Merry Christmas

Made a little christmas felt hat for kitties! Merry Christmas everyone!

Cute cat shoes

I popped by Sew Convert's shoe paradise and went gaga over cute cat shoes! *runs around the house*

Shall I buy? Free shipping too! Gosh!! :D See more shoes here!

New book in the house

Before my entry, I would like to wish all teachers a happy teachers' day! Thank you for nurturing the next generation.

I always tell myself "I will not get any more sewing books after this book!" after purchasing a book. Next thing I know, I'm at the book store browsing at sewing books again. :D 

The following book, 'New Complete Guide to Sewing', was a gift from my dearest hubby. Very detailed and well illustrated! 

This is what happens when a guy wraps a gift. :P

A little peek at basic pattern alteration page. Lots of explanation.

Step by step guide to collars.

Definitely a very good buy! I hope I can stay true to that sentence - no more sewing books!

Burdastyle 10/2010 Tie-front Blouse

Tie-front Blouse, my first Burdastyle pattern attempt! I'm a Burdastyle size 36 girl.

The instructions were too brief for beginners to comprehend. I was progressing fine until step 5, which got me totally lost. Reading it 20 times didn't help, so I decided to follow my gut feel and proceed with whichever feels right. haha. :)

I'm taking a break after step 6 - attaching sleeves. Sneak peek!

- to be updated after completion -

Baby Hat

Peek a boo!

I see you!

Here's my back,

and the tag. :)

Made this cute baby hat some weeks back as a gift. I'll be making one for myself soon!

Faux Leather

I'm excited over my most recent fabric.com purchase! :)

Time for some clutches or pouches? 

NDP Preview Fireworks 2011

National Day Parade preview 2011 fireworks.

Taken from 62nd floor of The Sail @ Marina Bay.

Colour Pencil Wallet

Cousin's kiddo's 5th birthday celebration! I had to make something for Xavier boy. Went out with mum till late yesterday resulting in me waking up early this morning to make this. The pattern is based on Jennifer Casa's Crayon Wallet. Some changes I made - removed the centre pocket and widened the right pocket so that is fits an A6 notepad.

I realised my fabric stash doesn't have much boy choices. :( Thankfully there was a designer's fabric discount on fabric.com some time back. I reminded myself to get boy fabrics, and so I did, but what on earth was I thinking when I checked out with only 0.5yd of such cute Michael Miller fabric? =X

Front view! Vroooom vroooom!

Close up on the fabric button I made. Totally addictive! Matching buttons = happy me. I ended up making quite a bit of fabric buttons..

Open the wallet and you'll see the note pad!

Colour pencils on the left...

Full view. :)

Table Runner

Last Sunday afternoon was spent helping a friend shorten her table runner.

A table runner is easy to make if it drapes over the table edges, not when the table runner has to fit the table top surface cause that 0.5 cm shortage or excess will be very obvious. I hope this will fit my friend's table perfectly.

This is it! I unpicked all stitches, re-measured, cut, sewed all around.

Pictures time! Running across my table...

Running along my table.

Back view. The corner was thick and jutting out due to the double fold which prevent seams from fraying. So I sewed the corner flat first before sewing all 4 sides at one go.

Front view of stitches. Nice equal allowance. The way I like it. :)

Ensemble

Few weekends ago hubs decided to bring me for nice breakfast and I put together the skirt and reversible bag I made for the date! Love the wall and hence the pic!

Striped Flyer Holder

Remember the flyer holder I made last year? My friend's friend was frustrated with people stuffing flyers at her gate too and got referred to me by my friend. I dropped by her place to take measurements of gate and collect the yellow/white stripes fabric she bought. This was the first time I worked with fabric paint and stripes! I was very cautious trying to match stripes nicely, but still not perfectly matched in my eyes. Hope to work with strips again soon!

Take a closer look at the words! Are you interested to paint too? It's quite easy actually.

1. Print the word.
2. Placed the printout over the freezer paper
3. Cut out the alphabets from both printout and freezer paper (remember to have the glossy side facing right side of fabric)
4. Iron the freezer paper onto the right side of fabric
5. Mix colour if needed. I bought all basic colours (red, yellow, blue, white and black) so I can mix any colour I want. :)
6. Paint! Be careful not to paint out of the freezer paper
7. Dry the paint. You can blow dry with hairdryer or let it dry naturally if you have time
8. Paint second layer
9. Dry the paint. Keep painting and drying until desired.
10. Place a fabric over the area
11. Iron your design
12. Peel off the freezer paper
13. Touch up your design if needed. I usually use something sharp, like toothpick or satay stick.
14. Iron again and you are done! :D

Close up of the product.

Seems like a good time to replace existing flyer holder since our current one has faded due to prolonged sun exposure. :)

Long Scrap Wrap

I have many long scraps from previous projects which I can't bear to throw away. Okay, not just the long scraps that I don't throw, the smaller 2" by 2" scarps sits in my little box too. That little piece might come in useful for fabric buttons, don't you think so? :D

Anyway, I just came back from Australia and was thinking how I should wrap the pens that didn't come with packaging. The long scraps came into my mind immediately. This was what I achieved on 2nd try using fabric scarps from my Peasant Dress.

Basically, wrap across to cover both ends of the pens, then wrap around like how you would with badminton racquet grips, ensuring sufficient overlapping of fabrics (about 1cm for this project), finish it with tucking in the end of the fabric into one end of the pen using pointed tool.

Next, use fabric paint to drop a little note. :) Tip: Use tooth pick or satay sticks to write with fabric paint. I find it much neater compared to brush.

All ready to go to its new owner! :D

Farewell Gifts - Personalised towels

Do you like receiving towels? Cute designs, soft, thick fluffy towels that comes in many sizes, I love it! So much my friends told me not to buy towels for Christmas gift exchanges. :D Towels were the first thing that came to my mind when I thought about what farewell gifts to give my colleagues.

Tadaaaaa. Personalised towels, names embroidered with my machine (now you know who I worked with).

My last few words were delivered in paper hearts with black/white wooden pegs.

Hope they liked it. :)

Kitchen tip

Sadly, home cooked food is usually accompanied by oily mess. Throw in the minced garlic and it jumps up (and out), fry a sunny side up and oil splatters all over, boil porridge/soup and the liquid overflows...

I got tired of cleaning the stove each time after cooking. So I learned from a friend and lined the stove with aluminium foil. Why didn't I think of it earlier?!

Cleaning should reduce from every cooking to once a month! :)

Little hiatus

Too much energy and emotional draining events going in my life recently resulting in the lack of updates. But this blog was definitely not forgotten.

The last 2 months I was....
Tired due to pregnancy,
Drained due to miscarriage,
Busy due preparation of a 2 week trip.

Now I am...
Getting the house in order,
Thinking and missing my sewing machines,
Ready to get another go in life.

Hang on, I will be back soon...

Changi Chapel & Museum

My colleague & I made a trip to Changi Chapel & Museum near our workplace after 4 years in Singapore Prison Headquarters. We had to sneak there during lunch time! :D

In honouring the spirit and commitment of those who rose from the depths of adversity, the Museum inspires future generations to come and deepen their appreciation of the heroic and inspirational stories that unfolded in Changi during the war. The Changi Museum is dedicated to all those who lived and died in Singapore, in particular the Changi area, during the dark years of World War II.

Main entrance

The Chapel.

Well wishes and messages from visitors.

Tsurus (Japanese cranes) at the museum. Messages of world peace were left by Japanese visitors.  More info on Tsuru here.

Sand from Changi Beach, believed to be the first killing ground in Singapore. It was the site for the massacre of 66 Chinese men by the Japanese soldiers.

There were many exhibits surrounding the chapel (photography not allowed) - stories and pictures of Prisoner of Wars, old Changi Prison and its workshops. The trip was educating. :)


Address
1000, Upper Changi Road North, Singapore 507707

Operation hours
9:30am - 5:00pm daily; last admission at 4.30pm
(Including Sundays and Public Holidays)

Admission
Free

Getting There
By MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) and Bus

SBS Bus No. 2 from Tanah Merah MRT Station (EW4), or
SBS Bus No. 29 from Tampines MRT Station (EW2)
Alight at the bus stop at the Changi Museum (after Women's Prison / opposite Changi Heights condominium)

Source(s):
http://www.changimuseum.com/Home.aspx

Silhouette

Have you heard or seen about Silhouette? It connects to your computer like a printer, but it cuts paper/vinyl instead of printing. Retails price US$299.99.


What the machine is capable of:

• Scrapbook pages
• Cards Custom apparel 
• Vinyl décor 
• Etched glass 
• Sketch designs 
• Temporary tattoos 
• Paper crafts

I've seen how awesome this digital cutting machine is and I'm absolutely tempted in all directions to make a purchase whenever I see it on promotion *pulls hair*.

Feel free to check out the website or Sihouette Flickr group to view projects. I am particularly impressed with Make it and Love it's creations here. Enjoy!

Get well soon cake

I spent my morning making a get well soon cake for my freelance baker friend, See Toh Jia Xin. We've known each other since 7years old! :)

She is in the operating theatre now for her back surgery. Pray that God will watch over her and bless her with a successful operation!!

The cake was a perfect hat for kitty Summer before attaching the bottom tier.



The cake..

And, here is Summer, posing with his 'hat' before it's gone. :P