as everyone said it would suit me I thought it fun to include it in the pictures. But it looks kinda strange in the pictures.
We could decide the length of the skirt ourselves, and as I've always wanted a maxi skirt, I opted for the loooooong version.

this is so much fun, I needed to include it

Next up was a blouse. I found this really fun fabric which I instantly fell in love with. So off to work I went. It was great fun too. Here are some pictures of the blouse being created

And the finished project, I think it's a tad short, I'm thinking about adding a different hemline, or even add a little bit of another fabric (the shop had the same kind of fabric in pink, so that is an option). I needed to measure the bust and from that measurement decided how much fabric i'd need, and I looked in the wrong field in the table, so I ended up with a little too little fabric to have it the right length.

But if I wear it together with the skirt it's perfect:

Here a shoot from the side, where you can see the buttons:

And my favorite style of skirt is the Bubble skirt, so while sewing I always knew I wanted this to be an option. And by using safety pins, I pinned the hemline to the inner part of the waistband. Now I have two options to wear this skirt!

So, if you want to learn to sew, the basics and also this skirt and blouse, join Hannas start sewing club and learn to do it. I would always join this course again and am really looking forward to her next course!

Loads of love to you all!

The Garden

Today I snapped some pictures in the garden. It is a total mess out there, after the flooding of the area last summer. Some handymen took away the soil so the wall could dry, and the hole right in front of my window is still there:

It was supposed to be done come summer, but it's not getting anywhere. There's to be a patio of sorts with paving stones. The horse tail is very prominent and not easily killed. A patio is the best solution.

In the back of the picture you can see, there's paving stones standing upright and on top, there's my flowers. I planted them with my mom and my sister a week ago, after a crying fit from my side. I'm really struggling lately, but next week psychotherapy is starting up again. That will help. I am zapped of energy and all I ever want is to lie in bed.

For you to see the whole picture, with the hole almost unseen:

We planted a row of some different flowers, to have something nice to look at. The pictures do not really convey how it really looks. (It looks so much better in real life)!!

I also took some closeups and I can't decide which picture to show (having a hard time deciding also being a part of the struggle), so I'll just give you all of them. It's not many in the first place:

 Sending loads of love to you all!

My Artwork

Hello friends :)
I want to post regularly again, so I had to come up with something to post this week, and I started this really deep post about my view of my body and such. (I've written one sentence, but I know it's going to be deep). It'll take me longer to finish that, so I decided to share my artwork with you.

So I've been in a clinic for psychosomatic disorders for my arm and it did wonders for me. I stayed nine weeks. One part of the therapy was called occupational therapy (in German: Ergotherapie, we always called it "Ergo"), where I painted a lot.
The plan was to not think to much of the outcome before starting, but rather just start using different colours and different tools, and jsut seeing what happens and then decide if it's done or if it does need more work. I came home with seven canvases.
I didn't think I'd find space for all of them, my flat is quite small after all, and some of them were huge. But I did.
Take a look.

This was my first one:

 It got a place in our kitchen and fits in perfectly:

So, green and pink are my favorite colours, so I needed to have a pink artwork, with splashes of green:

It found a space in the bathroom. Next to a fotograph my little brother made and gave me as a gift sometime back: And you can see there's more pink there too.

I did like the green one better, so this time I went back to green, but did totally different things, so it looks like this:

 It's in the bathroom too, on the opposite wall of the pink one.

The next time i added yellow instead of pink to the green. It became a "positive-negative" artwork, with two canvases belonging together. A new friend of mine suggested it and it was really fun. I still wish I'd taken pink instead of yellow, but I felt I needed to change up the colourpattern a bit. But I'm getting used to the colourcombination.

They're in my room above the table:

Then I remembered that I really like it best decorationwise if it's lighter with white and grey, and I needed to try a new way, so this time it's painted in circle. And I REALLY REALLY love this picture, together with the first one it's my favorite.

I started another grey one right away, but I didn't have much time left to do many layers, so I'm not very pleased and think this'll need some more work someday.

I placed these to together, in my room too, but far away from the yellow/green ones (opposite corner):

The time in the clinic was hard, but I made some wonderful friends and I worked on some of my issues. It's was hard coming back, having to live real life again, but some things have changed.