Okay - these items are not really ‘tools’. However they are little-known life-savers for sewers and scrapbookers.

Tame your stash!

Recently, I ordered a bunch of Floss Bobbins and storage cases that come with a bobbin winder to help solve my unruly, tangled mess of embroidery floss from my cross-stitching days.

Why  floss bobbins?

1) Free up your machine bobbins: I transferred the sewing threads from my almost-empty bobbins to these bobbin cards. The threads on the cards will be used for my handsewing projects.

2) Portability: Carrying threads/floss on the bobbin cards is easier, compared to a large spool that tends to roll off my sewing table. I can stuff the card into my sewing box with no problems at all!

3) Organisation: Organising your thread/floss stash is very easy with the cards which you can label. Best of all, you can wrap the ends of the threads around the ‘legs’ of the bobbins and you don’t get unraveled mess of threads in your stash box!

4) Labeling: Half way through a skein of floss, the label bit with the ID number will DEFINITELY fall off and leaving my remaining skein anonymous With these floss bobbins, you label the DIRECTLY on the card. I LOVE THAT!

Here’s a walk-through on how I set-up the winder and got flossing! But the winder is NOT a requirement. You can always wind the thread/floss by hand.

1,000 pcs of plastic floss bobbins

Set up the winder unto the case.

Insert the winder on the ONE side of the case WITH the DIVIDER.

With the empty bobbin, insert side with the hole into the slot of the winder

Match up the hole in the bobbin with the hole in the winder.

Insert the little plastic pin into the hole.

Wind one end of the floss through one 'leg' of the bobbin.

Crank winder, filling bobbin with floss. When you reach the end, wrap the end bit around the leg of the bobbin.

Posted in Tools | 4 Comments »

The princess snowball quilt was delivered to G earlier this week. It is such a girly sweet quilt.

I gotta make me more baby quilts! The size is more manageable and quicker to piece compared to larger bed quilt.

More straight line quilting, using the variegated thread. I pulled out more fabrics for a couple of baby-sized projects. But those will have to wait a little more as I’m working on a couple of special hand sewing projects. More to show soon!

Tags: baby quilt, Fabrics, Quilt
Posted in Fabrics, Quilt, Sewing | No Comments »

Zoo Quilt - Stack N’ Whack blocks. Started around Jul’08 and I finally put in the final stitches over the New Year holiday.

one of my fav. blocks

This quilt was meant for Benji’s big-boy bed, which we have yet to set it up. It turned out bigger than I originally planned for, because I could resist including the cute prints in the borders!

I’m glad this quilt is done-done. This quilt was ‘basted’ and put away waiting to be quilted for many months. And I had to drag it out of cold storage because I needed to use the curved safety pins to baste the snowball quilt! I thought I could quilt a couple of  lines to release some pins, deliver the snowball quilt and return to finish quilting it later. But once I got started, I just could not stop!

I really love this quilt and I think this quilt will be with my baby for a long long time ;>

Posted in Sewing | 1 Comment »

This I gotta post even though I have work up to my eyeballs.

They were on SALE! I bought 2 pairs of shoes from the store and even though they ran out of my size for this pair of Twins, I just GOT to have it. For this pair, I settled for 1 size biggier and bought in-soles to make the shoes fit better… Desperate times call for desperate moves ;>

Cross-stitched motifs. STINKING CUTE, eh?

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The headlines in today’s papers caught my attention. The was my exact sentiment as I put away my son’s gift wrapping, the boxes/plastics that the toys are clothes were packaged in and also the left-over Christmas pastries in the pantry. It is really scary reading how much waste (esp. food waste) is generated in this festive period.

Over at our household, we are also trying to cut down the volume of trash that gets dumped in our garbage bins. We try to repair, reuse, recycle as much as we possibly can. One ‘green’ item is my fav re-usable bag: the Ikea Big Blue Bag:

image from ikea.com

We always have a couple of these bags in our car. They are great for carrying grocery, esp. the heavy bottles, or cartons, etc that the normal plastic bags can’t hold anyway. These bags are strong and easy to clean out. Best of all, they are guaranteed for life!

This year, I didn’t spend a single cent on gift wrapping paper either. All my gift items are either packaged in my Midnight craft sandwich baggies (made from recycled paper), tied with baker’s twine or with cute piece of decor tape. For bulkier items, I made gift bags and tried my hand at furoshiki wrapping too.

Handmade drawstring gift bags

1 yard of Ikea fabric, wave-cut, rubber bands at both ends & finished with ribbons

Furoshiki-style fabric gift wrapping

Fabric gift wraps are absolutely wonderful to make and to use. For the furoshiki wrap, I simply folded the fabrics selvedge to selvedge, right sides together, leaving a small gap to turn the wrap around. And I top stitch the square fabric and closed the gap. It was perfect for Baby Elliot’s soft book.

Tags: fabric gift wrapping, Fabrics, family, green living
Posted in Fabrics, Gifting, Sewing | No Comments »

I love making things for my friends. But it is a constant internal debate whether the recipient will appreciate the handmade gift - the effort and resources taken to produce the item. Or will they feel shortchanged by a ‘home-made’ item vs. a store bought gift? So sometimes, I tend make an item, and then buying something else from the store to ‘make up the value’ of the gift.

Thus my handmade gifting code is more or less this: Give handmade gifts to friends who craft (they will appreciate the effort behind the projects).

Of course, I’m not entirely strict with my code ;> I absolutely LOVE to create things for the little ones. Hopefully their parents will appreciate a little handmade goodness injected in their young lives. Here are 2 soft books I put together (from panels) for the babies’ 1st Christmas.

Mummy Goosey nursery rhymes

Embroidered on my Bernina 440

A baby sign language book for Baby Elliot

and all you need is LOVE

Posted in Sewing | 1 Comment »

A special commissioned quilt for G’s baby niece. It took a while for me to put this together (due to work, health, etc) but after I got the fabrics cut, everything came together very easily. I really enjoyed working on this top. Now, I’m planning for the quilt back to work in a special border fabric which I love very much. Stay tuned!

The snowball/jewel quilt top done!

A close-up of a princessy snowball block

Tags: baby quilt, Fabrics, Quilt
Posted in Quilt, Sewing | 2 Comments »

Happy holidays, everyone!

It has been a long long time time since I have posted an entry to this blog. BUT I’m gonna make up with some pictures of crafty gifts and some sewing I did since November very shortly.

And as we draw closer to the end of year, it is also time for some crafty reflections. 2009 has really been a fantastic crafting year: I bought more fabrics that I can store in my rooms, bought myself lots of notions and gadgets, attended workshops and completing my quilts (2 of them!). And in this year, Mama G helped to give Midnight Crafts a beautiful skin and with this new identity, I set up shop on Etsy in around May and also created my 1st (and only) Facebook Page.

All 3 platforms give me opportunities to reach out to the crafty community and I have received so much in return with each sale/purchase and also with each ‘fan’ of the page. THANK YOU, everyone!

A very special Thank You goes out to Clara, a sweet local customer who bought some items from my Etsy shop earlier in Nov. And about 2 weeks after the sale, I received a very cool package from Clara.

She made me a personalised notebook and I appreciate all the hardwork that went into creating this beauty: cutting the motif, layering the pieces, setting the eyelets, etc. After a couple of workshops at Made With Love, now I know how scrapbooking is not be sniffed at. Not only you require the creative eye to set everything in their places, you also need to have the right materials and tools to make things happen (just like the tools for putting a quilt together!).

I don’t receive a lot of handmade gifts and this is just something I will treasure for a long time to come. Thank You, Clara, for your thoughtfulness!

It is certainly the most wonderful time of the year!

Tags: blog, facebook, Scrapbooking
Posted in Gifting | No Comments »

Yummy! Delicious baker’s twines are in the shop now! All purchases in November will receive 10 yards of baker’s twine FREE

:: Snowflake - 4 ply Bakers Twine - 20 yard per snowflake ::

:: Popsicle - 4 ply Bakers Twine - 50 yard per stick ::

:: Upcycled Tags with Twine ::

:: Twine and Tags SET - 60pcs pre-cut Twine AND 60pcs assorted Upcycled Tags ::

Posted in Sewing | 1 Comment »

The whole family was taking turns catching the cold/flu/sinus bugs. I had no bandwidth to craft, sew, or take any photos. The only thing that kept me sane was the occasional sale and convos from the Etsy shop. Hopefully, I’ll have more to share in Nov!

This Halloween, we were invited to a friend’s place for dinner and trick & treating around their neighborhood. The weather was DREARY. It rained and rained and stormed some more. But after dinner, the rain let up some and we brought the kids out for some spooky fun!

Talk about last minute ‘inspiration’, I whipped up this outfit from 12-1am Friday night. I don’t have any solid black fabric for the zig zag and had to make-do by using the reverse of a black fabric that has some grey swirls on the front. I used Therm O Web’s Strong No Sew fusible webbing and ironed the zig zag straight unto the T-shirt. Not a stitch sewn!

Forward looking: I ordered a WHOLE bunch of delicious baker’s twine (in various colours!) for the holiday season and I’ve been prepping them for a secret project. More about that later!

Tags: Fabrics, family, halloween, t-shirt
Posted in Kids | No Comments »