June's almost over

It's the end of my kids' June school holidays. It wasn't much of a holiday for my older one as she had to go back to school almost everyday for 3 weeks. And, she had 2 exams and a coursework submission deadline during that time as well. Thankfully, she had a bit of a breather for the last week.

She and I had our girls' day out at Bugis. Had lunch at Shokudo. Followed by shopping. We couldn't help it, it was the Great Singapore Sale and the deals were irresistable :)

She baked these cupcakes all by herself,

and enjoyed baking them so much that she baked a dozen and brought them to share with her tuition teacher and friends.

She cooked teppanyaki (beef, chicken and garlic fried rice) for dinner and helped with the washing up as well.

So what have I been up to? Nothing much, so I have no FO to show, but here's a stack of fabric that are recent additions to the stash.

And, a sneak peek at something that I'm trying to sew for my daughter. It's a sketch I drew of a cute jumper (or is it called a tunic?) I saw somewhere. Wish me luck as I have no pattern for it!

By the way, this is how the front of my house looks like right now. There's some drainage upgrading works going on and we have to walk the plank each time we go out!

Halter top

I sewed something today! It went smoothly (for once). The machine has behaved perfectly ever since I found the correct bobbin size for it.

My daughter wanted a halter top. I found a suitable pattern in this book.

She chose this fabric when we went fabric shopping at People's Park.

I had cut up the pieces a long time ago but the sewing was stalled because I lost the book. I needed to refer to the book to follow the steps for sewing. I almost gave up looking for the book when it miraculously re-appeared last week. (My husband found it.)

This is a picture heavy post because I'm so happy with how it turned out. I wish all my sewing projects could have such a happy ending :)

I used the pattern for the smallest size and the only modification I made was to add elastic to the back for a better fit.

She loves it and so do I. Nothing beats having a satisfied customer :)

Final hanging on the door photos to give you a better view.

Sorry for the lack of words in this post. I'm not feeling particularly articulate. Quite tired actually. But happy, simply happy :)

Interrupting the once a month knitting post

Interrupting my once a month knitting post to talk about something else :)

I have been having delicious fun at these inspiring blogs. They're very stylish girls who put together the most fabulous outfits. Take a look if you have the time and enjoy!

http://www.thecherryblossomgirl.com/ (I want to live in the beautiful rooms in her photos)

http://www.leblogdebetty.com/ (I love her flair for layering different items together)

http://liebemarlene.blogspot.com/

http://allthishappiness.blogspot.com/

http://sallyjanevintage.blogspot.com/

http://pansylane.blogspot.com/

Meanwhile, I'm trying to persuade my daughter (who is a Tshirt and jeans girl) to wear more dresses and skirts so that I can sew her some of these cute, cute stuff that I see on their blogs and I also suddenly want to knit lots of cute cardis :)

What I'm currently up to ...

I like this cardigan very much and I was thinking of knitting it out of some black laceweight yarn that Mimi gave me. But it will have to wait because as I told you in my last post, I started another project for my daughter. I managed to convince her to let me crochet this skirt for her. I've wanted to crochet it since it came out in a Japanese magazine 3 years ago. But I had no one to crochet it for back then.

For my own reference, in case I forget these details, I'm using Mammy cotton and a 2mm hook. My gauge is smaller and that should work out fine because my daughter is super petite for her age. She is sitting beside me as I am writing this and she objects to being described as such, haha. Anyway, I think this skirt is going to take a long time. The thread is fine, the hook is small and the stitches are tiny and I may actually go blind before I finish it. Hmm, does that ever happen to you? I get all excited about a pattern, ponder over yarn and colour and then when I start, I realise that there are all these other things that I never considered. My balloon of optimism is easily popped.

I have finished the 8 triangle inserts (is that what it's called?) that will be between the pleats. That was 2 weeks ago, I think. Now I need to find the time to sit down and start the main panels. It's quite a fun project, although a bit hard on the eyes because the stitches are teeny and my eyesight is not as good as it used to be.

the bag that went wrong

I was out shopping with my daughter one day, and she saw a bag that she wanted to buy. I took a look at the price tag and told her that I could sew her a similar one for next to nothing. She gladly took up my offer. I cut up the pieces for the bag last year. After too much nagging by my daugther (she says it was more like gentle reminders), I sat down to sew it this morning.

And the end result is this bag that turned out ALL wrong. That's what happens when you put off doing something for too long. You completely forget what it was supposed to be. I forgot to sew gathers at the top and sides before attaching the bias tape. I only remembered when my daughter was putting her stuff (wallet, camera and handphone) into the bag and said, "I hope my things won't fall out." aaaaahhhhhh ... so that's what those gathers were for - to make the bag opening smaller.

I was too lazy to cut my own bias tape so I bought this ready made bias tape that folds into half. It worked fine except that my sewing machine was having a bad day. I shouted at the machine (yes I did and my daughter told me that she heard me all the way from downstairs!!), but it wouldn't listen and the stitches on one side kept puckering and bubbling, so now the stitches is all ugly on one side of the tape.

And, the bag didn't turn out as pretty as I had hoped, the two fabrics don't quite go together as styishly as I had imagined. But my dear daughter wasn't going to be defeated because she had waited so many months for this bag. She turned it inside out and declared it all good. Thank goodness it's reversible, so not all is lost.

She went out with friends in the afternoon to visit her ballet teacher who just had a baby and this is what she wore - the bag and those shoes! I get such a nice big thrill each time she wears something I made for her. That's why I 've already started on another project for her. Hope this one won't take so long to complete and please send good vibes my way so that it wouldn't turn out all wrong either :)

Scarf and Hat Set

I finally finished this scarf and hat for a friend who is working in London. I finished it in time for ... spring?! Sigh, never mind, maybe she'll still be working in London when winter comes round again.

This scarf is the same as another one I had knit earlier for another friend. I tried blocking the ribbing wider so that the ends won't seem to fan out so much, but it didn't work. When the scarf dried and I unpinned it from blocking, the ribbing sprang right back. I hope my friend won't mind.

The hat is from a Japanese magazine. I used yarn of a smaller gauge but thankfully, after blocking, it turned out alright.

I managed to take some self photos to show you how the hat looks like when worn, but somehow the colour turned out much lighter than it actually is.

By the way, can you see my specs? I graduated to progressive lenses :)

Cute shoes

Hiya, Happy Niu Year!

I'm popping in because I'm so excited and can't wait to show you my daughter's new shoes. On one of our shopping trips, my daughter showed me a pair of shoes in a shop and I told her that I could do something like that for her. So I bought a pair of plain white canvas shoes, some red and black fabric paint and did this. She LOVES it :) By the way, she turned 16 this month.

It's customised with her name on each shoe.

It was fun for my daughter to decide on the pictures and captions. I did a rough outline in pencil before applying the fabric paint. Had to change the draft pictures a couple of times because some didn't turn out nice.

She loves ballet

The black parts had to be painstakingly done because the black paint came in a tube, like a tube of poster paint. I dipped the 0.5 mm lead in a mechanical pencil into the ink and slowly inked everything on bit by bit. A labour of love, but surprisingly, it didn't take that long, finished it in one night.

The red parts were easy because the red paint came in the form of a marker pen. The only downside was that the nib wasn't that fine. This pic is my fave.

If I can find fabric paint in pen form and in pretty pastel colours, I'd probably do more of this. I hope the ink won't start running when it rains. It's supposed to be colourfast but you never know for sure until it's tested. Of course I didn't have the foresight to test it on fabric first. You know me, just jump straight in and worry about it much, much later :)