Denim Pencil Case

A small project I sewed these last days - a new pencil case. Both of my children are already in university, but my nephew is still in school and I thought he might like a new pencil case for the beginning of the new school year. I used three different color old jeans and the labels from one of the pairs to add some color and interest to the case. The pouch is basically the same as an old one I made for Gaby years ago and I followed the same photo tutorial.

: The case is fairly big and it fits quite a lot of drawing supplies

: The final dimensions are 26 cm x 14 cm x 5 cm

: First I made a rectangle out of five straps of denim 5 x 31 cm and then I cut a second solid color rectangle 18 x 31 cm.

: All four rectangles - the outer denim layer and the inner cotton ranforce layers are lined with fusible.

: As my nephew lives on the Black sea coast, the idea was to have a sea theme - various colors of blue, fish on the jeans label and anchors on the ranforce lining.

: I hope he likes his new pencil case.

Rilska Skakavitza in the Summer, 2019

In February we hiked for the second time to the frozen Rilska Skakavitza waterfall - one of my favourite places in Rila. I thought that this place couldn't look more spectacular than how we saw it then - deep shiny white snow and green pines, covered with frost. This Sunday we climbed to the waterfalls again and saw the valley in color for the first time. And now I'm torn which is more impressive - the calm and potent beauty of the frozen mountain or the colorful scenery of water running, jumping and falling among flowers, grasses and ripe raspberries.

Skakavitza hut

Denim Joy

Almost two months ago I knitted another Kim Hargreaves's cardigan - Joy. It is one of my most favourite patterns and knitting it with this delicious Drops Muscat 100% cotton was truly joy. The cardigan is a surprise present, which is the reason I'm posting about it so late.

Two months later I have almost forgotten the modifications I made. I knitted the body seamlessly and elongated it a bit, my gauge was different from the pattern, so I made my own calculations - and I made the button holes much smaller than the described in the pattern. And did I mention that this is my third Joy and I still don't have one for myself :)

Pattern: Joy by Kim Heargreaves
Yarn: Garnstudio Drops Muskat  100% cotton, 450 g
Needle: 3.5 mm, 4 mm
Time to knit: one month

This must be one of my most favourite photosessions ever! We were hiking in Rila today and I had brought the cardigan with the dress and the shoes in the car for an eventual photosession. And then on our way back I noticed this field with rolls of hay. What a perfect scenery!

Rila in the background, rolls of hay in front, love it!

Bosnek 2019

Yesterday was a day for major home repairs - husband and I changed the panels of the suspended ceiling in the bathroom. It may sound easy-peasy and we naively did imagine it to be that, but it turned out to be A LOT of work - almost all of the new panels had to be cut to fit the openings (without the tools construction companies use), the light fixtures had to be installed in the new panels, some construction foam was involved to repair gaps in the ceiling that were revealed once the old panels were dismantled and on, and on. Plus all the cleaning afterwards ...
Anyway, suspecting that we'll be pretty busy in the afternoon (it took us until midnight), in the morning we decided to go on an easy hike to one of our most favourite of all places - Bosnek, a village at the southern skirts of Vitosha. And I'm glad we did - we came back home from the 10 km hike energized and ready to take on the bathroom :)