Trip to France, Part 3: Paris will always be Paris

I had just a couple of days to cover Paris, so I did it through shopping from one district to another one

Fron top left

Montmartre 

Sacre coeur

Montparnasse mural

Empty subway car

Place Edgar Quinet

A few store display

Knit shop in Montmartre

Chocolat shop in left bank

Atelier Rrose Selavy, learn to knit with Mlle Sophie

L'Oisivethé, great selection of tea and yarn

1. Alice from Juno from L'Oisivethé, pure softness in baby alpaca/silk/cashmere

2. Bias from La Droguerie, my little guilty pleasure

3. Buttons from Tissu reine, 4 floors of fabrics, buttons, ribbons...

4. Bensimon snickers, with liberty laces, a must for all Parisian fashionista this summer!!

1. Voile cotton and batiste from La Droguerie

2. Small pieces of  fabric for 1 euro at a local farmer market

3. Vinyl fabric for bathroom pouch from Cultura

4. the ultimate shopping bag from Bonton, a must!!

5. More little pieces of fabric from farmer market

6. Liberty voile cotton from Entrée des fournisseurs

7. New fabric collection from Frou-frou found at Mercerie Moline

8. Fat quarters of floral prints from Frou-frou found at Mercerie Moline

Some great books and patterns

Motifs et compagnie found at Lil Weasel

Toute la couture found at Japanese bookstore

Aime comme Marie pant pattern found at Lil Weasel too

I couldn't resist for this new collection of "couture facile" from Frou-frou at the Moline mercerie.

This shop is a zoo but if you find the nice lady to help you it is a very nice experience.

Baby tiger booties

Pattern available 

Adorable 100% fine merino handknit booties, light grey color with Liberty of London ribbon (Meadow purple, red or Capel Mustard). 

Keeping baby feet warm and cosy is essential especially in the first days of a baby life. Ribbon will assure the booties are still one even if baby is on the move. 

Knitted in the round from top, cable cuff first, then top of the foot and finally finishing with the sides and the sole. 

I tried to avoid seaming as often as possible, to provide more comfort for babies.

Size

Fits baby from 0 to 6 months old

Gauge

28 sts and 34 rows = 10 cm/4", in st sts using US3 (3.25 mm)

Required materials

✏ 1 ball of Malabrigo Finito, fingering yarn, about 60 m or 70 yards

✏ US 3 (3.25 mm), a set of 5 DPN

✏ Cable needle

✏ 2x50cm of ribbon or bias

"Mille couleur" baby shower

A few baby shower gifts for a little girl who should be here any minutes now

Baby Mousse 

My own pattern in Berroco Vintage DK

Bias and buttons in Biais Fairford bois de rose

"Mille couleur" baby blanket

My own pattern in Rowan cashsoft DK

Main color cream, 

Mary Jane

Pattern from "Intemprels pour bébés" in Rowan cashsoft DK

More Baby Tiger Booties in Malabrigo Finito

Adorable 100% fine merino handknit booties, light grey color with Liberty of London ribbon (Meadow purple, red or Capel Mustard).

more are coming...

Baby Tiger Booties in Malabrigo Finito

Keeping baby feet warm is essential especially in the first days of a baby life.

These adorable baby tiger booties in very fine merino will keep their little feet warm and cosy.

Ribbon will assure the booties are still one even if baby is on the move ☺

100% super soft Merino wool from Malabrigo Finito

This luxurious yarn comes from the finest Uruguayan wool. It only comes to market ONCE a year in limited quantities!

Size 0 to 3 months

Ribbon Liberty of London Meadow purple

Assorted ribbon colors are avaialble (all Liberty of London).

My pattern

Care package "Made in France"

For me to enjoy...

✄ Liberty of London bias and fabric

✄ Flying colors Alpaca slik

✄ Books ("En famille" from La Droguerie, "Irrésistibles à tricoter" de Muriel Agator, "Layette" de Nadia Crétin - Léchenne)

✄ Haribo crocodile gummies, Yum!!

Liberty of London

Mustard

Purple

Orange

Green

Navy blue

Fushia

Turquoise

Light pink

1st graphic project, using my favorite Liberty of London ☺

(still need some practice...)

Going gaga over "Washi Tape" - Tutorial

I recently discovered the magic of Washi Tape or Masking Tape: this little Japanese transparent tape that you can scratch, use and reuse all the time. People use it for scrapbooking, letter, organizing, calendar and packaging.

Since it is full season of baby shower for me, I have to do a lot of packaging and love making it a little personal for each of the packages. I quickly learnt that with a little imagination and computer skills you can do miracle without spending any money.

Here is some of the supply I bought.

Even if I have very happy with my purchases, I started to want more, with my own logo or with printing sentences and turn to my computer for ideas. Pinterest is a good start. I was able to see what was possible to do. Unfortunately, I didn't have all the graphic softwares that were needed. So I resumed to my imagination and my skills to make it happen.

Here is an example of how I made some Liberty digital washi tape


Warning: You need to know Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop at an advance level or enough otherwise I might look like it is very complicated. I hope the picture are helping.
I am a beginner myself.

What you need:
- Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop or Photoshop Element (software)
- Scan
- Liberty fabric pictures or scan (work with any other print or fabric)

1 - I made a washi tape template (feel free to use it)

2 - Open Photoshop and clean the template, make the background transparent

3 - Then open Illustrator, place my new clean template. I made a colored background so I can see my template.

4 - Made my washi tape into a vector picture, (click on live trace, then expand) and change color to white

5 - Place the fabric scan picture, trace in color and expand then drag it to your swatch.

6 - Then select you washi tape vector picture and apply swatch.

7 - Copy and paste back in Photoshop and make a photo collage with your new digital washi tape. Adjust transparency if needed so it looks like a real one when you print on paper.

Repeat process a much I you like and creat many different washi tape.

Enjoy!!

A few days in LA

Stella Mc Cartney boutique on Beverly Blvd, in West Hollywood

A taylor store window on Larchmont Blvd

Santa Monica beaches

Bonpoint soap bag in Liberty

A new baby blanket on my needles

1st try-out - liberty fabric

Great sewing pattern from Albine de Flore for notebook liberty fabric cover. 

Even with limited French, all the pictures are enough to understand.

I had a French size notebook but smaller than the size in the pattern, 

it was easy to adapt the measurements.

Love the result for my 1st try-out with Liberty fabric

Liberty fabric and biais from MagCoquette

Button from Joann's