Welcome to the jungle!

Peeps...I am so excited to finally have something to share on Wendy's Handmade Monday this week because it has been ages since I have finished a crafty project but this little sewing project cheered me up endlessly last night, being very quick and satisfying!

I fear that my crafting this year will be very much baby-inspired because I have so many things I want to make and friends and family have been very generous with craft books and supplies that I have to keep on producing!

We have been buying a few Jungle-themed accessories for Baby Suisse's room and they have inspired this weekend's project.

Accessories from Vert Baudet

Matching fabric was bought online and a fool-proof tutorial for a cot bumper was found...it was all easy peasy!

And ta-dah...an hour later I had my cot bumper for Baby Suisse's room. Easy to make, personalised and much cheaper than buying it in a baby shop: this project is a winner on all accounts!

I have bought some extra jungle fabric to make a matching toy bag and maybe even a little matching quilt for the bedroom, so watch this space!

Right, I'm off to see what other crafters have been up to!

PS: Do not read anything into the colour-themed of the room/cot bumper...I had emails from friends after the mobile post asking if we were having a little girl because the dragon was pink...we do not know yet what flavour Baby Suisse is and have decided to not have a pink/blue theme in the baby room ;-)

Things that make me happy

Our new bird house...very cute! We are hoping to entice a pair of unsuspecting birds for our own version of Spring Watch... We had a great time in Meilen following the progress of the Posh & Beaks' family and we hope to do the same again!

Dragon mobile part I

The baby crafting season has officially started! It’s not that I have been lacking ideas or material to get started (thanks to everyone who sent crafty supplies in the shape of wool, books or others), just that I have been feeling too knackered to experience a crafty spark and get started.

My inspiration for this first baby craft endeavour came from Mr T himself who has bought some signed Terry Pratchett prints to put in Baby Suisse’s room. Mr T is a big fan of the man, and although I wasn’t sure at first having these prints in Baby Suisse’s room, I had to admit upon seeing them that they are very cute.

So I have three dragon prints that I need to get framed to go up on the wall. So I thought, why not continue with the dragon theme a bit and make my own baby dragon mobile to hang above the bed? I’ll try to make my felt dragons as cute as the ones on the prints.

When my friend Petit Filoux came to La Suisse for a visit a couple of weeks ago, we stumbled across a craft supplier shop in the middle of Zürich from which I bought some ribbon and a polystyrene ring. The 5 meters of pale yellow ribbon were wound around the ring...

...to provide the support upon which the felt dragons would be attached.

I then went online in an attempt to find a suitable pattern for my felt dragons (I didn’t hold much hope to be honest) and stumbled upon this… my lucky day! I spent Saturday afternoon trying to work out how to assemble the various pieces for my 1st dragon

With the help of my trusted side-kick!

Here’s the finished product

Not bad, what do you think? Because the dragons are quite big, I am thinking of making 4 in total to hang around the ring in various colours. One dragon down…three to go! Watch this space for my progress J

I haven’t contributed for a while (but hope to have some finished projects to reveal in the near future) but go and check Handmade Monday over at Wendy’s blog!

A heart-felt apology

Dear readers,

I do hope that there are still a few of you out there reading my much neglected blog and keeping up to date with Mr T, Alf and I in La Suisse. I have known for a few years now that winters tend to be a difficult season for me, with its short grey days and long dark nights and my mood over the winter months is very much altered and I am prone to feeling down and untalkative...

After a brilliant 9 months of sunshine in Meilen last year, the move to Brugg coinciding with the start of winter left me drained and a bit down in the dumps. It felt like I had nothing to blog about, getting to grips with our new home and the daily long commute to work in Bern and the number of daylight hours at the weekend seemed too short to get up to anything crafty. Close family members on both sides became seriously ill; I felt tired, VERY tired and that I would not be of good company to you all...

And then I realised that this winter had been extreme for me in terms of mood and tiredness because of this:

Baby Suisse, early January

I am only just coming out of 3 months of morning sickness and feeling like hibernating; dragging myself out of bed to go to work and coming back to work and dragging myself back into bed. This extreme fatigue wasn't helped by the greyness and cold outside; but now 18 weeks later, the spring is on its way and I am starting to resurface!

So a sincere apology to you all for neglecting this little blog over the last 3 months while I was focusing on getting through a physiologically demanding stage of my life (that is the understatement of the year...pregnancy IS hard work!). I hope to start being back on here on a more regular basis now that I feel able to go about and do more whether in the garden or craft-wise. With the amount of craft books and craft projects I have been receiving from family and friends, I'll be lucky if they'll all be finished before Baby Suisse's 18th birthday! I'd better get cracking :-)

Bargain find

I was a bit sad to find out that the only Brocki (2nd hand shop) in our town was closing down. Not that it was great or special, but it was the only we had in Brugg whereas in Meilen we were spoilt for choice and quality of the items on offer. Anyhow, I popped in one last time during their closing down sale and snapped up an (incomplete) set of matching plates and serving dishes for a mere 20 CHF. It was made by the famous Swiss porcelain manufacter Langenthal and turned out to be a lot cheaper than buying an extra dining set in IKEA...Bargain!!

Basler Fasnacht

On Monday 27^th of February, my friend Petit Filoux and I embarked on a crazy day trip to Basel to attend the Basler fasnacht, the largest and best carnival in la Suisse. It all kicked off (without us at this stage) at 4am with lantern processions in the streets of the old town, but we joined in for the main street parade early afternoon.

To say that is a seriously big event is an understatement. Shops closed, Basel citizens are off work and 12000 people split up between over a hundred “cliques” (groups) spend a whole year preparing for the event, thinking up themes and making costumes and masks by hand. Thousands of spectators come from France, Germany, the rest of Switzerland and further afield to watch.

My friend and I found a good spot on the bridge linking the old town to the new town from which to watch the madness unfold. We stood there for nearly 3 hours and by the time we decided to leave, we still hadn’t seen the last of the street parade! However by that time our legs were aching, we were covered in confetti and started to feel annoyed that the kids next to us were obviously much better at getting sweets from the passing carnival cars which were throwing them into the crowd. This is what we came home with…

Probably the one and only time in my life I will accept a carrot and turnip-looking vegetable from a dressed up man…

Apart from our disappointment of not succeeding too well in being sweets or flowers, we had a real blast throughout, shouting, giggling and being shocked, on occasions, by the Swiss political incorrectness that day. Many of the groups taking place in the parade had very political messages, from sharing their views on the Greek situation, Berlusconi and the EU…

…to protesting against nuclear plants and advocating renewable energies

…Russia was also given a hard time!

…and so were new technologies with a group in particular protesting against children’s addiction to them

There were also many groups of children taking place in the parade with some very sweet and original costumes…

I took over 160 photos during the day but I shall leave you with a few collages of my favourites

If you ever find yourself in la Suisse during fasnacht season (end of February), I can only recommend you take a day trip to Basel for the occasion as I have never seen anything like it before. If you’re not in la Suisse but are thinking of visiting, a long weekend around fasnacht time would also be worth your while. I hear that the fasnacht in Luzern is also really good so I may try and go there next year for my yearly dose of Swiss madness!