handmade advent wreath

Advent wreaths are tradition here in Germany and are usually very colorful and most of all green. I posted a glimpse of the one my mom gave us last year here. The idea is to light a candle each sunday before christmas for 4 weeks, so when the fourth candle is lit it will be christmas.
This year I wanted to make our own advent wreath and make it very simple and elegant and scandinavian inspired. I put a lot of thought into it (my work colleagues will tell you I spent all lunch breaks for weeks pondering on the colors and decorations of this wreath) and in the end nearly everything about it is DIY.

I first thought of buying a wooden ring, but couldn’t find one I liked, so I made my own using willow twigs collected in the woods.
It’s easier than it looks and secured with wire holds up really well.

Next were the ornaments. I knew I wanted beeswax candles, so stitched red felt ornaments sounded right and I was itching to do a bit of handstitching anyway.



The candle holders were only available in silver and gold, so we (meaning the boyfriend) simply spraypainted them white.

It turned out just the way I hoped and I love our handmade wreath which we will be using for years!

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little folks quilt

So this quilt has been finished a while and took forever to photograph. I tried to take pictures three times and they always sucked.
So these are the best you’ll get, sorry 😉

Made with Anna Maria Horner’s beautifully soft Voile Fabrics from the ‘Little Folks’ collection. I am forever spoilt for quilting cotton now…that voile is just so wonderful and soft, all of my future quilts will have to be made with voile.

The back is a nice blue cotton and the binding is my favourite purple Ikea fabric.

I quilted it roughly with embroidery floss and because I am continually broke I used what I had and the rows are all in different colors.

more pillows

These little scrap / embroidered / appliqued (seriously, what’s it even called) pillow cases are so addictive and so much fun to make! As promised, here comes the second Sunny Circles Pillow:

and I made another Circus Elephant Pillow as well, this time on a deep purple base, which I think offsets the gorgeous scrap colors even more:

With this one I have finally figured out the perfect size for a 35x35cm pillow (and it’s not 35×35!) and I will stick to these measurements from now on. It’s a snug fit and looks better than the first one I think. I’m even contemplating making the other one just a tiny bit smaller, but I’m worried about the seams looking funny on the inside then. I have to say, I do miss having a zigzag-stitch.
Both of them are up in the shop now.