I'm back!

Did you think I'm gone for good? Well, I almost did : P

Had to wash, fold and pack the clothes back into the respective wardrobes. Clean the house, map the floor did so many housework that I don't have energy to step into my sewing room to do some sewing. I know if I did. I'll never stop and then the work get piles up and I'll get more depressed by days. My husband is very sweet that he didn't complain about the dirty house and messy table which I've piled up high with the things I've bought from our trip to China. Still finding a way to sort them before I put them away. Also, gosh, those many many photos that we took (actually, it's my husband who took most of them). Got a total of 9G!

Anyway just to share some of our trip to China here while I get my act together and sew something I can share. We've travelled, in the span of 13 days, to Shanghai, Hangzhuo, Wuzhen, Suzhuo, Wuxi, Nanjing, Tao Hua Dao... Lots of bus trips and long rides and of course, shopping for Xihu LongJing tea leaves, Silk pillow and mattress protectors, etc etc.



At the airports with our luggages



Famous xiaolongpao shop at Chenghuang temple



see any resemblance? At Shanghai Mdm Tu's wax museum



pretty flowers at Suzhuo

 

special black maize. it's natural and not coloured

my girls went mad with the big tub!

Nanjing bridge with 2 levels

 

flowers again

and again. can't stop. they are so pretty!

baby with the rattle at a store

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bought her a bubble sword

pretty food

Tao Hua Dao

 I love to travel. We did a few Free and Easy trip to Japan, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Austria and Australia. I would love to do this the same way but not with the kids. China is too vast to cover alone without a guide. With kids, it's mission impossible. Maybe I should ahve another blog on travel and I can post more photos and even my detailed itinerary. My friends said I'm crazy when she saw my plan. It's detailed with train schedule! Sigh,, maybe next time when I've more time. Till the next time, my friends! Enjoy the photos

Camera strap with len pocket

I'm going on a long trip overseas next week, so I will most likely be absence from the blog.. Will you miss me ?  : P

In preparation for the trip, we had made a big purchase - a D60 Canon DSLR! My husband had one Minota DSLR but we decided to buy another newer one so that I can also share and use it sometime to take picture of my finished projects. Not sure if it'll help since my photography skills leave much to be desired. I"m always too eager to take picture once I have finished my sewing which is a bad decision since it's mostly at night and the lighting (or the lack of it) is apparent in the pictures. Must change this impatience nature of me..

Anyway, back to the topic on camera. I wanted to give my new camera a new image. So decided to sew a camera strap cover with len pocket. I saw alot of tutorials here, here and here. It was amazing.

Since I'm just a few days away from the trip and I need to finish up packing for the whole family and clean up the house, wash the clothes, dust the bed etc etc.. I decide to go for a quick and simple one.  Will make more strap to change when I have the time. Ideally, I would prefer to use different fabric scraps and sew them together but well, next time then. One thing for sure, it will have the len pocket as I feel that it's a necessity.

Use a medium weight fabric from Ikea and cut 2 pieces of strap measuring 25"X 3". This will differ depending on how long your original strap is. I've included seam allowance of 5/8".  For the pocket, it's 5"X 4.5". I intend for the finished strap to be 2"wide so the pocket piece will need to have box pleat for it to stay in shape with the strap.

You can read the tutorials from the blogland as I pretty much did the same steps. The difference is my pocket. I'll not post any tutorial or picture of the steps taken as I made a BIG mistake along the way and was in a rush to finish up the strap.  In my zombie state (I had a cough and had taken 10ml of cough mixture), I have accidentally sew the pocket upside down! Gurrh..can't even unpick since it was sewn to the 2 long side seams already! I had to discard the whole thing and start all over again.

So, here is the only 2 picture of the finished strap. I'm happy at the colour though. Can't wait to use them : )


see the nice len pocket with box pleat?



here's me with the strap on my neck and len cap in the pocket!

Sewing gifts

Didn't realised that this post is sitting in my draft mode for 1 month!  Thought better late than never, here goes.

Although my baby is now a toddler at 1 year old, I still love to make babies things. Good thing that I've colleagues who are having babies soon. So, I can still sew and give them away.

I"ve earlier made them baby shoes and decided to make a matching onesies for them using the same fabric that I've used for the baby shoes. I've put a interfacing at the back of the hearts that I've cut out from the leftover fabric to give some body. When I sew, I've iron some freezer paper inside the onesies directly behind the hearts so that the fabric will not pull when I sew.

don't you think the shoes matches the onesies?

I've also finish a tutu skirt that I've promised my niece. Added a purple lining skirt as well so she can wear them out as well. For variation, I've actually pulled the 4 layers of tulle up at different height to give it volume and dimension. Hope she likes it.