Ladies, check this out! In this video, Kumiko Fujita, a Japanese textile designer/quilter/an author of several amazing patchwork books (including Patchwork Patterns 318 that is out of print and is in HIGH demand) teaches you how to sew a little girl block by hand-piecing. It's very educational, easy to follow, and fun! If you don't have spare time now, maybe you can check out 3:35 - 4:55 on the second video because that's the cutest part! It's only in Japanese, but it's all about visual :)
I know her most famous books are really difficult to find nowadays, but you can spot her new patchwork patterns quite often in Japanese magazines. The pattern she is using in the video is available in Patchwork Tsushin No.164 and this is a part of a series called "First of Infinity" - There will be 6 more consecutive issues of the mag with her new pattern. Also, in Quilt Japan Vol.141, there are more of her patterns to check out :) Look at these cute blocks made by Doe using the pattern! Super adorable!
Another super cute thing - The princess & the Pea Finger Puppet Pattern by Carrie of Such Designs.
A-dor-able!!! Carrie is such a talented, lovely artist who I became a very good friend of. I love all her patterns, but there is something about this finger puppet pattern that is so irresistible! Thank you Carrie for sending me an extra copy of this pattern for me to share with one of my friends here! If you want to win this pattern, please leave a comment by September 8th, next Thursday! I'll announce a random winner on the 9th of this month :)
I joined a new virtual quilting bee called Patchwork 318: The Bee.
In this bee, we (six of us) create one block a month using
patterns in the Japanese book "318 Patchwork Patterns" by Kumiko
Fujita. (It is unfortunately out of print.) This is my month
and I asked everyone to pick whatever block she likes from
the book that is related to a Sweets shop. Kerry kicked off this month
ice cream cone. Charise is working on an ice cream truck with one of my
favorite fabrics ever! Knowing Tamiko and Amisha, I know
they will make ridiculously cute sweet blocks as well!
If you know me enough, you know I am already going nuts
picturing my small quilt made of six yummy
sweet blocks! I am already saving a nice spot for it in my
living room. I made three cake blocks - one of them will be chosen
based on consistency with blocks from everyone.
This is the first one I made. My favorite part of it is
the chickens helping me out to make sure I did add eggs.
After seeing Leila's green tea ice cream, I felt like
green tea, so this is supposed to be a cake with green
tea cream on top, but Joe thinks it looks more like a lime
cake. I am not crazy about lime cakes, so maybe this
will not join my final mini quilt. thanks Joe! lol
I was getting tired of limiting myself to pick out only
fabrics that will make a realistic cake, so this one was
made after I came to realization that it's only patchwork after all.
A boy on a strawberry and high heel sandals in a cake are acceptable!
Let me share with you some reusable grocery bags I made
this week.
My local grocery stores have been very successful
at making customers switch from using disposable
plastic bags to bringing their own reusable
grocery bags. Impressively successful, I would say.
Every single grocery store in this town gives you
cash incentive if you bring your own bags. Either customers
with bags earn a cash discount at every transaction
or some extra points on threir member's cards. There is even
a store that charges for disposable plastic bags!
At a cash register, there is a "My Bag" card which
you can put in your basket to notify the cashier
that you don't need plastic bags. The first thing a
cashier does is to look for the card in the basket.
When she/he can't find it, you are asked if you sure
don't have your own bag. It makes you feel pretty guilty
to say "Yes" to that question. It's like you are no good.
So here is my solution, of course, a handmade grocery sack!
This grocery sack functions just like the plastic
bag from a super market except it's much prettier and stronger.
Oh I made handles a lot longer so that I can hang it from
my shoulder! I am so so so happy I finally made this!
With this bag in my purse, I will be able to
join a "good" bunch of customers who never need
plastic bags! Hehe, I can't wait to bring this
next time I go grocery shopping and feel 'proud!'
Here is another bag I made and it is listed
in my shop here :) Speaking of my shop,
there are more Japanese fabrics available in my shop :)
Hope you are having a great week!
P.S. Thank you Angela for featuring me as a part of
So you all know this cutest fabric line, Sew Cherry by a super talented textile designer Lori Holt by now,
right? When I first saw this line, which I believe was in
the pictures of Lori's booth at the Quilt Market a few months ago,
I almost passed out. I thought, "Gee why do I have
to find out about such pretty American fabric coming
out when I am about to move out of the States?!"
Lori was so super nice to surprise me with a package
full of her fabric, patterns, and other goodies
which arrived just a few days before my flight to Japan.
You know I went insane absolutely!
I can think of so many things to make with these fabrics,
but for now I want to focus on small projects using them
just so that I get to enjoy seeing the lovely stash
in my fabric shelf for quite some time. I made these cases
this morning to..
organize inside a drawer in my tiny kitchen.
But while shooting some pictures for this post,
I started feeling that maybe these should be
used like this for the dining table (which we don't
have yet; therefore, they are on the floor lol).
Wouldn't it be sort of a lovely way to have a silver set
on the table when your friends come over for lunch or so?
I hope my friends will say "Oh where did you buy these cases?!"
You'll see a lot of Sew Cherry in my projects! One
of them would be a curtain for my craft room.
(For now, we have craft paper covering the window. lol)
Sew Cherry can be found at lots of online fabric
stores, but Lori has a great list of the stores
in the right bar on her sweet blog :)
Here are some of my new listings in my etsy shop :)
I'll be out of town until next Tuesday, so all orders
placed by then will be sent out on Wednesday (17th).
Thank you so much for those of you who snatched
fabrics from my shop :)
So sorry for being silent for such a long time again! I figured I should have something new to share with you, so I waited to blog until I am finished with this block. I very much enjoyed lovely comments from you guys on my previous post - thank you so much!!
Lynne asked for Design Classics for her theme for the Ringo Pie bee. Since her inspiration mosaic was British Design Classics stamps, everyone started making blocks that speak "British!" (Look here over Lynne's blog! - they are all amazing!)
My take was on Orla Kiely, a popular brand designer in UK. Embarrassed to say this, but I didn't know about this brand until Kerry named it to help me get some ideas for Lynne's block despite the fact it's really popular in both the US and Japan also! (I'm not so brand-fashion savvy!)
When I looked at her website and saw the leaf design, I immediately recognized that I have seen her products everywhere and also thought of Lynne a lot, so I browsed the site for some inspiration. I picked one of the notebooks with her iconic design on and managed to mimic it.
Paper-piecing the notebook was not nearly as hard as choosing right fabrics for leaves. Orla Kiely's design seems to focus on Autumn colors (orange, brown, khaki, etc), so I tried to pick fabrics in the color palette, but I have a very limited amount of fabric in the palette. It was challenging to pick 12 different fabrics that match well and I started mixing up quirky fabric (as usual!), but hopefully I didn't go too far from her original color palette!
In case you are building Japanese fabric stash, I should let you know that I have listed some fun Japanese fabric bundles in my etsy shop.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! My name is Ayumi. I love sharing my crafty journal and other little anecdotes in my life here. I am a mother to two kiddos and a wife to my best friend. We live in Seattle currently. I hope you enjoy being here :) Welcome♪
