Now or never, for MEN only

Once upon a time...

It has been a long time and I only have a minute! 

So ATTENTION this is a new Hand stitched Top available for MEN, made of Organic Bamboo/Cotton Jersey. The photo shows the vest but it would not be a problem to add sleeves. The classic version is black or white, colours can be ordered on demand.

Made to order, the pattern is ready for size S, any other size requires grading, which would only mean the production takes a little longer.

The material is very soft and due the sewing by hand only the spoiling effect is enhanced drastically. Easy to care for and breathable, which means airing is often enough.

PS You don't have to be a Yogi to wear comfortable clothes ;)

210 days of Bound Lotus and the Hand stitched Onesie

Harvest time

You might think I have started expanding my work and specialize in toddlers clothes. No I haven't. Although I would not mind it at all designing a girls dress or a baby jumpsuit or any children's clothes, really.


This time I worked on an Hand stitched Ladies Onesie. The request was to replace a range of jumpsuits with the mission to be more attractive at home. Also wearable all year long, with and without any other layers to wear, and very comfortable were included in this order.

I must say I am very happy to have been approached. It is nice to have my work noticed. And I love this kind of approach. Can you make me...is my favorite.


I would not have designed a onesie in near future, so it is nice to have expanded my collection. But now as it is accomplished I would not be upset at all if the customer would not like it, as I fancy one myself.

It is the ultimate of comfortable so far! The cut is very feminine but there is enough drape to feel good if you know what I mean. The waistband is looser than for the Hand stitched Yoga pants as it should just gently sit there, which is also an important factor for hot summer days. The legs of the pants only touch at the very end so the only points of contacts are on the shoulders, a touch on the waist and at the bottom of the legs. The conic shape allows to pull them up higher when you wish to have cooler ankles.

I have the feeling she might ask for other colors once she received it and will not wear it only at home. I guess I can start making another one ...... ;)

I called this post harvest time. This onesie was quite a challenge as it has a lot of folds and must really sit perfectly. And looking back I can tell now how much I have progressed with my work. 

I recently had a similar experience with my daily Bound Lotus practice. I noticed a shift before but now I can see the difference. It is hard to explain but this posture seems to be part of my body now, in way. I am still far from reaching my toes but I feel comfortable and notice what this posture gives me.

The warmer days seem to be more frequent and I am thinking of shorter and airy......... 

New Grounds - Drape & Shape

How you do it, it's right!

The other day I made my son a sandwich and he came back to the kitchen crying to break hearts. When I asked him what's wrong he said I did not make a sandwich as in half it and fold it on top of each other. I am sure if I would have done exactly that it would have been wrong as well. I am not questioning this behavior but I also can't blame him as I am not very different. 

I need things to be my way. Or maybe that is not true, I just don't want to feel uncomfortable, and sometimes things need a long time to be reduced to the max. When I had an outing to browse the High street I could find nice clothes, but looking closer or trying them on I could only find issues. The material was wrong or seams uncomfortable, it might have looked nice but it was hardly wearable and so on. I had to leave it and cannot call myself a customer anymore, even if I try very hard.

And now I am designing my own clothes I am not different at all. I might be very pleased with a new design but I need to put it to the test and only if I still like it then it will be part of my collection. This might be a too different approach as we live in a throw away society. But I always loved the garments worn to death the most and even when they were beyond it. 

The collection is completed and I am up to new grounds. In the collection I worked a lot with one-piece designs. The idea is that it is more comfortable to wear and a challenge but looks very different too. This time I wanted to drape more. This is even more of a challenge as drape and one piece is not easy to solve.

The top has one seam on one side. The other side drapes. Not too much as I still prefer plain cuts but enough to be a decorative element and shape around the body differently. The leggings are even more comfortable than the Hand stitched Yoga pants as there is hardly any contact to the body. 

Now in test phase and still only a first attempt in a new direction I am sketching and designing already more.....

The New Collection on the Beach

Finally ready to let go of 2013 . . . .

I am soooooo tired - But it was a good day. 

The last weeks I did nothing else but finishing off my NEW Collection - BASIS - and today I was ready to take all the pieces with me to the Beach to take some pics. Obviously it was freezing cold but the sun was out and we chose a rather sheltered corner. So filled with my excitement of being at the Beach - home! - but also because I finally can show the collection and offer it in my shop, I felt almost warm.

Just after a couple of hours I could not feel my toes anymore and we had enough shots captured and could drive back home, where we shot the rest of the details and voilà: my first listing is online!

The collection is the Best of ONE year work. There are Yoga pants, three different styles of Long sleeve Tops including a Tunic and a Tank Top and ALL pieces are Hand stitched. I offer size S, M or L and the fabric is either Organic Bamboo/Cotton Jersey or Organic Cotton Jersey in black, white and colours. (I will show the colours available but will have to order them on demand according to availability.) For the seams there is a choice of contrasting Red, or a similar colour to the tone of the chosen material and you can state your wish at the check-out.

There is still much more to do but I can feel a chapter is finishing and I am ready for the New of 2014! 

New & Merry

An early Christmas Treat and Best Wishes!

The Year is almost over and I am very excited what the New one will bring. It seems already busy and full of challenges. But this is for a new blog post.

For now I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


I thought it is time to treat myself to a new Yoga Mat after 15 years. It seems it starts a whole new chapter.

Peace.

Namaste Ringo Starr

The rain stopped for a minute

One day I will look back and think How did we do all this?

Kids seriously changed my life. I am not sure how other parents do it and whether kids get pressed into their life or parents give up their life for the kids. Or is there a secret of how to do it? In our case it is two self-employed parents obsessed with their work sharing this pleasure of raising two little boys and this can take funny routes. While we keep arguing about our working time the boys began to copy us and say they are busy working now or ask us to print out the pictures they have just taken. It is a dance to meet everybody's needs. And then one day they are both off to school and I will miss the chaos and my working days might seem endlessly long until they are back home.

I guess it is the end of the year that makes me pensive. I am waiting for some new fabric to test and to finish the collection with, meanwhile I finish orders and presents. 

Yesterday I took all my energy to drag us to a photo shooting. It was in my head and needed to get out. But it rained. The solution was a warehouse with a roof, so the photos could still be taken. Nice location, but the picture in my head was a different one and this morning it did not rain. The car was available, so we packed the two kids and the camera and took off to school. While one was playing in school the other one was screaming in the car, a lorry in his hands watching me warming up to do some sun salutations. Time is precious, so half warmed up I posed barefoot in front of Ringo Starr's Birth House. 

It is not a nice area to walk on your own or to walk at all but I love those abandoned streets. I am not spending my time scouting around Liverpool but I do hope we will take more photos at interesting locations like this. 

Sneak Preview: Hand stitched Yoga Pants, Tank Top and Tunic

Au Revoir Bra

French Movie

The days are too short! I am not talking about the season or the weather but lately I love to distract myself with movies. This winter obsession started living on a Remote Island. I am still sort of remote and feel drawn to french movies at the moment. I might have improved my french but it also makes more sense to me to watch a french movie. The last one was not really typical also because it did have a relatively good ending. It was all about Coco Chanel and although I might recognize her style I have not been familiar with how she started in fashion. One sentence in the movie was quite accurate to what I am working on at the moment, something like Don't you want to breathe? 

I am still holding my breath once in a while and I often find myself adjusting a breathing pattern. I am currently also trying to stop coughing as I remember having pulled a muscle which is very painful and I am about to repeat this. And then I keep finding discussions about bra yes or no online and whether the support would be actually greater without one. 

All personal stuff and I guess there are preferences. Since nursing children is part of my past I started questioning the comfort of bras and also developed a Yoga Bra which is very comfortable. But as I am spoiling myself with comfort I have to move on to higher comfort. The result of the last week's impressions is this Hand Stitched Bratank. It is made of Organic Bamboo/Cotton Jersey which contains a small percentage of elastane and is very very nice to wear. The stretch is strong enough to support but gentle enough not to feel wrapped up. The Bratank is in test phase and I will see whether this is it or I still need to watch more french movies. 

Can I ever watch too many?

Funny dance around new Patterns

Anti...climax

Good that I can still laugh about myself.

 

It has been weeks now. First I transferred the chosen garments of my first collection onto pattern paper, then I had to let go of them and they were transported to London. And after some weeks they made it to the graders and also back. And finally they came by train back to Liverpool last weekend. 

When I heard they would be back I got very excited, it felt like a victory. But somehow it started scaring me and that's where I am glad that I can laugh. Maybe because it felt like a massive project from start to end, maybe to let go of a whole year of hard work, maybe the step to the next level, whatever it was, it is gone now and I am ready to move on. And it feels really good to use them. 

This collection is available now and just waiting to be put in my shop. It is a Hand stitched long sleeve Yoga Tunic, a short long sleeve Top, a comfortable Top and Tank Top and the Yoga pants in all sizes and different colors.

a collection / chapter end

Suffering (;

I knew this would come. 
I have this self-imposed rule that I draw a pattern straight after a new design is born, no matter what. And if I make any changes I transfer them immediately too.

Obviously, there are exceptions. Sometimes I am not sure and think I can draw the pattern later. Sometimes the drawing is very free-style as it is in process anyway. Although I must say through experience my pattern-development got more and more accurate as it just speeds up the process, and although I know by now how to cut what, it is still of advantage to have the pattern finished, named and neatly stored. 

A year has passed. It feels like a chapter is finished and it is time to move on. But before that I wanted to present what I have done in form of a collection. I decided which of the designs will be part of this collection and did the last fine tuning. And I spent the whole weekend to create the final drawings of those patterns, I mean the final final ones, which was quite painful as I had to test and work out if it is all correct, like super correct. Because they will be graded and if there is an error, it will be in every size.... 

(... From now on I am not only drawing the pattern immediately but also do the final drawing.)

Well, now I only have to choose the fabrics and manufacture and present this collection in my shop. What a big event!

Lotus and the Beach

Yoga in progress

My newest challenge is Bound Lotus. I have avoided Lotus in general the last years as I was either too fat or not flexible enough. But now the Baby-fat is fading and this summer had a good aspect as I had nothing else to do at night than doing my Yoga Set, every day. So Lotus is possible now, Bound Lotus still a big mission though. But I must say after 11 minutes with lots of props and some suffering, I feel really good afterwards, just wondering when will I enjoy 31 minutes without too much pain.....

Meanwhile my Hand stitched Yoga Tunic in natural Organic Cotton Bamboo Jersey is finished. The seam is at the front this time, as it might bother me while practicing kriyas on the back. Also, it is neither too wide nor too tight as I want to be able to do inverted postures without showing my belly. I enjoy being aware of my body but do not want to be trapped like a sausage, so I chose the middle way. 

As you can see on the picture, I took it on an outing and this Tunic is really fun to mix with blue and grey. The material is fantastic to wear (Bamboo!) and with the Yoga Bra, the white feels even better, as it breaks the brightness.

The second Top of this special Hand stitched Yoga collection is also about to be finished, already thinking of variations with different seam colours but I might add some coloured versions anyway, as I am not sure to keep it all white....

I love big projects!

3 min dis-traction

Restless night

Thinking of when I lived on the small remote Island in Scotland I remember one really cold winter, so cold that the water system froze. We had very brave longterm guests back then and while I was really inventive to gather some water to wash my hair, the girl solved it with Dry Shampoo that she had brought with her.

The other night, I could not concentrate on anything which is a shame because I really honor those quiet hours, and nothing mind numbing was broadcasting, so I remembered the upcoming wedding in our family and browsed for some special hair do. Vimeo has quite some arty films and I once watched a really nice series of Tiger in a Jar like making your own pesto or bread but also a nice hairstyle. From that I ended up at Hair Dresser on Fire which is kind of entertaining to watch..... On her blog she talks about no poo which is when you don't use shampoo but water, baking soda and cider vinegar. She says she cannot handle that herself but tries to reduce the times of hair wash and that is where the Dry Shampoo came back to my life.

I thought I give it a try after all and went into the shop I pass on the way to get my son from school and tried it this morning. A funny thing. The hair feels lighter but it turns white so I guess you have to spray it with a bit of water?.....I really don't know about that.

Anyway it is fun to play with hair for a while but last night I had a much better distraction result after exhaustion of a restless mind and Aqua Running:

3MS - 3 minutes to shift the flow in your body and mind...

Breath is My Music

Picking Plums

The boys are out and this gives me a moment of inner silence which I love. Not that I do not accomplish this otherwise but it has a different quality to it. Somehow motherhood is connected to being there non stop and only stops with physical separation and still then there is a chance that a lot of thoughts and concerns are still with the boys.

Not knowing when they are back I started with my Yoga Set. The last weeks I am doing a pelvic balance set which is quite short but very intense. I am also back to Aqua Running after a long Summer Break and was really surprised how easy my return was. So I guess I finally made a huge step. I would not mention this but I have to admit it is a (my) BIG mission to get rid of a baby body (; 

Additionally I can stay in the wheel position and this took years hahahaha. That is one aspect of Yoga that I really love. I keep doing the same thing over and over again often struggle and then one day something has shifted and I can do it. And then the experience can still change by further repetition. I still remember one night, in my past life, I was out dancing and noticed a change of my hip-spine coordination which was due to spinal twists I was practicing at that time. This might sound weird but it is a great feeling for me to be flexible.

If you haven't seen this short film I post it here again. I really like watching it. Not only because Yoga in a dress looks really nice but also because it shows how normal Yoga is. I do not think she looks particularly fit from a glance....... And the poses do not seem to be great effort for her. And the good thing about Yoga is that there is no limit to age or gender or constitution or condition. It requires comfortable clothes which is nice to wear every day anyway (... i can cu) and some practice. And it all comes with the Breath.

(and I recently had the chance to watch the changes in a 70 year old lady, completely new to Kundalini Yoga, that went from swearing to moving quite smoothly in days, and that with acute spinal issues.)

They are back now.

i can cu = ONE . . .

i can cu is ONE on the 1st of July!!!!!

....you might be busy but don't miss this:
because of this very special occasion - it is the FIRST birthday 
- i can cu decided to spoil you with a Hand stitched favorite Tank Top 
especially made for YOU!
. . . and the only thing to take part is share this giveaway and comment on this blog
. . . go on . . . be brave and dare to treat yourself with a gorgeous super comfortable Top . . . and it will be one of a kind . . .

(more detail here)

Happy Birthday!

See you at i can cu . . .
. . . winner to be announced on the 1st of July!

In a dark dark room,

sunshine inside.

It is a sunny day and everybody is outside on their bikes.

This is very hard for me because I love sunshine and I love my new bike. But: I am sitting in my studio, working. Very good that I really enjoy what I am doing, so I only suffer briefly when I have a look outside my window. Facing my screen I enter the exciting world of click and cut . . . What am I doing? I hope I can present it soon . . .

my studio

I cannot believe that it took me so long but it feels good. 

I moved my working space to another room and it makes such a difference. 

The living room is nice, light and warm but no chance to concentrate there. And, I found my table occupied by the boys, all of them. This might not change after all but at least I can say: I am in my studio!!!! Or: I work, in my studio. I have coffee, in my studio. Please, close the studio door. 

The only question remaining, what am I doing with the piano now?

A dress on spring strike

Why does it take soooo long?

I feel like slowly awakening, I have no idea from what exactly, but the last weeks were tough with on and off sick family members and disturbed nights and working days to dream of. 

But then I spent the last 2 days in the studio and moved a big step forward. (Ah I almost forgot these 2 days also included the photo shooting - urban i can cu; wow, sometimes I am amazed what i can or cannot fit into one day.) 

The Proto type is finished (the 3 pics to the right), the pattern refined and the black Organic Hand stitched Dress (to the left) cut and pinned! 

I guess this fragmented working experience made it all take even longer and probably I am indirectly striking for warmer days too. But I also dedicated a lot of attention to the cut and pattern. I wanted the dress to be simple but feminine, cut to figure but also allow a natural change of waistline and keeping a good wearing comfort. (I still want to feel feminine and look good even if had some ice cream.)

The seams are at the back and at the front and give a nice eye-catcher. The lack of seams on the sides allow the dress to drape nicely around your sides. The dress remains rather short for now.

The plum/purple Organic Cotton Jersey Hand stitched tunic in comparison has a more flattering style and is much shorter ( . . and is on SALE too at the moment), if you want to take a look in my shop.

So spring, where are you?

Another Give away

It is getting complicated . . . 

This is just to let you know there is A N O T H E R Give away . . . . .  i can cu is featured in this blog and if you participate you can win these 

denim blue fingerless gloves - Hand stitched and extra long - warm your arms . . . C u at i can cu!

giveaway - excitement, part 1

2000 FB likes and the fun can begin!

I know I am still far away from 2000 FB likes (although I am very proud of my almost 200, thank you!)but there is no reason not to participate in a giveaway-event.

I met Jonua from Paris or she found me? and as soon as her FB page 

reaches 2000 she will start her big giveaway-event.

There will be a lot of vendors participating and all you have to do is 

like and comment and you can win!!!! 

She started promoting these vendors on her blog already, so have a look

what the prizes are that you can win!

To help reach her 2000 FB likes you could participate in another giveaway-event

hosted by Sandy and co-hosted by Jonua and you can win even more!

Find out more on Sandy's FB and Sandy's blog.

Why am I promoting this? 

Because I am one of the vendors at Jonua's giveaway-event 

and you can win these Hand stitched Yoga socks 

made of 100% Organic Cotton jersey! . . . . . to be continued . . 

time to vote?

The inkblot in a contest

My Treasury >the inkblot< is taking part in the Treasury contest!!

If you have a minute please vote for it!
many thanks
http://onfireforhandmade.com/etsy-treasury-contest-feb-16/