Pincushions, etc.

What a boring title for this post, I know.
Sometimes it's so hard to come up with a good
title when I have many different things to write
about. Pincushions, wedding-related talk,
Joe's birthday talk, fabric basket, silk-screened
fabric, etsy update - not so easy to combine these
all into one short cool title.

Some of you might recall that I made lots of
pincushions just like ones above last year.
In fact, I made so many things with the penguin
fabric, didn't I? I am just in love with the print.

These ones above are custom pincushions that
are flying off to Australia soon. It seems that
it's not only me who just adore penguin designs!



This is another pink log cabin pincushion.
(I warned you that you'd see it soon again!)



But this one isn't a poodle, but a birdie.
I like it either way! The scissor print is
from a newest collection of Suzuko Koseki's
fabric which literally made me go crazy
when I discovered online. Way too irresistible!!
You can view the whole collection here and here.
I've got a few prints already, but I want MORE!!



This is a fabric basket I made very quickly
in the evening of March 16th. March 17th is
such a big day for us every year; St, Patrick's day +
Joe's Birthday + Our Anniversary. This year,
Joe turned 26 and we celebrated our 6th anniversary.
As a part of birthday gift for him, I made a pair
of pajama shorts and this fabric basket.

The pajama shorts didn't turn out too well,
so let me pass on the picture, haha.
(luckly, Joe likes them and he's been wearing
them ever since he's got them.)
I think the fabric basket turned out neat.
I might have told you here before, but the
only male-friendly fabric I have is traditional
Japanese fabric. Joe loves traditional Japanese
stuff, so I knew he would appreciate a basket
made with these prints. Now, it's been used
to organize his athlete foot cream and ear plugs
- even inside is male stuff!

Oh as for our wedding plan, it looks like
we'll finally be able to get a marriage license
next week! I'd heard that I'd need a birth certificate
for this process, so I asked my mom to send me
copies, translated into English, and had my
friend verify it. Joe spent an hour looking for
his birth certificate in the garage today, but
the only thing found was a photocopy of it.
(Would it work? Does anybody know..?)



It's a lot of work!!!! It looks like the wedding
itself isn't too bad, but the toughest part
is going to be changing my visa status.
Since it's too much paperwork, most people seem to
ask a lawyer to take care of everything, but
I decided to do everything on my own. For one,
no money. For two, it will be a great
excuse to be staying at home while looking for
a job after my graduation in May.

Paperwork isn't the funnest thing, but I am
really excited to become "married" and
of course, to wear a wedding dress, although
we still have no clue when the day will be.
(I just bought a simple casual dress for the
ceremony at the court - good enough, right?)



Coming back to crafty talk, some of you have
asked me to write a tutorial on screen-printing.
Thank you for the great idea, but I feel like
there are so many cool books and youtube videos
on it so it might be silly if I wrote up a tute.
My favorite book on silkscreening is Printing by Hand
by a great painting artist, Lena Corwin.
This book is absolutely amazing. In the book,
she presents so many different ways to print
on various things like fabric, cards, and walls.
And every method is very clearly depicted in
step-by-step photos so that it's so easy to follow.
I learned a lot about silkscreening from this
book, but what I had to learn from somewhere else
was how to burn images to create stencils.
The book recommends having it done by a local
art supplies store, but since I bought this nice
silkscreen kit that came with everything I needed
to burn images, I really wanted to learn how to do it.
Some Youtube videos helped me a lot to get hand
on it, and it turned out that it's pretty simple.
If I gain more confidence, I might write a tute
on it but until then go ahead and watch videos
like this and this and google silkscreen tutorial.
There are great free resources on it everywhere online :D



I've listed my newest collection of silk-screened
fabric collection in my etsy shop.
As usual, fabric sheets are sold as a set of 3 sheets.
This time, I have a few listings that are for 6 sheets
that are sold at a discount price. Each sheet of the fabric
for these sets of 6 sheets has a minor flaw such as a little smudging.
Most words are safe, but a few words may appear to have
a small smudge like..



This may not affect a big project but maybe a small
project. Again, most part of each sheet is just fine
but it has one or two words that you may want to
avoid using if it is to be used for a small project.

And again, please let me know that you came from
here when you snatch anything from my shop, I would
love to add a little gift!!

Also, Thank you so much for those of you
who have purchased my silk-screened fabrics!
I hope you liked what you received..!
If you made anything with my fabric, feel free
to make sales. And if you blogged about what
you made with the fabric, can you let me know
so that I can look at it and have a good day.
I'll also link to your post in my blog ;)

Anyways, thanks you for listening to me
for a long time..! Hope you are all having
a great weekend..!!

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