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Thank you for your love about the Christmas
gifts I sent this year :) I truly appreciate that
you took the time to leave me a comment when it's
really busy and precious time of the year.. thank you :)
I will be leaving for Japan today. LOL
Wonder what in the world I am doing by sitting at
the table to do a blog post? Hehe it might sound crazy
but I am making a point of getting as worn-out as
possible given the fact that I will be heading to
San Francisco airport in 5 hours.
11 hours in the plane is no fun. How I utilize this
amount of time in the plane is always something I
try to be creative about. I don't really have a book
I want to read this time, so I am hoping I will be
able to stitch some embroidery, but you know a needle/
scissor that I put in my bag already might be taken
away at the security check-in. So,, in that case,
I need to SLEEP! or.. maybe I'll find a book to
read at the airport..
Anyways, I am really, REALLY excited about this trip.
I have been away from my home country for two and
a half years and this is the longest ever. And this
is the first time to see my family in Japan after
I got married. My family has seen Joe many times
before and they thought there is no any other guy
like him out there who is super sweet and who could tolerate my selfishness. lol. And I know they were humbly and secretlyhoping that we would get married. I know it will mean a lot for them to see us as "married" for the first time.
Oh and we have a gazillion plans over there.
I think it will be a lot of fun. LOTS of fun.
I don't know how often I can blog while I am in Japan,
but I'll definitely have much less time to spend on
computer, so I may not be able to reply emails/comments
as soon as I usually do. But I will do my best to respond asap
so feel free to send me emails if you have questions
about my tutorials, etc.
This is the coaster I made for Suzuko Koseki
to give to her at Tokyo Quilt Festival along with
17 other coasters made by creative folks who
are my blog friends/SK fans :) I messed up this
coaster though. Each coaster is supposed to be
4.5" x 4.5" which was something I decided, but
I realized after I am done that mine is 5" x 5".
Yikes that's not great. I'll see if I can make another
one in Japan - if not, I will have to chop off
the binding. I'll have a blog post where I introduce
each contributor for this project... you'll be
amazed at ALL the amazing coasters.. see?
Oh speaking of Japan, I love, love, and love
this mini Japan quilt that Leslie of goodness
made for her baby girl. I love the quilt, but
what I love more is the thought she put into
the project. So touching...
Ok, maybe I am getting a bit too tired...
I'll try to post lots of pictures from Japan..:)
In case I can't blog in a few days..
Have a happy, happy new year!
Thanks again for your time to stop by!
I'm really happy that some of my Christmas gifts
that I've sent have been received, opened and loved!
I made a few of these patchwork totes. There is
nothing like square patches that I truly love.
And I still adore Ginseng collection by Joel Dewberry
as much as I did when it just came out.
I seem to have my glitter penguin's approval too!
On the other side of the tote, I appliqued
my friend's (recipient's) name. Vy - Isn't it
such a pretty name?
These are some felt cakes I made for Joe's niece
Sarah. It took me a while to make a pattern that
I felt comfortable with, but it was worth it.
I ended up wanting to make some for myself too!
Some Christmasy placemats. I was hoping that the
recipients will open this gift before Christmas
so that they can use these mats this year, so
it was really nice to know that they opened the
gifts as soon as they received these mats.
I used a pattern in Kumiko Fujita's patchwork pattern 318to make this for my mother-in-law. I was not
pleased with how it turned out. There are tons of
"oh I should've.." but time was running out, so
I just had to gift this to her. Neither Joe or I
liked it but it's probably partly because we don't
care too much about lighthouses in general. My mother
-in-law is a big fan of a lighthouse. Every time
we went to the beach in Oregon, she would snap
tons of pictures of the lighthouse there and
she was always on the lookout for postcards with
a lighthouse picture. So I was hoping that she
will like it more than I do. She let me know today
that she likes it very much. That made me smile.
Thank you for letting me share my creations..
I'll be back with more Christmas gifts once
they are in the hands of my recipients.
Have happy holidays.. :)
I have been sewing and sewing and sewing every minute
possible in the given day this past week and maybe
you are probably in the same boat? Christmas is just
around the corner and it is the best time to sew up
something nice for families and friends and I would
hate to miss this chance. I've made many things for
Christmas gifts but I can't show any of them yet in
here because I know some of my gift recipients read
my blog frequently. Surprises shouldn't be ruined..
My deadline to ship gifts to ensure the delivery before
Christmas is tomorrow (assuming this from my experience), so
I will get really busy tonight to wrap up my handmade gifts.
Starting tomorrow, I will get started making things
for folks whose gifts will be given in person.
Busy, busy time.. but to be honest with you, a lot of
my gifts are looking good (I think!) and I am just really
enjoying imagining recipients' smiles when they
open my gifts. hehe. (I hope I don't sound creepy.)
Let me leave you with some linky links you might enjoy.
Remember I told you about making coasters for
the fabric designer Suzuko Koseki with blog friends?
We ended up with a team of super creative 18 members
and each of us is making a coaster featuring
one of the letters in "WE L♥VE SUZUKO KOSEKI"
So far I have received this amazingly adorable
♥ coaster from Megan of Monkey Beans.
It's sooooooooo cute and precious that it made
me nervous to touch it. I am thrilled at the thought
that Suzuko will be thrilled at this.
Thank you so much Megan for making this!!!!
I can't thank all the folks enough who have
agreed to make this possible! Thank you so much!!!!
Jane, you are so nice to write this post!!
This free penguin mini quilt pattern by
Janet Clare is utterly cute! Thanks to Fat Quarterly
for helping us discover new designers!
I added "Print Friendly" button for my blog posts
(on the left, bottom side) so if you ever wanted to
print out my tutorials printer-friendlily, you can do
it now :) (I'm sorry it took forever to take this action!)
And if you want to add the same button in your blog
posts, the button can be found here!
Ok time to get back to sewing.
Thank you for stopping by. And good luck to all
of you who are working on Christmas gifts too!
I wanted to share with you a few projects I finished.
The flex frame pouch above is the tiniest pouch I've ever
made. It's about 3" x 3 1/4". Really, really small.
When I was asked to make a pouch with a 3" flex frame,
I thought it might be a challenge for me, but it turned
out it was fairly easy and I really enjoyed cutting really
thin strips, sewing them together, and turning it into
a little coin purse! I love how it turned
out so much that it will be a bit hard to part with it.
Logcabin pincushion Again?! ..yes..
I told you I am addicted to making these :D
Have a great day!
Thank you for stopping by!
I bet many of you are completely swamped with
tons of things to do before Christmas now. I am too.
I am done with writing up a list of people I want to
make something for Christmas. Wow that is a long list.
Knowing I haven't even started making a single thing,
I am a bit overwhelmed. And here I am posting something
in my blog - a form of procrastination that I am
very good at! The potholder above is an early Christmas
gift I sent to my friend Fei in England.
I told you I have been just in this "food mode."
Fei has a boy who is about the same age as this boy
in the center of the potholder, so I couldn't think
of better fabric choice to make something for her.
In case you are wondering about the fabric, it is
from a Berlin Kollektion Anne and Hanse by Yuwa.
Ever since I learned about this fabric coming out
in Quilt Japan magazine, I had been waiting to
get some myself very impatiently. I snatched it
on the day it became available! I love the collection.
And this strawberry fabric used on the back
of the potholder was more than perfect,
because I knew she grows strawberries in her garden.
What made me the happiest though was the fact she
told me, after receiving this potholder, that
this is her first potholder she has owned.
Oh if you want to make a potholder or a mug rug
like this except it's much prettier, you should
check out Kerry's really cool potholder tute!
Another quick project I worked on was
this felt crown I made for Taihei for his
three year old birthday which I made based
on this amazing tutorial by Cindy of Skip to My Lou.
It literally took me less than 10 minutes
to make it. I just love easy, quick, but
very fun and practical projects like that!
Oh and the dinosaur he is holding is a gift
from us that we snatched from here. I never get
why boys are so crazy about dinosaurs but
Taihei is a huge fan of them like other boys.
He didn't want to wear the felt crown, so
it wasn't easy to get a picture of him wearing
it but when the cake showed up, his focus was
fully onto the cake and that was our chance to
shoot some photos of him with the crown. hehe.
I really love this boy. I'll miss him when
I am in Japan...
Thank you for stopping by!
