Pink Penguin

Big thank you and a Merry Christmas to you :)

2011-12-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

I don't usually take the time to thank every one of you for your kind acts you have taken to make me feel good about myself, but this past few days, I have been giving a lot of thoughts to how lucky I have been to have such great, supportive, warm friends who are always there for me. I have been in need of a lot of support lately, and I have had more than enough of it from my trusted friends and my hubby. Supportive people for me includes every one of you who are nice to hop over here to read my new post out of your busy time. Thank you so much to you all!

Sewing something and putting my projects out there for anyone's eyes has not been easy for me. I am very critical of my work and am always afraid that people might be here to judge me. However, in the history of Pink Penguin since April of 2008, I have never ever received a single email from anybody to criticize anything I have made or have said. This I find it almost a miracle as there are people who aren't necessarily as nice as you guys. I am so lucky. All my fear about my creativity and my projects are usually swept away completely by your sweet comments/emails. They have such strong uplifting power to me, so much that I can hardly describe it to my friends who don't blog or craft. (I would look just silly, hehe.) Without your support, I would not have as much confidence to keep creating and blogging. I deeply thank you for any moment you have spent to let me know you like my projects/tutes/blog. I am especially thankful when I receive emails letting me know that they liked my stuff in published works, as I am usually very, very nervous and shaky about having my work being published in print. So when I saw this post by my friend Penny of Sew Take a Hike today, I started feeling too warm and fuzzy and tears came down on my face. How much it made me feel better is indescribable.

I am also very thankful of all of you who have supported my wee etsy shop. It has been very helpful to me in that I feel I am doing something I can to support this family that Joe works very hard for.

I am ready to have a great Christmas with KFC and a decorated cake at a Kotatsu table (a table with a heater right underneath the table top and a blanket to go over to keep the heat) in our tatami room. I will make quick eggnog for Joe so that he won't miss American way of Christmas too much.

I hope you are keeping yourself warm and that you have a Merry, Merry Christmas with your loved ones!

Thank you again for your every kind act! Love you all!

P.S. Here is a little pattern I made a long time ago. I never cared about it enough to write a tutorial on how to use it, so the whole idea was tossed, and time passed by. I just happen to remember about this because I was thinking about a cake for tomorrow. (It's supposed to be a cake in the oven.) If this is something any of you would want to give a try for personal use, I'd be delighted! It may look a bit boring as it is but maybe it has potential to turn into a fun potholder? Who knows? You can download it here if you would like ;) Just a wee Christmas gift from me to thank you!

Christmas = KFC

2011-12-18T06:48:00.000-08:00

Here is a little sneak peak of my second and sadly possibly last Christmas gift from me this year. (Can you still call it a sneak peak when you show 90% of it? lol) I totally underestimated how fast time flies. I was told at the post office that it's too late to send Christmasgifts overseas via standard airmail now. So my gift list went from 20to 2 since all my recipients-to-be live overseas. So sad, butthis is a great lesson - I will start VERY, VERY early next year!
Christmas is not celebrated in the same way in Japan, so there isno gift exchanges between family here usually. (I have never given Christmas giftsto any of my family, nor received one, but we have a perfect relationship :) )Christmas is rather a romantic day for couples and peopleenjoy a nicely decorated cake and KFC. Can you imagine what Joe's reaction was like when I told him we have to order KFC for Christmas this year? hahaHe said he would accept the idea if and only if he couldhave eggnog, which is basically impossible to find in Japan.Thanks to Krista for pointing out to me that I could make it at home.Well, I might have to do it so that we can have KFC!;)
Oh the winner of Kerry's Candy Cane pattern is**nicke... of kiss kiss......Quilt!Congrats, Nicke! I will contact you soon ;)

I hope your holiday making is coming along and you are enjoying every step of it!

Secret Gift Making #1

2011-12-13T20:22:00.000-08:00

Here is a little gift I whipped up for someone, hehe.
I know the recipient of this little drawstring bag reads
my blog, so I hope I am not ruining a surprise too much by posting this..!

I made this using the same method in this tutorial, but instead of 2 1/2" squares, I used 1 3/4" x 2 3/4" rectangles, which makesa 7 1/2" x 7 1/2" drawstring pouch. I also sewed the patchworkpanel onto thin muslin to stabilize it.
If you are anything like me, you had a longest list of to-make-forChristmas gifts to begin with, but now you are finally realizing that 1) Christmas is just in 10 days,2) you don't have time to cross off everything on the list,and 3) you need a Plan B - switching your initial ideas to something a lot quicker and simpler. At least for me, this happens every year, haha.

Here are some tutorials of small things you can whip up little quickand can be great gifts for your friends and family just to name a few:
Scrappy organizer by Leila of Where the orchards growQuick scarf and lined drawstring bag by Jeni of In Color OrderMini tote bag by Kerry of verrykerryberryScrappy armrest pincushion by Amy of During Quilt TimeNeedlebook by Amy of nana company2011 star desktop calendar by Nathalie of An once of creativity
Oh and you must have seen Kerry's amazing newest paper pieced Candy Cane pattern by now. It's on sale in her shop, but if you wouldlike to win the pattern, leave one comment on this post by Thursday midnight.A random winner will be announced here this Friday.
One more thing! I would be so thrilled if you checked outmy sister-in-law's etsy shop here! She's got lovelyhandmade jewelry for unbelievable prices! If you snatch anything from her shop, please say hi for me ;)
Hope you're having a great week!

ABC House Block

2011-12-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

Hi all! So sorry for the longest absence ever on this blog! I have been sewing a lot recently, but I don't have very many projectsI can talk about at this moment! It's the time of the year with a lot ofsecret projects, right? Anyways, I am so glad to be back today withthis block I made last night for Leila for Patchwork 318 bee. Leila chose"Home Sweet Home" as her theme in November. In this bee, we useKumiko Fujita's Patchwork Pattern 318 book and our own stash to create blocks. This block is sort of a combination of 4 blockpatterns in the book - a house pattern and three alphabet (ABC) patterns.I saw Kumiko Fujita's work just like this in a quilt magazine at thelibrary and was so inspired to make one just like hers.

Here is how it looks like with seam allowances.I remembered Leila mentioned she finds quilt inspiration in song lyrics here, so when I spotted the musical note symbol fabric in my stash, I knew immediately it must be used for her block ;)
Speaking of Kumiko Fujita, I had such a great opportunity to meet her in person at the International Quilt Week held last month
in Yokohama, Japan. Here is us in front of her quilt she made for her grandson - so so so cute!! (You can have a little virtual tour and see her and her students' works exhibited at the festival in this video.)

She was an absolutely amazing person - so kind, humble, and funny!She had no idea that her books (unfortunately out of print) and fabrics have inspiredso many of our sewing/quilting styles overseas. I told her that her Patchwork Pattern 318 book is especially popular that it is sold really expensively due to its rarity value.She said she feels terribly sorry for all of you who had to pay a lot to snatch a copy of the book and also for those of you who have yet to spot a copy.According to her, the popularity of patchwork in general has declined dramatically in the past three decades in Japan so that there are less and lesspatchwork/quilt books available here. Would you say the situation is completelyother way around in the US? I feel that there are more and more patchworkbooks introduced nowadays in the US. Maybe some of you need tomove to Tokyo for me so that we can start a modern quilt guild here, ya?
I have a lot of things I want to talk about on my blog, but it'stime for me to go now! Thank you so much for coming back to my blog aftersuch a long break ;) I hope you are having a great holiday.

Winners!

2011-10-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

Congrats, deserae and Shannon! I'll contact you guys soon!Don't be too disappointed about not winning this giveaway!You can always snatch your own Winter Woolies pattern here at Kerry's etsy shop! It's a truly amazing pattern with lots of possibilities!
Thanks for stopping by!

Scissors Block

2011-10-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

Hope you are having a great weekend! It's a Sunday morning in Japan.
I thought I would post this before we go on a long bike ride today.It's a scissors block for Amisha in the patchwork 318 bee.In this bee, we use block patterns in Kumiko Fujita'sPatchwork 318 book (which is unfortunately completelyout of print) and use our own fabric. I love this concept of this bee.Just the right amount of challenges ;) Not too hard but not too easy either.
I know Amisha is a big fan of Kumiko Fujita and Suzuko Koseki,so I used a lot of fabrics designed by these two Japanesetextile designers! The "Quilt Work America" fabric ismy lucky find from auction. It's a very old Kumiko Fujita print. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to snatch it for my block for Amisha!
Would you say it turned out too busy...?Keeping my fingers crossed Amisha will like it!

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of the weekend ;)

Kerry's Winter Woolies Pattern - Giveaway!

2011-10-19T00:04:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for everyone who left comments on my organizer baskets tutorial! It's been so fun and rewarding to see your baskets popping up in the Pink Penguin flickr pool.I also enjoyed hearing about your plans for your baskets' usein the comments. I'll make a list of your ideas for the basketsand add it at the end of the tutorial post sometime soon.
I wanted to share with you a few projects I whipped up in this past few weeks. The mittens above were made usingKerry's first paper pieced pattern for sale! Isn't it the most adorable thing?! Have you seen Amy's take on it?Such loveliness! I especially love those mittens, so I am making a tea cozy with these blocks for my new small tea pot. (I enlarged the pattern quite a bit.)The pink mitten is mine and the other one is Joe's. When I saw the creature fabric, I had to snatch it right away because it was the Joe-est fabric I have ever seen! Joe doesn'tlike the fabric, but hopefully he'll change his mind after seeing a tea cozy, hehe.
Here is one of several tissue box covers I made for friends.I had quite a few failure attempts in making this pattern,but I ended up coming up with a pattern that is just a perfect fitfor a Japanese standard tissue box (it's so short!).I'll have to make one for myself!

And this is a block for Angela in Stash Trad bee.This is her original pattern called Cracker Scraps, and you can findher super easy to follow tutorial here! With her clear tutorial, I was able to make this without making a single mistake. It felt so good!!
Ok now to a giveaway! Kerry has allowed me to giveaway her Winter Woolies pattern to one lucky Pink Penguin reader!For your chance to win the pattern, leave one commentin this post by the midnight of October 26th. Good luck :)
Thank you for stopping by! Hope you are staying warm!

12 Gifts of Christmas Blog Hop: Organizer Basket Tutorial

2011-10-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

I was flattered when Jennifer of Ellison Lane Quilts kindly
asked me to be a part of 12 gifts of Christmas Blog Hop! You've probably read about it over Jennifer's already by now,but we are bringing you 12 free tutorials on Christmas gift makings! One tute per day through October 25th!Sounds fun, right?! Jennifer started it off with a fabulous double sided pace mat tutorial yesterday and here I am hosting a second stop
with a tutorial on how to make these
easy-peasy organizer baskets!

Not ready to think about Christmas yet?

Me neither, but we know it will come before we know it!

Jennifer picked this perfect timing to get this rolling

so that we have plenty of time to whip up gifts!

It's been over a year since I last posted a tutorial,

so I was a bit nervous writing this up, although it is

probably the easiest project among all sewing tutes

I have ever written, hehe. Hopefully I took enough pictures

so that the visual will help you through! If you have any
questions about this tute, you know you can contact me anytime!

Ok, here you go!

To make one basket, you'll need two 13" x 7" cotton rectangles
(one for exterior, one for interior) and one piece of
cotton batting that is just a little larger than 13" x 7".

Spray the wrong side of the interior piece and add the batting.

Quilt as desired. I like mine diagonal cross hatch quilted.
I marked a line from one corner to the point where it's 6" from the other corner.

Quilt along the line. (My stitch length was set at 3.0)

This quilter accessory is such a big help!
I sew while guiding the quilter over the previous row of stitching.
(My quilting lines are approximately 3/4" apart from each other.)

Like that. If your sewing machine didn't come with
this accessory, you can mark parallel lines throughout the interior piece.

Here is how this looks after diagonal quilting is done.

Now mark a line perpendicular to the stitching and quilt in the same manner.

Yay quilting is done!

Chop off the excess.

Now fold in half the piece with right sides together lengthwise
and sew both short edges. (1/4" seam allowance)

Time to box corners!

Mark where the seam line is at 1 1/4" from both sides.
(2.5" long from one edge to the other.) Sew along the marked line.

Cut off the corner. Leave a small seam allowance.

Repeat the same process for the other short edge so that
your quilted interior looks like this.

Do the same with the exterior piece.

With right sides together, place the exterior inside the
interior. Match seams and pin in place.

I like to start sewing just about 3" away from the seam.

Leave about 1 1/2" wide opening. Turn the right side out from the opening.

Press the opening.

Top-stitching!

Now you've finished making this organizer basket!
(Finished size: 2"H x 9 1/2"W x 2 1/2"D)
These nicely soft baskets serve well as drawer organizers/utensil trays,
but if you want to stabilize the baskets a little,
you can alternate the pattern by using interfacing on
the back of the exterior and/or using stiffer batting and/or...

Top-stitching four corners.

Your basket will be more squarish like this.
(these were made in the same way except for top-
stitched corners.)

This basket is a perfect size to put together 16 spools of Gutermann 250m
threads for a gift. (Oh I just had a vision of this basket filled with spools
and one big handle in the middle! That would make a cute gift, wouldn't it?)

Or maybe pen holders? Whatever you or the recipients
of your baskets can think of :) Lots of possibilities!

I would love to see your baskets in this flickr pool and
here for anything you made using tutorials in this blog hop!

Fabric used: Sew Cherry and Kei

I hope you'll find some great inspiration for Christmas

gift makings by hopping over these amazing blogs.

I am so looking forward to seeing what they'll come up with
because I haven't decided what I will be making for Christmas yet!

Friday, October 14- Jennifer/ Ellison Lane Quilts

Saturday, October 15- Ayumi/Pink Penguin
Sunday, October 16- Amy/ Lots of Pink Here
Monday, October 17- Faith/Fresh Lemons Quilts
Tuesday, October 18- Penny/Sew Take a Hike
Wednesday, October 19- Kati/From the Blue Chair
Thursday, October 20- Lee/Freshly Pieced
Friday, October 21- Elizabeth/Don't Call Me Betsy
Saturday, October 22- Melanie/Texas Freckles
Sunday, October 23- Lindsay/Craft Buds
Monday, October 24- Amanda/A Crafty Fox
Tuesday, October 25-Vanessa/Little Big Girl Studio

Oh and to make this blog hop more exciting, there are

a giveaway at each blog stop AND a grand prize you could win

- $250 gift certificate to fabricworm! (Yes you heard it right :))

Enter to win a $25 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop by leaving

one comment on this post by the midnight on October 26th.
I'll have the random number generator
pick a winner for me on October 26th.

Make sure to leave a comment on Jennifer's tutorial
for the the chance to win the grand prize!

And just for stopping by, you can take advantage of a generous

15% off discount at Fabricworm with the coupon code fw12days

through the end of the blog hop.

Thank you for your time to stop by!

Mini Cross Quilt + Pinnie

2011-10-04T05:02:00.000-07:00

September 30th was my fabulous friend Kerry's birthday!
I whipped up a mini quilt and a matching pinnie for her
earlier last month so that my gift for her would get there
on time. I surprised myself by finishing them up way before
the deadline - a week before her birthday. Unusual of me :D She gave me such a pretty pillow
for my birthday/house warming gift. (which I'll show
you how wonderfully it looks in my craft space once I am
done setting it up!) It is the cutest and most meaningfulpillow I have ever owned! I knew I would not be able to makeanything comparable, but I still wanted to send her
handmade love :)

Choosing fabrics for this quilt could not have
been more enjoyable, because each and every fabric
used here is what I know Kerry likes! Kumiko Fujita,
Suzuko Koseki, Denyse Schmidt, Lori Holt, cooking,
sewing, typography, vintage fabric, and linen - so ya,
we share the love for lots of fabric designs! And
you know it makes quite a big difference when
you are making something with the fabric not
only you but the recipient covet!

At the time I was making this, I didn't have a quilting
spay on hand, so the quilting didn't come out as flat
and nice as I had envisioned, but I like the fact it has more
"handmade feel" to it because of my not-so-great quilting.

Kerry has inspired me to use alphabet stamps for sewing
craft. If you are a big fan of everything she makes
like me, I bet you too have wondered about stamps
(if you have yet bought them :) I still need practiceto get better impression!

Here is a matching pinnie!Sewing teeny tiny pieces is another thing we both love :)

The back side is her initial 'K' pieced.

I had been meaning to blog about these on her birthday,
but I was busy whipping up tissue box covers for my
friends this past weekend. I'll be back to show you one
of the tissue box covers I made and hopefully other things too.
In the meantime, don't forget to check out Kerry's
great freezer paper/paper piecing tutorial and to
enter her birthday giveaway!

Thank you for letting me share my creations :)

Christmas Blocks

2011-09-28T05:50:00.000-07:00

Are you guys in some Christmas mode by any chance?
Well I am because my small craft space's got
Christmas fabrics everywhere now that I just finished
two Christmas blocks! They are for Amber in the Ringo Pie
bee. Her theme is all things Christmasy, so I pulled out
all my Christmas-related printed fabrics and had so much
fun sewing with them while singing some Christmas songs ;)
The block above features 6 Christmas gift tags - two for
parents (Amber and her hubby) and four for her four beautiful
children. She has two girls and two boys, so I tried to
have two tags boy-friendly and the other two girl-friendly.

It was so much fun sewing this for Amber. I love reading
Amber's blog partly because she has such a lovely, lovely family.
If you have not read her love story with her husband,
you are missing out! Reading her posts about her husband
is such a great reminder to myself that I need to
treat Joe nicely. Joe loves it when I read a blog like
hers and I am all of a sudden super nice lol.

Amber has given me permission to embroider everyone's
name on this block, but I figured she knows much better
which tag her children will like the best, so I left
four tags without embroidery.

I made two blocks for her because she made two
blocks for me! It made me really happy
so I hope these two will make her happy too.

This block design was based on a house pattern
from a patchwork book from the library.
I modified the window's size (so that the most
adorable Santa designed by Monica would fit in perfectly)
and the chimney's size (so that the super cute cherry
designed by Lori would fit perfectly.)
Here Santa Clause is contemplating happy presents
for Amber's family. 'Hmm.. what would they want this year..?'

Yup Christmas is still three months away.
But we know it will come before we know it!

Oh speaking of Christmas, I will post a tutorial on
the utensil trays in a few weeks, because many people
asked for it! They would make great Christmas giftsfor friends who are setting up a new place, etc :)

Thank you for reading this! Have a great rest of the week :)

Echino Bag and Baby Booties

2011-09-26T22:57:00.000-07:00

Thank you a million for your lovely comments on the
birds + a teeny quilt block!! You know it makes your
day when something you thought didn't turn out great
gets so much compliments. I love it when that happens :)

I would like to share some projects I sewed up for my friend today.
My friend is expecting a baby boy, and she has asked me
to make a diaper bag and booties for him a while back.
She wanted this bag to have strong and long handles
and a zipper closure on top. I picked up Echino fabric
from my local fabric store because the quality of this
linen blend fabric is absolutely perfect for bag projects.
There was a day where Tokyo was hit by a crazy typhoon
last week, so that gave me a great reason to stay home
and cross off one thing from my never-ending make-to list.

I came up with this bag pattern as I went. I would
make the outer bag, watch Kitchen Nightmare with Joe,
come back to made a lining, cook dinner, and come back
to sew up handles, etc. I didn't really make note of
anything about this pattern (measurements etc.) but
that was not the smartest decision, because I ended up
liking this bag a quite bit. I want to make one for myself too!

And these are booties for my friend's son-to-be!
She actually wanted booties to be matching with the bag,
but we both agreed that the Echino prints are a bit too
girly, so she let me use different fabrics for booties.
And ya, I know, the yellow ones aren't so boyish,
so I am thinking about making one more pair of aqua +
green booties for him and the yellow ones are to go to my shop.

The pattern is in a Japanese magazine, Cotton Time No.90.
It's not an easy and quick project, as it involves a lot
of hand-sewing, gathering, and sewing curves, but I think
the result pays off. Imagining my friend putting these
shoes on her first baby really got me excited!
I so wish I had my own ones to make baby stuff for (maybe
in a few years) Until then, I'll satisfy myself with
making baby things for my friends' babies. way to go!

I will be back with Christmas blocks in a few days!

Thank you for stopping by! Hope you are enjoying the
beginning of Fall/Spring! I definitely am! No more
sweating all the time :)

Birds + A Quilt Block

2011-09-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

August was Corey's month in the Ringo Pie patchwork bee,
and her theme was "Quilts on a line." I must admit that
I struggled for a while. It is such a great theme, but
I have never hung my quilt on a line once before, so it was
a bit hard for me to be inspired by the theme. Totally my bad!
So instead of hanging quilts from a line tied to trees, I
decided to let birdies hold a quilt. Corey makes such
lovely things with bird appliques/embroidery, so I figuredshe wouldn't mind welcoming a few more birds to her house ;)
(have you seen this pillow she made? Unbelievably adorable!)

Making these houses was the funnest part!!
Each block is paper-pieced and is so teeny tiny (a 1 5/8" square).
It was so much fun going through my stash to look for
fabrics with teeny prints, and of course I squealed
when I found the cute penguin of the perfect size!

So these houses are supposed to be birdhouses.
Those birdies are getting sick of their worn-out
birdhouses, so they are presenting a catalog of new, pretty
birdhouses for Corey in case she would consider
building new ones for them :)

Hmmm...

Corey may come to a conclusion that the blue bird
doesn't need a new birdhouse, because he's got an
antique sewing machine in his current birdhouse!
No new birdhouse can be better than that, right!!

Thank you for stopping by! I will be back in a few
days with more birds-related projects :D

P.S. I have listed some more Japanese fabrics in my shop!
As usual, let me know when you come from this blog -
I will include extra fabric for you!

Have a lovely day~!

Sampler Display Canvas

2011-09-10T08:18:00.000-07:00

I had such a great pleasure playing with this Sampler Display
Canvas by Basic Grey. When the Fat Quarterly team had kindly
asked me if I would be able to take part in this challenge,
of course I said YES! immediately. There was no way could I
pass on such a fun opportunity! Do you remember how boring
my new apartment looked like when we just moved in?Well, we have bought some furniture and stuff
since then but this place is still far from what I envision
to be a pretty place. I still need lots of cute things here.

You can read about how I went about fusing fabric scraps
onto this canvas over Fat Quarterly's blog, so let me focus
on fabric talk here. I had SO much fun putting these fabrics
together partly because I associate many of these fabric scraps
with nice memories. Some of these fabrics were given to me
either in swaps or surprise gifts by my friends I have made
through blogging and emailing.

I could have a long list of each fabric used in this project,
who and about when it was given to, and how much I love it,
etc, but it would make too long of a post for me. (It's
past midnight here in Japan!) So for now let me simply thank
Mary, Lori, Jan, Kerry, Erica, Charise, Marit and Jade for
gifting me some pretty fabrics that made to the canvas!

Other fabrics also evoke great memory of my life in the US.
I bought some of these fabrics with Tamiko. (It was always
SO much fun to be able to shop for fabrics with a quilty, sweet
friend!!) Some of the vintage prints were my lucky finds
on etsy or ebay or some other online stores. (When I found thevintage chicken print on etsy, I got so excited that my heartstarted beating really fast and my hands were even shaking, lol,some nice memory to me since I won't be using etsy and ebayanymore. Most sellers of vintage fabrics don't ship internationally.)

It is now hung in the living room :) Thank you again
the Fat Quarterly team for letting me play with it!

Ok, I just realized I am expecting a bed delivery
early morning tomorrow! I gotta go to sleep NOW!

Oh the winner of the last giveway is Three Honeybees
who said..

"Oh, I love all things princess and the pea!
How beautiful! And such inspiring videos. Thank you!"

I'll contact you soon!

Hope you are having a great weekend!!

Great Inspiration and Giveaway!

2011-08-31T22:44:00.000-07:00

Kumiko Fujita's Patchwork Lesson Part 1

Kumiko Fujita's Patchwork Lesson Part 2

Ladies, check this out! In this video, Kumiko Fujita,
a Japanese textile designer/quilter/an author of several
amazing patchwork books (including Patchwork Patterns 318
that is out of print and is in HIGH demand) teaches you
how to sew a little girl block by hand-piecing.
It's very educational, easy to follow, and fun!
If you don't have spare time now, maybe you can check out
3:35 - 4:55 on the second video because that's the cutest part!
It's only in Japanese, but it's all about visual :)

I know her most famous books are really difficult to
find nowadays, but you can spot her new patchwork
patterns quite often in Japanese magazines. The pattern
she is using in the video is available in Patchwork
Tsushin No.164 and this is a part of a series called
"First of Infinity" - There will be 6 more consecutive
issues of the mag with her new pattern. Also, in
Quilt Japan Vol.141, there are more of her patterns to
check out :) Look at these cute blocks made by Doe
using the pattern! Super adorable!

Another super cute thing - The princess & the Pea
Finger Puppet Pattern by Carrie of Such Designs.

A-dor-able!!! Carrie is such a talented, lovely
artist who I became a very good friend of. I love
all her patterns, but there is something about
this finger puppet pattern that is so irresistible!
Thank you Carrie for sending me an extra copy
of this pattern for me to share with one of my friends here!
If you want to win this pattern, please leave a
comment by September 8th, next Thursday! I'll
announce a random winner on the 9th of this month :)

Have a great rest of the week!

Block for the Partnership Quilt

2011-08-28T17:05:00.001-07:00

Hi there! I wanted to post this little quick beforemy friend comes over for lunch today (yay)! Here is my block for the Partnership Quilt at the Tokyo International Quilt Festival. Remember I talked about it here? Maybe most of you have forgotten
about it since it's been a while. Totally understandable.I even almost forgot about it too, but finally pushedmyself to get working on it yesterday because the deadlineis literally around the corner (August 31st)! I am so happy I have it done now so I can pop it in the mail today!
This turned out a bit simpler than I had planned,but I am really happy that I squeezed inone of my favorite prints by Suzuko Koseki.
Have you looked at the blocks everyone has madefor the Partnership Quilt here? They are all incredible!I can't wait to look for them at the festival in January.
Have a lovely week everyone!

Pieced Cakes and Grocery Sacks

2011-08-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

I joined a new virtual quilting bee called Patchwork 318: The Bee.
In this bee, we (six of us) create one block a month using
patterns in the Japanese book "318 Patchwork Patterns" by Kumiko
Fujita. (It is unfortunately out of print.) This is my month and I asked everyone to pick whatever block she likes from the book that is related to a Sweets shop. Kerry kicked off this month with this super cute Sweet shop, and Leila made a yum yum green tea ice cream cone. Charise is working on an ice cream truck with one of my
favorite fabrics ever! Knowing Tamiko and Amisha, I know
they will make ridiculously cute sweet blocks as well!
If you know me enough, you know I am already going nuts
picturing my small quilt made of six yummy
sweet blocks! I am already saving a nice spot for it in my
living room. I made three cake blocks - one of them will be chosen
based on consistency with blocks from everyone.

This is the first one I made. My favorite part of it is
the chickens helping me out to make sure I did add eggs.

After seeing Leila's green tea ice cream, I felt like
green tea, so this is supposed to be a cake with green
tea cream on top, but Joe thinks it looks more like a lime
cake. I am not crazy about lime cakes, so maybe this
will not join my final mini quilt. thanks Joe! lol

I was getting tired of limiting myself to pick out only
fabrics that will make a realistic cake, so this one was
made after I came to realization that it's only patchwork after all.A boy on a strawberry and high heel sandals in a cake are acceptable!

Let me share with you some reusable grocery bags I made
this week.

My local grocery stores have been very successful
at making customers switch from using disposable
plastic bags to bringing their own reusable
grocery bags. Impressively successful, I would say.
Every single grocery store in this town gives you
cash incentive if you bring your own bags. Either customers
with bags earn a cash discount at every transaction
or some extra points on threir member's cards. There is even
a store that charges for disposable plastic bags!
At a cash register, there is a "My Bag" card which
you can put in your basket to notify the cashier
that you don't need plastic bags. The first thing a
cashier does is to look for the card in the basket.
When she/he can't find it, you are asked if you sure
don't have your own bag. It makes you feel pretty guilty
to say "Yes" to that question. It's like you are no good.

So here is my solution, of course, a handmade grocery sack!
This grocery sack functions just like the plastic
bag from a super market except it's much prettier and stronger.
Oh I made handles a lot longer so that I can hang it from
my shoulder! I am so so so happy I finally made this!
With this bag in my purse, I will be able to
join a "good" bunch of customers who never need
plastic bags! Hehe, I can't wait to bring this
next time I go grocery shopping and feel 'proud!'

Here is another bag I made and it is listed
in my shop here :) Speaking of my shop,
there are more Japanese fabrics available in my shop :)

Hope you are having a great week!
P.S. Thank you Angela for featuring me as a part ofQuilting Around the world :)

Sew Cherry Love

2011-08-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

So you all know this cutest fabric line, Sew Cherry
by a super talented textile designer Lori Holt by now,
right? When I first saw this line, which I believe was in
the pictures of Lori's booth at the Quilt Market a few months ago,
I almost passed out. I thought, "Gee why do I have
to find out about such pretty American fabric coming
out when I am about to move out of the States?!"
Lori was so super nice to surprise me with a package
full of her fabric, patterns, and other goodies
which arrived just a few days before my flight to Japan.
You know I went insane absolutely!

I can think of so many things to make with these fabrics,
but for now I want to focus on small projects using them
just so that I get to enjoy seeing the lovely stash
in my fabric shelf for quite some time. I made these cases
this morning to..

organize inside a drawer in my tiny kitchen.
But while shooting some pictures for this post,
I started feeling that maybe these should be
used like this for the dining table (which we don't
have yet; therefore, they are on the floor lol).

Wouldn't it be sort of a lovely way to have a silver set
on the table when your friends come over for lunch or so?
I hope my friends will say "Oh where did you buy these cases?!"

You'll see a lot of Sew Cherry in my projects! One
of them would be a curtain for my craft room.
(For now, we have craft paper covering the window. lol)

Sew Cherry can be found at lots of online fabric
stores, but Lori has a great list of the stores
in the right bar on her sweet blog :)

Here are some of my new listings in my etsy shop :)

I'll be out of town until next Tuesday, so all orders
placed by then will be sent out on Wednesday (17th).

Thank you so much for those of you who snatched
fabrics from my shop :)

Have a lovely weekend!

Notebook Block for Lynne

2011-08-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

So sorry for being silent for such a long time again!
I figured I should have something new to share with
you, so I waited to blog until I am finished with
this block. I very much enjoyed lovely comments from
you guys on my previous post - thank you so much!!

Lynne asked for Design Classics for her theme for the
Ringo Pie bee. Since her inspiration mosaic was British
Design Classics stamps, everyone started making blocks
that speak "British!" (Look here over Lynne's blog! - they
are all amazing!)

My take was on Orla Kiely, a popular brand designer in UK.
Embarrassed to say this, but I didn't know about this brand
until Kerry named it to help me get some ideas for Lynne's block
despite the fact it's really popular in both the US and Japan also!
(I'm not so brand-fashion savvy!)

When I looked at her website and saw the leaf design,
I immediately recognized that I have seen her products
everywhere and also thought of Lynne a lot, so I browsed
the site for some inspiration. I picked one of the notebooks
with her iconic design on and managed to mimic it.

Paper-piecing the notebook was not nearly as hard as choosing
right fabrics for leaves. Orla Kiely's design seems to focus on
Autumn colors (orange, brown, khaki, etc), so I tried to pick
fabrics in the color palette, but I have a very limited amount of
fabric in the palette. It was challenging to pick 12 different
fabrics that match well and I started mixing up quirky fabric
(as usual!), but hopefully I didn't go too far from
her original color palette!

In case you are building Japanese fabric stash,
I should let you know that I have listed some fun
Japanese fabric bundles in my etsy shop.

:Bundle of 3 fat quarters:

:Bundle of 3 fat quarters:

:Bundle of 2 fat quarters:

As always, please let me know when you come from
my blog so that I'll add an extra piece of Japanese fabric!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Settling in a new place in Tokyo

2011-07-18T20:33:00.000-07:00

Oh Boy. I feel like it's been forever since I last posted
anything to my blog! I had never intended to take this long
vacation from blogging, but moving outside the country really
took over my life. I feel so behind on blog land now..it will take
some time to get back to the swing of things, but I am very much
excited about continuing to blog from Japan now. It's funny how
I have missed all of you although I haven't met most of you in person!
If you've felt the same way about me, I am giving you a big
virtual hug! I'm back! And I will always be here!

I apologize for all of you who have sent me emails in the last
several weeks, as it took me literally a few weeks to get back
to each of you. We had several days of no cellphones, no fridge,
no microwave, no washier, no Internet, and of course almost
no knowledge about this area we moved in, but now we have everything
mentioned above now, so things are getting back to normal.

Our new place and the neighborhood are pretty good.
The apartment is so much smaller than our previous
apartment in California. Not just an apartment itself,
but everything has shrunken. We used to buy 2 gallons
of milk at a time, as opposed to now where we barely
have enough space for 2 quarter gallon of milk in the fridge.
To help you visualize the downsizing we experienced,

here is our old kitchen, and..

this is our current kitchen. (FYI I am not missing
out any part of this kitchen. Everything you see is
everything I have in my kitchen.) In my old kitchen,
I needed a stool to look at and wipe the top surface of
the fridge, but now, everything on the microwave
which is on top of the fridge is right in front of my
face when I stand there, lol. I spend a lot of time
in the kitchen, so it has taken me some time to
get used to my new tiny kitchen, but I enjoy
the challenge. Trying to be creative on how to make
use of each space I am given here is a good brain exercise.
It helps on saving money on unnecessary stuff too
as we simply don't have space to store it.

Here is our new living room. As moving cost a ton
of money, we'll slowly get our apartment up to speed.
Hopefully I'll furnish this room with a small couch,
a bigger table, and maybe a handmade rug. (I'm contemplating
making Camille's Swoon quilt pattern into a rug for this room!)

Probably this is the room you want to see the most, hehe.
Just a snapshot for now, because I want you to see it
when it's complete and pretty (hopefully!). I have shipped
almost all sewing supplies and fabrics from the US and am
still waiting for them to arrive. Once I have them, I will
start decorating my room with mini quilts made by my
friends, etc. Can't wait to start doing that!

The neighborhood we moved in is at the edge of Tokyo,
so it's quite a bit country side. It's probably far from
the image of the super metropolitan city in Tokyo
you might have. We've learned that everyone in this town
bike to everywhere, so we both bought bikes which
we have been using to explore this neighborhood every weekend.
A lot of fun! The picture above was taken last Sunday
at a festival held at Hikarigaoka park we stopped by.

This is from yesterday where we biked to Shakujii Park.

There has been lots of positive aspects of us moving here,
but I am so relieved that Joe's loving our new life here
to pieces. I still can't believe that we actually moved to
Japan together. This is something we were hoping would happen
at some point in life, but it happened a lot sooner than expected.
Sure there are worries. We experience earthquake pretty often
and the economy here is doing pretty bad. It's so hot and humid
every day and I am so sticky at any given time and itchy
from bug bites, but I am so happy to be back home.

Oh many folks have asked me if I would sell fabric from Japan.
I am not sure if I will be able to list a lot of fabrics, but
if I find cute and unusual fabric here, I'll try to list them
in my shop. I have to go fabric shopping first! (Can you believe
I haven't gone fabric shopping in Japan yet?!)

Thank you so much for taking the time to read such a long
post! I'll come back with pictures of a few things I made
before moving sometime soon.

Hope your week started off nicely!

P.S. Japan's got a "small" option at Starbucks!

Frappuccino in three flavors

2011-06-16T17:28:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for all of you who have decided
to submit a block for the Tokyo Quilt Festival to
be held in January next year. Also, thank you for
those of you who helped me spread the word about it.
It looks like I will be looking for over 50 blocks
at the festival so far! How Fun!!! If you are still
debating whether you should do it or not, I hope
you'll decide to join! We've got over 2 months to
make just one block if that sounds more doable :)
I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

This is a block for the Ringo Pie Bee I just finished
today. Marit wanted her blocks to have a summer theme.
"Lemonade" was the first thing that came across my mind
and then later a "Lobster", but when I saw a super enticing
ad of frappuccino at Starbucks the other day,
I immediately knew that I was going to make a frappuccino
block instead. (Sure, I love food too much!) I asked Marit
what her favorite flavor is among 1) coffee, 2) strawberry, and
3) green tea and she picked strawberry.

Mine is most definitely green tea! My friends often make
fun of me for liking green tea frappuccino/green tea latte
at Starbucks too much. I know Starbucks' green tea frappuccino
doesn't come with green tea syrup on top of cream like this,
but it would be really cool if it did.

I don't know if it's just me, but this block makes
me feel nostalgic for some reasons. I feel like
watching a movie from the 50's or something tonight but oh no I have to start packing really bad!

We finally bought tickets to leave for Japan on June 27th.
I have such a mixed feeling about this move. It's going to
be really awesome to move to a place I have friends and family
waiting for us. And I have pretty good knowledge of the city in
Tokyo we are moving to, which makes me feel good. But I think
I'll miss my friends and my family in law here so, so, SO MUCH!
I'll miss this apartment we lived for three years.
I'll miss this wonderful weather, the beautiful, clear sky in
California. I'll miss American fabrics (Luckily there seems to
be a quite big fan base of Japanese fabric, so hopefully I'll
sweet talk some folks into fabric swaps, hehe.)
And luckily, all my close friends have promised me to
come to visit me in Tokyo soon, including one of them
who I'll see in just one week and Tamiko who I'll see in
January!) so that's making me feel better to think like that.

Ok time for me to start packing some more!

Thank you for stopping by :)
Have a lovely weekend!

Partnership Quilts for 2012 Tokyo Quilt Festival

2011-06-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

Some of you may recall that earlier this year I blogged about the Tokyo Quilt Festival I attended this year. I blogged about it here and here. It was amazing to be able to go there and to share with you my experience there. Well, I am definitely going back there in January next year. Since I will be living MUCH closer to the Tokyo Dome, where the festival takes place every year, I might, in fact, I WILL probably be able to visit there a few times next year so that I won't miss anything, hopefully, hehe.

Each year the Tokyo Quilt Festival exhibits lots of Partnership Quilts, which are made by quilt blocks submitted by everyone. A theme for partnership quilts is set by a popular Japanese quilter/textile designer annually, and she will put all blocks submitted into groups. Folks there will piece all blocks and make them into quilts accordingly.

2011's theme was "Flower" and there were 10,344 blocks submitted total from all over the world. Under supervision of Yoko Saito, an author of many Japanese sewing books, those blocks turned into 86 quilts to be exhibited at the festival. They did a great job on putting similar blocks together and I so enjoyed seeing many flower themed quilts there.

I'd like to invite ALL of you to participate in this for next year. I am especially excited about next year's partnership quilts, because my super quilting hero Suzuko Koseki, an author of these awesome sewing books, will be a supervisor.

What is the theme?

Triangles and squares. This doesn't mean your block needs to consist of perfect triangles and squares. Half triangles, rectangles, etc are all good.

What's the block size requirement?

22-23cm x 22-23cm ; 8 3/4" - 9" x 8 3/4" x 9" including 1-1.5cm or approximately 1/2" seam allowances.

What should I include?

1) Your name written by a permanent pen at the right bottom corner on the seam of your block.
2) A piece of paper with your info - Your message, your name, address, and phone number.

How many blocks can I submit?

One per person. If you are sending blocks as a group or a family, limit 5 blocks. And remember to include a piece of paper with personal info for EACH block. Also, even if you send several blocks together, these blocks may not be in the same quilt.

What's the technique we can use?

Any :) Machine or hand-sewing, paper-piecing, applique, embroidery. Just keep in mind that your block will be quilted so I would avoid attaching a giant metal piece or anything like that.

Does my block need to be original?

Not at all! Go ahead and pick your favorite quit pattern from your book. And of course you have free reign to come up with your own blocks design.

Is there any requirements on colors or types of fabrics?

Not at all! Use fabric you want and pick the colors you want.

Do I have to be an experienced quilter to join this?

Not at all! The youngest participant this year was a 2 year old!

Can I see the quilt my block is in?

Absolutely! If you can join this flickr group and post a picture of your block, I will do my best to look for your block at the festival and take pictures of the quilt to share with you all on my blog and in the flickr pool.

When will the 2012 quilt festival be held?

Sometime in January next year. The specific dates are undecided,but I am assuming it will be about 10 days in late January.

What happens to the quilts after the festival is over.

They will be sold for charity purposes at the end of the last day to help the victims of the earthquake.

When's the deadline?

August 31, 2011. Your blocks must arrive by this date. If you are going to use the USPS first class international mail to send your block from the U.S., I would suggest that you send it by August 10th.

Where should I send my block to?

NHK Suteki ni HandMade
"Partnership Quilt"
2-2-1 Jinnan, Shibuya-ku,
Tokyo 150-8001 Japan

I hope you'll jump in the fun! Have a great Monday!!

The Farmer's Wife Quilt Along WIP

2011-06-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad Amanda and Angela started such a fun quilt-along.
Basically if you want to join this QAL, buy this awesome book,
'The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt" that has 111 block patterns,
and make two blocks a week on your pace. Even if you are not into
traditional quilts making, I promise you'll find this book
very inspirational. All 111 blocks are pretty simple with an
exception of a few. Not bad. I am already loving this QAL
partly because I enjoy making a different block at a time
rater than making the same blocks repeatedly so that I am
learning each time I make a block. So fun!

I decided to make blocks in order, so here is my take
on No.1 block pattern in the book. Considering how
simple this block is, I struggled a quite bit. I thought
I can calculate measurements in the head so I didn't
care to use templates on the CD enclosed in the book,
but after two attempts that resulted in failures, I
gave up and printed out the templates and finally
got it work. phew. See? I am learning!

Here is No.2. This was a lot simpler than the
first one, but I have to admit I still messed up
the first time. I really want to get better at
making traditional blocks.

I skipped No.3 block because it is a basket pattern
that has a curvy handle. You know how hard I try to
stay away from curvy seams. I'll come back to No.3
after getting better at making blocks. No.4 (above)
was the easiest of all.

So far all my blocks have been a combination of
the red solid + Heather Ross print + Suzuko Koseki
Print + other, not that I had planned it this way.
I'll go with this color range until I get tired of it.

Thanks for letting me share these blocks with you :)
Hope you are having a lovely Monday!

Blocks for me in the Ringo Pie bee

2011-06-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

This is one of the songs I will be listening while
piecing together blocks everyone has made
for my month in the Ringo Pie Bee. (Remember the themewas anything to do with delivering letters and packages?)
In this bee, we are allowed to use our own stashes and
come up with whatever blocks that fit monthly themes.

It is quite challenging because we design original block patterns
monthly (not required, but most of us like to do), and we all
feel a quit bit of pressure since everyone in this bee is super
talented. But I consider myself a super lucky girl to be in this
bee. I love how accomplished I feel every time I finish my
block, how inspired I am by everyone's awesome blocks, and how
kind, encouraging, and friendly everyone is in this bee.

And now that I have seen these blocks folks have made
for me, which are all super amazing,
I am loving this bee even more!!

Ok, let me share with you those completed blocks
by everyone so far. The Beatle's "Please, Mister Postman"
(above) would be a great song to listen to while you ogle these blocks!

A stack of packages by Corey of Little Miss Shabby.

Liberty letterbox by Lynne of Lily's Quilt.

Colored pencils by Kerry of verykerryberry.

Vintage envelop etc by Lucinda of Septemberbird.

Washi tape and wonky pencils by Amber of One Shabby Chick.

Airmail by Amber of One Shabby Chick.

Carrier Pigeon by Marit of Quilt it.

Mailbox by Anna of Noodlehead

Airmail and plane by Amy of Badskirt.

And three more to come!(Can't wait to see them!!)

I know I know I know I know!!!!

These blocks are crazily amazing, right?!My quilt is going to seriously ROCK!!In fact, maybe I will enter this quilt atTokyo Quilt Festival if I do a great job atmaking them into a quilt. hehe, a girl can dream, right?

Thank you for letting me share my excitementover these blocks with you, and thank you so much forall of you who made a block for me or are going to make me one.I love them all and I do know I will love those that are coming.
Hope you all are having a fabulous weekend :)

P.S. my fabulous friend Kerry is having a 'My Secret Obsession' party where we allshare our secret obsessions on our blogs!Go ahead and join the fun! My thinking capis on. I'll come back with my obsessions, hehe.

Giveaway Winners!

2011-05-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

Thank you for all of you for coming to hang out
on my blog and entering for my giveaways!
As usual, I let a random number generator to
pick winners' numbers. Congratulations to three of you -
I will be contacting you very soon!

By the way, I finally added this function into my
Blogger html to number each comment using this tutorial.
This helped me a lot spotting the numbers corresponding to winners almost instantly!
Hope you have a lovely weekend! (a nicely long Memorialweekend if you are in the states!) I'll try to catch upwith my sewing projects and hopefully some hiking and packing, and deciding a place to move in will be happening!

May Giveaway Day

2011-05-23T01:09:00.000-07:00

It's this time of the year again when Sew, Mama, Sew!
kindly coordinates one day when sewing/quilting bloggers
give away sewing-related items! It's a lot of fun and I am
so happy that I am able to participate this time!

I've got two sets of giveaway prizes, so I'll have two winners. Hooray!

My first prize is a bundle of quirky Japanese fabrics.

A fat quarter of this retro sewing print.
I found this fabric three years ago when I visited
a teeny tiny fabric shop near my home in Japan.
It would be really nice if you could use this
for your sewing machine cover project or something.

A fat quarter of this retro kitchen print designed by
a Japanese textile designer Suzuko Koseki for Yuwa.
It's out of print and is pretty hard to find if not
almost impossible. I just love it so much.

A fat quarter of this super cute sweets and international
caricatures print. I think it is an original print from
one of the fabric stores I stopped by, because I have never
seen this print anywhere else. Totally adorable.

A small cut of this print from Vintage Art Store
Collection measuring 12.5" x 22". I love this print too.

Lastly, let me include a small piece of my
Spoonflower print that I finally got in the mail
a few weeks ago. I threw in a bunch of French
words which are taken from a flan recipe in French
in a random order- very random, so if you know French,
you might want to avoid looking closely. It would
be fun to use this print for your small patchwork project.

Ok, so my second giveaway prize is this awesome book.

Natural Patchwork by Suzuko Koseki.
I feel like I talked about this book a million times on my
blog already, but it really is an amazing book.

To enter the giveaway, please simply let me know
which prize you are after (1.fabrics 2.book 3.either)
and I will pick two winners and announce them
on ~~March~~ May (lol thanks for the heads up!) 25th :) I will be happy to ship internationally!

Good luck everyone!

Thanks for stopping by here!

Edited to add: Please post your comment on my blog in order for me to count you in for this giveaway. (I'm sorry but emails don't count just because I want to make my process of drawing winnerssimple and easy peasy.. Thank you!)

Blog Tour: Stripped Down Patchwork (Book Giveaway!)

2011-05-21T23:45:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to host a stop for a blog tour for
Stripped Down Patchwork by Erin Gilday of Patchwork Underground today (Day #7!).
I got to know Erin through her great projects
in Stitch magazine which are always so unique and vintagy.
Have you seen her biker wrap skirt in there? So cute!
What I found later is that she is not only super creative
but also fun and friendly, which you know if you are
a reader of her blog for sure :)

I love the way she combines solids with other fabrics
in such a clever way with a vintage twist, so I was
really glad to see all her 12 practical projects in her book use
solids somewhere. Also, all these projects feature Seminole
patchwork technique. (Not sure what it is? She has
explained it very well here over Craftzine.)

You are not the only one if you thought these projects
would take forever to make - I thought so too until
I read in the book how you can save lots of time usingthe patchwork technique. For example,
This very complicated looking patchwork is actuallydone with four fabric strips sewn together whichwere cut across to make 20 thin strips that are sewntogether. A lot simpler than it seems, right?I think I can do that!
It's hard to pick my favorite projects since they areall useful and fun, but this headband caught my attentionthe most as I was flipping through pages of this book.I would love to make one of these for myself!
I have an extra copy of this book to give to one of you!To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment under thispost by May 25th on which I will announce a random winner!For more chances to win a free copy of this book,remember to stop by these blogs :)

Leisure Arts Blog – Monday, May 16
Sew Daily – Tuesday, May 17
Craftzine – Wednesday, May 18
Craftypod – Thursday, May 19
Whipup.net – Friday, May 20
Burdastyle – Saturday, May 21
Pink Pinguin - Sunday, May 22
A Green Banana – Monday, May 23
I Think Sew – Tuesday, May 24
Happy Zombie – Wednesday, May 25
A Mountain Hearth – Thursday, May 26
Sew News - Friday, May 27
Pat Sloan’s Blog – Saturday, May 28

Log Cabin Pincushions Madness once again

2011-05-14T12:54:00.001-07:00

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Lil Foxes for Mom

2011-05-06T17:57:00.000-07:00

I was really glad to be able to whip this up for my mom for
Mother's Day gift this year. She has been a great
mother for three of us, me and my young sisters
and I thought I'd express my appreciation by making
a wall hanging for her. I used this lil fox pattern
I had purchased awhile back from the super talented
Sonja of artisania. Have you seen her foxes in love mini quilt and Anne Marie's take on the pattern here? I couldn't wait any longer after seeing those cute foxes.

Do you see that these three foxes are missing something?First of all, the tip of the tail of each lil one is not existing.This was completely an accident, but I'll tell my momthat it's because only a very cool mom can havea gorgeous tail that is not cracked. And these guysare missing snouts because I just didn't have buttons suitable for them, but I'll tell her that that'sanother thing only mom can have because she ismore special and sophisticated than us. lol.And I do know that she will look at me with suspicious eyes.

I didn't realize how nicely the teapot fabricmatched with the leaves fabric I used to make a binding tape for it until it was all finished. She might actually like this side better.

I really wanted to make another one to give to my mother-in-law who is also a great motherof three, but I simply run out of time.Kim, you might get something better in the mail though!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a nice weekend :)

Stitch Magazine Summer 2011

2011-05-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for your very kind and encouraging
words about my envelops and mailbox block for Ringo
Pie bee! It made my day, no, more like my week! Thank you
girls! I've had many people asking for a paper-piecing
tutorial, so I will come back sometime in a week or so
with a simple printable pattern and an instruction on how
to paper-piece it, so if you have never tried a paper-piecing
technique and would like to learn one way of doing it,
please remember to come back :)

Today I would like to share with you 4 projects of mine
that are featured in the current issue of Stitch Magazine.

This might be one of my favorite projects I've ever made for Stitch.
These slippers are made for the 'Opposites Attract' theme in the issue.
The colors, one slipper being blue and green and the other being
red and orange, were suggested by my lovely editor and
I thought it was such a fun and unique idea!

It was a lot of fun putting together cute
and quirky fabrics.

This is a cat mat to accommodate food and water bowls.
The top is vinyl laminate, and it is backed with non-
slip fabric so that it will keep the mat in place.
I have to give this to my parents' cats. They make
too much mess around their food bowls.

Or I'll convince Joe to get us a cat once we are
in Tokyo. Wish me luck!

This is a checkerboard-inspired handbag made for
"the Good Earth" theme of the issue. Mixing different
shades of linen to make this was a lot of fun.

I like how they put some veggies in the bag!
Now I want to use this bag to go to Farmer's Market.Sarah of CoopCrafts has made a few of these handbags alreadyand you can read about it here :) I love how her bag turned out!

Natsuiro means 'summer colors' in Japanese and the same
word in Japanese Kanji character is sashiko-embroidered
on the side of the bag. This bag reminds me of the night
I worked on this until 6 am to be able to ship it off
via overnight shipping that day. I have this bad habit of
waiting until last minute to do anything, but this was
literally last minute. The other side of this bagmade cover of this issue (the words appliqueon this side competed with the cover lines). I am very flattered.

I am totally in love with this issue, because there are SOmany projects in it that I would LOVE to make! For example..

This cat house designed by my friend Penny!
Isn't it the cutest cat house ever?!?!
It totally drove me nuts when I first saw this.
I must make one for my parents' cats for sure!(or possibly my own cat?!)

This clutch made by Leigh is a must to make too!
I love the gorgeous gathering and the combination
of yellow and gray is the best!

Lisa made this super cool wallet! I want to whip up
a few of these for my friends.

Speaking of Stitch, all projects in the fall issue from
2009 are available for individual purchases on
their website now. You can find my odekake bag pattern here, which I blogged about here. Also, here is a link to my guest post on their blog where I was allowed to share four websites that inspire me.

Thank you for stopping by and reading this long post!Have a lovely rest of the day!!

Envelops and Mailbox Block for Ringo Pie

2011-04-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

Remember I told you that May is my month in Ringo Pie bee?
Seriously, you have no idea how excited I am about
receiving everyone's blocks - 11 members besides me; therefore,
11 envelops/packages to come. Ever since I picked my theme which
is "Delivering letters and packages," I knew I was going to
paper-piece 11 envelops. My initial plan was to embroider
everyone's initial on each envelop, but I wasn't sure if
I could pick the best envelop for everyone, so I decided not to.
Or in other words, I just got tired of working on this. lol

I used photoshop to design a simple envelop pattern,
and then picked 11 different solids that seemed to work
well together. Well, that may just have sounded an easy
step, but choosing 11 solids was one of the hardest part of
this project. Most of my craft projects are improvised;
I barely ever go fabric-shopping with any particular projects
in mind, but I couldn't be happy with my solids collection,
so I had a few trips to fabric stores to get just the right
solid. Yellow was the trickiest color. I ended up with
Kona corn yellow - what a lovely color it is!!

Choosing print cotton to match solids was easy and fun.
My favorite envelop might be the orange one with a
boy and girl. Isn't the vintage print super adorable?
Thank you so much erica for sharing me this beautiful fabric!

Another tricky part was this mail box, because it has curves!!
Yikes! In the past I've always avoided paper-piecing anything
that has curves for Ringo Pie bee blocks, because I suck at curves.
But I took this opportunity to step outside my comfort zone to grow up.
And I am very happy I did, because it wasn't as difficult as
I expected and It was such a pleasure to know that I am
capable of tackling curves! well, not perfect like everyone
else's in Ringo Pie, but I think I will get better.
A positive attitude is indeed necessary when I sew.
Without it, I would be too overwhelmed to do anything.

Yes, this sewing blogland intimidates me too.
It has been sort of nice to read what people have
said recently about sewing blogland being intimidating.
I thought I was the only one who is terribly intimidated
and worried too much about presenting myself/my projects, but clearly I am not alone. (a big sigh of relief.)

It's been hard for me too. I could have a
loooong post about my fears to blog/sew, butI try to be optimistic. When I am too overwhelmed,I get fresh air, go hiking, hang out with a hubby/friends for some laugh, and eat really yummy stuffuntil I am ready to have some fun again with sewing/blogging.
I am just grateful that there is anybody out there who is willing to spare some time to stop by my blog, read what I have to say, and leave me nice comments/emails
that constantly encourage me to keep doing what I've been doing.

Thank you SO much for allowing me to share my
projects here. Have a fabulous day!

Let Trader Joe's inspire you

2011-04-22T13:58:00.001-07:00

One of my local stores I will definitely miss is
a grocery store called Trader Joe's. I bet many of you living
in the states know about it, but it is a chain store located
throughout America that produces such fun and unusual
original products. I sure love their food, but I am
not here to promote Trader Joe's products today.
I am here to share with you the packaging of their
products that inspire me. Their packages/labels are
so cute that sometimes I have to buy some stuff
for no other reason other than they are simply cute.

I always walk out the store itching to get
back to my sewing table. Is that weird?

Have a lovely day!

Kitchen Goodies Swap: Sent and Received

2011-04-14T12:15:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for all of you for lovely and
sweet comments and emails about us moving to Japan!
We still don't know exactly when we will be moving,
but I started packing up just a little and am already
overwhelmed. I've moved a lot in the past 10
years (Gunma -> Tokyo -> Seattle ->San Jose), but
this is definitely going to be the most hectic moving ever
because we have SO many things accumulated in last 8 years
including my TWO sewing machines (I bought a new one
recently which turned out to be much cheaper in Japan
because the manufacturer (Janome) is Japanese.)
And of course lots and lots of fabric, including a lot of
them I just brought from my last trip to Japan. Sure,
I am not the best decision maker ever. lol

Anyways, I wanted to share with you what I've sent
as a part of Kitchen Goodies Swap I'd joined as wellas what I've received from my secret partner!

This is one of the linen kitchen towels I made for
my partner. The linen used is really cool. It was
sold as "Pre-double-washed", so I didn't have to
launder it. Woohoo! And I just love how it looks and feels.

I picked fabrics based on my partner's preference.
I wish I could share with you what her preference was
like but she hasn't received my package yet, so I
don't want to ruin a surprise in case she reads this post.

This is a little extra I whipped up very quickly to go withthe linen towels. I hope she will be able to use this one to
hold some little things at her kitchen.

Another linen kitchen towel. Ever since I found
this linen and cotton blend fabric, I thought it
would make a nice linen towel, so I'm glad I
actually made a towel with it.

Although I don't think it was the greatest decision to
buy my new Janome sewing machine right before going
to Japan, I'm really glad that I got to learn about
a lot of different types of feet at the sewing machine
store. This salesperson spent one hour showing me
how to use some feet that I didn't know were existing,
which made me squeal like a little kid at a candy shop.
This very narrow rolled hem was done with a 4mm hemmer foot
which creates professional-looking double folded hem so easily.
Oh how I enjoyed using the foot to do this! I've been
crazy about learning what other kinds of feet are out there ever since.

Let me share with you what I got from the swap also.
Try your best not to be jealous although it might be hard.

Photo originally uploaded by sonjaartsania

Can you believe Sonja read my entire blog to research
my likes to make a set of placemats for Joe and me?!
When I first saw this picture on flickr, I was like
"Oh My! Please Please Please come to me!" Then the next
second I realized the cat reminds me of my cat Oto
in Japan so much. If you've read my blogposts about
my latest trip to Japan and you like cats, you might
recall this photo I shared here to introduce him.

So I became very sure that it was coming my way.
You have no idea how thrilled I was. The night I discovered
this photo, I couldn't sleep well because I was overly excited.
How sweet of her to think of me like this.. I am so touched!

Photo originally uploaded by sonjaartsania
And this is another placemat she made with paper-pieced
sushi which is Joe's favorite food!!! And to share with
you my selfish aspect, these are the only three different
kinds of sushi I can eat - cooked eggs, cooked shrimp,
and rolls, so it was really thrilling to see these three!
Joe eats any kinds of sushi, so he is as happy as I am.

I must have annoyed Sonja by shooting three long emails
explaining why I love these placemats so much, but I
just couldn't help it.

I usually hesitate to join a swap just because I tend to be
way too intimidated by the thought that I may not be able to
make something that would satisfy my partner. And also,
deadlines for swaps come too fast in general. But after receiving
Oto and sushi placemats made my lovely Sonja, I am determined
that I should join more swaps from now on. Sure it scares me,
but look what great things you might receive in return!
Oh in case you want to make your Oto or sushi,remember to check out Sonja's pattern shop.They are coming soon.. :)

Thank you for taking the time to read this! Have a great day!

Something to celebrate...

2011-04-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

So there is something I had been itching to tell you about.

I couldn't tell you this until now because it wasn't official.
It is official now though, so I can finally take a deep breath
and share with you our excitement.

My husband and I are moving to Tokyo!

Very soon.. probably in a few months!

Living in Japan has been Joe's lifetime goal and
in the past several months he has been looking for
the opportunity to transfer to Japan within the company
he works for. And the chance finally arrived.
He was just now informed that he is really moving there.
So yes, as you can imagine, he could hardly hold in the
excitement. He really had to do something and asked me
if he could dump my fabric scraps on top of his head.
I said he can.

Probably many of you know that this may not be the
most favorable time to be in Japan. The radiation threat,
lack of food,drinkable water and medicine, limited electricity,
and other aftermaths from the eathquake/tsunami,
but to Joe "adventure is more important than comfort."
And to me, I'd rather be close to my family and friends
when they are experiencing hardships.

We must be the only people who are excited to go there now. lol!

I've really loved living in America. I've met lots and
lots of nice people who have influenced my perception
in very positive ways. This is the place I exposed myself to
a new culture and a new lifestyle which I've learned to embrace
from heart. Seriously, if I had not moved to the US in 2003,
I would not have met Joe and cool friends in America
who I know will be my lifetime friends.
I would not have challenged myself to learn a different
language nor have graduated from a four year college.
I would definitely not have started this blog and would
not have 'met' any of you which is crazy to think about,
because I've 'met' SO many awesome people in blogland
who inspire me, encourage me, and help me feel good
about things I do. I am talking about all of you.

I have no regret whatsoever about my decision to move to
the US in 2003, but Japan is where my whole family is and
that is where my heart belongs. Although there are many,
many reasons for me to think staying in the US might be better,
I am ready to go back for now. I was not there when someone
very important to me was going through severe depression.
I was not there when my grandma was very ill (and she still is.)

I'll definitely miss my friends here though.
I keep telling them they need to move to Japan
which makes them giggle, although I am actually being serious.
I just know I'll miss them way too much.
A cool thing about blog friends is that we can be connected anywhere we are as long as we havethe Internet. I'll be blogging just like I have beeneven after moving there and I will be checkingout my friends' blogs who are everywhere in the world.So this is not a good bye message to you at all,which is just great :)
Anyways, I'll stop talking now.
Anyone can guess what Joe is doing right now?
He is cleaning up the mess. That's my man!

Thank you for letting me share my thought :)

Have a lovely weekend~!

Tentative Layout for my Dresden plate wallhanging

2011-04-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

My sewing machine is still sick, so until I get it
all fixed, I won't be able to sew these pieces together,
but this is to show you my progress on my dresden plate
I am making by following Lynne of Lily's Quilts' QAL.
When Lynne asked me to play along, I was really excited
to put together lots of fun fabrics I love.This is just such a fun project! Very happy with this so far!

I tend to keep very few handmade items of mine to myself,
but this is definitely a 'keep'. I already love it so much
that I know I won't be able to part with it!

In the middle, I'll probably sew applique
saying "6.12" which is our anniversary.

A bit scared of sewing curvy lines and quilting,
but hopefully it will come out nice enough for
us to want to hang it on the wall :)

Thanks for visiting!

Fabric Haul in Japan #2

2011-03-30T16:59:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a while since I came back from Japan,
but there are still lots of fabric from there that
I hadn't had a chance to share with you here. My sewing
machine had a serious issue with its upper thread tension
which I couldn't find a solution for anywhere, so it is
on the mend now. It's weird not to have a sewing machine
at home. Some part of me is relieved that I can cross out
sewing-related stuff in my to-do-list temporarily, but
some part of me is missing sewing so much. I guess it's
more of the latter case. Wednesday tends to be the day of
the week when my productivity goes up, but not today.
Without my buddy (sewing machine), I am so useless. lol.

So I decided to take this time to take pictures of
some Japanese fabric to blog about and to list
some fabric in my etsy shop. This gave me an opportunity
to remind myself of some really cute fabric stash I have
but I had forgotten about, which made me go Woohoo!
I think I am totally addicted. No wonder my sister
called me "a fabric idiot". She cracks me up sometimes.

Oh I have to mention about the fabric in the
left bottom in the picture above. It is probably
one of the fabrics that wowed me the most among
many fabrics I've found in Japan. It is an original
design by a fabric store called Country Quilt Market
in Japan. I was so happy that I found their vendor
at Tokyo Quilt Festival and got to see their original
prints in person! So cute! You can look at the entire
section of their original prints here.
And this is the link to the fabric I got. It looks as if there are
a bunch of fabric scraps laid out on top of.
I love unusual fabric like this.

I am usually into small prints, but these were
exceptions. As soon as I saw them (especially the
grey version), I was like oh man, I'll make the
suit case more packed ( = Joe, unhappy) lol.

Yoko Okamoto is a Japanese textile designer I
don't think I have mentioned before in my blog.
The two fabrics on the right are designed by her.
Sometimes her designs remind me of Suzuko Koseki's
style, which you know, is my all time favorite.
The red fabric is super cute too. That was one
of my lucky finds at a teeny tiny fabric store
located by the kindergarten I attended. It's so
small though. If there are more than 5 customers,
you find yourself unable to reach most fabrics lol.

Rosy Fabric makes such cute things! I'm
especially mad about the red one. So lovely~!

More fun fabrics :) Decole brand produces
really cute zakka and I didn't know they have
fabric for sale too until I saw the apple guy!
A bit pricy but I couldn't help myself!

Off the topic, but have you heard about One Thousand Wishes
yet? If you have not, I'd really like to spread the word
about it. Ali of the dotted line is going to open this
store during April whose 100% proceeds will be donated for
Canadian Red Cross Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Fund.
If you have any craft items you can donate to
the shop, please contact her and learn how you can
do this. How this works is similar to Craft
Hope for Haiti where many of us crafters got together and donated craft items to raise a lot ofmoney for the Haiti earthquake victims.
Basically, Ali takes care of listing and payment
and she will let you know once your item is sold
so that you can send your item directly to whoever
bought it. Simple! I totally support what she is doing and will be donating some of my craft items as well as
Japanese fabrics. And that's why it's frustrating not tohave a sewing machine! - I want to make so many thingsfor the shop!!

Thank you for taking the time to read this :)Have a great day!

Toaster Pieced + Free Japan Pattern

2011-03-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

I've been totally in a 'paper-piecing' mode. It's like
my brain is functioning to paper-piece everything I see.
If I see anything easily-paper-piecable, I start thinking
about diving into sections and numbering pieces.
It has been so much fun to design, to think about how to
piece, and to actually complete the project. Tons of fun.

This toaster block was made for Penny (of course!) for
Ringo Pie patchwork bee. She asked for all things kitcheny
which got me really excited! You know I am crazy about
the kitchen theme! I could think of so many things to
paper-piece, but I decided to make a toaster, just because
I thought a toaster with Penny's name on it would be quirky
and silly. I had a pretty good idea of colors and types of
fabric she likes so it was fun picking fabrics for this.

This design was based on the applique template I made
for the kitchen towels in the current issue of Stitch
magazine. I just made all curvy lines straight to make
the piecing process a lot easier. I just can't tackle curves!

This idea crossed my mind yesterday. Now that many people
are working on quilts to be donated for the disaster
relief efforts in Japan, maybe someone would want to
include a block that says Japan in Japanese. Usually,
Japanese characters are a LOT more complicated than
alphabets, but when it comes to the word Japan,
a Japanese version might be a quite bit easier than
alphabets to piece because there are no curves.

I wouldn't mind at all if you used this for any other
purposes too. Maybe you just want to try out an easy
paper-piecing pattern. Or you might want to make a
mug rug for your friend in Japan or whatever.

It is not the most exciting pattern, I know, but
hopefully someone can find a use for it.. :)
Feel free to post pictures here if you made anything with it.

Download the PDF here or here

Thank you for visiting!

Congrats to Eight Winners!

2011-03-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

photo originally uploaded by jusojin

Thank you again for those of you who have donated to reputable organizations for relief efforts. And thank you for your emotional supports too via comments/emails. It makes us feel helpless there aren't a lot we can do to help the people suffering, but every little donation definitely helps. I'm touched to see so many crafters/bloggers have embarked on some projects for relief efforts. If you have one or a few quilts that you can donate to people sleeping on pieces of cardboard boxes in snow with fears regarding radiation, please go ahead and read this post by Sonja of artisania and learn how you can donate your quilts for them. She has done a great job explaining what we can do. (Don't forget to take a look at her sushi quilt that will be in the hands of someone in need of warmth.)

Anyways, I wanted to announce eight winners for the giveaway I hosted last week today.

Congrats to Vicki K, Isabelle, and Rebecca!
(Vicki and Rebecca - can you send me your contact info?
I can't find your email address in your profile.)

Congrats to Ellen, Sonja, and Kristal!
(Kristal, can you send me your contact info?)

Congrats to Tracy and Rumi!

I'll contact you shortly!

Have a great week, everyone!

I've been crafty

2011-03-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

Here is the Spring block I made for Lucinda for Ringo Pie Bee.
(Sorry the resolution of the picture isn't very good - hopefully
I'll get to take a better picture once the sun comes out.)
I spent days sketching some ideas for this month, trying to
come up with a design that has lots of neutral colors which she
asked for, but after much thought, I was determined that I
really want colorful flowers in it and I ended up compensating
with a background in a neutral color. Keeping my fingers crossed
that this turned out ok and it will look good with everyone
else's Spring blocks for her.

This is the fourth pincushion I made for a custom order.
The recipient asked for a sewing theme, so I had fun
picking out sewing themed fabrics from my stash and
whipped up this guy. I am happy with the outcome so
is the recipient, woohoo!

Here is a diaper pouch I made for a little boy I babysit.
Ever since Anna posted this awesome tutorial, I knew
I would make it for him. I can't believe how long I waited
to make though especially now that I know it is such a fun,
quick, and addictive project! And I just LOVE this shape!
His diapers used to be in a plastic bag from a grocery store.
I think it is a quite improvement. Why didn't I make it sooner?!

I'm so happy I finally found a great use for this
cute fabric covered button that I received as a part
of a swap a few years ago. Too cute, right?

And lastly, this is a scrap-buster project that
I was working on. I am not sure what this will be.
A potholder for my friend was my plan, but I am
thinking it's a bit too busy for her. hmm..
Any suggestions?

Have a fabulous Sunday!

More Giveaways!

2011-03-17T11:26:00.001-07:00

Photos from Artisania
I wanted to let you know that some generous crafters have kindly contacted me to offer their products to my donating readers! Sonja of artisania has the most unique, fun and clever quilt patterns in her shop. She would like to offer 3 readers of mine a chance to win 2 free patterns of your choice from her store.

Photos from Happy Sew Lucky
Berene of Sew Happy Lucky is offering 1 reader a chance to win a baby animal kit of your choice AND a Dinnertime fabric book kit. Aren't these too adorable?

Photo from Happy Sew Lucky
She is also offering this cutest set of four birdies kit of your choice of color for one winner among donating readers of mine.

To win any of these or two items offered in my previous post, the only thing you need to do is to donate to any charity to help the survivors of the recent massive disaster and leave a comment under my previous post. For example, if you decide to join For Japan With Love to raise fund for shelter for the victims, you can go ahead and leave a comment for the chance to win. I will have total 8 winners from the drawing - 2 winners for Natural Patchwork Book by Suzuko Koseki, 1 winner of a Spring/Summer issue of Stitch magazine, 3 winners of Sonja's free quilt patterns, 1 winner of Berene's set of the baby animal kit and a dinner time book kit, and 1 winner of Berene's set of four birdies kit! Lots of winners of fantastic prizes! (The comment system for this post is closed. Please leave a comment here for a chance to win)

I also want to take this opportunity to introduce you some of the websites that are working on fundraising for disaster relief efforts.

A list of links to Donation and Fundraisers (art and craft) here over Liberal Sprinkle's blog.

For Japan With Love

Google Crisis Response (Here you can decide the amount to donate)

If you have any online shop with handmade items whose proceeds will be donated to help the victims of the quake/tsunami, I'd love you to list your shop here with an image of one of your products. And remember, you are more than welcome to sell anything made based on my tutorials for fundraising - always! :)

Giveaway to support donation for the Japan earthquake victims

2011-03-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

First of all, I am so blessed that so many of you have sent me prayers for my families and friends in Japan since last Friday, the magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck Tohoku area, the northeast part of main land.

The hardest part of living far away from my entire family for me has been to deal with the fear about possible natural disaster like this earthquake that resulted in thousands of people's death. Most of my family and relatives live in a prefecture called Gunma which is located in in the middle of the main land where the effect from the earthquake was minimum, although my dad said it was the most massive earthquake he's ever experienced in his entire life. They are all safe though. Just a few things fell from the wall, that's all. Most of my friends live in the same prefecture, Gunma, and Tokyo, so I am just blessed that they are safe for now.

I do have a couple of friends in the area that was heavily affected by the earthquake. Thank goodness for the Internet. I found that they are safe on their friends' comments on their Facebook pages. I'm just keeping my fingers tightly crossed that they have a safe place to stay and have enough food to eat and they will be recovered from the disaster very soon. I have a friend whose relative's house was wiped away (people are safe). Another friend of mine has relatives missing in Fukushima.

I'm in pain thinking of people in Tohoku area, possible nuclear meltdown, and possible second powerful quake that could hit Tokyo. Please pray for everyone in Japan that aftermaths effect from the earthquake will be very minimum.

If you have family and friends in the area that you have not been able to confirm safety of, you can use this Google Person Finder. If you don't know their names in Japanese characters, please feel free to contact me. I will do my best to guess the characters in case that might help you find them effectively.

I'd like to do something to raise money to help victims for the Japan earthquake victims. Here is a link to several organizations where you can donate directly using paypal. For those of you who have donated for the victims in any way, please leave a comment (a single comment per person please) to win a copy of Suzuko Koseki's new book Natural Patchwork that will be released next month or the Spring/summer issue of Stitch magazine that will also be available next month. I'll announce two winners of Natural Patchwork and one winner of Stitch Magazine on Next Monday, March 21st.

Thank you again for your prayers. I am so blessed.

Log Cabin Pincushions Again?!

2011-03-09T22:43:00.000-08:00

You must be absolutely sick of seeing log cabin
pincushions here by now for sure, so I'm sorry for being
so repetitive, but I must admit I enjoy making these guys
so much. These were custom-made for a girl who told me
she likes 1) pink, red, aqua, 2) vintage inspired,
3) cute dogs, and 4) Parisian theme. Umm.. that's
everything I love too! Can you imagine how excited
I was to whip up pincushions for her?!

I made it a point to have a cute dog print
somewhere in each pincushion for her. I am totally
in love with the apples and pears fabric I recently
snatched from this etsy store.

I knew I would want to make a pincushion
with the red and aqua poodle fabric
immediately after learning about the
recipient's favorite things.

I think this one came out kinda cute!

I'll have another one to go. None of these had
enough aqua fabric, so maybe the next one will
be made of lots of aqua fabrics. hehe.

I wanted to let you know that I will be out of town
until Sunday night this week, so I will not be able
to reply to comments/emails until Monday.

It will be a girls' trip to Vegas with my family in law!

Hope you have a great rest of the week :)

Thank you for taking the time to read this :)

Fabric Hauling in Japan #1

2011-03-06T18:19:00.000-08:00

So I've come to realize that it would not be as
realistic as I expected to have a blogpost where I
have pictures of all fabrics and all zakka items,
given everything that needs to be in have been listed. For a few reasons. For one, I am
sort of lost in the amount of fabric I brought from
Japan. For two, I am not the most organized
person. And for three, I am simply ready to sew up
something tonight for someone's birthday coming up soon.

For these selfish reasons, I decided to share with you
pictures of Japanese fabric & zakka over the span
of several blogposts. I will be adding some fabrics to
my etsy shop from time to time too in case you are
looking for some Japanese fabric to join your stashes.

The very first picture in this post is some cotton
print fabrics designed by Kumiko Fujita.
A fabric chain store called Yuzawaya had a quite
big selection of her fabrics that aren't very easy
to find in other fabric stores, so I went a bit crazy.

And these umbrella fabrics - could anything be cuter?!!
I am so madly in love with the print that I bought
it in four colorways! Okadaya is another fabric chain
store that has lots of cute fabrics. When I was living
in Tokyo 8 years ago, I used to live SO close to
a large store of Okadaya. Too bad it was until after moving here that I discovered the joy of sewing and collecting fabrics.
I never cared to stop by the store once.

More small cut fabrics from Okadaya. I love this
store's small cut fabrics section. Each of these
measures only 35cm x 50cm (13" x 20"). It doesn't
make you feel too guilty to get one of these even
if you have no plan for the fabric :)

The fox and fruits fabric is soooo adorable.
The paris map print and the scallop print are
some of the fabrics I've wanted for a long time.

I'd seen the milk caps fabric online before,
but it was totally prettier in person!
I'm not sure if I can put it in use..

And these are small cut fabrics that I found
at Tokyo Quilt Festival. One thing I learned
about the festival is that you can find lots
of unusual fabric at pretty good prices! For
some reasons I thought I would see only new
fabrics sold at retail prices, but it wasn't true.

Many small cut fabrics that came from everywhere.
The drink fabric on far right is way too cute!

I have listed three different fabrics in my etsy shop
so far. This is from a collection called Cocochi E-style
by Kokka. I really like the soft feel and simple yet
cute print.

And this large strawberries print was totally irresistible.
Wouldn't it make such a cute curtain or apron or bag or..
pretty much every large project!

This is the fabric I knew I was getting a lot of
at first sight. I had never seen this Lecien linen
+ cotton blend print before. Love this so much.

As usual, let me know you came from here when
you snatch fabric from my store to receive an
extra little piece of fabric :)

Hope you had a great weekend!
Thank you for taking the time to read this :)

Bee = Fun!

2011-02-22T21:03:00.000-08:00

Here is the fourth block I made for Ringo Pie
patchwork bee. This is the only bee I've
ever participated in, but it has been very
interesting. I didn't realize how fun a bee can be!

Erica asked for a union jack block made with
vintage fabric and solid fabric. I had great help
from a union jack queen Lynne to make this. She
is fabulous. This is the only block ever among the
four that I never used a seam ripper! Woohoo!
Mine is nearly as perfect as her union jacks,
but I am satisfied with it, and I hope Erica likes it!

This was the first block I made for the bee.
It was for Kerry and the theme was collection/hoarding.

And this is the dessert block for Anna, the second
block I made for the bee. This is my favorite so far.

The third one is this door block for Lisa,
which I blogged about recently.

Now I've been contemplating the next block,
for Lucinda whose theme is Beginning of Spring.
That sounds interesting too, doesn't it?

My month is May, a couple months away, but I am
so impatient. I've already decided on my theme
- Delivering letters/packages! (This mosaic is
to inspire everyone in the bee.)

I've always loved writing and sending letters and
packages. Something about the idea of whatever I
shipped being delivered has always fascinated me too.
I also LOVE receiving anything in the mail too.
(I'm sure you all do!) Sometimes Joe and I have
a little argument over who is to check the mail because
we both share the joy of receiving things in the mail.
Often Joe wins, but he gets disappoited almost every
time, because about 80% of stuff in the mail is for me :D

I hope your week started off nicely and the rest of
your week will be filled with laughter and crafty moments :)

Stitch Magazine Spring 2011

2011-02-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

This is another thing I had been itching to share with
you! I can't believe how long I waited to post this!

Have you checked out the current issue of Stitch?
It's been about a month since this became available
on the bookstands, so you might have heard about
this a lot by now, but I still want to talk about it :)

This issue is, once again, packed with lots of
unique and fun projects that make me want to go
sit at my sewing table and start playing with my fabrics
right away. Did you know that, starting with this issue,
Stitch became a 'quarterly' magazine from a 'biannual'
magazine due to its growing popularity?!

I'm really glad that Stitch has been making lots
of progress to make this awesome magazine available
to many readers. For example...

1) We can now sign up for
Auto-ship program to receive this magazine
at a discounted price. (Free shipping within the US,
$5 international shipping.)

2) The mag became available for digital downloads here!
(Past issues are available too!)

3) A purchase of an individual project in
the past issues became available here.
They are now working on this - we'll probably
see more projects available for individual purchase soon :)

I don't know how, but I seem to be still surviving
as a Stitch's project contributor among such a creative bunch.
Coming up with projects for this magazine, making actual
projects, seeing them in actual magazines, and
hearing feedback.. each and every step has been
a bit intimidating, but I can't describe how happy
I feel about being able to experience all this too.
Stitch editors as well as many readers have been
very supportive of my work and I can't thank them (and you!) enough.

This is a hot pad with chipmunk applique on.
Maybe letting this cute guy warm you up
isn't such a bad idea.. :)

Another project of mine featured in this issue
is the set of this kitchen towels! (Next to
my project is a felt pillow by Lisa that
made the cover of this issue! I love the pillow!)

Making these was a lot of fun!
Of course you can find patterns for all the
applique in the magazine issue. I *might* have
some super exciting news about these towels
later, maybe in a few months... :D

Thank you for stopping by :)

I hope you have a great week!!

Door Block

2011-02-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

Before I have another super lengthy post about
the Japan trip (next one is going to be about
fabrics + etsy sales), maybe I can have a few short
posts so that I am not stealing too much of your time?

This is a block I made for Lisa for Ringo Pie bee.
January was Lisa's month and her theme was "Door".
When she told us about this theme, it
was around Christmas season and my mind was totally
set for a door with a window with a Christmas tree behind it.

But you know it's been over a month since last
Christmas. I even saw a dumpster with a big
Christmas tree inside the other day. So how about
a Christmas tree going goodbye... oh no..
that would be too sad.

Let's keep the tree. Oh how about adding
windows, packages at the door, and a mail box?!
Wait, the theme is Door, I am not supposed to
create a whole house. ok.. then..

No more packages and a mail box, but how about
a little welcome "OPEN" board on the door?
Hmmm.. the board might be more fun if it says "LISA"
How about people peeking from windows? No that's weird.

Ok, no people but a LISA board. Looking better.
How about her puppy Moose coming out of the door?!?!
I was sooooooo excited about the idea and spent
some time researching on Moose and seeing how
I can paper-piece him..... umm.. that'd be way
beyond my basic paper-piecing skills. Definitely
don't ruin the image of the cute Moose!

After all, this is the block I finished this morning.
I am just keeping my fingers crossed that this
turned out to be acceptable and that it is almost
up to quality of everyone else's door block.

Thank you for letting me share my creation!
Have a great day!

Suzuko Koseki Project + Meeting Suzuko Koseki

2011-02-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

Thank you so much everyone for letting me know that
you enjoyed the post on Tokyo Quilt Festival 2011. It means
a lot to me that I can share the joy of discovering inspirational
quilts with you, because I don't have very many friends in
real life who are as crazy about this kind of stuff as I am.
The love is a gazillion times better when it's shared!

Like I mentioned before, this is going to be a ridiculously
long post again, but this is the post I was the MOST excited
about sharing.. it's about the Suzuko Koseki project that
were completed by 19 Suzuko Koseki fans in 9 different
countries! (I realized it was not 8 but 9 different countries
- so sorry for everyone in the project that I kept saying
it was 8.) Basically, each of us made a 4.5" x 4.5" coaster
featuring one of letters in "We Love Suzuko Koseki!" All
the coasters were mailed to my home in Japan were put together
by me and were gifted to Suzuko Koseki in person at the
Tokyo Quilt Festival. I thought this was a great way for
us to show our appreciation on how inspirational her fabric
and books have been to us. I thought it would be really nice
for her to know how she has many fans all over the world too.

After coming up with the idea though, I realized I might
have been a bit too adventurous. What if I don't have
enough folks to create "We Love Suzuko Koseki!"? What if
any of the coasters sent to me in Japan were lost in transit?
What if I don't get to meet Suzuko Koseki for some reasons?
What if my cats mess up these coasters while I was gone?
... I had lots and lots of things to worry about..

But you know what, I definitely worried too much.
I had more than enough folks to make this project
possible. All the coasters were delivered to my place
safely and on time. I did get to meet Suzuko Koseki.
My cats didn't mess up the coasters. (I kept them in
my suitcase zipped up completely.) So it all went well.

I'd like to introduce everyone who participated in
this project along with the coaster she made for Suzuko,
and then I want to tell you all about meeting
Suzuko Koseki as well as show you lots of pictures
taken at her booth at the festival.

The first coaster to kick off this project was
made by Saskia in Switzerland!
A very interesting thing about
this SK project was that you'll see a wide variety
of techniques used to express a letter on a coaster.
Saskia was the only one who used the silk-screening
technique to get her "W." Really neat, isn't it?!

This is by Hoyoyi who lives in Malaysia!
Her coaster is very original in that it was the
only one made with felt and was the only
coaster that flew over from Asia! My sister
was totally in love with this perfectly pretty
coaster - I had to make sure she wouldn't steal it!

What can I say about this coaster made by
Kerry? Kerry was the first person I approached
when I came up with this project's idea, because I
know she is a huge fan of Suzuko Koseki and she knows
the best way to put SK fabrics together! This coaster
was fully made from SK fabrics and the little bell is
so special because it is Suzuko's trademark!
(Suzuko's Suzu means "bell".) Check out herQuilt-a-long for Circle of wonky stars quilt!

This heart coaster was made by Megan in America!
Can you believe that this heart is made of
teeny tiny squares of SK fabric that are neatly
and perfectly sewn on the linen background?
Such a lovely and innovative creation!

This "V" coaster made by Almut in Germany
reminds me of Suzuko Koseki's style SO much,
which I truly love!! The backing of this
coaster was SK's kitchen utensils print fabric
who was a perfect match with this!

And this is the E coaster I made. I came up
with this design to use as many SK fabrics
as possible. I messed up by making it a lot
bigger than it was supposed to be, so I fixed
it while I was in Japan.

Amisha had to be a part of this project because
she seems to be a big collector of SK fabrics!
Lots of fabrics she used for her coaster are
SK's and look how fun it is when they are put
together like this! Great coaster
to start off Suzuko's "S"!

This sunshine-like coaster was made by
Marit in Norway who's super good at piecing
fabrics together! I really like her quilts
that has pieced Norwegian words featured.
So happy that she agreed to join this project.

Everything about this Z coaster is very creative
and is very 'Amy' in Australia! She goes to Japan
quite often to search for fun fabric finds! I love
how she finds lots of SK fabric in Japan! If you haven't
checked out a great sale at her online store,
you definitely should!

Another coaster flown over from Australia is
this really stylish one made by Belinda!
She has such a great collection of SK fabrics
that makes me drool. What a great way to
use SK's typography fabric like that?!

Although I knew how busy she is, I couldn't
help myself inviting Jan to be part of this
project because she too has such an amazing
SK fabric stash! This breathtaking design
made many of my friends wow!

I really can't think of a better fabric combination
for the SK's buttons print fabric! Look how the
"O" echoes with the round buttons too!! Chawne
is so good at coming up with perfect combination!

Irene made a really cool K coaster to start
with Suzuko's last name! I love how the fabrics
she used are very contrasting with each other.
Very, very Suzuko-ish!!!

Logcabin, pink, Sk fabrics - it's like everything
I like! (Why am I sounding like it was for me?
it is of course in Suzuko's hands now!)
Linda makes such beautiful things!

Nanette has been so inspirational for me
ever since I discovered her blog in blog land.
A house with a door and a window
with a strawberry - what a fun way to play
with SK fabrics while featuring the "S"?!

This impeccable 'e' coaster was made by Sardaana in
Austria and she owns her shop where she sells
her super cute creations and lots of unusual fabric
(such as Suzuko Koseki's fabrics!) I really
loved how this coaster felt in my hands.

I think the first time I found Penny was when
she posted the famous quilt-along project.
No question how I became a fan of her instantly.
She too loves Suzuko Koseki styles and I was
just thrilled that she decided to join us!

Manuela came up with this perfect cursive "i"
coaster! The vintage style fabric she used
for the letter is a great match with the SK
polka dots fabric used for the binding!!

Last but most definitely not least is this
"!" coaster by Lynne that concluded our "We Love
Suzuko Koseki" just perfectly! I can almost
here you wowing at this. Have you checked
out her hexagon park quilt tutorial on
Moda Bake Shop? Have you entered the Sherbet
pips layer cake giveaway on her blog yet? :D

Aren't these all so super creative?! I can't thank
everyone enough for how hard they worked to make
interesting coasters with lots of love for Suzuko.

Now let me tell you about my adventure to meet
Suzuko Koseki in person for the very first time!

I sent her an email beforehand to let her know
that I have something I made with her fans
overseas and that I would like to give it to
her on the 27th of January. Soon, I got a reply
from her staff saying that she would let Suzuko
know about me and that I should be able to see
her around 3pm at her shop vendor.

I was rather nervous than excited about this
opportunity coming up. Like I said many times,
Suzuko Koseki's sewing and quilting style
has been the most influential for me. I strongly
believe that I would not have developed this
much love for fabric and sewing without her.
A big statement, I know, but it's very true.

So I was tremendously nervous about meeting
her in person. Can I do a good job telling her
how inspirational she has been without freaking out?
Would I look OK and appropriate? Can I really tell her
how popular her fabric and books have been all over
the world? Wouldn't I bother her by trying to
take the time to present our gift (coasters) for her?

But once again, I worried too much.
Suzuko was such a sweet, laid-back and
approachable person who welcomed me so warmly.

She said she couldn't believe it when her
staff told her about our gift made by
folks in 9 different countries. She didn't
even know that there is anybody who knows
about her in America. I, of course, told her
how popular her textile and books have inspired
many crafters in not only America but other
countries. I also told her that I am very often
asked about where I got my SK fabrics and how
and where they can be found at.

Having our gift in hands, Suzuko was so happy.
I don't know how many times she said
"oh my goodness, I am so happy about this.
I can't even describe how much I appreciate this.
Please let everyone know how much I love this."

She said it was her very first time to receive
a gift like this and that made me so happy.
She also said that she is probably going to
decorate her room with our coasters too!

I got to chat with her about 20 mins there.
In the meantime, she took me to her booth at
the show that was, of course, the most
gorgeous booth there!

She was so nice to suggest that we take pictures
together in her booth. With her special permission,
I got some pictures with her with her newest quilt
in background. She also let me spend some time
taking close-up pictures of everything in the booth!

I know I said I really liked many quilts at the
show, but really, everything I saw at her booth
took me to a different level of "I LOVE THIS!"

We talked about a lot of things, but I remember
very clearly is that she said she has an extended
family who resides in Davis in California.
It was really exciting to know that she came to
see the family last year and traveled around
San Francisco. That is quite a bit close to
where I live - San Jose!

We also talked about my hubby.
I told her that I recently got married to
an American guy who even knows about her
because I talk about her too much. She was giddy.

I also brought up about her upcoming
book that will be published in America.
I told her how excited we are about it.

We also talked about Seattle, the city
she loves and I used to live. She said
she really enjoys the nature in Seattle.

And of course I had many questions about
these amazing things at her booth. I thought
she made every single thing, but she said
her students (she teaches many quilting classes
throughout the year) help her with these a lot.
Fir example, all these flowers as well as
bread and macarons were made by her students.

It was really exciting to see some of her creations
that were featured in her books. I was really excited
to tell her that I tried to make one of the
pillows she had there but failed.

You might have seen this cushion in
one of her books :)

Oh another thing I learned there was that
many things she uses for her crafty work
come from American souvenirs from her friends.

She also travels to France very often. (no wonder!)
Every once a while I see some articles in Japanese magazines
calling for folks to join a trip to France with Suzuko.
One day, I want to sign up! ..one day!!

It was a lot of fun chatting with her and taking
pictures at her booth, but what I remember the most
from these pictures is my nerve tension and my
sweaty hands. lol.

Oh before I say a goodbye today, I want to tell you
how generous Suzuko was for me! She said she would
feel really bad about not being able to thank
each member individually, so she kindly asked me to
share these fabrics from her newest textile collection!
She didn't let me pay for them.

I was sooooo happy at the thought that all 19 of us
had something that went to Tokyo Quilt festival
and have something that we brought back from it.

I chopped off all the fabric last night to
share them with everyone who participated in
this project. I'm really excited about
everyone having SK fabric literally given from SK!!

Thank you so much for reading this LONGEST
post ever! I am so happy I finally got to share!
And a BIG thank you again for everyone who
made this project possible! I truly
appreciate your support and love!

Tokyo Quilt Festival

2011-02-09T07:19:00.000-08:00

First of all, thank you so much for everyone who
let me know that you enjoyed my previous post.
(It was almost nerve wrecking to post it because I
thought it could be the most boring post ever lol).
Also, thank you so much for your kind words too.
Both Joe and I haven gotten over the jet lag,
and my homesickness is becoming much less intense.

I gotta tell you that today's post is going to be
super long again. I have about 55 pictures to share
with you that were taken at Tokyo Quilt Festival on
January 27th. I'll try my best to be quiet so that
you can go to the end quicker. You'll probably find
at least a few quilts that will wow you,
so hopefully you'll enjoy taking a little trip to
Tokyo Quilt Festival at Tokyo Dome with me here!
(Let me apologize in advance for bad pictures!)

Oh, don't forget to stop by Jan's flickr album to
discover more quilts at the festival too!
(She blogged about it here too.)

Was it crowded? Well, how about I let you judge on
that from this picture? Can you believe it was
just a weekday? About 40% of the place was
fabric shops' vendors and the rest of it was used for
quilts exhibition. Jan warned me about the crowd,
saying that I would need to sharpen my elbow
at this place, which made me giddy every time I
remembered it at at the festival.

The first place I stopped by was children's mini
quilts section. Did you hear me right? Children!

Isn't this lovely? It was really encouraging
to know that this nicely done hand appliquewas made by a young girl.

Oh how I adore this sushi mini quilt art.
This is a conveyor belt sushi that is pretty
common in Japan. You take a sushi dish you want,
eat as much as you wish, call a staff when
you are done so she/he will come to count the dishes
at your table and charge you for them. Look
at the wasabi peeking underneath raw fish.
That's adorable. Can't believe a 8 year old
boy made this master piece!

Throughout the place there were quilts called
"Friendship Quilts." I think these are basically
quilts made by multiple people in a quilting bee.
Though it might be possible that those folks
who participated in making this quilt together
don't know each other at all. I know some people
who submitted their block to a theme just for
this purpose and that was it. They don't know
anybody who also made blocks for the same quilt.
I found it very interesting..

Not sure about this quilt though, because this
has such a perfectly matching theme. It's like
they are all made by the same person or something.
Isn't it so cute though?!

I can recognize many fabrics that I have and love.

Lookie at the the door that is openable!

This is a really artistic Japanese calligraphy
design too with a nice creative kick. Some of those
characters mean "moon, cloud, wind, water, cherry
blossom, rain... etc" Very calming.

What I really loved about this quilt was the
idea. Basically, this lady who made this quilt
has two sons in Tokyo, very far from where she lives.
On this quilt is appliqued letters that she has
written to her sons in the past years.
Writing a postcard with an original art is
very traditional and is such a thoughtful way
to convey messages for someone you care a lot.

Here in the fish one, she is saying, "I cooked
and ate pacific saury (a type of fish). I heard
it's good for you. I hope you eat fresh food
in Tokyo too. The pool festival ended today, It's
September already. I want to see you again"

The chestnut one - "The chestnut is like a happy
family together. This reminds me of Hisashi and Masashi
(her sons). Let's talk a lot when we can see each other again."

"'Hey Mom, How's everything? Is Dad doing good too?'
I know I am not at the age to receive a phone call
like that from you yet. It doesn't have to be frequent
at all, but I wonder if you could give me a phone call or an email sometimes?Take care and stay healthy."

For some reasons, these messages were really touching
to me. I know my mom was missing me so much for
the two and a half years I never went back to Japan.
I started thinking if this is how she had
been feeling, and I had to leave this quilt behind
soon not to start being teary there.

This picture doesn't do justice in how incredibly
the depth of field was expressed in this mini quilt.

Speechless? I know. It made me speechless too!

This is a really amazing art too.

I loved this framed art. It was so popular that
there was constantly a crowd of people in front
of it. I really wanted to take a good picture of
it so I went back to it a couple of times and
finally got some time to look at it carefully
and shoot this photo. The miniature food applique
is the cutest thing that I definitely want to
be able to make one day...!!

What can I say? It's nothing but a piece of
adorable art, isn't it? Look at the girl bird's
high heels too - cuteness overload!!

This is a really cheerful and colorful
framed art too. So happy.

A very traditional Japanese house looks like
this. You can still find houses like this
in a country side in Japan. It makes me nostalgic.

This is really beautiful too.

This one too. It's like a real picture.

Isn't it tooooo cute??!! Pata pata is a sound
for sweeping with a bloom. Batan, Gon is a
sound for someone falling to the floor.
Haa huu is a sound for feeling comfy in a bath.
There are a lot of fun things in this small art.
I love the three pots and a quilt hung.

If I remember correctly, the label said that
this mini quilt was made with help of her
young daughter's random sketch. Loving the girliness!

So Japanese! You might have been able to tell
from the zakka post, but sweets' theme has been
really trendy now in Japan. You can pretty much
find everything with sweets design like macaroon
shaped pillow cushions and cake-looking candles.
I really like this fun and happy cake art!

Nice, nice. It makes me want to go hiking!

It's so beautiful and striking.

I'm not the only Japanese who's crazy about
European stuff apparently. lol. I thought the designer
of this quilt lives in England, but if I remember
correctly, it said she just visited her friend
in England for 2 weeks. She must have been SO inspired!

Especially union jacks have been a really popular
theme in Japan. I found T-shirts, jackets, stationery
kits, mirrors, wallets, bags among others with a
union jack on them. I'm really excited about
making a union jack block for Erica for Ringo Pie bee!

I really adored this quilt too.

It was everything I love - contrasting colors, typography,
cheerful theme, vintage-ish, and lots of polka dots!

You know how crazy I am about this poodle prints!
Couldn't find the particular prints though... :(

This is beautiful too.

This was really nice especially when I looked at it closely.

See?

I like this because although it seems quite simple,
I know it isn't the case really. There are a lot of
thoughts put into this work.

This was like a real picture! Oh how I miss April
in Japan when cherry blossom is so, so beautiful.

It's like an interesting color chart or something.

Very calming.

This is fun too. I really like patchwork of
colorful Japanese traditional fabrics.

I am totally in love with this. Wonky, fun
typography, unexpectedness - so much fun!

It was really nice to see this quilt because
January was Lisa's month for Ringo Pie bee
where the theme was "Door".

Isn't it a lot of fun?

I love, love, and love this!!!
Once again it's all about what I love!

Probably this was the block I adored the most.
Look how she squeezed "L" in like that!
Whether it was on purpose or not, I am loving it.

I bet many of you like this chair! Lots of
us like a red + aqua combination :D

What I really liked about this quilt was...

The flower collage! Look how it made with
hexagons, lace, and sewing pattern paper!!!

This was made by a fabric designer and the
author of several sewing books Kumiko Fujita.
I have a few books of her and some fabrics too.
You can look at this flickr group by Kerry and Amy
where you can find Kumiko Fujita and typography
stuff! I'll show you some of her fabric that I
snatched while I was in Japan soon too.

This was probably one of my favorite quilts I saw
at the show. I loooooove the French theme!!!!

I really enjoyed paying attention to the detailing
of this quilt.
　

So pretty! This helped me decide a theme for
my month for Ringo Pie - hehe!

This is really nice piece of art too!

Akiko Endo's quilt is always exhibited at this
Tokyo Quilt Festival and it always wows me
every time I see her work.

So delicate, happy, perfect, and Frenchy!
If you are a big collector of Japanese fabric,
you might have a few fabric stashes designed
by her. Her fabric line is called Atelier Akiko.
I got some of her fabric on the last trip too
which I'll show you soon :)

Wow it looks like I am done with 57 pictures now.
I thought I promised you that I would be quiet
but I wasn't huh, lol, sorry about that!
Hopefully you found some quilts very inspiring.
Which one is your favorite?

By the way, there are more photos from
Tokyo Quilt Festival coming. I took lots
and lots of pictures in Suzuko Koseki's booth.
I can't wait to tell you all about the project
completed by 19 of us in 8 different countries,
how it was presented to Suzuko Koseki, and her reaction.

*A little preview*

Thank you so much again for your time to read my post!

Have a fabulous day!!

Recap of Japan Trip

2011-02-05T18:14:00.000-08:00

Thank you for all of you who left comments in my
posts/sent me emails while I was in Japan/snatched
some fabrics from my etsy shop early in January.
I'm so sorry I have been gone for such a long time.

I love blog land - I really enjoy writing and reading
blogs and communicating with my online friends through
emails and flickr, but while I was in Japan, I made it
a point to spend as much time as possible with my
family and friends who I don't get to see very often,
which meant for me to spend little time on computer.

The Japan trip that lasted for a little over a whole month
ended a few days ago, and both Joe and I are trying to
catch up with stuff here and there, and to get over jet lag.
Just like any other times I come back from Japan,
I am feeling homesick. My life in the US is great, but I
can't help but keep thinking about how nice
it would be if I could move back to Japan with Joe where
I have my family and friends close by. I know that's such
a selfish idea. I should feel just fine and normal as I
get back to my normal life here. I'm sorry for bringing
up my negative thought to my blog where it should be
all about fun and happy crafting. Anyway, I want to
share with you lots of pictures from the trip today.

Separate from this post, I will have three more posts
about the Japan trip - 1) Tokyo Quilt Festival, 2)
Suzuko Koseki Project, 3) Fabric and zakka finds + etsy sales.
Today's post is probably the most boring of all, because
it won't have anything to do with zakka or crafts but
my personal stuff, so please feel free to skip or
just look though just the photoes, etc :)

It was Joe's 4th Japan trip. He had always been
my boyfriend but on this trip he was my husband :)
He probably likes Japan more than I do lol.

I have to introduce three cats who live with
my parents. I've done it before, but maybe it is
the first time to see them for most of you.
This is a Scottish Fold cat named Oto. He likes
to check out what we've been eating like this.
His favorite food is Edamame (soybeans). You can't
have an edamame dish on the table without him
trying to snatch it up from you. He is so cute!

Blacky, who is probably the most popular among the
three. He loves to be near you and meow at you
if you call his name while purring. Very sweet.

Shiro, who isn't as friendly as other cats, but
loves to get attention. When someone visits,
he is the first one to go to the door and show
visitors how he can roll his back to the floor.
Such a sensitive and shy boy.

For the new year, we went to visit seven temples
in Tokyo, each of them supposedly corresponding
to a god in "Seven Gods of Luck" which is one of the
traditional things to do early in January in Japan.
Joe was learning to read Japanese characters, so
we let him guide us with the map that has only
Japanese. He was so excited to do this!

But to tell the truth, we visited only six of them.
The last one had such a long line which made my
dad want to go home. lol.

On the way back, we stopped by a traditional
Japanese restaurant where we had an alive spiny
lobster. Poor lobster, he was still alive
after all his meat is gone.

Oh this is absolutely random but I wanted to
share with you how Japanese milk/juice packages
look like at a convenient store. After I posted
about the milk carton block, I received many
emails, especially from Europe that had
their local milk cartons pictures attached.
(Thank you for that!) I truly enjoyed seeing them,
so I thought you might enjoy discovering Japanese ones too!
Or is it only me who is this crazy about cartons?

Shameless, lol. What a mess we made in my parents' house.

We made a big mess in the small monthly apartment
in Tokyo which we stayed at for 8 nights too.
While we were staying here, Joe worked in
Shinjuku for a week and that was the best
time for me to go fabric shopping alone.
By the time we left here, I had waaaaay too
much fabric for the luggage we brought,
so I ended up buying a new suitcase to
fill it with just fabric. You have no idea
how annoyed Joe was when he came back
from work on Friday and saw the new suitcase
awaiting him to carry. lol. sorry, Joe!

We stopped by Edo-Tokyo Museum which seems to
be a pretty popular tourist spot for foreigners,
because there are English descriptions for each
exhibition and volunteers who can explain things
in English. Joe enjoyed learning the history in
edo period in Japan while I had fun looking at
and taking photos of artistic exhibitions.

Behind Joe is a very traditional thing for the new year.
In the middle is a lady's face with huge cheeks called
"Otafuku." I used to be very chubby as a kid and my chubby
cheeks were even chubbier back then. I had someone
who said her face looks like mine. How appropriate is that? LOL

What you'll find at every tourist spot in Japan are
souvenir shops. I found these bento box-looking
candies very adorable - couldn't help shooting a photo!

I wasn't expecting anything like this, but we were
so lucky to have some folks celebrating our wedding
with a little surprise - this cake from my friend Koto's
family was one of them. I 'met' Koto through Japanese
blogs and we became really good friends in real life.
Since Joe and I decided not to have a formal wedding
ceremony, it was our very first ever experience to
cut a cake together. What a nice surprise! Thank you, Koto!!

Maybe you can't tell from looking at what these
people are wearing but this day was SO COLD!
We were hanging out with my friends in Tokyo,
and the only thing we could think of to do is
to head over a hot spring called Spa LaQua that
is located next to Tokyo Dome where the quilting
festival took a place (I'll blog about it later ;) )

At my friend's place, we had a little sushi party
that night. I love hanging out with these girls.
We chatted until 3 am. It's so nice to have friends
like them that I feel so comfortable and happy with
who are so nice to have us stay at their places
every time we are in Japan.

A few days later, we were back to my parents'
house in Gunma. One of the first things we did
was to go Strawberry pick up with my cousin.
She is the same age as mine, and we grew up
together like real sisters.

These strawberries were the sweetest ever!
I was so excited to munch on tons and tons
of fresh strawberries, but they were a lot more
filling than I expected! In just first 15 min,
we were all full. It was lots of fun though!

One of the biggest events on this trip was
a trip to Okinawa that is a little island located about
two and a half hours by plane from Haneda airport in Japan.
This is a place my parents took their honeymoon.
They gifted us this trip and later decided to
come along with us. So I guess I can say this
was our honeymoon also..?

Last time I had visited Okinawa was over 10 years ago
when I was in high school. Lots of things looked
very different from the past and fresh.

I really enjoyed this dolphins and whales show.
This made me miss Sea World in San Diego.
I LOVED the place!

Okinawa is much warmer than the main land in Japan,
so pineapples are something Okinawa is famous for.
We stopped by Nago Pineapple Park where we got to see
may different kinds of pineapple plants. It was fun!

My mom was so happy to see cherry blossoms there.
It's usually around April when you can expect
cherry blossom tree blossoming in the main land,
but it is a bit earlier in Okinawa.

Joe wasn't as excited as my mom about cherry blossom,
so he was experimenting with goldfish at a vendor nearby.

Toward the end of the Japan trip was really busy.
We had our professional wedding photos taken
and a informal wedding party with just families.
This photo was taken when we were trying out
our traditional Japanese wedding clothing.

My mom is pretty laid-back and easygoing who
lets me make decisions about most things, so
I was surprised when she begged us to take
professional wedding photos. I guess it means
a lot to parents to see their kid getting married.
The warmth of my parents made me feel very good.
I let my mom pick my kimono and Joe's clothing
(called Monpuku) was chosen accordingly to match my kimono.

And here is a picture taken by a camera man
with my camera. On my finger are an engagement
ring and a wedding ring passed on from Joe's
great grandmother. I know I am so lucky.

Here is a western version of our wedding photos.
When Joe tried out the tuxedo, he looked amazingly
amazing and everyone applauded. I am wearing a
purl necklace my mom gave me to celebrate our wedding.

A few days later, we had a small informal wedding
party where we invited families only. Joe had seen
most of these people, but there were some people
who hadn't seen Joe, so it was really nice to
introduce him to them. A funny thing at this party
was that there were several people who totally mixed
me and my sister up. One of my sisters
(the second from the left) looks a lot like me
according to many folks. I even saw my uncle
congratulating her, making her feel... um..what? lol

After the wedding party was a get-together at
my cousin's house. Guys drunk and girls chatted.

The last trip we took while we were in Japan was
Ikaho hotspring in Gunma. It was definitely the
coldest weather we experienced in last few years.

The Cleansing fountain over there was totally frozen.

It was nice to see the steam coming from
a hotspring river though.

It was way too cold to do anything so we hung
out at a cafe while Joe went up a mountain
to take some pictures - this is one of them.

Ok, I am getting tired of writing now so you
must be really tired of reading this LOL!
Thank you to all of you who took the time to
read/look at this post :) Come back to see
photos from Tokyo Quilt Festival next week :)

Thank you!!

Zakka Shop in Japan

2011-01-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I hope you had a great
end of 2010 and a nice start to 2011.

I was really happy that I got to spend time on
new year's day here in Japan with my family.

There are so many things I want to share with you
already but I am going to make this post short
by focusing on zakka shops in Japan and
a temporary update of my etsy shop.

What does Zakka mean? I get this question very often.
Despite the fact that this word should be
very familiar with me, I tend to space out a little
not knowing the best way to describe the meaning simply.
How about I take you to a virtual tour in a Japanese
zakka shop that is located close to my home in Gunma
so that you get the feeling of what zakka is all about?

I know I am biased but I have to say Japan rocks for
someone like me who loves to hunt for cute and
inspirational things! I hope you enjoyed the little tour
and will come back to see more of Japan later here.

Oh and I wanted to let you know that I listed
some old and rare Japanese sewing magazines and
cute fabrics in my shop. On the Day 2
in Japan, I went to a new fabric shop and a couple of
used book stores and you know what happened to me...

I found myself seriously worrying
about packing and making Joe mad with ridiculous
amount of suitcases, so I decided to list some
in my shop while I am in Japan. lol
I might have to put my shop on vacation in a
week or so since we've got some plans to be out of town,
but if you can snatch something while it's open,
I will send your items within 2 business days.

It took me a while to estimate international shipping from Japan.
In case I overcharge you for over $2 on shipping,
I will definitely refund the amount via paypal.
Oh and as usual, I would like to add some additional
Japanese fabric if you let me know that you came from here ;)

Have a great day! Thanks for your time to stop by!

Leaving for Japan

2010-12-28T01:53:00.000-08:00

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!

A few more Christmas gifts..

2010-12-24T14:29:00.000-08:00

For a friend who likes baking and rose..
Used a pattern in Denyse Schmidt Quilts

For a boy who likes dinosaurs and elephants..
Used a pattern in Patchwork + Quilted Gifts

For friends and family who would like these..
Used my fabric basket pattern..

Wishing you the warmest Christmas.. :)

Some of the Christmas Gifts

2010-12-23T02:16:00.000-08:00

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.. :)

Busy time!

2010-12-17T17:13:00.000-08:00

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!

the tiniest pouch ever

2010-12-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

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!

Some Quick Projects

2010-12-07T13:02:00.000-08:00

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!

Bento Stuff

2010-11-29T13:59:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving
(if you are in the US) and a nice and relaxing
weekend afterwards. I didn't do anything special
for Thanksgiving but I had a quite bit of fun
with Black Friday deals at some local and online
shops. I love bargains. I can't resist anything like
20% off everything PLUS free shipping kinda thing.
I bought lots of necessities at Joann like batting,
threads, and interfacing, and snatched lots of
ecospun felt from Fabric.com.

Speaking of felt, I have been really crazy about
making things with felt these days. Making felt
food was one of the million things I've wanted to
try out for a while. After sewing the popsicle block,
I was feeling like making more yummy stuff, and
I found myself spending hours browsing felt food
online. Oh my goodness felt has such possibilities!
The food in the picture is some typical stuff for
Japanese bento box: rice balls with seaweed around them,
fried shrimp, meat loaf, and lettuce. I made all these
using this great tutorial by manimani mamagoto.
I will make some eggs, brocolli, and other stuff
to complete my bento set! yay!

The cool thing about these is this TINY size!
This is such an easy, quick, and
frugal project. You can even do this while
laying down in bed.(I did! lol) I have been
making these using standard acrylic felt
and found that it makes too much mess.
I did some research on felt and found that
ecospun felt might be a better choice, so
I can't wait to experiment with ecospun felt.

I bought this felt sweets last year for Joe's
niece Sarah's Christmas gift and was so pleased
with how happy she was with them. She wants more
now. Maybe I will make some dessert for her this year.
Handmade stuff is always better and they look
so easy to make! I am excited.. hehe!

Thank you for stopping by :)

Edited to add:

Look at Sarah's response to this post :D

Popsicles Block

2010-11-22T14:43:00.000-08:00

I had a lot of fun making this block for
Anna as a part of Ringo Pie quilting bee.
November is Anna's month, and she picked Dessert
for her theme. Awesome, was the only thing I could
say. I LOVE anything sweet and have wanted to make
something sweet and delicious with my fabrics.

I had tons of ideas for dessert, but when I
saw a package of popsicles at Costco the other day,
(that looked just so yummy), my heart was set for
popsicles. For one, I really love them. For two,
I really appreciate a lot of straight lines
on a popsicle - makes it easy to paper-piece!

It is extremely satisfying to see this finished
block because I wasn't sure if this idea was feasible
at first. I started off with a rough sketch of a
single popsicle. (The chocolate one) and then
searched for some popsicles images online for
inspiration to come up with a few more
popsicles to go with. One thing I like about
this block is that there is an ice cream man
in it. Really? You can't tell? Then I need to
have you Look and See!

I love this print by Heather Ross.

Oh by the way thank you so much for all of you
who took the time to tell me about your favorite
part of the day. I really enjoyed reading each
and every one of your comment. It was really
therapeutic to learn about a precious moment in
everyone's life. It seems that all of us treasure such
simple moments, like quiet time in the morning,
reading books to children, having dinner with
family, and a cup of coffee/tea. So nice.

The random number generator picked these
three winners.

Sara who said.. "Hello, my favourite time of day
is first thing in the morning, I say good morning
to each of my children (I have 3) and they all say
good morning back with such enthusiasm. It's beautiful."

And Annie who said.. "My most favorite moment
of the day is when I first get up. No one else
is up yet and this time is mine alone!!!
I am up for either the book or the fabrics -
both look really nice."

Carmen who said... "Oh Ayumi, what a sweet giveaway
- thank you! Please put me down for those beautiful
fabrics:) My favourite moment of the day is either my
morning coffee, or sitting down to eat dinner with my
family:) I think my day is pretty much book-ended by
these two events. Thanks again!"

Congratulations to three of you! I am contacting you soon..!
For those who didn't win this time, please don't be
disappointed, because I will have another giveaway for
Suzuko Koseki's new book next year too :)

Have a great rest of the day, everyone!

Patchwork Style by Suzuko Koseki & Fabrics Giveaway!

2010-11-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

So I talked a bit about Suzuko Koseki in the
previous post. I thought I'd go over abouther book, Patchwork Style today and give you a chance to win a free copy of the book and fabrics!!

In this book, there are 35 patchwork projects
ranging from a little coin purse to kitchen items,
handbags, pillows and quilts.

Suzuko shares with you several different
techniques including applique, logcabin, free
machine stitching, and quilting in her projects.

Every time I flip through the pages, I find something
in this book that I hadn't noticed before. The
more I look closely at each project in it, the
more I find out small details that make each
project so cheerful and special.. I just love it.

So today I'd like to host a giveaway for this book
AND Suzuko Koseki fabrics! Two lucky winners will
receive Patchwork Style book from its publisher
and one of you will win a set of two fat quarters
of Suzuko Koseki fabrics from me! (I'll pick
fun SK prints for you in Japan!)

To enter this giveaway, just leave a comment
telling me about your favorite moment in the day.
Oh and let me know if you specifically want
either the book or the fabrics. If you don't
say anything about it, I assume you are up to both.

I will pick three winners on the 20th of this month
and will announce them on the 21st - next Monday!

Good luck :)

Suzuko Koseki Love

2010-11-15T10:12:00.000-08:00

I thought I would share with you my love for Suzuko Koseki
today. You may not have heard of her name, but she is a
designer of really cool fabrics and an author of several
patchwork books. Her popularity grew exponentially overseas
so that now we can find her books in English including
Patchwork Style, Playful Patchwork, and Natural Patchwork,
of which the last two available for pre-order on Amazon.

Since her fabrics have become more and more available
outside Japan, you may own some of her fabrics without
knowing they are designed by her, which happened to
me at first. Until later I never associated my favorite
stashes with Suzuko Koseki who happened to be the
author of some of my favorite sewing books.

I love her fabrics/designs so much that there aren't
very many things I've sewn without her fabrics.
When I am stuck at picking perfect fabrics for my
patchwork projects, Suzuko's fabrics are often my
solution and when I need inspiration, Suzuko's books
are the first ones in my hands. I am always on the
lookout for her new fabrics and projects (which are
often featured in Japanese quilt magazines) because
they are one of the best sources of inspiration for me.

Anyways, the reason I decided to talk about Suzuko
today is that I came up with a fun idea yesterday
morning. Too much coffee without any breakfast helped
me feel valiant to start something new and exciting.

So I will be visiting Japan after Christmas until
the beginning of February, which means I am over there
when Tokyo Quilt Festival is held at Tokyo Dome.
There is no way would I miss the chance to go there.
And I will probably be able to meet Suzuko Koseki
in person for the first time there! I am so excited about
this already. I can't wait to tell her how much
inspiration she has given for me through her fabrics/books.

My fun idea is.. to make some gifts for her, not just
on my own but with other folks who are also big fans
of Suzuko. Each of us will make a coaster measuring 4.5"
x 4.5" that features one of the letters in her name.
For example, I would make a "S" coaster and, say, Kerry
would make a "U" coaster. In the end I will have twelve
coasters, each of them made by different folks.
It's a very simple, quick project. Basically, once I know
who will be in this project, I will assign each member
a letter so that she can go ahead and start making a
coaster that has the letter in some ways. The letter might
be expressed in patchwork, applique, embroidery,
stamps, or printing, etc. The designs and fabrics used
are totally up to everyone, but I think it would be great
to use Suzuko's fabrics or reflect on her designs in her books.

I would like each member to send the coaster to my home in
Japan by January 15th in 2011 so that I can put them all
together and hand them to Suzuko in person at the quilt
festival. I am also thinking about including an introduction
of each contributor in Japanese so that she'll have a
chance to know a bit about her fans overseas.
Doesn't it sound kinda fun?!

So far I have 10 confirmed members for this but I think
it would be perfectly fine to have many more members!
Instead of 12 coasters that make up SUZUKO KOSEKI,
we could do "WE ♥　SUZUKO KOSEKI" by 15 of us or
possibly something longer if there are many more of us.

All the fabrics I photographed for this blog post
are Suzuko's fabrics. You can google her name to
search more fabrics designed by her. If you aren't
sure if any of your fabrics are Suzuko's or not,
feel free to send me an e-mail to ask me about them.

It's really not necessary to be a huge fan of her
to join the group. In fact, it would be totally fine
to join even if you just learned about Suzuko today
and realized that you've got some of her fabrics in
your stash. As long as you 1) like her fabrics/designs/books,
2) are able to make a coaster to be sent by Jan 15,
and 3) are interested in being a part of this :),
you are invited!! If you are interested, please
let me know (via email) by the end of this week so
that I can start assigning a letter for everyone
next week. I hope you'll decide to join :)
Even if you decide not to participate in this,
I will keep you posted on the project here in my blog,
so I hope you'll enjoy seeing everyone's coasters.

Oh and if you've made something with her fabrics
or from her books and have a flickr account,
you might be interested in adding your photos to
this flickr group called I ♥ Suzuko Koseki :)

Ok, I think I talked too much today.
Thank you for reading such a long post..!
Have a great day!

Still on a pincushion mission

2010-11-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

I have to warn you.. this post is once again going to
be about log cabin pincushions that I've been making
like crazy these days.. so if you are sick of looking
at my pincushions by now, it might be better off to
skip this post. If you still have patience to read
my tedious story about each of three new pincushions,
I thank you in advance for taking the time to do so :)

This is probably one of my favorite pincushions
I have made so far. So the story goes like this..
the blue bird (in the middle) is hungry and looking
for some veggies to munch on. But as you can see,
there is another bird flying in to grab the veggies
on the right top corner. I felt bad, so I decided
to leave him with two carrots on the left bottom.
Let's hope he'll find the carrots before
the other guy comes to get them.

I really really like this one too. I'm so happy
that I made it because this is my first project
ever that I used this many purple/lavender fabrics
for. I always thought I am not the biggest fan
of the color range, but I started liking them.
If the purple/lavender fabric is either modern
or vintage, I can enjoy it very much, which
I have learned pretty recently.

This mousy has a date tonight and he is planning
to take his girlfriend to a nice restaurant where
they can enjoy really nice red wine and hopefully
a bird or two out the window. He is not so sure if
he can satisfy her well, so he can't really
guarantee the quality of the date, but maybe qulity.

This turned out to be fun too, I think.
Remember the story about Mister Donut fabric?
The word "Mister" came from the fabric.
"Donut" part of the fabric couldn't really
fit in, so I included..

a real donut, well, not that real but
more fun than a word right? There is a truck
at the top that carried the donut. The gnome
is a bit confused though.. not sure why he
is included in the Mister Donut pincushion..
so to make him feel a little better, I added
the penguin and the cute owl.

Thank you to those of you who snatched my
pincushions - I will be adding more in my
shop in a few days :)

Have a great day/afternoon :)

Mary Mug Rug

2010-11-01T19:41:00.000-07:00

is a very kind, sweet, generous, and creative
lady I very much look up to. She has sent me
lots of packages full of yummy goodies including
truly precious vintage fabrics, her handmade
items, and her lavender which smells the BEST!

Knowing how skilled of a seamstress she is,
I feel embarrassed to make anything for her,
(because I know surely that she can make the
same thing just a trillion times better!)
but to me, there is no better way than creating
something personal to show appreciation from my heart.
I'm sure many of you can agree with me :)

I made this with her name in patchwork
not knowing what it was going to be. I thought
she might like to use it as a mug rug, so I
used insul bright batting but I also thought
she might be kind to decide to hang it, so
I added a few small loops on the back.

I really enjoyed making it and couldn't wait
to get this to her! Soon, I will have a post
on many handmade gifts I have received from
several blog friends over the span of a few
months and you'll see lots of Mary's
beautiful creations there.. :)

My most recent gift from Mary included
lots of lovely vintage fabrics/feedsacks.
All three pincushions I showed you in my
precious post as well as additional three
I am showing you today include at least
one fabric scrap that was from Mary :)

For example, this pink fabric with a ferris wheel
is one of my favorite! Isn't it so cute?!
I think this fabric made the pincushion
very cheerful. What is it about the vintage
fabrics (especially feedsacks from the 30's)
that are just unbelievably adorable?!

I picked this fabric for the back side.
Oh by the way, I've noticed that I've been
choosing lots of fabrics that I bought on my
last trip to Japan two years ago for my projects
recently. You know why.. I think it's because I am
going to Japan next month ! :D Hooray!!
I think I am subconsciously trying to use up the fabric
I bought there on my last trip so that I can give
myself a reason to buy more this time :) My entire
family thought I was going crazy by buying so much
fabric last time. (Last time I went to Nippori Textile
Town, I bought so much fabric that I gave myself
a bruce on my right arm where I was hanging
bags full of fabrics! lol!) Sure I was going a bit
crazy but don't mind the same experience again :D

I really like this one especially the naughty
look of the bird on the red tape. It's like
he is planning to eat up the pincushion or
something. lol.

Isn't the pot lovely? This is also the fabric
Mary shared with me. I think it is one of
my favorite fabric now. So adorable!

Yup, this is also one of the fabrics I
snatched in Japan two years ago!

This one turned out to be so American, color-wise!
One thing I like about this pincushion is..

This girl in the corner wondering where
she left her cherries and strawberries
that she needs for her cooking. The upside
down kettle there is fun too!

This fabric is just perfect for a pincushion.

The last two pincushions are available
in my shop now :)

Thank you for reading such a long post!
Hope your week started off good :)

Scrappy Logcabin Pincushions

2010-10-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

Making pincushions can be seriously addictive.
I had the urge to make a logcabin pincushion
this morning, and I ended up sewing up three.

I really enjoy having a fun motif in the center
of my log cabin. And including some pieces of
fabric with writing is just necessary :)

This one turned out to be a cutie!
Combining all sorts of different fabrics
is always fun. The poodle looks happy
being surrounded by cute feedsacks.

This is the other side of the pincushion.
I was so happy I found this perfect fabric
from my fabric stash. Its manufacturer is
American (I believe it was Alexander Henry)
but I found it in Japan a few years ago.
Don't you have some fabrics that you really
like but have never found a use for? This
was one of the fabrics like that, so I am
glad it's finally in use :)

This one is very much vintage-inspired too.
Even the red piping tape is vintage!
I found an unopened, new one at a thrift store
a while ago. Its original price printed on the
label was 19 cent, but I think I bought it
for $1 or so. I love thrifty vintage finds!

Back side. This is the fabric I've wanted to
use to make a pincushion so once again I am
really happy that it finally became a part
of a pincushion!

This last one is the silliest of the three,
because it says "Made in USA" and "Made in
France" in the black piece of fabric although
the fabric was made in Japan. Very silly!

And look at the back side! The word
that starts with "Stamp.." is back-warded!
I like the fun details of the pincushion.

All three picushions have been listed in
my shop. (The first one is gone - thank you!)

I'll be back with a mug rug I made for my
friend soon...! Thanks for stopping by!
Have a great rest of the weekend!

Birthday Gift for Eriko

2010-10-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

My middle sister Eriko turned 26 yesterday, October 26th
and this is the handmade gift I sent her. She is the girliest
girl who loves everything girly, sweet, and very pink, so I
should've made a pink one like this instead, but somehow
this is how it turned out. While making it, I was becoming
more and more sure that she would not like this busy potholder
but my heart was set that this was going to be hers, so
I had to gift it to her. Well let me explain why
I think it should be hers, will you?

First off, when she was a little kid, her dream was to
become a bakery chef and she used to bake lots of yummy
bread, so that explains why I started off with the bear
with a pancake! And if you look at it closer, you may
notice that there is a cake, a little message that says
"happy birthday", and 'love'. Oh and "Congratulations"
was not on purpose but it was great I included it,
because she passed a really hard exam last year to
become a clinical psychologist which I don't even know
what exactly it is but I know she can tell you a lot
about you and what's going on in your mind if you
show her a tree you drew. Interesting.

I'm definitely sure she likes this one though.
This was made by my friend Kerry in Florida
who just opened a little online custom jewelry
shop called Sweet Heart Silver. She was
so nice to make this custom necklace for
Eriko within just a few days, gift-wrapped it
beautifully, and sent it off to me right away.
I could choose from so many different sterling
silver jewelry, satins, and even fonts of
custom word/name!

When I told her that I must blog about this
necklace, she was sweet to offer a special
coupon code (10% off of your order): pinkpenguin
for you guys in case you want to shop there.
You won't regret taking a look at her shop I promise :)

Thank you Kerry for making such a lovely
necklace for my sister so quickly :)

Thank you for stopping by!
Have a fabulous day!

Quilt Top Completed :D

2010-10-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

After being that inspired at the quilt festival,

I knew that I would need to push myself

to get back to work on this quilt.

I was thinking about adding a white border,

but I started feeling that it might be more

interesting if pink or gray fabric is used

instead to match the teeny tiny blocks.

I thought the pink/brown polka dots fabric

would work well for this border, but I didn't

have enough of it left to make the entire

border made of the fabric, so I picked pink

solid fabric for the top and bottom edges of

the border and added applique on it.

I'm really happy with the result so far :)

I'm debating whether I should keep it

or list it in my shop. Although it would

look really cute in my sewing space for sure,

it might serve a better purpose by

wrapping a little baby girl somewhere

in the world... but can I part with it..?

Hmm.. I'm so indecisive.

Here is a pincushion I made for my friend Izumi

who grows the BEST tomatoes ever in her garden.

Once you get used to eating her sweet tomatoes,

you really can't enjoy other tomatoes anymore.

Now that Joe is used to Izumi's tomatoes,

he doesn't eat tomatoes in his bento box unless

they are Izumi's, but I can't blame him,

because her tomatoes are just sooo much better.

I am really excited to tell her why I picked

these fabrics. First of all, I love her tomatoes,

so I had to include a tomato there with a heart

pin right next to. And I had to use

the cat fabric because she loves cats.

And then lastly, the toast fabric was necessary

because she made me sandwiches which

tasted soooo good after walking for hours

at the quilt festival. And the reason for

the cheese is that she made me yummy

pasta with some Parmesan cheese on

when I was starving a while ago.

The bottom of the pincushion is pink,

which is her favorite color. Hehe,

I think she'll enjoy hearing these or maybe

I will be the one enjoying the most telling this, haha :D

If you want to make a pincushion like that,

here is a pattern for you :)

Hope you are having a great day!