Happy New Year!

Thank you all for your concern. I am slowly on the mend. My cold is still lingering causing me to cough at night when I am trying to sleep and the sinus congestion makes it really hard to breathe at night. During my OB check up last week, my doctor said I could take Benadryl to help me sleep at night (it's safe to take during pregnancy). I had gone to the doctors without sleeping a wink the night before so I must have looked really awful.

I wanted to show you my Christmas present from DH. I have been wanting a Yarn Swift for a long time and I put one on my wish list this year for Christmas. This arrived a few days after Christmas. The story is that DH went all by himself to Purl Soho and tried to buy it for me because that is the exact one I wanted. They told him that they don't carry it in their store, but he can order it from their website which ships from California. In order for him to receive it before Christmas , he would of had to pay $21 for express shipping. He opted to pay for regular shipping and bought me a few little gifts for Christmas Day and then told me about my real present that would arrive a few days later (I am glad that he didn't waste money on extra shipping charges). I love it. It's actually quite small and compact and it comes apart in 3 pieces. I'll let you know if it works well when I take it for a test run.

Look! I am trying to turn over a new leaf before the New Year. With the impending arrival of the wee one, we had stopped by Ikea for some organizing essentials. I got these boxes that has windows on it to store my fabric collection. Since I bought my Hello Kitty Janome sewing machine this year, I have been amassing collecting fabric. I was surprised to find that they all fit into 4 boxes.

And here is a year end look at all my projects:

32 Knitting/Crochet Projects completed. A all time record for me since I only completed 10 projects last year.

I got my first sewing machine this year and taught myself to sew. 13 sewing projects completed.

I hope you all have a great New Year's Eve! I have been having a lot of false labor contractions, so hopefully I will get to post again before the baby arrives.

Purple Quilt Set

Believe it or not, I was able to put down the knitting needles long enough to sew a few things. Though it really is more like a baby knitting factory at my house these days. Hey, when you get the knitting mojo, don't fight it, just go with it. Last month, I bought some purple "mock mink" and a cotton calico print. I paired the calico print with some solid purple cotton to make thick and thin stripes. The back of the quilt is the mock mink and I sandwiched it with a layer of lavender flannel in between.

I tied the quilt using a machine technique I learned from Last-Minute Patchwork & Quilted Gifts. It's from the project called Super Quick & Easy Baby Quilt. Basically, lightly pencil-mark where you want your "ties" to be, then you set your sewing machine to a zigzag stitch. Sew over the pencil mark for about 1/2 inch, back stitch for the same distance and then move on to the next pencil mark. Here is a up close picture of my zigzag "ties" circled in red.If you look closely or click on the photo, you can see a row of the "ties" below Caesar's feet going across horizontally. I stitched them on the calico print so they are not as noticeable. The binding is a satin blanket binding that was a absolute nightmare to use, but it has really pretty results. The quilt measures 32" X 41".I really like how the bunny pillow turned out. I had a small piece of the satin blanket binding left over, so I added it to the stripes. The mock mink is very soft, so I used it for the other side of the pillow.My first bib didn't turn out half bad. Sewing the binding to a curved piece was a first for me, but it wasn't hard as long as you do it slowly. The longest part of all these projects was the piecing of the stripes. For each project, I sewed separate striped panels of fabric. If I had used one piece of solid or printed fabric, it would have been a lot faster. But I really like the random sized striping effect. Not sure if you can call this patchwork?

*For some reason, photographing purple colored things is difficult. The color shows up more on the blue side. The first 2 photos is probably the closest to what it looks like in real life, though the mock mink keeps showing up blue when it is really purple.

Veronica's Birthday Party!

This past weekend, we attended our friend's baby, Veronica's 1st Birthday Party. Isn't her birthday outfit cute? Even her bib and crown matches, all thanks to her Grandma Rose.
I made Whoopie Pies(far left) and the pink and white cake(middle). The cake had a heart shaped cake on the top of a round cake.It was suppose to be a personal cake for her to destroy eat, but she was a dainty little girl and didn't grab for the cake.
Jen (mom), Veronica, and her Uncle Garry (This picture is for you, Garry.)I made Veronica a kitty from the Wee Wonderfuls Put-Together Book 1.
The Whoopie Pies were so good. I especially liked the filling (it kinda taste like oreo filling). The recipe says that it makes 28, but I ended up with 14. I think you would have to make them tiny in order to get 28. The recipe is here. Don't forget the milk.

A Quilt for Baby

I didn't know that I would be pregnant when I signed up for the Machine Quilting Class at Purl Patchwork. When the class started in May, I was already experiencing the all-day-sickness. Each week, I dragged myself into class and I found it to be a pleasant distraction from being sick. I had something to concentrate on and I was out of the house which was a nice change from laying on the couch or bed all day and night.

I enjoyed the class tremendously. There was only one other student besides myself, so we got a lot of attention. My teacher, Cassandra, was wonderful. She was patient, friendly and extremely talented. It turns out that the 3 of us were all knitters, so we had that in common.The class turned out to be a techniques class, (originally the supplies list said that we were making a baby quilt). There was no specific project that we had to work on, but we could choose one if we wanted to. Each week, she showed us a different technique. My favorite was learning to make triangles and quarter triangles. I pieced together triangles to form a star pattern block. Without meaning to, I noticed that it formed a 8 sided star. 8 is very good number in Chinese.I love the Japanese Crane Print Fabric that I got from a Etsy seller based in Japan. The red and navy fabric has Origami Cranes, flowers and leaves all over it. All the motifs are outlined in a gold metallic color. The fabric is very colorful.I took the techniques I learned in class and made the quilt at home. I made the quilt top a month after classes were over when I began to feel a little better. It still took another month before I bought the fabric for the back of the quilt. The binding is a labor of love. It's machine stitched on the front, but hand stitched on the back. The hand stitching was tedious, but it was totally worth it for the that invisible look. The blanket measures 30 1/2" by 34".For other people who have the Hello Kitty Janome Sewing Machine (mint green, 3/4 size one), I bought a quilting kit from AllBrands.com that worked perfectly for my machine. It made the machine quilting process a lot easier. It comes with a walking foot, quilting guide, darning/embroidery foot, quarter-inch seam foot, feed-dog cover plate and a deluxe zig-zag foot with deluxe shank.

My First Bag

I love my new Pleated Tote! I used the same bird fabric that I used on my Cushion Cover. The inside is also lined with the same fabric.

It's a large bag, very roomy and it goes right over your shoulder. I can see myself making more of these for Christmas presents this year. DH was very impressed when I showed him the bag. If I knew what I could do with a sewing machine earlier, I would have bought one a long time ago. I guess I got scared off from my 8th grade Home Ec Class.
Pattern: Free pattern from Artsy-Crafty Babe, here is the PDF Link.
There is also a Flickr Group where you can see other people's Pleated Totes.

The Emperor's New Vest

Napoleon is sporting his new vest that I sewed for him the other day. Can you tell that I am having so much fun with my sewing machine?Napoleon is trying to be a good sport by sitting still. But he is deathly afraid of my Canon Digital Rebel camera. He use to shake and hyperventilate when he saw me with that camera and then he would eventually run off and hide. He never had a problem with my Canon PowerShot, probably because it was so small. But he is so much better about it now and actually tolerates it, no more shaking or hyperventilating.The straps that wrap around his neck and belly is fastened with sewn-on velcro.The fabric has Dalmatians on it. I bought this fabric from Reprodepot.com.

Sprucing Up

I seem to be getting a lot of use from my sewing machine lately. It's still too hot for me start knitting again. My hands are swollen from the heat.

I decided to spruce up some old cushions when I came across this tutorial. I pieced together some fabric pieces that were left over to make one long piece big enough for my pillow. I like this pillowcase-style cushion cover because you can easily take it on and off for washing. Did I mention it is easy to sew and put on since it doesn't have buttons or a zipper?
This is what the back looks like, though I can use either side. I got the bird/cloud fabric at Walmart.

This is the cushion underneath the cushion cover.

A Quick Quilt

Thank you to everyone for their well wishes and congratulations about the baby. We are pretty excited and scared. I am sure that being a mother to a baby will be a lot different than being a mother to 2 puppies. Though, there were a few weeks of sleepless nights when we first got each of the puppies. I am due for a second sonogram in a few weeks so hopefully, we will find out the gender then.

Since I haven't done much for about 3-4 months now, I was tempted to make something this past weekend. I dusted off my Hello Kitty Sewing machine and made this quilt. I call it a cheater's quilt because it doesn't require a binding. After you make the quilt top, you sandwich the top, backing and batting together, sew around the 4 sides (leaving a 8 inch opening), and then turn the whole quilt inside out. Then sew up the opening, and machine quilt the whole quilt.
I got the pattern from Simple Contemporary Quilts. The pattern is called Flicka by Hillary Lang of Wee Wonderfuls. I admit that I was attracted to this pattern because it required no binding and no piecing. The tedious part is cutting the squares/rectangles, turning under the raw edges of each side a 1/4 inch and then ironing them flat. Then you just get one solid colored fabric and lay out your squares/rectangles and then machine applique each piece using the zig-zag stitch.There are flaws in the quilt, but I don't care. I just wanted to have a finished project by the end of the weekend. It took me about 3 days from start to finish. I was able to order some quilting foots for my Hello Kitty Janome and they worked out perfectly. For most of the quilt I sewed wavy lines with the walking foot and even did some curly cues in the middle on the quilt using the darning foot.

The finished size is about 42 inches wide by 58 inches long. It's good size for me to use as a lap quilt while reading(I am under 5ft tall).

Sewing 101

Okay, so the cake was a hit at the party. At the last minute, I finely crushed some pecans and covered the pink frosting area so none of it showed anymore. Everyone ooohhh and aaaahed when the waiter brought it out after dinner, so I guess it looked good enough. I am sure the dim lighting and the candle helped. Everyone thought it tasted really good and not too sweet, since I did use less sugar. One disturbing thing that happened was that the wait staff helped themselves to the cake without asking us first. I thought that was pretty rude. Someone said that there was 3 slices leftover after all the guests were served, they gave us one extra slice and kept the other 2. I saw them merrily chomping away at my cake. We decided not to say anything and offered the last slice to our waiter. My friend said that perhaps I should take it as a compliment. (We ate at Kum Gang San, a Korean barbecue restaurant on 32nd Street. Be forewarned that they might eat some of your cake if you bring one).

Last weekend, I got to play with my Hello Kitty Sewing Machine again. I am still teaching myself to sew and I have been pretty happy with my efforts.
I made this pin cushion with a piece of scrap cotton for the top and craft felt for the bottom. The scrap of button fabric came from reprodepot.com, it was a freebie they enclosed with my order.

Travel Pouch, from Last-Minute Fabric Gifts. I am so thrilled with the results of this pouch. For someone who is a beginner sewer, I am not sure what made me think that I could sew a zipper. In my mind, a zipper would be a very advanced project. I had consumed a large amount of caffeine and it was 12am on Saturday night. I was wired and wanted a challenge.I followed the instructions very carefully and reread things 2-4 times since I got confused at times and was so scared I would make a mistake. BUT, everything worked out. I sewed a ZIPPER!!! I felt like I conquered something huge! I was giddy as I ran downstairs to show DH and demonstrate my zipper by zipping and unzipping it. He was playing with his new X-Box 360 Elite and managed to pull himself away from the TV screen to look at my zipper sewing. I realized that it was just a tube of fabric with a zipper, so it may not look too impressive yet, so I went back upstairs to assemble the pouch together. It was a bit nerve wracking when I had to cut the zipper because I had never done that before, but the rest of it came together pretty easily. I used a Japanese cotton fabric that has little Fugus (blow fish) on it. The inside is lined with a medium weight solid color cotton fabric. This project is listed under the 1-2 hour project category in the book, but it was a 4-5 hour project for me. I learned so much making this pouch and the end result was totally worth it.

I haven't gotten enough courage to make my first quilt yet. Not quite sure what is stopping me, but it's probably a mental thing. Instead, I decided to sign up for my first sewing class at Purl Patchwork. I am taking Introduction to Machine Piecing and Quilting. We will be making a baby sized quilt. I am so excited!



Recent fabric purchases from Etsy seller, Starlit Nest.

Sew Happy!

Don't laugh, but I got a Hello Kitty sewing machine. No, it's not a toy sewing machine. It's actually a repackaged Janome Harmony 1017. This is what started it all. Someone had linked to Chickengirl's Flickr picture of her blue Hello Kitty sewing machine. I clicked on it and then started googling. After finding out that it's not a toy machine and that it's manufactured by a real sewing machine company(Janome), I wanted one.

The blue one is a half size machine. The mint green one is 3/4 size sewing machine. It has a couple of extra stitch functions and can do button holes. And it has a faster speed, more stitches per minute. The mint green one that I got is a Janome Harmony 1017, but I don't know what the half size blue one is in relation to the Janome line. I actually prefer the look of the blue one more. The blue color and red cherries is more appealing to me(cleaner look). Why did they have to write "Sew Pretty with Hello Kitty" across the machine with little flowers? Well, I do realize that they are trying to appeal to a younger audience.

I know nothing about sewing machines or sewing for that matter, except for some simple hand sewing of knitted/crochetted things. The last time I used a sewing machine was in Middle School during a Home Economics class that I didn't do too well in. I have been wanting a sewing machine for a while now. Since I am a Hello Kitty fan, this worked out really well. This machine is a sturdy machine with metal parts. It's a good basic machine for a beginner like me. I was very intimidated when I took it out of the box, but I read the manual and followed the instructions on how to wind a bobbin and thread the machine. And then I tested all the different stitches on a scrap piece of fabric.

These Criss-Cross Coasters was my first project. I saw it on Chickengirl's blog and knew that they would be a perfect first project for me. The first one came out a little wonky, but the next four came out really well.
Then I made a tissue holder. The inside is lined with a dotted orange fabric. There were a bunch of tutorials online and I used them like a loose guideline to make mine to custom fit my pocket tissues.I can't believe I am sewing! It is so much fun.

My DH and I went to see the movie, 300, with our friend this weekend. I baked some Cheese Danishes to give to his wife that had to stay at home to take care of their baby. It wasn't really her type of movie anyways, so she didn't mind. After the movie, we went back to their place to see Baby Veronica and to snack on the cheese danishes. They were really yummy. The recipe is called Easy Cheese Danish from Barefoot Contessa at Home.
By the way, I bought the Hello Kitty sewing machine from AllBrands.com. It was Free Shipping, No Tax and I got $10 off for using Google Checkout. You can also buy it from Target and Sears, but online only. They do not carry it in their stores.