Archive / Sewing

It’s a wrap!

It’s raining babies here! :> Seriously, I have no idea what the government is talking about when they say we are not having enough babies. The gynae’s office is always packed, the malls are filled with families with strollers, babies/kids everywhere in the zoo, etc… Then again, I have been visiting ‘kiddy-friendly’ places hence the observation may be a ‘little’ skewed :p

A friend delivered earlier this month and I dugged out my old nursing cover and created a new one based on the pattern.

It’s a double-sided cover, with a flexible boning strip to give you some ‘view’ to the nursing child. I used the cover as a stroller cover too when the baby’s asleep and you want to keep the lights out and curious aunties poking their faces into the stroller :p

The backing is a japanese 100% cotton brown striped fabric which is very soft.

I think its a great gift: The shops sell them for quite a bit of $$! With a cover, I don’t have to wear a nursing top or risk flashing my boobies at anyone!

Speaking of modesty, we were out at the zoo a couple of weeks back and when I neared the gibbons section, I noticed a yummy-mummy, in a nice denim tube dress, seating at the bench with a fussing baby. What surprised me was that she popped her breast out of the dress, before she positioned her baby to nurse. Hmmmm… Talk about self-confidence! hahaha

Book Me

I picked up some notebooks from an old favourite store Muji at Paragon over the weekend. They gave 10% off the stationery supplies. Whoopee!

I’m in a bit of a sewing rut at the moment. Nothing pretty or productive coming out of the machine or cutting table. But good news is that I’m handquilting on an old WIP, sash by sash, cornerstone by cornerstone each evening.

Since the needle in the machine is quite old, I’ve been sewing some recycled papers together for scribble pads around the house. There’s never paper or pen when you need one and when you don’t, they are all over the house for your to pack them up.

And I jazzed up the notebooks with some iron-on experiments. And I made some for my brother – who knows better than to criticise my workmanship, or lack of. Haha.

This is a simple iron-in. I don't really like how 'bare' it looks - and the edges are not 'pretty' enough.

There, much better! I tried another scrap fabric appliqued to the book, using a zig-zag stitch.

The T-shirt

I’ve been thinking about doing up an appliqued t-shirt for Benji… for a long long time.

This is a good tradition to start – a birthday shirt! Sadly, I missed out 1 :p

Really happy how this turned out – although I’m a still a bit lost about which stabilizer I should use. Here, I used a tear-away for the number ‘2’. For ‘I’m’ – I used an iron-on stabilizer which I think its a bit too stiff. I used the iron-on because I was terrified that when I ‘tear-away’ the stabilizer, it would rip up the t-shirt! Guess I need to experiment a bit more :p

All the Mother-care or Gap clothings that have embroidery or appliques use some kind of iron to protect the threads from chafing the baby’s skin. Any ideas what it is and where I can find it?

Trip Around The World – DONE DONE

I’ve been loving this project since Day 1. The top got done quite quick and then I put it away after basting it for quilting. I meant for this project to be my 30th present for myself. But that came and went, and I didn’t get it quilted in time.

Over the New Year, my only craft-related resolution was: Finish what I have started, before I start something that I don’t finish (quickly) again. So, in the past weeks, I have been doing small projects for the home and for the boy – more about those later on. I’ve pieced 3 more backings for my completed tops so that I can get them quilted and Done Done sooner.

With a good friend’s birthday around the corner, I thought I’d gift the TATW to her – as I remembered her liking it when I showed her the WIP. So, it was a few days of intense quilting during Benji’s naps & bedtime. Here’s the final product! It’s a lap-sized square quilt, but it covered just the top of my Queen-size barely.

I simply enjoyed putting the binding on and handsewing the back down – I was like: Done already?! . Never mind that the mitered border & the mitered binding don’t match much, it’s still my pride and joy :>

I quilted in straight lines with the walking foot – even then my lines are not all that straight!

Here’s how the back of the quilt looks like. LOVE IT.

For the label, I grabbed a verse from Dorothy Parker – how apt for a quilty gift for a friend! :>

Full Circle

Yes, yet another new toy :> I’ve been collecting all these ‘sewing toys’ like how we are collecting Thomas train sets for Benji :p I HEART my sewing toys ;>

Here’s a ‘must have’ tool for cutting circles! It’s the Olfa rotary circle cutter which I bought at Popular Bookstore during their year end sale.

This circle was cut WITHOUT any stabilizer, freezer paper, etc. It just works! I used it for the self covering button bought at Spotlight many moons back.

I’m already planning another project cutting up circles from my scraps for a home decor project. Hopefully I’ll get to that soon! :>