Kitty Quilt for Imri

I was perusing through Instagram and found a British illustrator I follow had a very cute kitty fabric print available on Spoonflower.

My best friend was expecting a little girl very soon. I normally reserve quilt sewing projects for family since they take so much time and effort. But seeing as I consider my best friend as family, I thought her baby could use a nice baby blanket. This print was very adorable.

I was in the middle of sewing when I heard news baby decided to arrive two weeks early! So I switched myself into high gear to get the quilt done and ship over the weekend.

I got to use my new woven labels! It's sort of like a little signature for my projects. Now people will know who made the blanket. I hope the kitties will keep Imri warm and cozy.

Ocean Animal Soft Blocks for Sena

After my friend, Phil, bought the farm animal blocks for Sena, he made a special request for a sea turtle. His wife's favorite animal is a sea turtle. HRM... I made a small ocean themed set. Here we have a crab, octopus, and a sea turtle. My favorite out of this bunch is the octopus. The sea turtle is a bit of a stretch. Some animals aren't easily able to be translated as a cube shape. I got custom ribbon made with my name on them for a little branding. These plush blocks look all offishul now.

Farm Animal Soft Blocks for Sena

While working as a toy designer, I learned the most popular animal theme is farm. Who doesn't like farm animals! Here we have a duck, pig, chicken, cow, horse, and sheep. I might make a super farm set and include cat, dog, and goat. This particular set is for my friend, Phil's daughter, Sena. She is at the stage where she is sitting up on her own so these blocks are the perfect toy for her.

Forest Animal Soft Blocks

I had so much fun making the jungle animal soft blocks for Ruby, I came up with another set with a forest theme. Here we have an owl, deer, bunny, raccoon, fox, and bear. I'm thinking about making a bunch of these and putting up on the Etsy store.

Jungle Animal Soft Blocks for Ruby

I miss being a toy designer. Since I'm not currently a professional, I may as well make toys for fun. Here's a set of jungle animal blocks I made for my friend, Mariclair's baby, Ruby. I am told she loves to knock things over as she is sitting up. Joann's Fabrics had a few textured and printed pattern felt so I experimented. After some attempts of using regular poly-fil for stuffing a square shape, I found foam to be the ideal material for the cubes to hold their shape. There's also a rattle inside. In a perfect world, I'd stuff the penguin's wings and elephant's ears with some crinkle material since babies like that feature.

I realize penguins may not be considered a jungle animal but my friend made a special request. They're at least included in "Madagascar", right? Ruby will be getting these over Thanksgiving when a mutual friend makes the delivery. Hope she likes them!

Baby Smocks for Emmy

A friend told me about some baby smocks she was making. She showed me a pattern and it looked easy enough! You can buy this pattern on Etsy. 

 

Happy Teeth and Candy Party!

 

Happy Teeth & Friends - Peachy Pink

 

Teeth Time

 

Way of the Ninja Tooth - Blue

I browsed through Spoonflower and picked some super cute fabric prints. Here are some teeth related prints I bought for my Cousin Sonia's baby, Emmy. Sonia is a dentist so I thought these prints were very appropriate. 

Baby Emmy is big enough to fit into the baby smock now. The back side is lined with terry cloth for easy clean up. Hope this makes feeding time more fun!

Mini Strawberry Donut Cell Phone Charms

Here's a mini donut I made. So small and cute!

Kimbap, Geem, and Mandoo Cell Phone Charms

Kimbap! A Korean picnic staple!

Geem! Or as the Japanese would call it, nori. Or laver. Whatever, it's dried and roasted seaweed!

Mandoo! Gyoza! Dumplings! Perogis! Empanada?

Ice Cream Cell Phone Charms.

Liz and I are sharing a booth at the Fort Lee Arts & Music Festival in a couple weeks:

I've been scrambling to figure out what to make to sell. There are too many choices I couldn't decide! So I may end up doing a little bit of everything I think of. This weekend, I made these cute ice cream cell phone charms. I bought a couple cute plush cell phone accessories in Korea and thought I could make my own. Here are three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.

Polar Bear Quilt for Emmy

When I found out one of my cousins was pregnant with her first baby, I found the perfect fabric to sew a quilt for the baby shower. This polar bear print is from Spoonflower designed by littlesmilemakers. I chose a polar bear because it was my cousin's favorite animal as a child. The back was a pink polka dotted flannel. I hand finished the binding to keep my swearing down to a minimum.

Toy donuts for Clementine.

 For some reason, I was itching to make felt donuts.

There are so many cute ones on Pinterest!

So what do I do now that I've made half a dozen toy donuts?

I certainly can't keep them for myself so I'm giving them to a little someone across the pond who I'm sure will play with them well!

These were so fun to make.

Perhaps I'll move on to make other pastries?

Nah~ I have too many half finished projects to complete first.

Shiba Baby Quilt - START!

An artist blog I follow posted this super cute shiba inu desktop wall paper. I left the artist a comment saying this would look awesome as a fabric print. I never think people actually pay attention to comments but this artist certainly did! Boy, was I pleased to see this listing on Spoonflower:

I ordered a yard in organic cotton sateen. When it finally arrived in the mail, I couldn't wait to sew it up into a quilt. I went to Jo-Ann's to buy some white flannel with blue polka dots for the back side. It 's a little contrast to the little blue pillow the Shiba in the print has on its head!

I had planned on just quilting on the machine like I've done before using Martha Stewart's tutorial. But I didn't want to stitch over the cute Shiba Inus. So I decided to try hand quilting circles around the doggies. 

This will bound to take me forever! But I need a quiet project to work on. More progress to come!
 
Check out Elda The's blog: http://thousandskies.com/

Apron for Amelie.

My cousin, Amelie, called me the other day:

"Hi unni. Could you get me an apron?"

"What for?" I asked.

"I wanna bake," she said.

I got a feeling she's been heavily influenced by a book series I had gotten for her birthday called "Cupcake Diaries".

So instead of buying her an apron, I made one.  I refuse to be a fabric hoarder and had to make a bit of a dent in my stock.  I had bought this candy patterned cotton/linen fabric from Spoon Flower awhile back:

Sorry, but it appears this particular print doesn't exist anymore!
I went to Purl Soho to buy some fabric remnants and cotton twill. I needed just a little more fabric to make the apron. Remnants were the perfect amount and very inexpensive.

Luckily, Amelie's favorite color is purple so I was glad the color was already incorporated into the fabric print. 

It took me just a couple hours to construct and finish it! Sur le Table had some essential baking tools on sale so I picked up a purple spatula. Now, Amelie is prepared to start baking!

Hot Water Bottle Cozy.

The temperature high yesterday was 16 degrees.  I'd like to think the office was closed in observance of my birthday. Really, it was because of the bad weather. I spent the afternoon making a cozy for my hot water bottle.

They get rather hot on their own. If you're not careful, you can even burn yourself! It's good to have a layer between your skin and the water bottle. Less burning, more toasty~
I made a simple drawstring pouch with a terry lining. It was a lot easier than I thought to line the interior of the pouch. It gave the pouch a some structure and padding to prevent any burning.

Hope everyone is staying warm!

Banana Bread.

 [Banana Bread in Holiday Loaf Pan]

I like to handmake my holiday gifts when I can. My favorite banana bread recipe is by Emeril Legasse. A.C. Moore had these cute ceramic holiday loaf pans on sale for a dollar! Three were enough to use up all the batter in the recipe. I reduced the sugar down to 1/2 cup and added chocolate chips to balance the sweetness. I noticed if baked in smaller loaf pans for 40 minutes, the bread comes out lighter and fluffier.

I also bought fat quarter fabrics with holiday prints for a dollar each as well. I hemmed the edges to wrap the banana bread. Makes perfect gift on a budget!

Christmas Stocking.

 

I sewed Christmas stockings for my family. They've never had a real Christmas tree so I bought one this year. Figured I may as well go all out and make them stockings too.

 

Here's a couple I made for myself and my possible future dog, Lucy. I drew a pattern onto an empty cereal box and used cotton flannel. The monogram tiles were bought from Anthropologie and the little dolls were from Crate & Barrel.