Pink, Pinker or ?

I like selvedges.

Some are so pretty, like this one from Nesshome. Can't remember which print this was but it surely wasn't the colourful strips. The colour circles don't match.

This is going to be a pouch / pencil case. Problem now is, I can't decide which pink to use. I'm thinking leftmost. What do you think?

Have a blessed morning!

I like these zips. I like them for the flexibility in length since I bought them by the yard. Bought 18 colours! Lol! Only two things I'm not happy with are that there aren't matching zipper pulls for each of the colours (I only bought silver and antique bronze pulls) and that it takes a fair bit of effort to put the pull on.

May the force be with you

During the free Spoonflower fat quarter promotion last year, DS chose this print. He likes the kiddy Star Wars print. It's not an allover print, just a strip across the bottom. There are 8 8" squares with different characters of the movie. I've not figured out yet what to make out of them, maybe a cushion cover?

This is a dual zip pencil case. I managed to find 2 star zipper pulls. Zip was from Daiso, the 1m long one. The star zipper pulls too, but they were on another colour zip. Since the Star Wars print is rather narrow, it'd be a rather 'narrow' pencil case but I decided to 'bump' it up and add the denim. 'Tis a bit more rugged, no? DS chose the lining, a Japanese cotton geometric print in beige and brown. He also asked for a D-ring though I don't know what he's going to put there.

This pic is not the latest.

I studded DS' name with 3cm studs. That's a lot of tiny claws for me to fold in but DS likes the effect.

Have a blessed day!

Back to school

T'was a long CNY break, wasn't it? :-)

Made these before and during the break. The studs are those with the claws, not the iron on type. Each stud has 4 claws and I used many here :-( Wasn't easy bending the claws back. The journal was fun. This was done without the end-pages that's why there's only a single line out on the cover at each hole. I think the next time I do this I'll use double. Or maybe I'll just stick to end-pages.

Have a blessed day!

Zippity do dah!

I had two different requests for zippered pencil cases. While both have 10 zips each, the bottom one is much larger 'cos of the method of sewing.

Top - seams sewn from the inside 'horizontally'. This results in a smaller pencil case because of the puffiness and seams.

Bottom - seams sewn in zigzag stitch from the top. This results in a larger pencil case. I attempted to match the thread colour to the zip so I ended up having to change the thread and bobbin often.

The seams are the easy part. The toughest part of this is binding up the seam where all the zips come together. You can't see it from here but I've not done it yet for these two. I just wanted to get the pic out first, LOL!

Have a blessed day!

Plasticky

Bought a stack of plasticky canvas recently. Sure reminds me of Cath Kidston material, in terms of print and feel. It's the thickest material I've sewn. Not the toughest though. That would be faux leather 'cos it wouldn't cooperate with my sewing machine's presser foot and feeder dogs.

I've not quite thought of what I want to make with these yet but made this to try out sewing it. It's so stiff that it's tough to flip proper side out. On the upside, it holds its shape very well. :-)

Simplest item to make was an unlined pencil case. Added a label to the front and a charm to the zipper pull.

Have a blessed day!

Jelly roll series

I decided to concentrate on this range of cottons. After making these, I still have 1 more jelly roll that I forgot about, LOL! These were made with half the width of a jelly roll strip, actually. Narrower than a honey bun strip. Fun to sew, nevertheless. I still have a list of some other items to make but I thought I'd just post this update first.

More details on Facebook!

ps: A jelly roll is made up of strips of fabric 2.5" wide x width of fabric.

pps: I like the drawstring bag the most. It's not interfaced (padded) yet it's not too floppy since the strip of fabric basically doubled up behind so effectively, there are 3 layers of fabric.

Have a blessed day!

Bling on the invaders!

This is my 2nd attempt at sewing with faux leather. I've yet to post a pic of the first item I made and if I get good lighting, I might. It has space invaders on it as well.

I made the pouch in a jiffy 'cos it's unlined. It took me more than an hour to stick the bling on. I've never played space invaders so I didn't know they flap their hands or move or change colours. I didn't know about the canons or shields. No worries that google couldn't fix 'cos I found some patterns online and winged the rest with input from DS. This is his after all.

The first time I tried to stick the bling on canvas with fabric glue, I made a big mess. After I popped it into the washing machine for a test to see if the bits really stuck, well, that was a mess too. I should have put it in a pillow case or something 'cos I had to pick out the bits that fell off. Canvas is a large weave, compared to faux leather. This time I used less glue and waited for more tackiness in the glue before sticking it.

I looped a Mobius flower unto the zipper pull too. Somehow, I find YKK zippers a tad small and inconvenient.

I wonder if I should bling DS' name onto this as well.

Have a blessed day!

ps: I didn't edit this picture so you can see the abuse the faux leather went through yet only 1 bling fell off, or perhaps it was the space invader that shot it off? LOL!

Zippity doo dah

I didn't realise that YKK has so many shades of green. There's at least one more in neon but I didn't want to add that. There're also at least 10 shades of blue. I might just post the pic if I get around to making a similar pouch to this but in blue.

This is DD's. She requested for the zips to be vertical rather than horizontal, or rather perpendicular to the usual way I've been using a zip. She also requested for all the zipper pulls to be on one side and this is actually much easier to sew than having the zips alternating head to tail. Her other request was to have them sewn together in a zigzag manner so that there won't be the puffiness for each zip.

Strangely, she hasn't decided what to put inside this yet. It's the right size for a pencil case but she's still holding on to her bee so I don't know what this will be for.

Sadly, I don't know how to take a proper pic so it represents the actual colour. Some of these zips look blue but they're really all green. Warm and cool shades of green.

What's your favourite colour?

Have a blessed evening!

Brights!

We were sorting out our zips, trying to sort them into colour zones but there were some that stood out. DD asked for a coin purse made from them. The camera can't represent the colours properly and the colour of these zips are really bright. 

Make your own...

Choose 5 8" zips.

Sew them together lengthwise (I chose to sew them alternately head to tail)

Half them and sew the edge (pink and purple in this case)

Sew the other edge close. You might want to hand-sew the open ends together first.

Flip it inside out.

Voila!

Have a blessed day!

Bee very happy :-)

DD's newest pouch and it's not green, LOL!

She asked for a pouch that's the size of the dinner plate. We just had dinner then so DS glady obliged and washed and dried one plate for me so I could use it as a template. 

Bee-themed jelly roll strips and fully lined and bound with linen.

These pouches are a fair bit of work but I like the results. :-)

Have a blessed day!

Flurry....

Made two pairs of baby shoes from patterns available on the internet. I've lost the links but I'll add them to this post when I find them again. I like the Mary Janes above and I think I'll add ribbons next time so that they can be reversible too, like the ones below.

This is another of the twin body but the middle pocket has a zip this time. Bright red cover flap was quilted and attached with metal spring snaps.

Of the 4 items in this post, this took the longest time. I think I've made something like this before but I can't remember. It took a longer time 'cos of the quilting and the hand-sewing. I made the bias strip for binding myself so that took up some time too. I think this is the last Teacher's Day pressie but I'm not sure.

Have a blessed evening!

Splashproof

It was supposed to be a quick trip to Chinatown to restock my batting supply. I thought I had enough but there are just so many types of batting, in terms of material, thickness and whether there's adhesive. Since I was there, I detoured to another shop and caught sight of this laminated material rolled up and stuck in a box in the corner and I bought two rolls :-)

Made two pencil cases. The salesgirl at the shop thought I'd be making a tote. She suggested I reinforce the seams with binding. I was thinking smaller items actually. Maybe later, if there's enough for a tote.

Blue zip's flat and lined with cotton. Magenta zip has triangle sides and a base so it can stand. I added a large jump ring and charm 'cos the zipper pull seems too tiny. Maybe I'll do that for the blue zip too.

Have a blessed day!

Bears vs bunnies

The bears don't come with the pouch. They're not needed to prop it up either 'cos I've put stabilizer on the cotton-linen exterior so that the boxy pouch can stand on its own. There're actually 3 bears, small, medium and large. I've yet to name them. I can't remember where they came from, only that one of them was redeemed from West Mall during some festive season with a coupon without a purchase. Cool! Well, we do shop there often though I don't think we bought anything that day. LOL!

But I digress. This boxy zipper pouch has cotton-linen blend fabric on the outside and green/white polka dot fabric as lining.

Just a thought, maybe I should use bunnies rather than bears...this being BunnyBags.blogspot.com. *grin*

OK, bears for now, till I find cute bunnies willing to pose for me.

Have a blessed day!

Prototype: laminated newspaper pouch

Iron-on vinyl is very expensive here in Singapore. It's $39.95 for a 2-yard roll. It's much cheaper overseas but if you do the math for the shipping, it's not cheap either. I found a cheap alternative. The effects are not as great  but methinks it's quite ok for a first try :-)

Are you a fan of Baby Blues?

Itsy bitsy

I once found an itsy bitsy pencil case in a shop at the basement of Jurong Point. It was really cute. Zakka-like in its simplicity. It caught my attention 'cos it could fit only 2 pens. Snugly. I wondered why would anyone want such a small pencil case. Wouldn't a 'normal' pencil case have a few pens, a pencil, eraser, ruler etc? 

Anyway, I made this pencil case which was meant to house 2 uniball 0.38 gel pens, one with blue ink, one with blue-black. It could've been smaller but I wanted to follow the pattern on the fabric and have it 2 squares by 6. It'll fit 3 uniball pens now.

Have a blessed day!

Finally they're here...

I've been waiting for these 6mm antique brass double cap rivets for about a month. Finally, they arrived yesterday. While it's just as effective to sew across like the bottom right pic, I prefer the top right one with the rivet. For a change, no? :-)

I'll be adding more rivets and then list more pouches on Tiffany's Shoppe. Check them out later!

Have a blessed day!

Afternote:

I went to put rivets and didn't realize that I have so many pouches, LOL! Some were sewn for the NUS Bazaar but I got carried away and have so many more at home and more along the way. Hmmm...

I think I have a giraffe's neck

Hong Kong is so near, yet so far. I say this because my orders of antique brass double cap rivets have yet to arrive though I placed the order early this month. Korea's farther yet it takes less than a week. Even US shipments from the Borderlinx warehouse takes less than a week. I've been checking and checking the mailbox but *sigh* no rivets.

These are tissue zipper pouches. Japanese and Korean linen exterior machine quilted for added interest. The tea-coloured ones look like linen too, but are made from cotton. I used YKK 12cm metal zips for these and I think I'll use in future vs the 5" zips 'cos these are a better fit. Not only that, these zips have interchangeable zipper pulls so I can attach zipper pulls that look like charms. Can you tell the 4 different types that I have?

The thing is, these are all lacking the rivets on the straps. I can sew but the rivet makes it a more polished look, no? Let's see how long the rivets will take to come. I hope they come this week before I get a sore neck from looking out for them for so long.

Have a blessed day!

Cuteness

Made these tissue zipper pouches. Tissue case on one side and zippered compartment at the top. These are slightly smaller than those I've made in the past and just the right size for a single pack of tissue. Added these cute zipper pulls too. Antique brass hardware all round. What's left is just the straps and I'm just waiting for the rivets to arrive. You can't see from this pic but I've quilted the other side and put a 'handmade' label. Maybe I'll take another pic of these with the straps when they're done but I just like the zipper pulls. Kawaii, desune?

Have a blessed weekend!

Brights vs florals vs neutrals

I can't decide which type I like best, brights, florals or neutrals. There are also polka dots and cartoon/character designs and such. So many varieties out there, so tempting :-) Ditto that for purse hardware too. I'm using shiny silver and antique brass.

All of these are zipper pouches for hand-sewing to close the gap where I turn it proper way out after sewing. Won't say more....lots to sew today :-)

Have a blessed weekend!

Do you like red bean zhang?

I had a red bean zhang craving some time back. The zhang (dumpling) with whole red beans mixed into the rice with meat / mushroom in the middle. It was so bad that my friend (thank you, dear sweet soul!) bought some from Thomson and brought it all the way here for me. All gone in a flash :-) These days, I eat zhang less often. Usually off season so I don't have to pay the inflated price.

Bought this zhang at a bakery. Odd place to buy one but I couldn't decide what to eat and saw this. It's a nonya zhang, ie, it has sweetened minced meat in the middle. Not really nice so I won't tell you where I got it from, LOL!

Made my own fabric version when I got home. Up for swap with anyone who has a red bean zhang!

Have a blessed day :-)