Yimi Handwork

Christmas is coming, I'm thinking of some fast small holiday crafts. These Christmas napkin ring took maximally 20 minutes each. Do you want to do it together with me? Go through your scrapes bin and get some holiday scrapes, let's begin. :) Materials: 2 rounds with radius =2.5"( 6.3cm), 1 strip 2"X7" , 1 button (fabric covered I prefer) Finished size: 2" square 1. Draw a circle with radius =2" on the back of 1 round piecs, put 2 rounds right face together, sew along the circle, leave 1" opening. 2.Turn it right-side out , close the opening with hidden stitches. 3. Find the center by folding the round twice, and mark 4 points distributed equally on the circle 4.stitch the 4 marked points to the center 5,turn it like turning down your collar 6. Turn all the corners 7. sew a button in the center 8. fold the strip with right side together along the long side, sew it and make a tube. Turn it right side out, close the opening and make a ring. 9, st...

I got this book, and made this tote bag immediately, it has 3 pockets in front, quite roomy. Just looking at the stripes makes me feel a little dizzy. My mini trampolim lies underneaths the bag and book, I jump on it when watching TV, hopefully I can loss some weight before the holiday season.

One of the projects was completed, I asked my husband to hang it in the guest bedroom. A bout 2 and half years ago, after we moved in this house , I said I was going to take care of all the decoration of the walls. Just when starting to look for pictures/drawings to hang in our house, I started to do cross stitch and addicted to it, then I told my husband I was going to decorate all the walls with my projects. More than 2 years have past, I got into plastic canvas, needlepoint, embroidery, patchwork..., bought lots of kits, threads, yarns, and tons of fabric, but most of walls are still left blank. Feel a bit guilty here. Another shot, it looks very 3-dimensional.

I'm quite ambitious recently, doing many things at the same time, but nothing got done yet. Wait a second, actually, one of them was completed. A cala lily trapunta wall hanging, almost done, just some quilting left, this is only a partial picture. A redwork wall hanging for kitchen, it has to been done before Christmas. This is the finished one, a fabric origami coaster, it is very fabric consuming. Those white green blue flower should be on the wrong side after folding, but I made a direction mistake when assembling. Next time, I'll only use allover fabric to make it mistake-proof. I started the crewel stitch long time ago, and planned to finish it before next year, a big question mark here, can I? My husband likes this needlepoint, it shouldn't take long.

Yesterday, when cleaning the scrap bin(I do that once in a while), I found a really small piece of prequilted fabric, which is the last leftover of my sewing machine cozy. so I made two small hanging bags for small scissors and seam rippers. This time that fabric was all used up, nothing left, the feeling was good, almost like finally I completed something. :) Hanging together Now, let's have a big family reunion. All the things are made from the same piece of fabric. And here is something else I want to show you, a carry-around tool roller I made before. It's small but multifunctional, two pockets for scissors, many pockets for markers/rulers..... a built-in pin cushion,a built-in needle holder, and a thread holder good for 3 spools. Roll it up, it's handy to carry around.

Just found out Command & Conquer Red alert 3 was released half a month ago. Ever since I played the first game of this series more than 10 years ago, it becomes my favorite game series, can't believe it, so many years has passed by! I've never missed even a single releasing day until now. And this new game make me think, after I developed this new hobby:patchwork or purse making(what ever you call it), I hardly have time for any other things I used to do, such as, video games, yoga, karate... Whenever I have time , I want to sit down and make something. Although I hate to admit, I gain some weight, hmm, I mean quite amount of pounds. Maybe it's time to pickup some old activities, even for a few minutes a day. Once, a friend sent me a small poem she got on internet after she knew I started a quilting project. I do find myself there. When I do craft and som thing else need to do, I say just another half an hour and I stop, that's not going to happen, I just continu...

Here is my second Christmas project, a little bear pencil case, which will be part of the gift package to my nieces. Will an 11 year old girl like it? A bear boy lives in the woods. A bear girl also lives in the woods. I stitched some eyelashes to make it look like a girl. Thanks to Kaka, a friend who shared this pattern with me, which I believed from a Taiwanese magazine.

When I mark on fabric, sometimes fabric moves and stretches, which annoys me. Last week, I found a product named Patchwork Board(produced by Clover, a Japanese Company), a kind of marking board has a built-in sandpaper surface to hold fabric in place so you can mark accurate lines, and the opposite side is an ironing board surface. The price listed on the official website is US$29.95. Today, I tried to find this patchwork board in 3 local stores, they don't have it. So I decided to make one myself. I went to Canadian Tire and bought a piece of Ultra fine sandpaper (the finest sandpaper in store) at $0.27 + tax. :) I glued it on hard paper board, and glued a layer of batting on the wrong side, then cover the batting side with a piece of fabric( larger than the hard paper board), folded the fabric to the sandpaper side and glued the edge to cover the edge of the sandpaper. Voila!! In about half an hour, I made a marking-ironing board for less than $1.00. If I know it, I wouldn...

I'm starting my Xmas craft season by a cross stitch ornament this year. A bit early? maybe. Time goes by fast, last year I ended up finishing my Xmas projects after the Xmas, so they have to wait almost a whole year to get up on stage. Here they are, one year old, but brand new coasters. I only started sewing/quilting by the end of last year, look at the stitches, really not that neat. more ornaments

Here comes my first handbag. It's a big handbag, have enough room for everything. :) When I first saw that sparkling brown corduroy fabric, I wanted to make a bag of it. By then, I thought bag-making would be really hard, so that piece of corduroy stayed in a box for almost a year. Last week, I finally decided to try one, if it went badly, I could just hide it in my trash bin, how worse could it be? But it turned out to be much easier than I thought. The fabric looked a little too dark to me, I added some autumn color to lighten it slightly. :) Going out Inside look Here is my home-made pattern,if anyone is interested. Hmmm, yes, I always recycle paper whenever it's possible. My scanner is unable to scan the full size pattern, so I draw them in half. You can just fold fabric along the line as I indicated in pictures. I tried in my own printer,letter size paper was exactly the right size. BTW, you'll have to click on the picture to get the full size image. This is my firs...

This is a project I started last year, yeah,that's right, last year. I cut one of my husband's old jean, finished appliques and left it there until yesterday. Some people keep really good working habits, always finish one project before starting a new one. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them, I'm easily distracted by new ideas. Therefore, I have a storage box full of half done projects. Sometimes, I don't have new ideas, I go through them and finish one or two. Am I terrible? But look on the bright side, it takes half as much time to complete, at least, feel like that way. I turned the light on to take another shot.

I'm back. :)I'm always amazed we can trip such a long distance in such a short time, one moment we are here, a few hours later, we can be anywhere in this planet. Always dreaming to live at seaside, warm weather, sand beach, forever green plants.... We now live far away from my dreaming land, whenever having a chance, we'll have a seaside vocation. Yas, we went to San Francisco, California Lot of people fished crabs here, a guy told us he could catch over 50 crabs a day, his secret formula was lemon juice. Flowers grow in sand, shining like jewelry. Those are not water drops, I actually touched. I have no ideas what this plant is, if anyone knows, please let me know.

Yeah!!I'll be on vocation for two weeks, Although we are leaving tomorrow, instead of packing, I made a passport holder last night. It's just big enough for two passports and air tickets. A small bag I made a long time ago for my underwear. I learned something new this morning, meshwork in fabric, very interesting, also a very good time killer, but it needs a wool needle, which I don't think is allowed aboard. I really have to pack now. Thanks for watching my blog, and see you in two weeks.