It’s been a while since I have updated the store. Husband has been kind enough to take some shots of the items when playing around with his camera.

Christmas really comes early this year as we have already packed and given away our 1st gifts (teachers & classmates).

And to get you started on your christmas shopping, here’s a 10% off coupon code (Yes! Including Olfa items): xmas2011

Valid till 31 December 2011 and applicable for all items listed on Etsy.

// Zipper Pouches //

// Premium Grade Lavender Sachets //

Posted in Crayon Wallet, Gifting, Hand Quilting, Hexagons, Kitchen, Sewing | No Comments »

The new I Spy baby quilt is simply NOT working out for me. I bought this softbook panel a long time ago. But decided that it was too big and flimsy to be a good soft book, although it would probably make a great I Spy quilt instead.

I took a long time cutting and piecing the quilt, and another good few months before I sandwiched the quilt. I got the quilting done ONLY because I needed to free up some space in my WIP drawer. So, its a ‘difficult’ quilt for me since the start.

Benji loves the quilt and had a great time reading the text and ’spying’ the images. But he declared it as ‘TOO SMALL’ for his bed. My son loves big quilts that have generous overhang. Sigh…

The ultimate blow was when I realised that the binding was a real hot mess - fabric is from Sevenberry - and even after 5 rounds of Synthrapol treatment, the binding could not be saved (although I got the reds from the main quilt out).

Now, I’m wondering if I should simply rip out the binding or leave it as-is???

Posted in Gifting, Quilt, Sewing, Sewing Bloopers | 1 Comment »

MamaG & Chris are very good friends of the family. And we were really happy for them when they told us they were getting married in July. Although we could not travel to France for their summer wedding celebrations, we are glad that we could be a part by helping with their wedding favours for the event.

The couple decided on personalised, double-sided napkins that the guests would use and bring home as keepsake at their wedding luncheon.

The napkins were professionally embroidered with the couple’s name and wedding date.

The napkins were made with my stash of Essex cotton-linen and Amy Butler’s Diasy Chain collection purchased from Needle and Thread.

I have enough fabrics left over to put together a table topper, though i wish I had more time to stitch down the binding by hand instead of machine.

I’m really glad to be part of the wedding with the construction of the favours. And I’m definitely looking forward to sewing for their little ones in the future too!

And closer to home, my sister got married earlier this year after months of preparation. As the wedding lunch was a cosy affair, the couple wanted to do something special for the guests. We made lovely lavender sachets filled with high grade french lavender buds, and sewn with custom-printed fabrics by Spoonflower and patches from my stash.

7 years ago, when we had our wedding celebrations, I was not sewing yet - so no such goodies for our own guests. But we tried to put our personal touch wherever we could like commissioning an illustration of both of us which we put on our custom-design/printed invite cards, church wedding programme booklet, dinner menu (we included a foreword explaining why we were not serving shark’s fin soup, since it is ALMOST a tradition to serve the dish at every Chinese wedding banquets), even stickers!

At the wedding dinner, we gave away candies that we ordered from Roc Candy in Australia. I realise that we didn’t have a good shot of the candy (all our wedding photos were shot on film!) but I found it on Roc’s website - although I remembered that the colour of the ‘rind’ was multi-colour, instead of green. I think.

I guess I will be sewing baby gifts next for my friends?

Posted in Gifting, Sewing | 1 Comment »

This is my “Luke Quilt” that was requested by a good friend last year. I delivered some goodies to her first and then went on to drag my feet for another 12 months before I finished the quilt for ‘not-so-baby-now Luke’.

This baby quilt - a single Log Cabin block, is a huge 50″ square that took about 2 solid days of quilting that my left my arms aching quite a bit. The puffiness of some of the sections here are due to the fact that it came out of the dryer in the morning and I left it folded until I took the shots.

I used some of my precious Japanese fabrics that we hand-carried back to Singapore, and also Denyse Schmidt’s lovely prints. It has ‘Lego-like’ bricks, space shuttles, transportation prints and lots of dots, stripes and plaids.

For the back, I pieced the left-over prints from the front with Kona Essex Linen - Solid White. The white linen really showed off the variegated quilting thread that I used on this quilt.

According to the mummy, Luke took this quilt to bed the very night I delivered it to their home.

Wishing you many sweet dreams with this quilt, Luke!

Tags: baby quilt, friends, japanese fabrics, Quilt
Posted in Gifting, Quilt, Sewing | No Comments »

Halloween is becoming a fun excuse for me to dress up Benji for our get-togethers with friends. And who says you can only have fun dressing up little girls?

Last year, we had a fuss-free outfit and Benji was not totally clued in on what was going on!

This year, it was as clear as daylight what he would enjoy being costumed as… I present: Young Ben Kenobi!

I have the Taftc apparel pattern and sewing course to thank for the confidence to work on this project with the Simplicity 3575 pattern. The Dad said that the costume should not have a sash but I included it anyway to keep the layers from getting into the boy’s way.

For fabric, I used this lovely brown Essex Linen that I bought a long long time ago. There are a few learnings from this project:

1) Buy the pattern from the store, instead of purchasing the softcopy. I had to print 41 pages on my printer and used about 2 rolls of tapes taping the pages together. Even then, some lines were wonky. TEDIOUS!

2) The sleeves and robe length were way too long even when I used a XS child size which listed the same measurements as Benji’s.

3) The pattern doesn’t provide overlocking instructions or seam finishing recommendations. I will simply overlock every piece of fabric cut-outs in the future.

4) The sleeves were too long for my Son, and I decided to ‘hem’ the sleeves with the Blind Hem Stitch. I found it much easier to hem the narrower ‘tube’ by hand.

5) For the robe hem, I finally got to use my blind hem footer on the Bernina as it is meant to be used! It was so easy and it really works great on the garment.

Looking forward to next year’s dress-up already!

Tags: Fabrics, family, halloween, t-shirt
Posted in Clothings, Gifting, Kids, Sewing, Stash Report | 1 Comment »

In a bit of a quilting funk now. And of course, in a bit of Blogging funk too.

Been doing LOADS of online shopping though and indulging in my ‘renewed’ handsewing love: Cross stitching.

A Permin of Copehagen kit. Stitching in Progress

Back to my ‘counting’ now ;> Ta!

Posted in Gifting, Sewing | 1 Comment »

A couple of weeks ago, I had a few quick finishes. I remember being really happy, working on these projects. Because I got bust some Japanese fabrics that I was in danger of hoarding and also trying my 1st bias binding, and my virgin attempt at crafting with the baby strap hardware.

Cot-sized quilt made with ultra-cute Anpan man pre-quilted fabric, hand sewn bias binding

Stroller-sized blankie made with 100% cotton and backed with flannel.

I remember spending quite a bit of $ on ugly binky straps and general straps to tether items near Benji when he was little. So, I whipped up a couple of straps for Baby L that not only function as binky straps, but also as the tether strap for the stroller blankie.

Kawaii fabric tapes (for stroller blankie and binky straps) from Moopie Fabrics.

Tags: binky straps, fabric tapes, Japan
Posted in Books and Patterns, Fabrics, Gifting, Kids, Quilt, Sewing, Star QAL, Stash Report, Tools | No Comments »

I’ve not been a good girl when it comes to deadlines for the past 2 weeks.

Last week, we shared a super yummy Mother’s Day dinner at my mom’s (yes, she cooked. Insisted that we should not get ripped off by the restaurants, and we can always buy her expensive meals anytime :p). I whipped up some last minute small-ish gifts for her then. Well, I didn’t plan to make anything too elaborate because we celebrated my mom’s birthday at the end of April and I gifted the Star Quilt for the ocassion. The weather then was dreary for many days and I did not manage to take a decent before I gave it to her. But I did snap a quite picture at the restaurant that evening.

Week 5: 3 May - 9 May

In: 0 yds(so far!)

Out: 2 yds (more for string quilt, coin purse and zipper pouches for mom)

YTD total:
Purchased: 24.59 yds
Busted: 9.75 yds
net: -14.84 yds

Tags: Fabrics, Quilt, Stash Report
Posted in Gifting, Star QAL, Stash Report | No Comments »

I have been receiving emails asking if I sew stuffs for ‘adults’ for sale, other than the crayon wallets that I list on Etsy. Well, while I do make fabric covered button book marks, Quilted applique notebooks, bobby pins, etc. But sewing wise, I have yet to list anything for people above ‘crayon-age’.

BUT I have been sewing pouches and clutch purses for friends over the holidays and I do love how they turned out. A very nice lady helped de-mystify zippers by showing me how it actually works!

Zipper pouch + matching key fobs

Fabrics from Denyse Schmidt

Besides the Zipper, I finally took the plunge and ordered some clutch frames from Etsy. I loved how they all turned out! Ok, my Stash is 70% kiddy fabrics (and most of them scream ‘boys’), but what came to my rescue was this lovely local online store Needle and Thread - check out the website, prices have been revised down! YAAY!. Magdalene delivered the fabrics the very next day after I placed my order and I knew they were perfect for my friends.

Amy Butler and Art Gallery Fabrics.

Revive by Art Gallery Fabrics

So YES! I will be sewing more zipper pouches, clutch purses, card holders, etc… I can’t wait till the end of this tax season, get over a couple of day-job projects so that I can clear my brain and get started soon. Sewing for the Shoppe is such a wonderful excuse to buy more lovely fabrics!

Tags: clutch frame purse, Fabrics, friends, zipper pouch
Posted in Bags and pouches, Fabrics, Gifting, Sewing, Shop | 2 Comments »

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 »