NNC Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary NNC! :) This year's anniversary meet was held at Mel's place. I personally wish I was there to enjoy all the good food and most importantly the good company of friends.

My gift exchange went to Radha! I hope you'll like it. :)

As with previous years, NNC's anni meet must have a challenge to those who want to join in for the gift exchange. This year is no exception. The challenge was the BIRD!! When I first read about it, I was like "WHAT?!? A BIRD??? OF ALL THINGS WHY A BIRD???" LOL! That was our initial shock when members found out that we have to make a bird shape of anything (or call it mix media if you will) to go with our handmade gift.

My very simple bird with pin " magnetic collecting" base. :)

Ply wood base with magnets attached.

So after weeks and days of brain racking and denial, I finally made that darn thing! LOL! It was really, really simple type of bird. I was at first thinking of making a peacock bird using some of my peacock feathers as tails but found out that yours truly isn't that creative to fit that thing into a box and have it mailed out safe and sound WITHOUT having some sort of accidents happening to it....  Over ambitious I am. :p

My handmade mug rug and tea wallet. I FMQ a bird design on it.

The otherside of the mug rug.

So I finally came up with the idea of reusing ice-cream box lid which I saved (I hoard empty yogurt & ice-cream containers) for something else. Made my simple bird, styled the lid to fit in magnets (was really glad to have come across really small cylinder ones) with some glue, sawed a piece of ply wood and glue it underneth so that the lid is heavier. I even made the "nest" out of FIMO clay so that the bird "stands". I forgot how much fun it was playing with modeling clay... :)

Some of my snappy purse.

When opened up...

This year, I also made some contributions towards the goodie bag. Made a small snappy foldable purse (tutorial from here) by Rashida Coleman-Hale. I tried it out the 1st time and it came out looking great! So I went ahead and made 20 of them! LOL! Yeah, tell me about "production line" à la a pair of hands! Just thank goodness I finally made the 20th purse in time to have it mailed out 3 weeks before.... Blindstitching 80 corners is hard work! LOL! So you people better enjoy it OR ELSE! LOL!

Wonder what's brewing for next year's challenge?

My very own laptop cosy/slip!

My lappy cosy! Veiw from the front/top side.

Remember the Mac book cover I made for a girlfriend of mine who came sometime ago? Well I made my very own laptop cosy/slip. Mind you my laptop isn't spanking new, bought it AGES ago but haven't really though about making it a cosy or a cover.

View from the back/bottom.

For this slip, I'm using IKEA fabric again. This fabric was bought ages ago and its just one of the stash I just have to have. You know for the "you'll never know when I might need it" times? YUP! I'm a beginner level hoarder... LOL! Expert levels of hoarding needs lots of space and financial capabilities to reach.... :p

Open sesame!

Any way, the inside fabric use here is fleece or what we call here a tissue polaire. Its mainly made out of recycled PET so I'd say it environmentally friendly? Its my 1st time using this type of fabric and let me tell you, its such a "user friendly" fabric! No need to worry about fraying and there's really minimum shrinkage! :) But there's a hitch in this fabric, its really HELL to pay when you have to unpick or frog since you can't really see the almost hidden thread...

I love the pink hearts with chocolate base. Reminds me of chocolate cake with pink frosting!! :)

And since I'm in the mood to experiment, I made this slip with handles and also added Velcro on the top. Reasons being I could carry it easily and the Velcro because the top sides part refuses to close properly! LOL!

Tiny patch of Velcro here.

I'm now thinking of my next one, instead of making a button flap, I'll be making a Velcro flap that closes almost the entire opening part of the cover. And perhaps something to attach the AC wires/adaptor to the slip?

Mac book cover

Meant to blog about this earlier but was a bit tired to do so. Oh well! :) Was a little tied up some weeks ago with visits from my school friends, a gal who I've known since primary school and another gal from my SHMS days. :) Made a new friend as well with the travelling companion of my primary school friend. For which I'm glad to get to know.

So much has happened since I've left SHMS but I'm still glad to be able to keep in touch with friends or acquaintances up till now. Although friendships form from my SHMS days aren't long but I do believe that boarding school friends tend to be as close as if not closer than my own childhood friends. 

Can you spot the button? ;)

And for this friend of mine I made her a Mac Book Pro cover as a small gift. Well I actually intend to make this for her birthday last year but was so caught up with other stuff that I didn't get around making it! Plus I didn't know that she got herself a Mac Book. So.... ;)

I saw this tutorial long time ago but didn't get around making it.  So with this I present you this! LOL!

I kinda tweak the materials a bit here. Instead of flannel I use cotton (from IKEA!) and batting. Outer fabric are upholstery weight and lining light weight cotton.

Notice how IKEA-ish? LOL!

I didn't have flannel and I didn't wanna go out just to get it on a Saturday! Shops are a WAR ZONE on Saturdays that I avoid them if and when I can. Shopping that need to be done can be a very enjoyable thing to do, even to window shop, but this can only be achieved on weekdays minus Fridays.

Fits perfectly! :)

I really like this tutorial. In fact I really like photo tutorials! :) Nothing like a photo to actually see what one meant in a tutorial. I can never understand or even have the patience to read a print out of a tutorial when I'm actually in the process of making the said item. Its either I do not have the acquired language or I simply have no idea what the tutor is talking about... :p So power to photo tutorials! :D

And since I had to make sure that the batting stays put, guess what? I FMQ here! Well my 6th attempt anyway... I had to frog several times to get the tension and the stitch length right. I still have a long way to go, but hey it least this gave me a chance to try it out.

I'm going to make another one for my lappy. I went and got half a meter of a pretty printed fleece fabric - which costs me a bomb to get at our local brick & mortar! Grrr.... Man... And already I'm planning to get some jelly rolls. Guess that will have to wait for a little while. Sigh... OH WELL! The budget of a free labour stay at home mum is very tight: :(

Am planning to sew them up next week if possible and this time I'm going to use interfacing as well.