Hawaiian Beach Totes

I made these tropical beach tote bags for Junk Evolution. Their shop theme for June is "Hawaii" and tomorrow they will reveal their new island themed display at the First Friday! I finished these bags just in time and brought in the shop this morning. I used very tropical fabrics kept for a special occasion!

I love this Hula girls print so much. I waited and waited for a chance for using this fabric and eventually its got a perfect use. How cute these Hula girls dancing under the palm trees are!

The pleated edge is the highlight of this bag. It is pleated and sewed in all by myself! I think this element gave a character to the bag.

There is an inside pocket with the same print as the exterior. The liner is a bright colored cotton canvas.

I reused old webbing belts as bag handles! I wanted to make a new use of those D rings on the end of the belts. You can use them as key chain holders. And I made a detachable felt charm shaped like a Monstera leaf (a tropical foliage plant) just for fun!

The bag is very roomy. Two beach towels can easily fit in.

These two bags will be for sale at Junk Evolution from tomorrow evening. If you are in this area, please check their First Friday event and enjoy the island atmosphere in the shop! ALOHA!

This is it! / Embroidered Cloche

This is what I made with the embroidery of Lyly of the Incas. A cotton cloche!

I love it!

A very basic cloche shape. A hat in this shape is pretty much versatile. You can change the brim in several styles. And also you can wear the embroidery part in front or side.

I paid attention to stitch the design continuously from the crown to the brim.

The lining is a medium weight cotton canvas with white flower print in pistachio green back ground.

I am so happy with the result of this project. I am thinking to make another one with wider brim for blocking more of the sunlight. I have a quality linen fabric in pink for the next hat project. Still thinking what to stitch on it.

Assembling the bag with squares

There was someone asked how to assemble squares for building the bag. This is a quick diagram for it. Fold the red lines and connect same colored lines together. Sew handles to where the red circles located. Just a clue for everyone who wants to make the bag. Hope you all are having a wonderful Memorial day!

The process of embroidering Lily of the Incas

I am sorry of my absence from blogging. This time of the year is quite busy around me and also sometimes it gets hard to keep up my enthusiasm for things. I still have made a few things since the last update. I would like to share one of those project today.

I got a little flower bouquet for Mother's day and the flowers stayed beautiful for two whole weeks. There was a bunch of Lily of the Incas (they are also called Peruvian Lily. Alstromeria is a common name for this flower in Japan ) and it bloomed so pretty. I thought of drawing an embroidery pattern of this flower.

Then I started stitching right away.

Can you tell what I was making with these embroidered Lily of the Incas? Well, you will see it soon maybe in the next post (or the second).

Free pattern for a Flower Gardan Granny Square

 I finished the Flower Garden Granny Square project! It was a shoulder bag! The idea turned so well and the bag looks so lovely. I just love it. Do you like it, too?

I drew a chart and wrote a pattern for a flower garden granny square. The chart is in Japanese manner, and the written pattern is in English. I hope it works all right to help someone who wants to try this project.

 There is a bigger image available here or clicking the chart below will take you to there as well.

Hook : 4mm (Japanese size7) for 5" square.
Yarn : 4 ply worsted weight cotton yarn ( Sugar'n Cream from Lily).
For center / Yellow #00010,
Petals and frame / White #18001,
Leaves / Hot green #01712,
Five different colors for Background (one for each square) /
Robbins egg blue #01215, Light blue #00026, Soft violet #00093, Tea rose #00042, Rose pink #00046

<Written Pattern for a Flower Garden Grammy Square>

Row 1 (Center / Yellow) ; ch 4, join with ss(sl st) to form a circle; * sc, ch 4 in loop* 8 times.

Row 2 (Petals) : Join White in any ch 4 loop. In each loop *ss, ch3, 2 tc, ch 3, ss, ch 1*. Repeat around. Finish with sl st into top of 1st sc.

Row 3 (Leaves) : Join green with a sc in ch between any two petals. Work *ch 4 behind petals, sc in each ch 1 space between petals* all the way around, finish with sl st into 1st sc. Petals are supposed to be in front of the green loops.

Row 4 (Leaves continue) : Ss into next green ch 4 loop. Ch 3, 2 dc, ch 2, 3 dc, in same loop. This makes a corner of the square. *3 dc in next loop, work 3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc in next loop (corner)*. Repeat ** around until you get 4corners done. 3dc in next loop. Ss in to top of 1st 3ch. Finish off green.

Row 5 (Background) : Attaching your choice of color in any corner space, work 1st corner (ch 3, 2 dc, ch 2, 3 dc). *3 dc groups in each space between the 3 dc groups of previous row, across to next corner. Work 3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc (corner) *. Repeat ** to complete row. Ss into top of 1st 3ch. Finish off.

Row 6 (White frame) : Attaching white in any corner space, work 1st corner (ch 3, 2 dc, ch 2, 3 dc). *3 dc groups in each space between the 3 dc groups of previous row, across to next corner. Work 3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc (corner) *. Repeat ** to complete row. Ss into top of 1st 3ch. Finish off.

I needed six flower garden granny squares and four simple granny squares (without flowers) for building this purse. Granny squares are so versatile as  you know. It could become anything depending on your creative ideas. I enjoyed having many pretty colors on this project. Picking colors is one of  my favorite process when I crocheted and knit. You can pick your own colors. Just enjoy and I will be looking forward to hearing from you about your own project. Happy crocheting!

***** I made a Flickr group "Flower Garden Granny Square" for all the crocheters who made something with this pattern!! Share and communicate with other granny square lovers including me! More information you can find here. Looking forward to seeing your beautiful pieces! (05/30/14)

Mother's day SALE on my Etsy shop!

I am having Mother's day sale thorough May 13th on my Etsy shop. Everything will be 15% OFF when you use the coupon code "MAMA12". Do not miss this chance to get your favorite items on your wish list! Please use the coupon code "MAMA12" when you check out!

 

Please note that there is no guarantee that the products you purchase will be delivered by May 13th. I hope my work will make you smile and your Mother's day shine!

A Mid-Century modern dinning set reborn

I have been desperate for a new dining table which is larger than one we have. Well, it doesn't have to be literally "new". We wanted something fits well in our Mid-Century built house. There is nothing in our favorite style in furniture stores in town. Vintage tables are too expensive for our budget. So I have waited patiently for months and months. Then, finally! I found it. It was waiting for me at a yard sale on the way to my doctors office.

At a glance, I found that this dinning set is ideal for our dining room. The style is very Mid-Century, and it even looked like some kinds of Danish modern design (Actually it wasn't Danish, but was surely a Mid-Century product). When I sew that the price at the yard sale was $50. I promptly called my husband Tim and asked him to stop by the sale on the way home from work. When we were back at the sale, Tim asked discount (of course!) and it went down to a half price!!

We found out that the dinning set is a product of Kroehler. Kroehler was a furniture maker in Chicago from early 20th century to 70's. They were the second largest furniture seller in the US. I don't know about them so much, but it seems they produced a lot of cool furniture.

Anyway, the surface of the table was so ugly. It has gotten lots of paint spots and sticky stains from a old vinyl table cloth. But we were sure that it will be beautiful after elaborate sanding.

We worked very hard together sanding the surface for a couple hours. The stain from a table cloth was pretty tough to get lid of.

Finished sanding! Hope you can see the beautiful wood grain!

After that we put an organic oil stain. One coat a day. We repeated that five times. Which means it took five days to finish. Then it looks like this! Shiny, haah? I am so so happy with the result of our patience.

This is the finished product. The table has three leaves.  So when it gets expanded ten people easily can fit in. How wonderful it is! The one we used to have could barely hold six people. Now I can invite friends over to tea or dinner without worrying about the seating arrangement.

We are using the table like this with six seating. It feels much more spacious on the table than before. For me, our dinning table is not only for having meals. On the table, I do embroidery, knit, crochet, draw designs and so on. Nina does her homework there, Tim and I sometimes work on PC on the dinning table as well. So this place is pretty much important for me and I am so happy that now I have an ideal table and it is beautifully finished by US!

Oooops! There are five chairs left still needing help! Well, they are still on work in progress. I detached seats and cleaned wood. I have been looking for a good fabric to re-upholster these. But there's no luck so far.

When this project is finished, I will share it with you here. Stay tuned, and I hope you all have a great weekend! Thank you for reading.