Old Fabrics, New Bags

One of my favourite part about patchwork is the recyling or reuse of scrap fabrics and turn them into something beautiful and useful. It's challenging and also gives me the satisfaction that I've not wasted any materials. My little contribution to Mother Earth....hee...





Here I've used some really small scraps of cloth to make into a pin cushion, which my mother has taken a liking to and requested that it be given to her.





I know my mum has a collection of cloth which she'll sometimes use to make clothes (eg nightdresses) for herself and us. I asked her to give me some that she does not want. Who knows what I can use it for. In patchwork, the more cloth, the merrier.




Sure enough, when Hubby brought back the goodie from Singapore, I was inspired enough to use some of her fabrics immediately to make 2 new bags.




The maroon red cloth on this quilted sling bag is from her collection, while the printed ones are from 2 pieces of left over fat quarters. This bag is useful as I can put all the little barangs barangs (purse, handphone, keys, camera, sunglasses and whatnots) and have my hands free to carry things/XX.






Would you believe this blue and white denim bag is made from what used to be the legs and pockets of 2 denim/cargo pants? I found them in the stack from my mom as well.









Besides using them, I've had bags of fun making them.

Lots of Love Quilt

Finally, after months of on-off patchwork sewing and tedious hand quilting, plus some help from my visiting mother, the quilt that was meant for my son is completed!

Lots of Love (60" x 48")

This is one of the earliest project I've started but it is not my first completed quilt. (More about the FIRST quilt later.) I was new to patchwork so I started experimenting with fat quarters, making small square blocks. I played around with different combinations and added more pink and blue blocks to make the centre quilt top. This piece was folded up and stashed away for a few months until I cut up a flannel bedsheet for its border.







Once the border was added, I started to add in some details. I appliqued big and small hearts into the squares and around the borders. After binding and quilting one round, I decided to hand-quilt the borders further to join all the hearts in a "wavey-dotted" manner. The stitching of the hearts were all done by my mother. (Thanks!)

Sweet Dreams Baby

I'm quite happy with the final look of the quilt. Thank God my lack of planning (not recommended) and last minute ideas did not turn out too bad. Its bright and bold colours makes this quilt very vibrant and cheerful. I have used 100% cotton batting and a flannel bedsheet as its backing, so I hope that it will also bring warmth to my son when he covers himself on cold nights. I hope he'll keep this quilt forever and remembers mummy's love to him always.

Quilt Crazy

I created this blog mainly to showcase some of my hobbies' creations.

I used to do beading and have created quite a few necklaces, mostly for myself and as gifts to family and friends. But since I've stopped working and thus the need for dressing up with accessories, I've all but given up making any new creations. Nonetheless, I'll endeavour to post up some pictures of my beading creations.

The current hobby I've started is stitching, patchwork and quilting. It first started as a little handmade project making a personalised pillow case for my husband's Christmas present. Then I got ambitious and started to think if this could be a business idea? I love the idea of personalised pillow cases, with names, special thots and dates of special occasions stitched onto the fabric.

Hand-stitched 'Merry' with a snow man and christmas tree made of felt

Hand-stitched 'Christmas' with a Santa's hat, gift and christmas stocking in felt

This idea soon evaporated when I realised it's quite tedious to do handstitching on a commercial basis without an embroidery machine. Guess I can only manage time to do small time projects for the people I love.

I can't remember how but my stitching and playing with felt fabric soon evolved into me reading up and learning about quilting. One thing leads to another and very soon, I found myself looking around and eventually buying my first sewing machine - a Brother XL-2230 for $169. I actually cannot believe that I'm suddenly into sewing! The last time I touched a sewing machine was when I was doing Home Economics in Secondary School and I don't remember I liked it that much.

With the machine, I started to create more craftworks. Some are still Work-in-progress, but here are some things that I've created so far:

A wall hanging "Love and Live Happy" for my parents' anniversary

Another wall hanging "Always Love You" for Valentine's Day

Playing around with quilt blocks design