Selection of flowers

Hello! 

I have been in the garden when the weather is good lately and doing some gardening (mainly sitting and admiring flowers, though!!). How nice to see so many different colours out there, including sky, trees, birds, butterflies, bees and ladybugs! Love spring! This is a selection of flowers from our garden.

As my due date is coming closer, I found it is difficult to sit still and do sewing... But still I can go out and do few things, so I found these lovely Italian glass cups from a thrift shop!

Hope everyone have a lovely day!

Spring has arrived

Love Sakura (cherry blossom), just love its gentle and suttle pink colour. So beautiful. When the weather is good, I just go outside and close my eyes...and feel the warm spring wind and listen to the birds. So peaceful and so special moment.

Hand embroidery

I hand embroidered and appliqued for my second son the other day! I just did a rough sketch and to see the balance of the picture. And after that it is mainly free-hand emboridery. I used adhesive interfacing to attach the sail and boat parts, then applied the zig-zag stitch using a sewing machine around the edges. Once you complete it, I placed it onto a cardboard, but not too thick, then put it into a picture frame. Here you go, you got the original art in the room!

Geometric 3D paper work

My older son has been showing a great interest in geometric shapes and I wanted to make something for him, with paper! I just simply love origami and found it origami is very therapeutic. I used cardstock papers which I bought from a local craft shop. This paper is much more harder to fold than origami paper, so I found it easier to use a ruler to fold along dotted lines. Also, I used my son's glue stick and it took a while to dry out...it did the job though! You can get templates from minieco.co.uk and more interesting geometric 3D from How About Orange. And if you would like to make slightly challenging 3D units using origami papers, you can find them from origami-club. Happy folding!

Spring Break and Easter Holiday (春休みとイースターホリデー）

For the past 4-5 weeks, I have been busy spending time with my kids! Lots of play with marbles and blocks, visited Science World in Vancouver and playing in parks. Hope everyone had a great Easter Holiday too!

この4－5週間は、春休みとイースターホリデーがあったので、子供たちと思いっきり遊びました！ビー玉と積み木で遊んだり、バンクーバーのサイエンスワールドに行ったり、公園で思いっきり走り回りました。

Sewn Stash Baskets (バスケット)

Recently, I found a lovely web site called "the purl bee" and found this sewn stash baskets. It shows you how to make the basket step by step with clear pictures and explanation, so it wan't difficult to make. I used thinner canvas fabric for outer layer and quite thick interfacing in the middle. I wanted the basket to stand its own and be able to change the hight by folding down the top. 

 

Inside looks like this. You can store lots of toys in there! Next time I would like to make much smaller version of this and try to sort out nick-nacks in our office. Hope everyone have a lovely weekend.

最近、素敵な雑貨、ファッションからホームアクセサリーなどなど無料で作り方を掲載している"the purl bee"　というサイトと出会う機会があり、そこでsewn stash baskets

を見つけました。写真つきで詳しく説明がされているので、結構簡単に作ることができました。

外の布は、日本では帆布というのでしょうか、キャンバス生地よりもちょっと薄めで、縫いやすい生地だけに、ちょっと形を保つにはやわらかすぎるので、中にちょっと厚めの芯をはりました。そうすることで、自分で高さを調節することができ、その上、形を保たれます。おもちゃ入れにはちょうどいい大きさです！今度は、もっと小さめのバスケットを作って、オフィスにあるこまごまとしたものを片付けようと思っています。よい週末を！

Have a cup of tea!

Finally, my second son has came out from his cold and I am so glad that I may have an undisturbed sleep tonight! We drink quite a lot of tea and I never had a tea cozy, so I made one! I used synthetic batting between cotton fabrics and embroid "time to brew up" with orange thread....but as you can see it is not that visible... 

I shall brew a cup of tea and have a rest tonight! 

長男に続き次男が風邪を引き、やっと今日あたりかぜが抜けてきたみたいなので夜起こされずに眠れそうです！紅茶は結構飲むのだけど、ティーコーゼーがあったらいいな、と思っていたので、早速作ってみました。パッチワークのキルティングをして、ミシンで”Time to brew up" と刺繍しました。赤い糸でやろうと思ったんだけど、なぜかその日はオレンジの気分だったので、オレンジの糸で刺繍したら、あまりはっきりと見えませんね…　とりあえず、お茶を入れてゆっくり今晩は休みます！

Fusible Interfacing

This week was quite a challenge for us as my husband has been back to England for a week and my big boy is sick since Sunday. Fortunately, his nasty belly bug is gone out from his system so we all are back to normal happy state (yes, noisy!!).

I wanted to used a new material and this week I used fusible interfacing to bond 2 cotton fabric together to make the material a bit stronger. Sometimes I need to carry a couple of water bottles for kids and grown-ups and few nick-nacks in one bag that makes a bag really deform and not that attractive...

I found the material is not too stiff but strong enough to hold the shape. And also you can have a pretty inner lining to show off too!

I purchased the interfacing from a local fabric shop and it costs around $7.50 per meter. One tip when you use this material is make sure you iron your fabric before you line 3 pieces together.

Much easier and no creases! Hope all have a lovely day.

Back to basic.

I used to make simple flat bags like this for my kids but I never used a template. This time I followed an intstruction and learned a few tips through making this simple bag. Iron, iron, iron! 

 

Hello!
This site is currently under construction, but what I intend to do is  persue my passion of craft and sewing. I spent nearly 10 years of formal study and work as a food scientist and this experience made me realize what I really wanted to do in my life which is creating stuff by hand. 

I have grown up with seeing my mom being so creative in many differnt areas; gardening, flower arrangment, patchworking, embroydering, sewing, knitting, Japanese brush painting, cooking and so on. Honestly, when I was a young girl I wanted to be an artist. Unfortunely, I received negative advice from my teachers about being an artist... I thought, then as a little girl, I don't think I can make my living selling art...

I had many detours in my life (and may have more detours in future!)but I feel it is time I start trying to do something and try to over come from fears of failure. So, this is my journey and my new chapter and I would like to share it with you (and of course to my mom!).