Little Purl of the Orient

Sewing for hubby and CY

My younger daughter, CY, doesn't like wearing skirts at all. And I'm not at all good at sewing any garment that is not a rectangle with an elastic band (which is what a skirt is to me). So it really is a challenge for me to make something for CY to wear to her mermaid/pirate party at kindergarten.

So I practised with making some board shorts for my husband. It's summer and he could do with a few new ones. My mum sent me her paper pattern and she really is a true to the word 'recyclist', if there's such a word. And she's always been using newspaper for drafting paper patterns.

The shorts are not quite difficult to make and I sewed 3 pairs in a row!

For her mermaid/pirate party, CY would like to be a pirate, like the previous time.

So I sewed her a pair of shorts, bought a cool pirate T-shirt to match but I had to remember the wrong date :( for the party. So while everyone is looking very cool as pirates and pretty as mermaid, she was in her uniform. Poor kid. Anyway, she still wore it the next day.

The pattern is from a Japanese kid sewing book that Erin gave me which has really some nice patterns that I've posted before in this post. Feeling encouraged, I ventured to make a pair of real pants out of that book. Not being able to read Japanese, I think I missed something really important. The pattern must have called for fabric with stretch as the finished pants couldn't go over CY's hips! Not wanting to give up, I made some big time fudging.

A zipper was added at the side, but the waist still doesn't fit properly so I added a strip of elastic band to the other side. And phew, it seems to fit now. Not taunted, I'm going to dig out the other sewing patterns I have in English and have another go at sewing pants.

Two bags full

I've promised my 2 girls new bags for quite a while. And here they are. Heather Ross polka dotty one plus yellow for JY.

A sheepy badge for decoration.

White vintage buttons.

This one in fishy fabric is for CY. She chose this fabric herself when we went to Shamshuipo, HK's fabric district, together.

As I have only one sheepy badge, we went to the department store and found this Kerokerokeropi name tag. Now froggy and fishies are friends.

Plus vermillion buttons. As always, I'm having problem with the iron-on interfacing. Look at the lumpy surface.

Three blankets

As always, I'm over optimistic in thinking that I could do more than I have time for. There was only time for me to complete half the list of little knits that I planned for the Kisiizi Appeal. I'll show you those in the next post because I'm going to show you some blankets I sewed over the past two weekends. All fabrics are from stash and I'm so happy for that.

I emailed Bridgid, who's collecting the items for the Appeal, earlier on whether I could send some sewn wooly blankets too instead of knitted ones and she said yes, so I got sewing.

The first one is brown and pink. Looking at it now, it looks a bit Denyse Schmidt inspired. The brown is a wool fabric which I'd wanted to make some winter bags with. I think a kiddo in Uganda will have more use of this blanket than I with the bag.

I threw in some pink Heather Ross cotton to pick up the pink herringbone in the brown and backed it with a Japanese cotton floral fabric.

The second one is green and orange. The patchwork portion, made up mostly of terry cloth, was started ages ago when I first got my sewing machine. Sewing the terry cloth gave me so much trouble (it's too stretchy and the puckering is a nightmare) that I gave up. Now I think it is put to good use. The backing is a cotton fabric left over from CY's new fitted bed sheet that I sewed her. Yes, I've been sewing fitted bed sheets and pillow cases for my girls lately and I haven't blogged about that.

This blue robot one is for our friend's son, L, that I mentioned here. JY helped me with the layout as I haven't got too many robot fabric squares having scored them on ebay eons ago.

My mother sewed many scrap patchwork blankets for us when we were small and she backs them with flannel, nice and comfortable for the warm summer weather so I'm using the same formula. I've still have got some flannel leftover from backing nephew's Moderne Baby so I used that here. The blue is a lightweight denim and I didn't use any batting.

I remember Rose, a reader of this blog, telling me that she sews ribbon with some red inside a baby's sweater to ward off evil spirits. So I added some red chickie ribbon over here for little L.

All ready to be gifted.

I did do some sewing

I did do some pre-summer sewing. Just before the last day of school back in June, I decided to get my act together and sew JY's teacher a bag as a 'Thank you'. The intention has always been there but I didn't get around doing it until the last minute, as always. So, I made a wrist bag and like doing it so much that I made 3 more.

This greenish one is given to the teacher who's favorite colour is green. The construction is really simple. One handle shorter and fatter than the other and just slip the thin one through the fat one.

The inside is lined with Amy Butler fabric. You could choose to use all different fabrics like in the Cotton & Paint Summer '07 where I got the inspiration to make these bags. But I chose to keep things simple and use just 2 fabrics. I forgot to add my woven labels again but did remember to put them on the other 3.

I decide to throw in some stitching (the inspiration also came from the above-said C&P). My favourites are the natural linen ones but I decided not to add any stitching for those.

Meanwhile, inspiration came to me when looking at my bath towel this morning on a workable quilt top using the batiks . And I've got some ideas for the robot patchwork blanket too. Now I just need more time or less sleep. Have a great weekend, all!

Log cabining

It all started with a trip to Ikea on the second day of the New Year of the Pig. We first saw the crib blankets and Mil thought they are good for the kids to use in summer. And I thought I could add patchwork 'quilt' tops to them. Then futher in store, I saw a mini ironing board perfect for doing patchwork at an incredible price of USD2.50 and I had to get it. See it fits just right behind the sewing machine on the dining table.

I decided to make a log cabin top inspired by blankets here, here, here and from this Japanese book. And all these incredible log cabin pillows. It is a tedious process. I have to bend down and squat on the floor to sort the fabrics, cut and get back up onto the dining table to sew, reach out to the ironing board to press.

After an afternoon of doing this, I'm now having a sore neck. And I didn't get a lot done. Just four 8.5 inch square which I reckon I would need 20 to cover the whole blanket, and some smaller squares. I'm not confident yet with matching colours so I'm using all the blue fabrics in stash.

And here's the knitted log cabin (Baby Moderne Blanket) that I'm making for little nephew. Here's the wrong side, not very neat, is it? So I'll be backing it with the green balls flannel fabric that a dear friend sent from Canada. I hope the blanket will keep him comfortable in his treatment. His 4th chemo session is schedule for next week. And did I mention that the wee boy is only 16 months old?

Flower Power and Friends United

Long time visitors of this blog might recall that I mentioned about my knitterly colleagues. There is Terry, the turbo-hands, who churned out something like a dozen Ruffled Scarves from Scarf Style and at least half a dozen Clapotis in the Winter of 04/05. Then there is 'Shrek' who helped me grab a bag of All Seasons Cotton when he visited the mecca of Rowan yarns, Liberty, a couple of years back. He's an occasional knitter himself and made this scarf for his girlfriend who is also my colleague and good friend. And the couple are also the photographers behind some of my FO photos like the Ab Fab, Spring Bag and Ribbed Wrap Top.

Two months ago, Shrek and his Princess Fiona finally tied the knot and set up their own home. I decided to get my act together and finish the Floral Quilt as a TV lapghan for them. I haven't posted about the completed quilt as I'd wanted to give it to them first which I did just before Christmas. See the extra pair of feet there? CY wanted to be included in the photo too and wouldn't budge despite my yelling.

The quilt back is made up of different blue floral fabrics and a main pale-blue-pin-dots-on-white fabric. The batting is polar fleece bought locally at Kam Wah, the notions store at Jordan. And I bound the quilt using the 'quick' method as laid out in the Modern Quilt book with the aid of a bias tape maker. This is the second time I used it, I practised this binding technique on another blanket earlier on (see below).

The Purl Bee has a step-by-step tutorial on how to do the binding.

When I look at this quilt, it brings back many fond memories; how I began sewing it, how the fabrics came together. It didn't start with a grand plan with all the fabrics bought, laid out and cut. There was no design wall to speak of. The quilt evolved over many months, with experimenting, sewing a bit and then ripping a little bit more. Some of the fabrics were impulse purchases on ebay, and some received from my pals like Joy and Eva and from friends living in different parts of the world. I'm happy that it is now completed and in the home of my good friends who appreciate craft work.

Herebelow is the blanket that I practised the binding on. It is just a piece of cashmere blend fabric I picked from a bin in Shamshuipo and I bound it using an Amy Butler fabric. It is now permanently in the car as it is just the right size for covering up the kids when they doze off on the road trips.

Another 'Gift Wrapper'

The idea of 'wrapping' a gift in a pouch that I sew myself is beginning to grow on me and it seems to add that bit more personal touch and environmentally friendly too, in the sense that the pouch could be used again.

And so this is the latest one that I made to hold the scarf for my friend. When she saw the Zig Zag Scarf that I made for JY, she called me and asked me to make one exactly the same for her. Now, the yarn is specially hand-dyed by Sundara a while back and might not be repeatable. I quickly ordered another artist's hand-dyed yarn which arrived last week but there's no way I could whip a scarf up in time for our gathering yesterday afternoon. So I did a little 'swap' as agreed with JY of course (she loves the new yarn colour!). Inside this pouch is the Zig Zag Scarf ver. 1 and I'll knit Zig Zag Scarf ver. 2 for JY.

After making the pouch, I still have a small piece of the same fabric left for a small zipper pouch to hold my lipstick and stuff.

And here, back by popular demand, is ver. 2 of the Zigzag Scarf by Debbie Bliss from the book Scarf Style. This time, I'm using the self-striping yarn from Yarntini, the colours (Gimlet colourway) and the yarn is just super! This time, I'm using sport weight yarn and knitting the 39-st width in contrast to the 51-st previously. Hopefully, it won't take me too long to finish it.

It must be from Narnia

If you're wondering what this creature is, it is a bunny. 4 out of the 5 friends I asked told me 'oh, I thought it was a dog.' The 5th person, dear Maryann, exclaimed without any single doubt that it is a girl Jar Jar Binks. As I'm no Star Wars fan (neither is my husband), I've no idea which side he's on, the good side or the dark side. I do hope his type is good though.

My two girls of course took it as a bunny as I've told them and JY has grown quite fond of it over the months that took me to make it. She calls her Jasmine. CY on seeing her with clothes, says that she's a superhero. And I think I can see why, the reversible dress looks more like a superhero cape worn on the front. I made the dress following Lynn's tutorial but somehow it's just not as nice. As for the bunny pattern, it's from the book Animaux en Recup by Charlotte Vannier.

I realized that it is just too difficult to create cuteness and I laud the softie creators out there who just seem to so effortlessly create sweet and adorable dollies/puppies/bunnies/etc. Cuteness completely eluded me this time. It took me some time to get used to Jasmine, for a while, I just couldn't get over those spooky eyes, kind of remind me of the Londinium Dolls by Pure Chemistry whose website doesn't seem to show those dolls anymore so I'm linking to a blog with a photo.

Can I at least think that it is a Narnian bunny, one of those special Talking Beasts that is bigger than their non-talking counterparts? It now resides with Marjorie. Actually, it is a 2-month late birthday present.

Knitting? I knitted some with my friends on Saturday but spent my other spare minutes devouring Case Histories. I just couldn't put it down, read too late into the nights and started worrying about my daughters and what kind of world do we live in. I finished it on the bus this morning. Now I can focus on my knitting again.

Stepping back in time

I had to do some 'homework' last weekend. The current unit of inquiry JY is doing in class is learning about the past, along the line of what toys do people play in the olden days? What type of food do they eat? So daddys and mummys have to write a 'letter' to our kid telling her something about what we did when we were young. It would also be nice if we could let our child bring something from the olden days to school for show and tell. I don't know about you, but this kind of homework usually gets entrusted to mummy in our household.

So the letter was written and I did have a good time reminiscing. Looking back, I did have an enjoyable childhood. It also reminded me of a post of last August. After writing the letter, I decided to sew some four/five stones and show JY how to play. They are actually pyramid-shaped rice or bean bags and we are supposed to throw and catch them in a variety of patterns. While I sewed, I tried to remember the variations we had to do and couldn't. Surprisingly when I had the stones in my hands, they just came back to me. My hands seem to have their own memory.

These are the two sets remaining in the house. I made 6 sets for my children and their cousins. I forgot to take a picture before the cousins took them home with them. JY is very happy with them and is putting one set in the 'school museum'. I also made a set for my colleague who has children about the same age as mine, plus a drawstring bag to contain them.

Do you have a favourite toy when you were young?

Closing in on the gifts

Just a very quick post before going to bed after a tiring but fun day at the park. I sewed a little pouch to hold a gift for my friend. The base is crocheted using Bouton D'ore, Dune yarn. I've got lots of that in 4 or 5 different colours, originally meant to be knitted into a Rambling Rows Afghan which never happened.

The drawstring closure and a peek at what's inside.

Why, they are the K2, Seed 2 socks in Kissed, Sweet Georgia sock yarn. As the recipient's feet are smaller than mine, I didn't want to model them and stretch the socks out. 2 hanks of yarn, 60 sts using 2.7mm needles. No swirls for the second sock (on the left)...