Your Breath Fuels my Heart (Steam-punk Valentine Fabric Design)

I finally designed something for a weekly Spoonflower contest. How could I not, this one was perfect for me, since it was organized in cooperation with Urban threads, who I adore so so much. Them, digitizing something I designed, would be a dream come true (but I won’t waste my time dreaming of that. Instead, I went ahead and started digitizing the angel one, but we’ll talk about that some other time).

I was also really exited about the theme they chose, Steam-punk Valentine. I always loved the visual side of the steam-punk movement: the warm copper and brown colour pallets, the Victorian elements, hot air balloons, the corsets… I also find the quirky background story pretty cool, I used to love Jules Verne as a child. The movement just never got any attention in my actual surroundings, so I never got into it … I sure would love to try and make some costumes, I just have no clue where I could wear them …

Anyway, it didn’t really take me long to get the idea that I’ll make some Victorianesque Valentine card designs, for which I had to first come up with some verses that would be equally cheesy and steam-punky. That took even less, I guess there’s some part of my brain that really really craves writing poetry so the short steam punk love verse was born in 5 minutes:

You turn the gears of my world,

your breath fuels my heart.

See what I did there, see? Like there’s gears, and the breath is steam and the heart is a machine and the whole thing it’s so sweet you almost get diabetes reading it. It’s perfect, in short.

With the verses ready, it was just a question of illustrating the verses with collages of visual elements that you might find in Victorian era Valentine days cards (the flowers and the angels) and in Steam punk imagery (the anatomical heart and gears and brown and top hats).

fabric design beta

I was extremely pleased with the result, so pleased indeed, that I actually ordered a fq of the fabric. It’s lovely.

However, a small problem became evident when I went through the instructions for the design again: It has to be relatively simple and there shouldn’t be any cliparts and similar. Ooops, I guess the free to use images I found on http://thegraphicsfairy.com/ kind of fall in this category…

I promptly deleted the design on Spoonflower (I uploaded it again, it’s too pretty:)) and didn’t really know what to do. In the end, I decided I’ll vectorize the thing, and I hope that’s enough to avoid the whole “no clipart” rule. The result is still pretty awesome, although not as steampunky as I would have hoped it would be (and as the original was).

the final design

I did put the original designs on society 6, on the off chance that anyone might like them:) So, in the end, If you like the vector version of the design, I would be eternally grateful if you could vote for it here 🙂

The mandtaory end/begining of year post

I was quite busy at the end of the year. A pretty huge freelance project seemed like it needed to be wrapped up quickly (although it still isn’t done…), someone started paying me for writing exactly the same stuff I write for my blog, so I kinda prioritised that and then, there was all the Christmas crafting I needed to do. I was really good this year, made some gifts I liked so much it was hard to give them away.

I made a handbag for my sister, a lovely round one with embroiderer cuddling foxes.

I also made a weekender bag for mum, and I printed on the fabric for that one myself. Then there was a kindle sleeve for my dad and some trinkets for others.When I got to Slovenia, I also made a little fox rattle/pillow for my nephew.

I think the weekender bag is my favourite sewing crafting project ever, and the one I’m most proud of. Also the one I spent most (productive ) time on ever. I’m seriously thinking about making the exact same bag for myself. Or maybe the exact same one I made for my sister? Or maybe something new…

Anyway to sum up my 2014 real quick: nothing really obviously big happened, I didn’t get a “real job” or a baby or other similar things my parents would like me to get. I did however do a number of freelance jobs I really enjoyed and was proud of and most of them were surface pattern design related. The one I’m most proud of, is a design for bikinis someone was supposed to make in Australia. I have no idea if that’s actually happening, but I got a picture of a bikini made out of fabric I designed and it was pretty much the highlight of my summer.

Life-wise quite big changes happened, even if not the ones one would expect. People who know me know I had those “I’m going to live super healthy now” trips quite often. They usually lasted a month or two, but then I kind of gave up… My biggest issue was giving up smoking, even when I moved to London where a box of cigarettes costs about a human kidney and a half. I solved that problem by importing way to many cigarettes and forcing all of my friends and relatives to bring me some when they visited. But then, somehow, I honestly don’t even remember how, I started running. And then I didn’t give that up after a fortnight, I actually started to enjoy it. And with that came the realisation that one of the biggest things holding me back, was my nasty habit and I just quit. Just like that. I still have half of a box of cigarettes on my shelf, because this time I didn’t go the “this is the last box” route. It’s there because I hate doing things for the last time – so It’s easier for me not to smoke, knowing I can start again any time I want, so I don’t. (makes more sense in my head then now that I actually put it into words:)). I also almost stopped eating meat (mostly environmental reasons) and I can report that I’m generally quite a bit happier and more optimistic.

And lastly, my goals for this year (not resolutions, I had none last year and I’m now actually healthy and thinner and way happier):

– I want to sew some jeans
– design a fabric pattern collection each month
-possibly sew some hot hot underwear
– carry on running, maybe do a 10k or something like that
– talk to my family more
– write poetry again
– read more books, watch less TV
-blog more. Like at least once a week 🙂
-possibly start an actual business

And that’s that for the obligatory end of the year and first new years post, that merged into one. I have so many projects and recipes lined up, I really hope I actually blog about them:)

St. Martins day feast (and mlinci recipe)

St. Martins day is the best holiday of the year. Yes, Christmas is great and you get presents, but there’s nothing like celebrating the fact that the years wine harvest is finally ready to drink by eating delicious food and drinking.

St. Martins day is celebrated on the 11^th of Novemeber each year, and it’s celebrated around central and eastern Europe, but I think only in parts of Slovenia and Croatia it celebrates the wine, because wine is quite important for us. Luckily, Maribor, the city I come from, is big on celebrating it and ever since I can remember, we had goose and red cabbage and mlinci every year. The menu sounds a lot like the traditional Christmas menu for UK I guess, but there’s an actual reason for eating goose on this special day. The story goes that this lovely lad named Martin was to be ordained a bishop, but because he was a simple man, he didn’t want to become one. So when the officials came to get him, he hid in between a gaggle of geese – but the large white bastards betrayed him by running away and exposing him. So we avenge Martin by eating a goose each year.

Unfortunately, geese are both large and ridiculously expensive (and hard to find in London), so it is acceptable to eat duck, if you’re cooking for just 2 or 3 people. There is however no way you can avoid red cabbage and mlinci, those are a must. (you also usually eat some baked apples and cranberries)

I know, you’ve probably ignored this weird word throughout the post, but its finally time for you to find out what “mlinici” are and I’m even going to share a recipe! You can also serve them with your usually Sunday roast, they are a magical accompaniment for roast chicken for instance. They’re really easy to make, you just make a dough very similar to pasta dough, roll it out, either with a pasta machine or a rolling pin. Then it becomes slightly weird, because you also bake them. And then it becomes magical, because you steam them and then smother them in whatever fat has run off the thing you were roasting.

Ingredients:

-350g of strong white flour
-1 tbsp oil (sunflower, but you can also use olive)
-2 eggs
– water as needed

1. Mix the ingredients to get a lump of dough. Add just enough water so everything sticks togeteher. Knead the dough for roughly 10 minutes or until it’s quite elastics and spings back when you oush it. Let it rest for 30 minutes.

2. Heat the oven to 180°C. Roll out the dough to approximately 3 mm thick. (5 on my Titania). Put on baking trays and bake just long enough that the dough starts to turn brown and big bubbles form. (around 5-10 minutes). *You can do that in the same oven you’re roasting the roast. In this form, they can stay edible for months.

3. Break the mlinci into smaller pieces (approximately 3 – 5 cm), boil some water (or even stock) and cover them with it. Let soak for about 5 minutes, then drain any water that’s left over,

4. Smother in goose/duck/roast fat, serve and enjoy!

Vintage flowery autumn shirt

I originally bought this fabric to make myself a nice pair of summer harem trousers, but before doing that I made other things and other projects seemed more fun and suddenly, summer was over. And, also suddenly, I realized I desperately need long sleeved shirts. Some time ago, I would go to the high-street and just buy some really cheap jersey things, but I’m trying really hard not to buy anything that was almost certainly made in not the most fair conditions. I’m not getting political, I have no idea where the fabric actually came from (and thus can’t climb on a high horse) and I don’t have the skills or money to completely stop shopping on the high street.

So I looked though my stash of fabric and found this flowery thing of perfect weight (it some sort of very light knit). I really love the fabric and am so happy it didn’t turn it into trousers, because in a blouse, it’s so 90sy/60sy vintagey fun. I found the pattern for the shirt in my stash of Burdas, in the February 2013 issue (I think it’s model 135).

I’m wearing the shirt with a knitted collar I once got in a swap and really adore. I wanted to break the whole floweriness of the main fabric with some solid black and thus made the cuffs and then wanted to add a collar, but decided I’m just going make some removal ones, because I couldn’t decide on a shape and wanted to keep my options open. (I still have to make some, but luckily I already own this one:))

I love how the shirt turned out and I really wanted a nice autumnal and thematic photo shoot. So we went to the Columbia road flower market and took some pictures along the way. London is so f*in beautiful in autumn and the flower market is such a cool place to visit, especially around 4PM, when everyone is selling 2 bunches of flowers for a fiver and I can actually afford lovely flowers:) This time, I even got some cabbage:)

5:2 diet – Vegeterian fast days 5&6

Another 2 fast days done (and I’m writing this at the end of the 7th one) so you could say my diet is still going strong. And now I’m definitely not giving up – besides noticing my tummy getting smaller and my boyfriend claiming that it’s obvious I lost weight (which are both arbitrary and I don’t trust all the time), the progress is starting to show on the scale. I have lost somewhere around 2 kg since I started the diet and I think that’s quite great. I’m now at the lowest weight point in the last 4 or 5 years and I feel amazing. There’s still a bit to go to reach my goal weight, but I’m really confident I’m going to get there, for the first time in any of my weight loss experiments (and trust me, there have been quite a few).

I’ve decided I’m going to do these reports for 2 days together from now on. The recipes will start to repeat themselves and I’m just not really fascinated by the amount of food that goes into 500 calories and have stopped taking pictures :).

So here goes, fast day 5 and 6.

Breakfast 5 : milk gritz (no idea what the English word really is) and plum – 150 cal

25 g uncooked semolina (or gritz?) (80 cal) +100 ml semi skimmed milk (50 cal) + 1 plum (20 cal)

On fast day 6, I slept extremely long and decided to do an experiment, and not eat breakfast. Not a great idea, because I actually had trouble getting the 500 calories in and did something rather stupid, but fun, at the end. You’ll see:))

Lunch 5: Tuscan soup 145 cal

35 g onion (15 cal) + 80 g savoy cabbage (25 cal) + 65 g celery sticks (6 cal)+ 50 g carrot (22 cal) + 100g chopped tomatoes (22 cal) + 1 clove garlic (5 cal) + 50 g butter beans (50 cal)

This is a really nice atumn soup and so easy to make. Just chop everything, throw in a pan and cook for 30 minutes with a bit of thyme, salt and pepper.

Lunch 6: Tomato lentil soup: 171 cal

230 g Chopped tomatoes (51 cal) + 40 g lentils (120 cal)

This was just leftover pizza sauce cooked with lentils. Not glamours, but tasty:)

Dinner 5: roasted veggies 208 cal

125 g butter nut squash ( 52 cal) +130 g cauliflower (50 cal) + 1 tsp olive oil (40 cal) 5 g mayo (35 cal) + 50 g low fat yoghurt (30 cal)

Cut the vegetables, sprinkle with olive oil and bake on 200°C for 20 minutes. In the mean time mix mayo, yoghurt and some herb salt for the dip.

Dinner 6: Turnip gratin and vegetables: 236 cal

250 g turnips (73 cal) small egg (54 cal) + 70 ml semi skimmed milk (16 cal) + 10 g light cheddar (23 cal) +1 clove garlic (4 cal) +130 g mushrooms (21 cal) + 10 green beans ( 36 cal)

For the gratin cut the turnips into thin slices. Mix the egg, milk and chopped garlic, add salt, pepper a bit of cayenne, a bit of fresh thyme. Place the turnips in an oven-proof dish, pour over the egg and milk mixture, grate the cheese on top and bake on 180°C for around 45 minutes. If it starts getting brown, cover with tin foil.

aaaaand then there was the stupid thing: 16 g dark chocolate with hazelnuts- 91 cal

5:2 diet: vegetarian fast days 3&4

I’m quite busy at the moment, so day 3 and 4 will have to be jammed together into one post. Fasting is getting both easier and harder, which, I know, is an oxymoron. It’s easier, because I now know exactly what to expect in the day, the hunger and moods and all. But it’s also harder, because I know exactly what to expect, the moods and hunger and all.

Then there’s fact that I’m not really loosing weight, which is making me question the whole experiment. In the two weeks, I didn’t even loose a kg. I lost somewhere between 5 dkg and 8 dkg, which seems like almost nothing and I’m not even really sinning on the non fast days. (Ok, maybe I am, but by drinking way too much craft beer which always seems better than cakes, even though it’s more or less exactly the same or even worse, with the alcohol and all)

Anyway, tomorrow I’m planning on day 5 and I feel a cold coming on. If I wake up tomorrow feeling like shit, I’ll probably give up on the whole diet. If I feel OK, I’ll definitely fast, because some friends are coming over tonight and I made banofee pie;)

Anyway, here’s my fast days 3 and 4.

Breakfast 3: Cinnamon apple oatmeal (142)

20 g oats (71 cal) + 1 apple (71 cal)

Breakfast 4: apple&yoghurt&cereal (162 cal)

10 g malted wheats (34 cal) + apple (71 cal)+ 0 fat yogurt (57 cal)

Lunch 3: Cous cous with creamy mushrooms (200 cal)

1 tso olive oil (40 cal) + 50g onions (20 cal) + garlic clove (5 cal) + 5 g dried porcini mushrooms (14 cal) + 150 g chestnut mushrooms (48 cal) + 50g 0 fat greek yoghurt (29 cal) + 25 g couscous (40) cal

Soak the porcinis in about 1 dcl of water. Chop everything that needs chopping, heat the oil, add the onions and garlic, saute for 5 minutes. Then add the chestnut mushrooms and the now rehydrated porcinis (chopped if they are big) and just enough of the water the porcinis were soaked in to cover everything. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook on low heat for about 5 minutes. Prepare the cous cous in the mean time. Just before serving, mix the yoghurt into the mushrooms. Serve topped with a bit of chopped parsley.

Lunch 4:Chick pea curry (141 cal)

100g drained check peas (72 cal) + 100 g frozen spinach (26 cal) + 100 g chopped tomatoes (22 cal) + 40 g white onion (16 cal) + 1 clove garlic (5 cal) + 1 tsp curry powder ,1/2 tsp fenugreek, ½ tsp cumin + ½ tsp mustrad seeds (lets say 0)

In a nonstick skillet saute the chopped onion, garlic and spice with a tbsp of water for 5 minutes. Add al other ingredients and cook for 20 minutes.

Dinner 3: Mixed baby greens and egg salad (140 cal)

2 cups mixed baby greens (15 cal) + 1 small egg (60 cal) + 15 g 0 fat greek yoghurt (10 cal)+ juice of half lemon (5) + 2 tsp mixed seeds (50 cal)

Dinner 4: Broccoli stir fry (204 cal)

1 clove garlic (5cal) 50g yellow bell pepper (16 cal) + 50g carrot (20 cal) + 150 g broccoli (49 cal) + 50 g tofu (38 cal) + 5 ml sesame oil (41 cal) + 1 tsp mixed seed (25 cal) + 1 tbsp soy sauce (10 cal)

Heat the oil, add garlic, add carrot and bell pepper, fry for 3 minutes, add broccoli, a bit of water and soy sauce, fry for 5 minutes. add tofu, cook 3 more minutes. sprinkle with seeds before serving.

5:2 Diet: vegetarian fast day 2

My second fast day is done! Just as the first one, and probably most of the rest is going to be, this one was vegetarian. It was slightly tougher than the last, because I also had full on PMS. And that always makes me crave fatty foods. Contrary to what you may think,  I did get them, in a way, because I had some tasty cauliflower and cheese for dinner:) (yes, again, there was room fr cheese in the 500 calories. Isn’t that amazing?)

On the weight loss front, absolutely nothing is happening. I have more or less the exact same weight I had when I started a week ago. I’m also blaming PMS for that, because it always feels like my ankles absorb a ton of water from the air, because it’s so much more fun for everyone when they’re swollen.. So I’ll give it another week and if nothing changes till then, I’ll stop with the diet and try out something else.

Anyway, here’s what I ate on fast day 2:

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with veggies – 141 cal

50 g chestnut mushrooms (16 cal) + 50 g yellow bell pepper (16 cal) + 50g white onion (20 g) + 1 medium egg (88 cal)

Lunch: Minestrone with barley – 151 cal

100g chopped tomatoes (22 cal) + 50g leeks (12 cal) +50g frozen peas (33 cal) + 100 g celery sticks (10 g) + 50 g carrots (22 cal) + 15 g instant barley (52 cal)

(Chop the veggies, put in a pan, add tomatoes, some basil, oregano and seasoning, cover with water and cook for 10 minutes. Add barley and cook for 10-15 more minutes)

Dinner: Cauliflower&cheese – 200 cal

5g butter (32 cal) + 5g pastry flour (18 cal) + 15 g mature light cheddar (46 cal) + 75 ml semi skimmed milk (18 cal) + 200 g cauliflower (76 cal) + 1/2 tsp wholegrain mustard (around 10)

Cook the cauliflower for 10 minutes, save some of the water. Melt the butter, add the flour and milk and cook until it thickens. Add ¾ of the cheese, mustard, salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thick, add a bit of the cauliflower water. Put the cauliflower in an oven proof dish, pour the sauce over and grate the rest of the cheese on top. Bake for 20 minutes on 180. I made 2 servings of this, because my boyfriend also had it for dinner (with some steak, obviously:)), and I would recommend you do the same, otherwise the amounts of everything you’re using are so small, it gets hard to cook.

Ps: I’m using the android app “My fitness pal” to calculate all of the calorie values, just so you know where I get the numbers from. I hope it’s accurate. It has this cool feature where you just scan a bar-code and the app has the product with all of its nutritional info in the database, which makes a lot of things a lot easier.

Upcycling Shoes with Machine Embroidery

I got the idea for this revamp on a lonely night bus ride home. After one of the worst journeys ever, in which I got lost without the internet somewhere in the middle of the lonely City at around 2 am, I was almost home when a million of very loud slightly drunk probably very posh 20somethings entered the bus. The only good thing about them was a wonderful pair of shoes the loudest of them wore. Suede flats with an embroidered tiger right in the front. I had one of the “my god, why haven’t I thought of sticking some embroidery on shoes before” moments, but when I found them online, I realized it was because I’m not a designer for a world renown fashion label. They’re Kenzo. Obviously. (I, also obviously, know nothing about fashion these days)

I knew I had to try something similar out on these shoes I once bought for 5 pounds and never wore. I could literally loose nothing. I’m not a fan of tigers, or any Asian inspired embroidery for that matter, it reminds me too much of Chinese restaurants. So I choose a bird. I like embroidering birds on clothes. You might recognize the style of this one form my shorts, and that’s because the design is from the same Urban Threads line (I bought the whole pack:)).

On the of chance of this really working out, I took pictures along to way, to make kind of a tutorial. So here it is:

You’ll need

– a nice, solid embroidery design
-a pair of boring ballerina flats
-some fabric in the same colour as the shoes or a complementing colourful
-embroidery thread
-heavy weight cut away stabilizer
-strong glue
-clothes pins or hair clips
-all the usual equipment (you know, embroidery machine, scissor,…)
-pliers, possibly

1. Get a design. If you wanted to make them more similar to the Kenzo originals, you can easily find a tiger embroidery designs on line. In general, you have to find something that has pretty solid outlines, but the rest is up to you. Measure the width of the front of your shoes, and subtract approximately 2 cm from it. Get a design with that approximate width, or resize the design to it. Remove any existing decorations from the shoes.

2. Stitch the deign out on a fabric of your choice twice- once the original way, and once mirrored. (If you have a symmetrical design, mirroring won’t do much:)) I chose to use fabric of the same colour as the shoes, but I think you could get great results with a different, complementary colour. Use heavy weight cut away stabiliser. Iron on, If you have a choice. (I didn’t, I had the stabiliser at home:))

3. Cut the fabric on the bottom of the design around the design as close to it as possible. (You can shape the top later, so that it looks good on your feet). Put one of the shoes on and experiment with the positioning of the embroidery until you find a place where it looks good. (you could obviously plan the whole thing out beforehand, but I’m not that kind of person).

Don’t just randomly place the design on the shoe so that it looks good. If you look at my shoes without them being on my feet, it seems the design would work better if it was placed a bit lower, and a bit more angled, but then it would look weird on the foot.

Secure it to the shoe with scotch tape, take the shoe off. When you take it off, stick a pin into it, just to be safe it stay where it should. Mirror the position of the design on the other shoe.

4. With a strong glue, glue the design to the shoe. (It doesn’t have to be SUPER strong, you’re also going to stitch it later). Place some clothespins (or hair-clips) on it to hold it down and let it dry for a few hours.

   

5. With a thread the same colour as the fabric, stitch the design to the shoe. Use small stitches on the right side and place them as close together as you can, but in a places where they won’t be noticeable from afar. Use pliers for help, if you find it hard to get the needle through the fabrics.

6. Enjoy your new designer shoes! 🙂

 

Things I might do differently next time: add a second layer of fabric under the design before glueing it to the shoes. Possibly planing everything out more and choosing a shoes that fits on the shoes a bit more.

also, here’s a shitty picture of me wearing them. They survived a night out, so I guess the whole thing is pretty sturdy and was definitely worth my time. (ps, I’m wearing a new shirt I’ll have to blog about sometime. and new hair. )

The 5:2 diet: my first vegetarian fast day

I have started a new diet. And if you’re from the UK, it’s obviously not going to surprise you that’s it’s the 5:2 a.k.a the fast diet. If you’re not and you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s a diet almost everyone around here has tried at some point since it became popular at the beginning of 2013 and it’s incredibly simple. 5 days of the week you eat as you normally would. You can even have guilt free cake and fired chicken and Franco Manca (I have yet to find another place that makes anything I’d call pizza here:)) and things like that. But two days a week (not one after the other), you fast. (Some people might think you starve, but it really ain’t that bad). You eat at most 500 calories, which, at the first glance, sounds like nothing. But as I’m going to demonstrate here, it’s really not. There’s even room for cheese. Cheese! I’m not saying I wasn’t hungry and everything felt wonderful all the time, but honestly, I’m always hungry. I’m hungry at this very moment and I had wholegrain pancakes with golden syrup and a ton of raspberries for breakfast two hours ago.

My only problem is that I’ve also started a new general diet, in which I only eat meat at most once a week. (I can never become a vegetarian, but I just had to stop pretending eating meat all the time is healthy and not bad for the environment). And most of the fast day recipes involved chicken, because, well, everyone loves it and it’s really low in calories. I, however, don’t love it that much, so I had to do without. And here’s what I ate:

Breakfast: 150 calories

25g porridge oats (90 cal) + 100 g/one half of a pear (60 cal) + tsp of cinnamon (0 cal) + green tea (0 cal)

Lunch: Creamy lentil, carrot and coconut soup: 160 calories

30g red split lentils (90cal)+1 medium carrot (25 cal), + 50g leek (12 cal) + 1 tbsp desicated coconut (36cal)

If you want to make it, just wash the lentils, chop the carrot and leek and place everything together in a soup pan. Season with salt, pepper and coriander seeds to your taste, cover with water and cook for around 30 minutes. Then blend. If you don’t like tiny piece of coconut in your soup, use coconut cream, if you have it. I didn’t:)

Dinner: courgette “pasta” with tomato, garlic and aged cheddar (I didn’t have parimganio):180 cal

200g courgette (40 cal) + 2 cloves of garlic (8cal) + 180g fresh tomato (50 cal) + 1 tsp olive oil (40cal) + 10 g mature cheddar (42 cal) + basil (0, at most 1 cal)

If you want to make it, make the pasta out of the courgette with a vegetable peeler (google it, tons of instructions on line if you have no idea how to make it). Than fry the garlic in the oil, add the “pasta”, add chopped tomatoes, season with fresh basil and salt and pepper. Cook for 5-10 minutes. Serve with the cheese.

So, all together, I even had 10 calories leftover. (well, my scale is far from precise, so it reality, it was probably a calorie or two more than 500, but I think that’s not a problem).

I’ll have a report like this for every fast day, because even though the internet is full of recipes, there’s not really that many vegetarian meal plans for the whole day (this one could even be vegan, if you substitute the cheese with something) and I hope this might help some people. I’ll also report on the weight loss front:) My goal is 5 kg, which, I hope, I’m going to achieve in less then 10 weeks… I was extremely slowly losing weight anyway, even before I started this diet. I’m a new devoted runner (really started 2 months ago), and have a goal to run 200 km till the end of November, starting this week. I obviously don’t intend to run on fast days, because I’m not that kind of a masochist. I will do yoga and will have to walk the dog however…

If you’re also following the diet and write a blog, I’d love to follow a few people on the same journey, so please leave a comment:)

Hot air balloon dress (and some sea)

I’ve been crazy busy for the past month, working and working and working in the hopes I’ll be able to completely enjoy my seaside vacation. But I didn’t finish everything I meant to (had to work during the holiday a bit, but at least I had an office with the perfect view once in my life). The main reason for not finishing the work project is … I also wanted to finish at least on last summer sewing project before I left London for Croatia. I knew it will basically be autumn once I got back and I also wanted to have a photo-shoot with one of my makes in a very picturesque setting. Id say the sacrifice was worth it… Here is my hot air balloon dress on me on the gorgeous island Vis.

The dress is the Burda style Island Placket Dress (04/2014 #121).

I also planed on making an actual maxi version with a colourful fabric, but decided I prefer swimming to working in lovely dresses on holidays.

The fabric is some kind of chiffon and it’s the first fabric I bought after moving to London. As probably everyone in the world ever, I’m terrified of sewing chiffon, but in the end it wasn’t as horrible as I expected it to be. I have to redo the hem, I rushed it too much and I need a rolled hem foot (for some reason, I thought I have one, but I don’t.) I have a mild obsession with hot air balloons. But just with the way they look, I’d probably die of fear if I ever had to fly in one.

*why do I look like I only have one leg and am generally not very coordianted? Because I’m not. And I’m sooooo awkward at posing:)

I really love the pattern and I’m so sorry I didn’t buy the issue of Burda, because I’d love to make all of the other variations, but don’t have the instructions. I really like the front of the dress, but didn’t realise how bra unfriendly it’s going to be from the side. I might try something out next time I’m making it, becouse there’s difinitely going to be a next time, but not before next spring. It’s time for autumnal sewing now, but I don’t really have anything lined up?

Any projects for autumn you can’t wait to sew?