Needle Felted Bow (Tie) Brooches

I made these felt brooches for selling at the local shop in February. The patterns on these bows are needle felted. This technique is very simple and easy to add some colors and cuteness on many kinds of fabrics. I appliqued polka dots, hearts and stripes on my bows using my single felting needle!

They could be worn as brooches and easy bow ties as well. I always love to play with colorful felt sheets. Looking at pretty colors makes me think of warm bright Spring. 

We had a winter storm last night and it became a snow day today. My girl has been sick since last Saturday. She already missed two school days this week but it was kind of lucky for us that everybody didn't go school today. I am hoping she won't get fever tonight. It seems Spring is not around the corner yet here on my street. I cannot wait to get out and start working in our yard. 

I hope you are having a beautiful evening. Happy needle felting!

Unique felt brooches

I made some unique felt brooches for my Etsy shop. "House and tree" brooches and flower brooches.

I have been enjoying making various houses with different types of trees, and little heart warming scenes. I hope someone will consider these will make very nice Holiday gifts.

A tall house and a tall Christmas tree.

A house with a red door has snow on its roof. 

 A red barn and an apple tree.

 I added a couple of flower brooches in the shop too. You can get felt sheets in many colors. As I said so many times, it is always fun to play with colors.

These are all available at my Etsy store Harujion Design. And you can see more images of these items in my Flickr pool. Happy felt crafting and Holiday gift shopping (under $30!) !!!

Wool Challenge @ Patchwork Posse

One day, I got email from Becky of Patchwork Posse and I was invited to her "Wool Challenge" on her blog as a guest designer. Becky offers a couple of free patterns and tutorials using wool and you can participate the wool challenge photo contest. And also there will be a giveaway. And a lot more interesting tips and ideas. What a fun and exciting event it is!

Becky will introduce six designers who are very talented wool enthusiasts. Her interviews with designers are scheduled for every Monday. And to my honor, I was interviewed and will be a featured designer tomorrow! There will be pictures of my work with wool and a bit of story of myself. I will share some ideas of projects using wool and my favorite blogs and websites which will give you inspirations about using wool in your projects. Please jump over to Patchwork Posse and check the infos of Wool Challenge. If you are wool enthusiasts, enter the contest! And don't forget to check my interview tomorrow, too!

I bet you will enjoy all the things going on there at Wool Challenge. Thank you Becky, for giving me a chance to share my works and tips with everyone! Hope you all have a good start of week!

Folklore Flower Embroidered Tote!

It took some time, you know. But eventually......I finished my folklore flower embroidery project at last!

And here is the finished item made with the embroidery piece! It is a small tote bag. I am so happy how it turned and I love it so much! I hope you guys will love it, too! I have been working on getting ready to re-open my Etsy shop. The shop will open soon as soon as the products are ready. I am trying to stack up items in my small "warehouse" for selling. This awesome tote will be in my Etsy shop soon, too. I will notify you when its ready to go, here in my blog, twitter, and facebook as well.

The bag has one simple pocket and one zipper pocket, too. The lining fabric is a medium weight cotton canvas. A bandana print in red, black and yellow, is a perfect matching with the embroidery color scheme. The handles are dark navy cotton webbing.

In addition, I made this roomy pouch to keep your belongings nicely in the bag.

This pouch opens wide and holds a lot in it. Also it is nice that people don't see the staff in your bag.

Look! The pouch made to fit perfectly in the bag!

I put neat hand stitches around the opening. It makes the bag looks more well finished, I hope!

The pattern is my original and it was new. I wasn't sure until I saw this bag finished, but then, I liked that! I want to make more of my "one of a kind" products with this pattern.

This embroidery work was so fun. I am going to keep working on this kind of pieces from now on. And put them up in my shop as many as I can. Certainly it would take some time for you to see a new product in the shop. But I hope many of handmade lovers will be looking forward to it and be happy to be waiting. That's my dream. Thank you for reading, and hope you all have a happy weekend!

Work in progress / Folklore Flowers

This pattern is inspired by folklore embroidery designs of Eastern Europe. I have never been any of those countries. Sometimes I turn my thoughts toward there. Dreaming to visit those countries to see their exquisite traditional hand works. Today, I would like to share some photos of my work in progress. It is very close to finish!

I hope you all are having a wonderful September. Happy embroidering!

Nina's Passion (for now)

I bought a bunch of felt sheets in pretty colors for Nina before we left for Japan. After we came back, Nina found those felts and immediately started her project. And now she is absorbed in it pretty much. I gave her a couple of darning needles and some Sashiko threads. A small darning needle works just enough to sew through thin felt and it is safe for kids to use since it doesn't have a sharp point.

This pink staffed bear (head) was the first thing she made all by herself. She makes most of her stuff free-hand. She doesn't use any patterns. Just directly attack to her materials!! And the sweetest thing is that she made this for me ♥.

Then her stitching skill improved quickly. She finished this pouch with a pretty flower embroidery right away. She needed my help to sew a zipper on the pouch, but otherwise, she made this without my help. This item is absolutely useful! What a great creation for a seven years old girl!

She just keeps going.  The next item she made was........

The stuffed frog (head)! What do you think of these stitches? Pretty good, huh? I know, I am one of  those doting Moms :p This froggy went across the street. It was a gift for the boy across the street.

Do your kids sew? Happy kids sewing!

We are in Japan! / Sewing for travel #6

Dear friends, now we are in Japan! Nina and I have arrived here last Thursday. It's been a week and we've almost recovered from jet lag. It always takes some time to adjust our biological clocks 13hours. The rainy season is past just before we arrived but we had three unusually cool rainy days at the beginning of our vacation then it got very hot and humid. We have been enjoying the time with my family and friends. I did some fabric shopping in Tokyo as well. I hope I could find time to share about those things with you here while I am in Japan.

Some photos of our trip to Japan.

Leaping water at Detroit Metro Airport.

Waiting for a boarding. (This is not the plane we took.)

Landing at Haneda Airport in Tokyo after 13 hours flight.

Before I tell you about my days in Japan I have to show you another item I made for this trip. It is a crochet hook holder.

Unfortunately I haven't had any spare time to crochet. I brought a couple of yarn with me but they are still waiting to be crocheted in my luggage. I hope not to bring back those hooks unused.

There are some more things I made before leaving the town. I would like to share them in the next post hopefully. Please have a great weekend :)