Beautiful hand-made gifts

What can I say about this cute mini quilt
made by Kerry of verykerryberry other than
the fact it's nothing but everything I adore?
Gray + happy colors, vintage fabrics,
alphabets, small patchwork, mini quilt,
and penguins!! I'm totally in LOVE!
This is even so much prettier in person.
Kerry told me that this quilt was "inspired by
her daughter singing 'True Colors' in the car."
Just like the song, this quilt makes me
feel relaxed and positive.



Even the backing is pretty and has
lots of fun details! Now that Kerry wrote up
a tutorial for this quilt,
I've been really wanted to make one myself!
Thank you so much, Kerry!!







This is a very sweet pair of mittens my friend
AJ knitted for me for my birthday gift. These
are absolutely gorgeous and fit my hands
perfectly! See? :D



I tend to wear black/gray/white, so I love
to have accessories that are in the color range.
I can't wait for the winter to come so that
I can start wearing them. They are so comfortable
and definitely add a quite bit of fashion for me :D
Thank you so much, AJ!






This weekend, I might get in some trouble
now that Joe has agreed to go to San Francisco
with me to stop by Renegade Craft Fair that
I've wanted to go for years! I love, love, and
love browsing things handmade no matter
what they are: Everything handmade inspires me
basically, and I am just thrilled that
this place will be full of inspiration.
Wish me luck that I won't be in a
spending-spree mode too much, haha.

Thank you for stopping by here.
Have a great weekend, everyone ;)

More Zipper Pouches

I'm totally into making these pouches now.
I have this tendency to make the same thing
repeatedly when I come up with a pattern
that I truly love. And for now this zipper
pouch pattern has been my favorite and to
make tons more, I've snagged 30 zippers from zipit.
(Thanks to Anna for introducing the awesome shop!)



This one was custom-made for my friend Susan.
I really enjoy making things for her because
I think I have a pretty good idea of what she
would like and I know I have a quite bit of
fabric inventory that she will probably like :D
I think this pouch turned out eclectic and fun.
I like how on both sides of the pouch, a bird
is facing toward food. It's like she is
determining whether it's a good yummy piece
of food before going to grab it.



I didn't realize this until I finished making
the pouch but all the fabrics I used for this
pouch, including the lining, came from Japan!
These cute, little prints from Japan are
just perfect for this zipper pouch.




This one might look just like other pouches
I've made but trust me, it's a little different :D



I really like both pouches and can't
wait to sew up more of them!

I'll be back in a few days to share with
you some of amazing handmade gifts I
was lucky to receive in the past week ;)

Thank you for letting me share my
creations again. Have a great day ;)

Sewn gifts delivered ;)

Now that I've heard that these gifts have
been delivered to the recipients,
I can share them here! Woo Hoo!



This zipper pouch was for my friend Kerry
of verykerryberry. If you like fabrics with writing
and little animal prints, you'll definitely enjoy
seeing her creations over her blog.
Everything she makes is just so cheerful,
interesting, and vintage-ish! I love it!



Kerry and I have the very similar taste of fabrics,
so picking out fabrics to make this pouch
was a lot of fun, and knowing that she will
probably like it as much as I do was the
best part of making it ;) Kerry is having a
giveaway over here and she has a
cool tutorial for a teeny tiny pincushion
which I've been wanting to make!



This is a tabletop quilt sewn for my Scottish
friend AJ who shares the same birthday, July 23rd
with me! She was patient to wait to open the package
until yesterday, but not me. I received a really
nice birthday gift from her (which I will share
with you guys next time) about a week before our
birthday and couldn't help opening it immediately
after it was delivered. Sorry AJ for being
a bit naughty, hehe! I just couldn't help it.



I asked her favorite colors and selected
fabrics based on them; green, teal, orange,
chocolate brown, and lime green. Can you see
how there is a birthday cake in the middle?
That is my favorite part! I was not very
sure if she would be able to find a use
for this quilt but she kindly let me know
that this will be a cover for her overlocker. Yay!



The last thing I want to share with you
today is this coaster. I made six of these
for my friend Hilda in Venezuela to say
thank you for asking me to make lots of
things for her and her mom and for being
super patient to give me as much time
as I needed which was like forever!
Thank you, Hilda!



I made 8 of these coasters but these two
didn't turn out as nice as other six,
so I decided to keep the two. I really
like the strong vivid colors together
and I think it looks prettier with a mug on.

Thank you for letting me share my
creations again. Have a great Sunday ;)

Lobster Prints

Thank you for your lovely comments, everyone!
I know it's unusual for me to post in two
days in a row but I wanted to come here a little quick
to show you some projects I worked on last night.

This is the pouch I made for myself.
Oh my goodness I love it so much!!
I'd been wanting to make a pouch like this
to carry little things like a chap stick,
cards, dental floss, and some cosmetics.



This is the other side.
I love looking at the patchwork not only because I
like each and every single of the print but
also because this reminds me of the fact that some of
these were given to me from my very nice friends.
The vintage sheep print is from Mary up in Washington
and the 'he' print is from erica from Craftyblossom.
Thank you girls! I just love these fabrics!



This lobster coaster was made from a piece
of patchwork panel that was supposed to
become my pouch. I did some appliques on it
which didn't turn out great, so I cut that
part out and made the leftover turn into a
coaster instead. Improvising is fun!


For some reasons I was really into lobster prints
last night. I sewed up this potholder using
little scrappy fabrics from my scraps-keeping
box that is over-flooding like crazy by the way.



I really enjoyed making this because it was
super quick and it always makes me feel great
to use up fun scraps and turn them into something better.

I've listed this potholder in my shop ;)


Have a great, lovely day, everyone!

Patchwork Zipper Pouch

I've sewed up lots of things recently but
90% of those items are gifts that are still
in transit, so I can't show them here yet!
But I do have a few things I'd like to
share with you today :D



This is a simple patchwork zipper pouch
I just listed in my shop. I really like this
one because I specifically picked fabrics
that have been my favorite these days.



I was so happy to discover that I had happened
to put strawberry prints next to each other.
It was totally unintentional, but it looks as if
I had planned! I love it when something like this happens ;)



The lining is vintage fabric that I cut out from
an old pillow case. I definitely need one of
these pouches for myself! I'm gonna sew one up tonight!





Here is how the quilt project looks like for now.
I came up with 90 blocks total and yes indeed
it was such a fiddly, tedious work, but I really
enjoyed matching up fabrics and am really excited
about sewing them together to see what happens.





This is a sneak peak of a cover for a musical
keyboard that I finished a few days ago.
I was asked to make the cover for a keyboard
that is 51" wide. I didn't realize how big of
a cover it was turning into until I actually started
making it. It made me feel like I was making a quilt
for a single bed and I felt good, haha ;)
I appliqued cutouts of animals from the Eric
Carle print onto the patchwork panel.
This is for a keyboard in Taihei's, a toddler's
room. Taihei is a big fan of animals, so
I could imagine him pulling this cover off the
keyboard, pointing out at each animal, and
making the sound of the animal. "Meow" So Cute.
I'll hopefully take a picture of the cover on the
keyboard and share it with you next time ;)






Oh and I wanted to show you some fabric stash
I purchased from this Japanese online fabric
shop called Cotton Crayon.



Aren't these fabrics just so cute?!



I couldn't resist these fabrics!



So adorable..! I can think of tons and tons
of things to make with these fabrics :D


Oh as usual let me know that you came from here
when you snatch anything from my shop for a little gift ;)


Thank you for stopping by and reading a
long post! Have a great day!!

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Mini quilt in progress

Thank you to all the inspiration everywhere
on the internet that finally pushed me to
start making a mini quilt. As always, I don't
have a set of plans for this project. I am
just experimenting to see what makes me
happy as I go, and I am so far loving how it
is sort of coming together.



I started off with a bunch of 2.5" square pieces.
I cut them to make two triangles from each square
and then combined two kinds of fabric that are
contrasting to each other. I made a point to
use only 2.5" square from a single cotton print.
This way, I can use lots of different kinds of
fabric for one project and hopefully I will discover
new lovely combination that is made of fabric
that I have not used for a while or have never used
before. I am thinking that I will put this quilt up
on the wall next to my cutting table so that
it can remind me of the types of fabric I own.



I don't know how big of a quilt this is going
to be, but I am hoping that it will be about
25" x 25" or larger. It completely depends on
how far I can go with matching fabrics. Since
I do have a restriction (using one type of
fabric only once) I will come to the point
where I can't find good matches anymore
and that will be it. What a terrible plan,
I know! It very much reflects my life style.
I am pretty good at aiming short-term goals,
but setting up long-term goals (like saving
for retirement, etc.) has never been
so easy for me sadly.. Forgive me ;)



So far I have 25 blocks but many more to come.




These triangles are waiting for me to find fabric
that matches them. Wait for me guys! You'll soon
join the patchwork team!


This project is sooo much fun :D


Thank you so much for stopping by!
Have a wonderful day/afternoon!!

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