More crocheted flower bag charms

I crocheted three small flowers in different colors using the cotton yarns, and made it into a bag charm.  For my first attempt, I connected the crochet flowers and lace on to the chains.  My girls call this charm the "dangling" charms : P   If I make the chain longer, I guess I can make this crochet flower charms into a necklace, maybe? 

This is how the bag charm looks like, hung on to my bag handles.

more close-up

 Below is the previous version of the crocheted flower charm...

Even when I don't have enough time to sit in front of my sewing machine during the day, most of the time I can somehow find time to crochet simple projects like these flowers.  I love the sense of accomplishment that I get from making these small things in my crazy life :)  It's amazing how a simple crafting like this one fulfills my day like magic!

Liberty tote bag and a Japanese Liberty prints book

I made this tote bag over the weekend.  The fabric used is Liberty of London floral prints...

It can be used as reversible, too. (It has a linen lining).

But actually, I did not make this tote bag from scratch... The (finished) tote bag came with this Japanese book that I recently purchased. 

Book title: LIBERTY PRINT 1875-2010 SPRING

ISBN-10: 4796675604 

Inside the book are images of various Liberty prints, the Liberty designers, and some craft tutorials on how to make sewing projects using Liberty prints.   It's a beautiful book, and I'm loving every page of the book.

However, the Liberty tote bag that came with the book was a really thin bag (just like a pillow case!) with cheap lining and no batting whatsoever!   I didn't think the bag was sturdy enough to hold my everyday stuff

: (

Therefore, I did a minor makeover of this tote bag by pulling the bag apart (as shown below), using my seam ripper.  I then added some batting, linen lining, and a few pockets to the inside of the bag...

And this is how the inside of the bag looks like, after the makeover.  With a medium weight batting,  linen lining,  and a couple of inside pockets, the bag is now sturdy enough to be used  everyday by me (not a pillow case anymore!) 

another view

I also handmade this crochet flower charm, with organic cotton yarn, with a linen covered button and some lace.

I think it goes well with the Liberty tote bag... what do you think?

Handmade coasters

For a quick gift to my girlfriend, I made these coasters using linen + some fabric scraps.   To add  some personal touch to them, I stamped five different stamps on to each coaster... stamps of rose, ribbon, clover, cherry and a musical note.  These are hand carved eraser stamps that I carved a while ago. 

Close up of the stamps

And here are some pics of my niece's favorite polar bear guy... I sewed a simple clothes (or quite simply, a "tube" wear) and a scarf (with pom poms) for this guy, using fleece.   According to my niece in Japan, this polar bear guy's name is "Jun".  But I totally assumed that he was a dog, and not a polar bear, while I sewed up a clothing for him ;-)  lol

He's looks so comfy, sleeping on a handmade crochet blanket, made by my mom (my niece's grandma), while wearing a fleece wear, made by me (her aunty)!  

By the way, today is my niece's birthday, and I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to her!  Hope you have a great one, sweet girl. 　ジュンと楽しい誕生日を過ごしてね♪

Crochet + patchwork fabric bag

This is what I had been working on in my spare time.  Crocheted bottom + patchwork fabric = drawstring bag.   For the fabric part, I picked up small pieces of blue-ish fabric and linen squares from my fabric scraps and pieced them together. 

For the crocheted bottom, I used two cotton strands of yarns (light blue and white) to crocheted them  into a round shape with some depth.   This is my second attempt to combine crochet and fabric into a drawstring bag.  The first one was a smaller pouch than this one. 

View from another side.  

Bottom round

I placed a handmade "ribbon" tag on the side.  I stamped a ribbon stamp on to a cotton tape, and the stamp is a handcarved eraser stamp, made by me a while ago.

Inside is light blue/white gingham check.

It's a pretty tall drawstring bag, measuring about 9 inches or 22.75 cm in height.  I placed my cell phone next to the bag to give you an approximate size of this bag.  It's roomy enough to easily carry my cell phone, wallet, and car keys inside.

I can put my wallet, keys, and my cell phone easily into the bag.

View of the drawstring opened.

I really like the spring taste of this bag.  Hope you have a relaxing weekend :)

More granny squares by our granny

Do you remember my earlier post about this handmade granny square bedspread crocheted by my mom in Japan for our younger daughter?   Well, this granny square bedspread shown above is also handmade by my mom, this time for our older daughter's tenth birthday that we celebrated a few weeks ago.  

I haven't had a chance to count all the number of granny squares on this crocheted bedspread, but I think there are about 200 of them...  What amazes me is her crocheting speed, it only took her about a week or two to crochet this entire bedspread!!  And she normally makes a couple of these large crochet projects for her family members and friends in one (winter) season...  That's why I call her the "crochet machine" =P

Another view (placed on sofa)

More view (spreaded out on the carpet)

By the way, this winter has been a rainy and chilly one even here in Southern California, but look what I found today in our backyard.  Our peach tree is starting to blossom!  Spring has come, which makes me in a really good mood  :)

Organic cotton flower charm

I had a chance to spend few hours crocheting with my mommy friend at our place over the weekend .  While our kids ran around the house playing and giggling, us mommies watched our kids, chatted over some coffee, and we even managed to make one of these crochet flower charms together.  It was very relaxing and fun!  The flower charm shown above is made from organic cotton yarn, and I placed a fabric covered button, rick rack ribbon, and lace on to the charm.   Too bad I forgot to take a pic of my friend's finished project : (

Before I started this blog, not many of my close friends and family members knew that I was a craft addict of this extent ;P ... But now people around me know about my addiction, and it's great because I am able to find more crafty buddies around me with mutual interest! 

Happy crafting and hope you have a good week :)

Patchwork placemats

Besides the hanging tissue box cover I made earlier, another (sewing) project requested from my younger sister in Japan was to make her some placemats.  So here they are, some patchwork placemats made of linen + colorful cotton prints from my stash. 

Oops... I just noticed that the linen part is a bit wrinkly, maybe?  I should of pressed it more nicely... sorry, sis :P

Back side is Amy Butler fabric

And I made a couple more (solid) placemats, for the messy eaters over there...lol.  Hope she likes them :)

Patchwork tissue box cover

Over the weekend, I made this patchwork tissue box cover with a drawstring opening.  Remember this hanging tissue box covers I made earlier for our minivan?  These tissue box covers are convenient because it can be hung in the car, in the kitchen, or anywhere else where space is limited.  Well, this time, I made this tissue box cover for my sister in Japan, to fit the Japanese tissue box sizes.

View of back side

Did you know that the tissue box size is so much smaller in Japan than it is in the U.S.?  As you can see below, shown to the right (the taller one) is the U.S. tissue box size that we use in our household, which is 4 inches or approx 10 cm tall, and to the left is the Japanese size, which is only 2 inches or 5 cm tall.  

So before I made the Japanese size tissue box cover for my sister, the first thing I did was to create a Japanese size box using the U.S. size that we have in our house.  I guess I am so used to the everything-jumbo-American sizes now, from a large meal serving at our local restaurant to king size beds and even big people (!!) around here, the Japanese size tissue box seem really small to me now... Although I'm a small Japanese girl with only 5 ft 1 inch or 153 cm in height... :P

My sewing machine

Today, I want to introduce to you my sewing buddy, Brother sewing machine. This baby just came back from the service recently, and it's in a perrrrrfect condition and I'm loving it!   After the tune-up and cleaning, it's so much quieter and a lot smoother.   I now think that it was worth the wait and the money I paid for the maintenance.   I love you, baby!!

I handmade this sewing machine cover shown above some time ago, by lightly following this tutorial .  I love hexagon patchworks so I attached one to the cover ; )

And this is my Brother machine.  She does all sorts of general sewing with many many stitch functions and it also does simple machine embroidery.

Can you see the floral prints on both sides of the machine's monitor?  No, it didn't come like this originally, I simply used double sided tape to attach my favorite Liberty floral prints on to the face of the machine! 

It used to look like this when I first bought it (Mickey mouse with Disney logo).  See, our girls loved Disney characters when I purchased this machine a few years ago, but they eventually got over with them : (   I used to embroider their favorite Disney princesses on their clothings and bags often back then!

Also, I wanted to share with you about the tips on thread choices that I was informed by our local sewing machine shop.   According to the shop person, many of their customers' sewing machine problems (jamming, snagging, rough stitches, etc.) are a mere result of bad thread choices, and many of such problems can be avoided just by selecting the good quality threads. 

According to her, the worst type of threads are the cotton-wrapped polyester threads (e.g., Dual Duty brands), which can result in jamming, knotting, breaking, snagging and even flimsy finish.  (And these are the threads that I had been using for the past few years, which indeed resulted in threading problems of my machine). 

On the other hand, the best quality threads are the Mettler threads (both polyester and cotton threads).  

When I sew,  I guess I was paying too much attention to the fabric choices and I never really cared about the thread quality, so these suggestions were very surprising to me!! 

And before I go, let me show you the closeup of the hexagon patchwork that I sewed using the blanket stitch function of my sewing machine.

Happy sewing and hope you have a great weekend!

Fabric journal covers

My latest projects: fabric journal covers.   Actually, the patchwork journal cover on the far left of this upper photo (the one with linen + flower + dots) is made by me a few weeks ago which was posted on this post, so this week I made the remaining two covers.  

I will be donating all of these journal covers to the Write It Out Project, organized by a wonderful lady, Alida L.   She is organizing this Project for those who lost their husbands at war... She is collecting handmade journals for the grieving military widows, and she even posted on her blog an easy-to-follow tutorial on how to make the journal covers.   According to Alida, journal writing help the grieving souls in the difficult times...   Please go and check out her post if you are interested.  Her story is very touching.

On the other hand I wanted to show you what we received in our mail today!  This was a surprise gift from my dear blog friend, Sam of Sunnysidey, and it was not for me, but for my ten year old daughter Lisa, who just picked up embroidery recently and enjoys it with great pride... 

The gift is a glow-in-the-dark embroidery threads that Lisa wanted ever since we saw them on Sam's beautiful embroidery work  recently.  Thank you so much, Sam, for your kindness and generousity.  You won't believe how our young embroiderer was delighted to receive such a wonderful gift!!! 

And these glow-in-the-dark threads REALLY glows in the dark!!  WOW!!

Happy Girls' Day

March 3rd is the Girls' Day, or Doll Festival, in Japan.  We have two girls in our household, and every year we celebrate the Girls' Day by displaying few of the traditional Japanese dolls in our house, along with many of the handmade ones made by our girls :)   And this is how one corner of our living room looks like right now.  As you can see, each doll set comes with the Emperor and the Empress.

Besides displaying traditional dolls,  we plan to have some simple sushi, drink clam soup, and have some sweet cakes for dessert for the Girls' day dinner.

Here are some of the close ups of our doll sets.

And these are the handmade ones (mostly made by our girls several years ago while they were still in preschool)

Happy Girls Day to all of the girls out there : )

Little pouch with French fabric

I think I've made a quite number of pouches recently, but I normally give them away as gifts, so this time I decided to whip up a simple pouch for myself.

I used natural linen +  blue French country prints, from the "Souleiado" brand that I got in Japan.   Souleiado is a French fabric, made in Provence, southern France.   Their prints are simple yet elegant, and they are very popular in Japan, just like the Liberty of London fabrics from England.   

However, unfortunately,  Souleiado fabrics are not sold here in the U.S. (at least in my area), so this piece of fabric was very precious to me... and so I didn't have enough courage to cut it for a while!

Lining is navy x white polka dots

I placed a matching tag on the side.

 Side view

It can hold many many crochet hooks, pencils, pens, and other small necessities in my bag.

Now I'm thinking that maybe I should of made this pouch a little bigger in size... Oh well, maybe next time. Yet I really like the simplicity of this pouch.