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Sashiko Coasters

Finally got round to completing the set of 5 coasters after choosing the backing fabric. Although the Sashiko coaster kit just require you to sew up the sides without any batting or backing, I chose to add on a lightweight iron on interface and a backing fabric.

I chose a dark Japanese print Kaufman fabric (almost black) with Kanji prints on it. I feel that it brings out the Japanese-ness of the Sashiko stitching.
I’m looking forward to completing the rest of the Sashiko kits!

Fabric Gift-wrap

Last Sunday, we celebrated a crafty friend’s baby girl’s 3rd birthday. I decided to use the remnants of my Ikea ‘mini-bolt’ to wrap up this gift, so that the mummy can have some fun making her little girl stuffs too!

1) The present was first wrapped up with kraft paper first. Then I was deciding if I should use safety pins to pin the folds in place or fabric glue, or a ribbon to tie it all up?! Then DH had a brilliant idea for my to sew everything in place!
2) So, I ‘wrapped’ up the present as you would with your gift wrap paper. And pin and pin and pin the fabric into position.
3) Using a darning needle or similar, run your stitches along the edge of your fabric. Make sure you catch the bottom fabric! This is where the initial brown paper comes into play. The brown paper prevents ‘injury’ to the box when I stabbed too hard through the fabrics, etc.
As for the thread, I just use a single strand of polyester-cotton thread to sew this baby. No need to use strong threads as I wanted the gift recipient to be able to rip out the threads easily, and not damage the fabric!
You can consider the stitches to be almost like ‘basting stitches’, instead of real quilty stitches ;>
Lastly, I pinned a gift tag to the present with a curved safety pin. Sorry, no pic here. Did it on the fly just as the gang was at the door waiting to go for the party! :>

Distracted

It’s been a while since my last post. Not to say that there has been much going-ons, but on the sewing side, it has been a bit more quieter ;> Not a bad thing, actually.

Let me explain.
We took another road trip with the family to Malaysia again, and it was great! We enjoyed the cool air of Cameron Highlands and of course, the yummy food. I packed away my sewing machine and cleared out my sewing corner before we left because there was some renovations done in our absence. I have not reinstated the machines, mats, etc because the work is still not done to our satisfaction yet.
BUT I have been hand quilting every night for the past 2 weeks, and it IS getting easier and quicker (relatively) for me. I have completed 2 blocks and starting on the 3rd one now.
The other reason why I have not caught up with AmandaJean’s QAL is also because of this:
My hubby bought this for my ‘small’ 3-0 birthday. And we have been racing each other at MarioKart at every chance we get! :>
Ta, for now. I will be back with more news of ‘gifts’ I bought for myself! hahaha.

What a month!

Back from our vacation, and I think I need another one again! ;> It was Benji’s first flight and I’d say he did quite well. Don’t think he was very comfortable in our laps though as he is so used to having his own seat in our cars. And too bad that I only realised infant flight vests (or for lap held babies) are available after our trip. I strongly encourage people who travel with small babies to get one of these. We could not get car seats for the kids in our tour van and we had to carry Benji in our laps again. It was uncomfortable and nerve-wrecking at some points of the journey through the Bangkok traffic. Again, we would have felt safer if he had the vest secured to our seat belt.

And since our return, my time for sewing was affected when my folks took off on their own vacation. So, I had Benji all to myself for 2 weeks, and could only reply my emails during his naps and bed time. BUT I managed to squeeze in some therapeutic and quality time with my projects ;>
1. Banana Milkshake Shrug
I finally completed the shrug made for my good friend and Benji’s Godma. Meant for her BIG THREE-O birthday and I hope she likes it! I hope she will remember to take a picture of herself wearing it ;> It was really a joy to make this for a good friend, and very easy!
2. Soft book for Baby Joey
My friend’s youngest, Joey (6 months old), went into surgery the week before for her heart problems. She just got discharged from the hospital and we are all looking forward to her speedy recovery. This is the same soft book panel I made for Benji before, but then I did not have the embroidery function on my old Singer. This time, I had Joey’s name stitched in place for her with the Bernina 440 :>
3. Trip Around The World
I completed basting the lap-sized quilt and what a sense of accomplishment. Yes, it might not be a big quilt, but it was most challenging to squeeze time to get this quilt done within this busy and tiring month.
I had some strips left over and decided to make a pieced backing. I’m not bothered whether the strip is dead center – horizontal or vertical, I’d rather have it asymmetrical. I think it works better for this small quilt.
Actually I could have completed the quilt top earlier. But I found myself a few inches short of the outer border all around because I forgot to include the inner border’s width! I tried to take a short cut by piecing the border to make it longer. I deliberated for a few days after I ‘fixed it’. Ultimately, I could not bring myself to accept the mistake and ripped out the entire outer border, cut new ones and sewed it back on. I’m glad I did that. This is how one of the mitered corners of the borders turned out.
It is now sitting at a corner of my sewing table, ready to be quilted. I really hope that this could be ready before my birthday at the end of June. Not sure if I’m going to keep this quilt for myself – if yes, it will be my 30th birthday present for myself, if not, I’d give it for my mom who helped me babysit my boy during my quilting sessions!
And THANK YOU to all who have left nice and encouraging comments in my blog. I’m still pretty new to all the sewing stuff and sometimes wonder if I’m making sense about what I blogged (??). But ultimately, I want to share about what I’m doing, the mistakes I made (so you won’t make the same), and the tips I discovered, and to give back to the craft blog community since I have been so inspired by many of your blogs :>
Have a great rest-of-week ahead!