Girl's Skirt

When I found this fabric by Moda Fabric at a local
fabric store, I had the urge to make a skirt for
a little girl with it. It is unusual for me to simply
use only one fabric to make anything, but this
patchwork-looking design allowed me to be completely
satisfied with using it by itself.



I love kids' clothes...
Although I don't have any children, I really enjoy
window-shopping in kids' clothes sections.
There are lots of adorable, colorful, and rhythmical
kids' clothes that make me feel like I want to become
a mother of children right away.
(Shallow reason? maybe. lol.)
I think with kids' clothing, expressing
really fancy designs is possible.

I think this skirt came out really cute!



And I think this binding matches perfectly with
the skirt. I wish I had a girl to try it on,
but I don't know any 4 year old girl in person...

I've listed this skirt in my shop
in the case any of you know a 4 year old who'd enjoy
a skirt like this ;) Remember to let me know you came
from here when you shop in my etsy shop so that I'll
include a little gift for a little appreciation ;)

Hope you are having a great Sunday!

Thanks for coming and reading!!

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Placemats and Potholder completed!

Thanks a million for your warm congrats on the calendar
and the magazine! You guys always make me smile ;)

Today I want to show you some things I finally
finished recently. I have to admit that this pink logcabin
potholder turned out really lovely.



Pink is definitely my favorite color.
When I was living by myself in Tokyo,
I made it a point to make everything pink at home,
and being in the apartment made me feel
girlie and sort of mellow dramatic.



I don't particularly collect pink fabrics,
but for some reasons, I happen to have the largest
collection of pink fabric stashes.
I guess I am subconsciously picking out pink
ones when I shop for fabrics.





This is the placemat I was working on.
I was going to use simple natural linen
in the middle, but this vintage feedsack
looked so perfect there that I decided to
follow my instinct.




Funny how it gives both 'modern' and 'retro' feels
at the same time. I think it looks rhythmic and fun.
Machine-quilting is not my favorite thing to do, but
I think this turned out really good.




But this one didn't turn out as good. For the first one
I used quilting spray to baste but this second one was
hand-basted before quilting. I dedicated much more time
on this one but the result says that I should've sticked
with the quilting spray method. I love it anyway though.



For the backing I used Japanese cotton/linen print.
.....Cute! *smile*





These placemats as well as the pink potholder have
been listed in my shop.
As always, let me know if you come from here when
snatching items from my shop. I'd love to include a little gift!



Thanks for coming and reading!!

2010 Sewing Calendar

I bet I am not the only one who's wished there were
a day-to-day calendar like this. YES!!
It's a Sewing Calendar!

I've seen several different kinds of craft-related
calendars like ones for Quilt, Crochet, and Beads, in the bookstore
but I just had never encountered a sewing version before.
But here comes a 2010 sewing calendar filled with
lots and lots of small, fun projects!!!


This is so awesome. During 2010, I'll have a different project
idea every other three days. How cool is that?!







These days I've been feeling like making softies, so
these two tutorials, the robot doll pocket pillow by Lauren Brandy
and the ice cream cone by Holly Klein
particularly caught my eyes, but there are tons more
cool sewing tutorials I want to try out!




Hey I see something familiar..



Yup! There are some tutorials of mine in it too!
Thanks so much for Megan Smith who put everything
together. This really came out great!!

The calendar can be purchased from the publishing company,
or Amazon online (The ISBN is 978-0740783951).
but it will be available in the major local bookstores too!

**********

Oh if you were by any chance curious about the
secret that I didn't reveal in this post,
here is the hint ;)


Thanks for coming and reading!!

shorts for a little man

Thank you so much for letting me know that you
guys like my dress in the last post!
It's always so nice to share my joy with you guys!

I worked on another garment; this time, it's a pair
of shorts for a little man - Taihei. You may recall
that I've made a little quilt for him for his 1st birthday.
I've been babysitting him since he was three months old.
I can hardly believe that he is 20 months old already.
He is now an outgoing, wild, most adorable toddler
who can sing, dance, and pretend to be a cat, lion, and a dog!
He knows the names of some parts of the face in both
Japanese and English too! He's just incredibly cute.



When I found this fabric in Nippori Textile town in Tokyo
last year, I knew immediately that I wanted to make something
for him with it. I just never had a chance to actually make
use of it until a few days ago when I sewed up these shorts.



I seriously couldn't wait to put these shorts on him.
I knew it would be super cute, but I was so anxious to
find out whether my pattern was good enough.



And it turned out it wasn't bad ;) Phew!
I don't know if he was very comfortable in them
or not but he didn't try to take them off at all,
so that's a very good sign!



His mom told me that this is his very first time to
receive handmade clothes, and that made me feel like 'Yay!'
and now I really want to go get more boyish fabric
so that I can make more clothes for him!!

Thanks for coming and reading!

i made a dress

Thanks for your loveliest comments guys!
I just love to hear from you all the time!

These days, I've been on crafting spree.
I am either at the sewing table or thinking
about what to make tonight, tomorrow, and the day
after tomorrow. When I get fired up at crafting like
this, I must make things I've been wanting to make.

So, here is the dress I had in my mind for a while,
which I finally got started yesterday and finished
within a few hours! wow! And guess what, I started
another project already which is almost done too!
(I'll show you what it is hopefully this Friday ;) )

Being productive invigorates my life!
It makes me feel like I can make EVERYTHING!!!!





Whether it looks good on me might be a different
story, but I really like how it turned out anyway.
The dress is made with quilting-weight cotton, so
it kinda looks like an apron. Next time I make a dress
for myself, I want to use polyester or linen
so that it will look more professional
and comfy to wear. Oh I can't wait to go to a fabric store now!


Thanks for coming and reading!

Logcabin Top

Super quick update!
I just wanted to share with you this little logcabin
top that I made last night. I think it turned out really cute.
I am thinking this can be a potholder.



I love combining everything: Japanese fabric,
modern designer fabric, and vintage fabric.
The "Apple" fabric is from Ebay.
Ebay is an awesome place to go if you love vintage fabric!!



The mini iron rocks by the way!
I put a little ironing board right next to my
sewing machine so that I could work with the iron
and the sewing machine side by side, never having
to get up. It saved me a LOT of time!!!



Look how messy my small crafting table is right now.
To work big, I have to push everything aside to make
space and that leads to...



Fabrics falling off from the table. And this may explain
why I wanted to start making something small before
I finish up the placemats. haha. I'll clean up the space
and finish all the projects this week. hehe.

Thanks for coming and reading!

things I've been making these days

Let me start with this just because it's prettier.
I started making two simple patchwork placemats.
I'll probably choose linen to fill the middle part
of the placemats and use brown bias tapes to finish the edges.
Each little square patch measures 2" x 2" after sewn.
I might play a little with alphabet stamps or embroidery
on the linen just to add some fancy features ;)





Here is a pair of boxer shorts for Joe that I finished yesterday!
I modified this pattern slightly to make them shorter
than it's supposed to be. I am really REALLY pleased with
how it turned out. This is the second garment I made for Joe.
The first one was a pair of pajama shorts that I sewed up a long
time ago back when we were in Seattle. They were awful.
I made a whole bunch of mistakes while sewing the pajama
shorts (including the choice of fabric) but somehow I managed
to come to the point where I called it "finished."
Joe appreciates everything handmade, so he still wears
them during the winter, and that simply makes me smile ;)




I've wanted to make boxers for him because they're something
he can wear throughout the year. And I thought it might be
a creative way to save money on buying manufactured boxer shorts.
I had him pick up the fabric for them at Joann. I get scared
every time I ask him to pick fabric for projects because very
often he chooses fabric that I strongly dislike.
He would for instance choose extremely tacky Asian print,
you know, like those with humongous realistic tigers with
temples behind them or something. I was relived this time
since his choice was within my OK range. LOL.

This fabric was cheap! It's nicely firm cotton, but it didn't
even cost as much as $3/yard, so the total
expense on this project was less than $5. Not bad!!!
I'll definitely make more!





Thanks for coming and reading!

Widgets Fun

Thanks a million for your warmest birthday wishes!
You guys are so sweet. I feel so lucky to have people
like you as readers. Thank you for being so nice and supportive!




By the way, isn't the thing above so cool?
I don't know if it works properly if you are looking at this post
via the google reader, but it's supposed to rotate forward and backward
depending on how you move your cursor around it.
What you see there are the photos that have recently been
added to Made it Based on Pink Penguin's tutes pool.

Looking for some widgets to spice up my blog, I stumbled upon
Roytanck where I found this coolest flickr widget!
I personally think it's more appealing than that of the flickr's
original, so I switched my flickr widget to this kind on the right
sidebar. So far I love it!

It was really easy too. Simply go to your flickr page, click on
the 'you' tab, scroll down, look for the little RSS feed icon
(the orange one), click on the 'latest' next to the icon,
copy the URL, paste it onto Feed URL here, click on
"generate code snippet", and get the widget code.
If you use blogger, you can simply go to your
Layout page, add a gadget (HTML/JavaScript),
paste the code, and you're all set!



I also noticed that Blogger now has new gadgets such as
the one that allows you to show the most recent comments
on the sidebars. I've added it and am really liking how
comments from you guys appear right next to my posts!
This gives me the sense of community,
not like me just rambling alone here. ;)



Also, I found a solution to something I was looking for:
embedding a comment forum below each post. You know how every
time you leave a comment on Blogger blogs, you'll either
see a pop-up window showing up for the forum or go to the
'comment forum - only page' where you can't see the original post.

Blogger has enabled us to have it below a post, just like
those cool typepad and other blogs. I learned this here.
It was super simple and quick.
Just go to your Settings page, click on the Comments tab,
change your "Comment Form Placement" by choosing
"embedded below post", and save setting.

I might be giving info that is totally not new to you,
but I was too excited not to share these things, in the case
any of you with a Blogger blog are looking for something like these.
I'll keep looking for more ways to spice up my blog. hehe.
It's just a lot of fun.




Last weekend, our friend Matt came over from Seattle.



The first two pictures are Joe, Matt, and Saurabh playing
with dollar bills. The last two were taken in San Francisco.
We went to a really good Italian restaurant called Alioto's.
The Vongole spaghetti I had there was so YUMMY!
I keep thinking about it ever since. I have to make
one like that.

By the way, Joe and Matt are going to Iceland for their
vacations next week. They really want to meet Icelanders
there. Here is a message from him:

"Hi Guys, If anyone is willing to show me the inside of
their house, I will bring over some fabric from here.
I am really interested in seeing how the typical Icelander lives.
Consider this an open offer. Thanks!"

If you're interested, e-mail me at
ayumi_seattle at hotmail dot com.


Thanks for coming and reading!