Drawing

I finished drawing  a design for the next project. Ready to be embroidered. It's gonna be a lot of work.

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!

I'm back.

Hello my friends. We got back from Japan last Thursday. We had a greatest trip this year. Our trip was filled with lots of fun and surprises. We've been spending time adjusting 13 hours time differences and recovering from distress due to a long distance travel since we were back. After five days of struggle with our jet lag, Nina seems ready to go back to school now. (The school will start on this Wednesday.) I still could not sleep well last night. I got to finish watching three episodes of Japanese TV drama I have taped when we were gone. But I think we are pretty much ready to go back to our daily life. I missed blogging about my trip and my creations since the last post. Finally, I post some photos from our trip here to start. I will write more about it later.

 

I miss my country so much. But also It is very nice to be back home.

Sorry for my long absence. Thank you so much for coming back to read again. I have a lot to tell. I have a lot to make.

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 :)

The winner is .....

Mom Wald! Congratulations my neighbor! I will send you email so please reply with your mailing address. The pincushion will be sent out on Monday! And thank you everybody who left comments and answered my questions. It was interesting that Etsy is now very common way for people to purchase handmade goods. Also it was good to get to know you all very talented crafters! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! Thank you so much.

Sewing for travel #5 / iPad case

The day of heading to Japan is getting close again this Summer.We will be leaving next week on Thursday and staying in Japan about a month! It is exciting as always and at the same time it makes my Summer super busy to get ready everything until the day of departure as well.

It has been a while since I finished this project but I just didn't have time to update it. This is the cover / carry bag for our iPad. I made this with the thick felt which is the same material used for my lap top case.

I made a detachable shoulder strap so I can carry it as a shoulder bag or cross body bag when I need to. And it will be nice if Nina can carry it safely since the iPad will be her very good friend when she needs to spend about thirteen hours in the plane. I hope the strap will help that on our long travel.

The structure of the bag is almost same as the laptop case. The shape is a simple envelope style and I used a set of snap buttons for closure. Only one different element from the laptop case is that I used a whimsical print fabric as an accent of the design. It also works as reinforcement.

I sewed a printed fabric strip horizontally on the back and put triangle shaped metal hardware for attaching shoulder strap. 

This tiny pocket for a stylus pen is a very nice addition to the bag and I really like it.  I think it was a good idea to have a secure place to store this little thing you don't wanna loose. Its very modest and functional.

 

I made some more things for travel. And I have some more to sew for travel. I hope I can finish as many things as I want for this trip and share them with you here ASAP.

By the way!!! Tomorrow will be the last day for entering to The GIVEAWAY for celebrating over 100 followers! Please don't miss it! I am still looking forward to hearing from you! Please read this post and leave your comment there. There is not many entries yet so you still have pretty good chance to win. I will draw one winner Saturday morning and send out the prize right away to the winner! (Well, it will be weekend so it is gonna be sent on Monday (;p) But I promise to go to the Post Office as soon as they open! )

Happy traveling and giveaway! Have a good weekend you all!

Giveaway! in celebration of over 100 followers!

Did you have a wonderful 4th of July? It was very hot here in South Bend Indiana. The temperature went up to 104°F in the afternoon and it was still close to 100°F in the evening. But it was a very beautiful Summer day. Nina went for her sleep over at friend's house. They were so excited and played whole two days together. Nina didn't seem lonely being away from us at all. But when she came home she wanted me to hug her more than usual. That was sweet.

I wasn't going to talk about Nina's sleep over today! It's a giveaway! The number of this blog followers reached to 100 in June. I haven't thought of I will make that so soon. When I started blogging in my second language English, I was pretty much nervous. I wasn't even sure if I could keep writing for a couple months. But it was a great experience to me that this blog made me being reached by people all over the world. This is gonna be a milestone for me and this blog.

So, I would like to have a little giveaway for celebrating this moment! I made a lovely embroidered pincushion for giving away. It has five layers of felt in pretty colors and I stitched a white flower on the top. If you think you like it, please enter!

To enter, I would like you to answer three questions below in your comment.
Q1. Have you ever purchased any handmade things?
Q2. What item was that?
Q2. Where did you buy it? On line? Craft fair? Or at a real shop?

And of course, I would love to hear anything about crafting or your feeling about this blog too! If you are new to this blog, it would be very nice of you to be a new follower and like my Facebook page!

The deadline for this give away is Friday July 13th 2012. I will draw the winner on Saturday July 14th and inform you in my blog post who the winner is. I will ship this gift international. So I am looking forward to hearing from where ever in the world! (That is a zest of blogging!) Please don't forget to leave your email address when you write a comment. So I can reach you if you win.

Thank yo so much for being a follower. That is a big support and encouragement for me to keep sharing my creative world with you. I am so happy to be able to have the place to publish my work.

Thank you for reading. Please have a great weekend and happy crafting!