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???
I started this Lanarte pattern around April this year and just completed it earlier in September.
I chose to leave the season name in Dutch just for the fun of it. The project is actually quite small, stitched unto 100% evenweave, but its a fun and easy pattern. Looking forward to completed set (I’m working on Winter now!), though I have no idea if I should frame it individually or sew them together as 4 blocks… If you are interested in this kit, you can get it from Cross Stitch Joy here.
And I said: ok! mummy will make you a cape. I started to dream about what fabrics, pattern, etc to use. But due to work & the sewing area still snowed under by fabrics/mess/projects, I did not manage to get that cape made for many weeks.
Last week, my son came home from my mom’s place with aA2070-443
vinyl mat taken from a toy set and asked me to clip it around him, so that it could be his ‘cape’. That kind of broke my heart to see him dragging that piece of material all over the room.
Cue 10-min shopping at Spotlight for satin fabrics and I got down to sewing it today. Drafted a quick pattern and involved Benji quite a bit (for measurements, customisation of insignia, etc). After a couple of hours, we got CAPE!
He grabbed his Lego Castle helmet and Star Wars lightA2070-580 saber (aka Lance or Sword) and stood in front of my full length mirror for some practice moves. I had to sneak a couple of photos while he was in action 😉
And once again, I’m really glad for my sewing stash – interfacing and BLACK velcro that I bought long ago without a project in mind (perfect for these ‘just in case’ situations).
Here we are: on the way for dinner and he made a beeline for the garden so that he could admire his reflections in the glass doors and running in the open to get wind under his cape.
At bedtime, he asked me for a super-hero cape, with a lightning bolt on it, please.
Feeling a little peckish on this cool rainy afternoon. A sunny side up, perhaps?
Nah. What about grilled cheese sandwich instead? Yums!
Bleu cheese? But but but… they don’t have ‘eyes’, right?
I will just have some Singapore Noodles (whatever that is!) with extra chilli please? Oh, make it ‘seafood’ noodles 😉 (that green thingy is a fish from a $2 fishing game we bought from Daiso)
Benji wants something posh! Green Eggs!
Do you like green eggs and ham?
I do so like
green eggs and ham!
Thank you!
Thank you,
Ben-I-am!
Green Ham with ‘rind’
Benji’s all-day breakfast special sandwich!
Special ingredients revealed 😉
Last week, we bought Benji a set of Ikea kiddy cooking utensils (although he liked the kiddy kitchen set more!) and we have been cooking ‘ice-cream’, lego bricks and whatever that fits the pot. Yesterday, I popped into Daiso and picked up a small frying pan ($2!), and a pack of assorted felt fabrics.
Today, we spent a quiet afternoon indoors ‘cooking’ up a storm – Benji’s nursing a terrible cough. Cut up some easy shapes and the only ‘3-D’ effect was some wadding stuffed into the egg yolks. The ‘noodles’ yarn came from a ripped up old crochet project. Nothing fancy like the felt food that my friend made for her little girl, or even the $15 Ikea felt food toys. But it is fun to make food on boy’s request 😀 So who says you can’t sew for boys, eh? 😀
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? 😀
