iPhone 5 zip pouch

Ever since hubs bought his iPhone 5 and I had discovered (to my horror) that iPhone 5 is taller than iPhone 4, I had been thinking about making zip pouches for iPhone 5. It makes sense to make them to fit iPhone 5 since it'll fit both the 4 and 5. Of course I dilly and dallied and on Sunday, I forced myself to make them.

I had discovered some red panther Echino scraps and wanted so badly to be able to use it for at least one iPhone zip pouch. This was the best I could do without having to do any piecing.

I made a grand total of 5 of these zip pouches. If you think I made 5 because it's iPhone 5, you're wrong. I just ran out of steam.

I hope these 5 will satisfy my customers at my VivoCity craft market. I don't see myself making any more for quite a while. They do use up scraps nicely.

If you're interested in making this iPhone zip pouch, I have a pattern available for purchase (instant download) at Etsy. Please note that the size only fits iPhone 4 or smaller.

Now I had been thinking about what I should do regarding my iPhone zip pouch pattern. I wonder if I should retire the iPhone 4 version and create a new iPhone 5 version. Or just leave it alone? Anyway, at the moment, I don't have any time to do anything about it. I hope to get some time off sewing in August to take care of my new patterns.

Trophy Wife

Yesterday I didn't pay much attention when hubs casually mentioned he had donated a pair of shorts to me. I was busy sewing a bag and finally long after hubs had gone to work, I went to my drawers to get a change of clothes.

This is what I saw.

Yes, hubs had generously donated this massive airy Goldlion uncle/grandma shorts to ME to WEAR.

You know what that means? I am no trophy wife. I had privately speculated I was a trophy wife based on my hot body and pretty smile.

The gift of the ginormous shorts shattered my illusions. Which husband would want his trophy wife to look like humpty dumpty?

Perhaps my idea of what a trophy wife means could be off the mark. Amazingly there is a wide resource on trophy wife. There is even a "How To Be A Trophy Wife" in wikiHow.

I have the opposite predicament of Samantha Brick who believes a husband who prizes your looks and not your mind is the key to a happy marriage.

According to Samantha Brick, her husband "has an opinion — which I adhere to — on how I dress and what I weigh. He prefers I wear classic ladylike attire and, at 5ft 11in, he insists I tip the scale at no more than 10½ stone. In fact, he’s there when I weigh myself."

Hubs apparently wants me to dress like his deceased dad. He sometimes pinches my tummy fat. I had mistaken it for a subtle chiding of weight gained. The sly man had really, I now know for a fact, been checking if my girth was large enough to fit in his old Goldlion shorts!

* * *

Despite the shock of losing my Trophy Wife status, I managed to make 2 items for my VivoCity weekend craft market which is looming closer and closer.

This sling bag should be a crowd pleaser. I'm not too sure about the fabric tho'. In 2009, I was very into camouflage fabric. The fabric is cotton drill and in my opinion the best fabric to make something slouchy without interfacing.

I fished the heart on wings embroidery out of the UFO basket and I'm very pleased with the result. It fits an iPhone with room to spare.

I don't have much time left to make many bags and pouches. Maybe 1 or 2 more. See you.

Numb fingers

Hi people,

My fingers are a little numb today. I spent last night entering 50 giveaways. Yes, I'm talking about the Sew Mama Sew giveaways. In total I've entered in 100. Tonight if I'm not too tired, I'll enter another 100 more. As for my own little giveaway here, the entries have slowed to a trickle. To date, I have 300 entries. :)

Having visited 100 blogs, I have a few rants.

1. Why do blogs still have the word verification turned on? No one and I mean, no one on this planet Earth is able to decipher what the garbled words are. I will only give it at most 2 tries. Then I'm out. Even if I've written a brilliantly written witty comment. I'm out. It's an obstacle course I don't need. If you have your word verification turned on, I beg of you, please, please put it in a bag, tie it up tightly and bury it in a deep, deep place you'll never remember. There are other ways to keep out the spam. Speaking of which, is my word verification turned OFF? Can anyone tell me?

2. Why are giveaways which are meant only for US logged in the category meant for worldwide?
I'm like happily reading away all the goodies up for grabs and going thru' all the rules and right at the bottom of the post you see "for US only". I may have entered a few of these giveaways by accident as I type and read and click send at the same time.

3. Why are some giveaway questions so hard to answer? Like, why did the chicken cross the road? It took me a really long time to answer this one. I asked my son and he had no idea. My head almost burst from thinking. Is my question hard? What you eat for breakfast isn't hard unless you're thinking of lying about what you eat! I had 8, no, 4, no wait 2 slices of toast.

4. Some giveaways use a widget to collect the entries. The trouble is it doesn't always work. If you have received an entry from Jane P with "sd7*%#dj5a%k" for a comment, I wasn't being rude. I was just trying to get the keyboard to work. Will I still win?

 *   *   *

 

Hubs came home one day with these 2 gorgeous tea bags boxes. They're perfect to display my iPhone zip pouches. I made 3 more of these super easy to make gadget pouches.

Hubs brought home this weird box as well. The cover is made of cut work metal. It reminds me of the applique I used to make. I'm not quite sure what to do with this box. It's interesting but not very useful.

Tomorrow is my last sewing day for the week before my VivoCity craft market. I hope to make a few pencil cases. But will I? See you real soon.

To pee or not to pee, that is the question

Hi,

Thursday already! I'm so glad I'm blogging daily so I can review my week easily. I think so far I'm on track but I'd like to spend less time playing games and watching TV. If I could clock 8 hours working on my projects, I would be so much more productive.

Remember in a post sometime ago, I mentioned that I had bought some ZIG fabric pens from Art Friend. Yes, the one time I wanted to redeem a $5 voucher. Today I decided to see if I could use them in one way or another in my pouches.

*ZIG Fabricolor twin marker (click click on pic takes you to amazon)

I'm still working at using up the rest of my linen remnants. What's left is small odd amount here and there. Perfect for an iPhone zip pouch! What do you think? I used 2 colours - blue and brown because I'm still hooked on the blue bird thingy. By the way, the fabric ink cannot be removed from the fabric so I drew very carefully. This pen is pretty good. It has a brush like tip on one end and a felt tip on the other. How did I get so lucky? I really just bought the pens on a whim. I had never even heard of ZIG. I had used Lyra textile marker before and did not like them at all. I think the pen tip was too fat. So I felt clumsy.

At first I wanted to include some embroidery. My idea was to sew a few lazy daisy stitches on the wings. But I resisted. Kind of want to keep it simple. You know me. I don't like complicated designs. So I coloured the wings blue. I love it!

By the way, the 2 birds are dating. No, it's not the "never been kissed" bird from the Redwork batch. I have more ideas for my ZIG pens but I'll probably work on them next week.

Here's the finished zip pouch. I have listed it on Etsy. Check it out here. And for those who are new to my blog, this zip pouch was made using my ePattern here.

Speaking of iPhone zip pouches, I have a VivoCity Craft Market trivia for you. This happened on Saturday.

This cross-stitch print iPhone zip pouch was the cause. Before I tell you the story, I have to explain how a sale transaction is handled at VivoCity Craft Market. First I write out an invoice for the customer. It states the item product codes and price. The customer takes the invoice to the cashier and pays. She gets a receipt which she gives to me. I check the receipt and give the bought item to the customer.

On Saturday, I gave the customer the invoice and directed her to the cashier which is just a few steps away. She wanted to withdraw cash first and there is a cash machine a few steps away from the cashier. Easy peasy.

Thing is I kept waiting for the customer to give me the receipt and she did not show up. In the past, I had 1 customer who took an hour to return because he was busy shopping at the other stalls at the craft market. So I wasn't worried.

And so I kept waiting and waiting. I was so sure she would return. No one had ever not returned with the receipt. The system works. And then I had to pee.

Now when you have the urge to pee, it's rarely a "Maybe I need to pee?". It's always a

I HAVE TO PEE NOW.

But I was still waiting for the customer to return. So I held on. And I held on. At first holding on was doable. Then it became all I could think of. I did not want to leave and run the risk of the customer coming back finding me gone. Neither did I want to get my neighbouring vendors to help me. The ones on my left were handicapped and I'm guessing had enough to deal with. The one on my right I was not familiar with. Oh well. It was my choice to hold on. No one held a gun to my head.

Finally it was no longer an option to hold on. The tide was too strong! I made a dash for the ladies and am happy to report I did not pee on myself.

And no, the customer did not return. Not that night. Not the following day. I'm a good person. Why do I get such customers? Is it so hard to come back and tell me she had a change of heart?

Good nite. I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. First time since Chinese New Year!!!


*Disclosure: I am on amazon's affiliate program and earn a tiny sale referral commission.

Where did March go?

I wanted to start my post by saying "it's all slowly coming back to me..." but honestly, it's not. However much I tried, I cannot figure out why March flew by and I'm a little frightened that the next time I check the calendar, it'll be Christmas. I know I haven't produced as much stock as I wanted. I have many items on my to-do list.

I know that one of the reasons I did not produce much was my right hand had to heal. I've learnt my lesson and I'm taking better care of my hands. I've bought gloves and I use them.

Another reason is that I really struggled with my non-creative life. Little things kept cropping up that needed my attention or brought me such despair that I could not give any attention to my creations. I wish I could separate my non-creative life from my creative life but it's not possible. I'm after all one person.

The last reason I can think of is my health. I have been suffering from headaches and migraines on and off throughout the first three months. I think if I want to be serious about getting rid of my head pain, I need to re-look my diet and stop eating food that could trigger the pain.

Having said all these, I am determined to fix my problems. Next month which is just 2 days away, I plan to really make a change and hopefully see results.

This weekend I'm emerging from my "cave" and venturing out to VivoCity to sell my bags and pouches again. It is good to go out and sell and be active. When I stay home all the time, I find my world becomes very small and it's all about me, me, me.

Maybe I've rested far too long. I feel a little nervous as selling at VivoCity has never been smooth sailing for me. Always a few hiccups here and there. Plus if I remember correctly, the last market was very quiet. I guess I won't know the outcome until it's over.

On Tuesday I did a stock take and I noticed that I had ONE iPhone zip pouch left. Yesterday I finally decided I would make a few more. What I like about my iPhone zip pouches is they use very little fabric. A good way to use up my remnants.

This is my favourite. I used Junichi Nakahara print. You can check out his stuff here. I have very little of this fabric left.

These two fabric has pseudo cross stitch print. I bought the fabric from Spotlight. I only bought a tiny amount. Hubs said he doesn't like these 2 prints. Good thing he's not a girl.

And this is the last bits from Red Rose Farm fabric. A lot of bedsheets in the old days had huge roses prints like this one.

Are you salivating over my iPhone zip pouches? You can make your own too. It only takes an hour the first time. Go here to buy the ePattern.

For more details about my VivoCity craft market, go to Where Can You Find Me?  I'll see you soon.

iPhone zip pouch ePattern is here

Hi friends,

Do you suffer from zipperphobia? Symptoms include cursing, irritation, UnFinishedObjects and poor finishing. When I produced my iPhone zip pouch ePattern, I had in mind folks with zipperphobia and yes, I have the cure. Even if you don't fear the zipper, this little ePattern will suit you. I do the thinking for you. You don't have to crack your brains to figure this one out.

That's right folks. My iPhone zip pouch ePattern is finally out. And as always, I'm pimping it.

I had planned to launch the ePattern by August but it seems I'm still pretty fussy when it comes to photos and little details. I hope that by my third ePattern, I would have become more efficient.

Of course this zip pouch has all its raw seams hidden.

Each zip pouch takes an hour at most for beginners. Once you get the hang of it, you could easily whip them out at half the time. The best bit? You only need a small amount of fabric - a great way to get rid of your remnants.

A big thanks to my testers. They did all the hard work! Do me a big favour and go to my Etsy shop and heart this ePattern or buy it! Thank you. Muah! See you in a couple of days.

If you prefer to buy the pattern off my blog,

Read FAQ before clicking on Buy Now button below.
Buy Now

For more BAG PATTERNS.

faster than the speed of light not!

Dear readers,

Ever since my home was wired for fibre optic transmission, we had been excited to upgrade our broadband to the speed of light.

Anyone still using dial-up? My dear, this is the 21st century. Write to your member of parliament, or mayor or town leader. I dunno. Who do you call when your internet access is one century behind?

My apologies. Please don't mind me. I'm just feeling very smug because we have 100mbps! Getting hooked up to 100mbps was not as easy as I thought.

First 3 very old guys came to connect the cables. My home is one of those really odd flats which has all the wiring hidden inside the ceiling. It's called concealed wiring. It's not a good thing. Contractors hate to do anything related to wiring in my home. As you can see from the image above, the fibre optic cables couldn't be concealed as that would require removal of my ceiling. Ah, the price you pay for the speed of light. Luckily, we are quite messy people. So the plastic thingy running all over my home doesn't really bother us.

This is the magic black box aka modem. There is another box but it's at the other end of the room. With our new plan, we get free subscription for the residential phone. The catch? We have to convert from our analog phone line to a digital phone line. We went for it. The catch? The power to the magic boxes must be ON all the time. In the event of a power failure, we have to reset the phone line. This we discovered by accident. Which is a little tedious. Which we weren't told beforehand. Dem you Singtel!

Then we became obsessed with testing the internet connection. Much to our dismay, it fluctuates. That means, we don't get 100mbps all the time. Sometimes we get 40, 50, 60. In fact, we've never ever gotten 100. And we're paying for 100mbps. Oh wait, it says maximum speed is 100mbps. Dem you Singtel!

You know what happens when you get a giant monitor followed by 2 monitors, followed by 100mbps? You want a faster computer.

Right. Looks like a new CPU is on our To Purchase list. This family's Great Singapore Sale budget is seriously busted.





Looks like I'm back to making iPhone zip pouches with my skulls fabric. Well, these are for my next ePattern - iPhone 4 zip pouches. And I've given it a lot of thought. Putting these on the cover of my ePattern will surely scare customers away!




See for yourself. I took this photo when it got dark and look how creepy the pouches look.

See you real soon.

Singapore Spotting

Hello dear readers,

How was your weekend? I've been in a rut for a while but over the weekend and early this week I kinda feel I'm back on track again. Firstly, I want to boast that I've managed to get back to my regular jogging routine. It's twice a week minimum and thrice if I don't throw a fit. Sewing-wise, I've been really working on my iPhone 4 pouches and I'm seriously happy with the results. Last but not least, I'm so in love with my new-found love - beading.

Check this baby out. My spiral rope necklace is complete. I love it so much. This is the first piece of jewellery I handmade. The beads I used were delicas. They're really just cylindrical beads with large holes. I assumed some of you guys might be interested in making a similar gorgeous necklace and I googled. Turned out there is a super easy tute. Go here.

This is my next beading project in progress. It's more tedious and not as lovely. It's done mounted on a chopstick.

I wanted my next iPhone 4 pouch to have a zip in front and played around with the size. In the end, I went with the size on the right.

I made three. If you want to ogle at the Anime pouch, go to my Etsy shop here.

Now, let's gossip. I like to think that Singapore is a well-known country but I know that in reality most people haven't even heard of it. That's why whenever I hear the word "Singapore" in movies, TV shows, I get soooooo excited. I regret that I do not have a list of all the movies or TV show that Singapore has been mentioned. (even if it's a negative way)

Here's one I love most from Pirates of The Caribbean 3.

Not long ago, Seth Rogen talked about Singapore on Conan O'Brien. Click on play if you want to hear what he said which upset some Singaporeans. You know - the inaccuracies etc. Me hubs wrote a column about it. Read it here. But all I was thinking was - he mentioned Singapore! I am such a "Singapore Spotting" groupie.

Anyhoo, contrary to what Seth said, Singaporeans do get to vote. In fact, this May 7th is polling day for Singapore and I'm old enough to vote! Seriously, it'll be my third time? The constituency where I live in doesn't seem to interest the opposition parties so it may very well be another WALKOVER. I will know if my constituency is contested on April 27 Wednesday. If it isn't, I would feel like my vote didn't matter. Now, THAT would upset me. See ya.

The Beader

Hello dear friends,

I was so taken by The Giver that I went on to read Messenger which is a loose sequel of The Giver.  It is set several years after The Giver and revolves around a boy whose job is much like a postman - he delivers messages. The village he lives in is under threat and he has to save it. The ending is again abrupt, like The Giver. Unfortunately, like most sequels, they disappoint. I think it tries too hard. The Giver felt so innocent and delightful.

You know, in another life, I often imagined I was a braider. Now I think it's possible I could have been a beader. No, no, I'm not a believer of previous lives. Just saying. This week I made progress on my spiral necklace. Beading, I've discovered is not that hard. It's much like sewing except you weave the thread onto the beads.

This is my temporary beading tray. It's not really suitable but I don't really want to invest too much in my beading in case my interest dies off. But I must say I really enjoy beading. It needs a lot of patience and is rather straining on the eyes. So I only do a little at a time and I do it when there's good daylight.

See this amount of necklace I've completed? It took me 5 hours! An experienced beader would probably do it at a fraction of the time. I made a few mistakes in the beginning and had to undo.

My necklace uses a very simple technique. Basically you just have x number of beads on the thread and you loop back thru y number of beads. You keep repeating until you hit strategic spots where you insert decorative crystals or other stuff, the names of which I haven't learnt yet. As I was beading, I thought to myself that I could possibly be making my family heirloom!

I've made two more iphone pouches with my Echino fabric. You can see more pics in my shop on Etsy if you're interested. See ya.

The Giver

Dear friends,

Long before I could sew bags, I was crocheting bags. Recently one of my blog friends, Tamdoll asked me about these bags. So I hunted high and low and managed to find two of these babies. My skills in crocheting is quite basic and once I discovered I did not like crochet "raw seams", I gave up making crochet bags. Yes, I do feel sad about it.

This is a simple drawstring pouch crocheted in a spiral manner. This spiral method does not leave an ugly "seam line" so I'm happy with it. Don't you just love the colour of this yarn? Olive green.

What I really like about this pouch is the cord. It is made with simple chain stitches one way followed by a slip stitch (or the join stitch?) the other way back. I've never learnt crochet from a teacher so I don't really know the terms. I learnt it the visual way by looking at a pattern. I like the cord so much that whenever I found the excuse to use a cord in one of my fabric bags or pouches, I would crochet one this way.

Okay, this bag was quite ambitious. I did not make it the spiral way. Instead I made the individual pieces and joined them together at the side seams. Exactly how you would sew a fabric bags. But the result is I have really ugly raw seams inside.

Yesterday I went on a beading adventure. I've always had a vague interest in beading but my knowledge never went beyond stringing a few beads together. My friend, Vivi wanted to learn to bead a complicated butterfly from a teacher. So I tagged along and before you know it, I'm officially a beginner beader. These are my supplies for my beading project. I was of course gunning for a beaded pouch or bag but that's too complicated for a beginner. So it's gonna be a simple necklace. Anyhoo, I discovered there's a class for crochet beaded pouches so I'm really, really wanting to sign up for that too. But first, I have to practise my crochet stitches.

Recently I finished reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. Have you read this book before? My son is studying it for Literature and since I have interest in books, I decided I would read all the books he has to study so we could talk about them.

It's a very easy book to read because the story is very compelling. It's about a community of people living a kind-of utopian life where everyone is governed by sameness done thru' genetic engineering perhaps? There is only one eye colour and one skin colour. The people do not suffer pain. Jobs, babies are assigned to the people. Can you imagine being assigned the role of birth mother? You get to enjoy life, give birth to 3 kids and afterwards you become a labourer for the rest of your life.

On surface, it looks like a pretty perfect world. But as you read more, it is revealed that it is a world robbed of choices, senses (colours, ability to hear music) and the ability to know any better. The main character is a 12 year old boy, Jonas who has the gift of colours meaning he can see colours and he is chosen to receive memories of the past from The Giver. Once Jonas starts to receive the memories of the past, he realises that his people are governed by lies and he decides he wants to help his community change. There is no neat ending to this story and you have to figure it out for yourself. My son asked me why Jonas chose the world where you could feel pain over the world of sameness where you don't feel pain.

My answer: I believe it wasn't pain Jonas chose. He chose a world where choice, emotions and basic human rights were respected and pain is a price you pay for it. I have realised that literature is not as easy as it was in my days.

I made another iphone pouch with another skulls and roses fabric. Me hubs asked me why I don't put the skulls in front. Well, the skulls are rather creepy and I was making it late at night. That's why. The next time I make another one, I'll do it in the day and put the creepy skulls in front. See ya.

The Smaller Things Are Harder To Make

Hello readers,

I'm still here. I haven't abandoned you. I also haven't been working on my bags much. I'm now in a place called in-between. Or some people might call it - lazing around.

With no looming deadlines, I find I can easily pass the day without even sewing a stitch. It was quite strange at first as I've been literally sewing nearly every day for more than a year except for a few planned short breaks now and then. But soon I got used to it and before you know it, I somehow cannot imagine sewing like a maniac anymore. Oh, how easily one can get used to staying lazy.

On Sunday, I did summon up the required motivation to make a tall zippy pouch.

I wanted to make it interesting for myself so I sewed little circular running stitches for a quilted look. I have only a tiny portion of this lovely Echino fabric left. I won't be buying any more as the price has shot up by too much. Grr.

Ever since me hubs bought an iphone, I've wanted to make an iphone pouch since I have it for measurement. When the iphone was still a novelty to me hubs, I would be awakened early in the morning to the sound of him trying out all the ring tones! If I weren't too sleepy, I would punch him.

I didn't make this zip pouch for an iphone but as it turns out, it fits. If I were to make a zip iphone pouch, I would probably widen the zipper opening.

I couldn't resist putting spots in the lining as well!

Anyhoo, I was thinking about making an iphone pouch and I went for a flap/velcro kind as I think that's the most practical.

The back

I think the sizing is perfect. The iphone actually has a rubber casing for protection so it's slightly thicker than a nekid iphone. I managed to put in earphones in the pouch as well.

One thing I've noticed about sewing this iphone pouch is that suddenly you feel like a giant with too many fingers. For one thing, you can't use the free arm to sew the top of the pouch. So how do you do it? You squeeze and you curse and you try your best not to sew on your fingers! Plus I did not topstitch the top because I don't think that's humanly possible unless you hand stitch.

Okay, on something unassociated to sewing. I'm just dying to relate an incident to you. It's rather mean so don't read if you can't take it. Do you watch 30 Rock? In a recent episode, Liz Lemon was told by her boss, Jack Donaghy that she had tucked her undies into her shirt, again. When watching that joke scene, I was thinking that can't possibly happen in real life. I mean, who does that?

Well, what do you know? I was at Ikea one day last week during lunch hour, alone. If you have dined alone during lunch hour at Ikea with no one to reserve seats, you'll know the only seats available are the high ones much like a bar counter. So I sat or rather perched on the high, high seat and started to eat my peppercorn salmon meal. Across me at another bar-style counter sat 2 men, one of whom had his back facing me.

You understand that my guy was sitting on a high stool. I almost choked on my peppercorn salmon when I saw sticking out of his pants were his undies with his office shirt tucked neatly into. YES! As it turns out, people do tuck their shirts into their undies and I now know that for a fact. Lest you think I'm a raving pervert, please KNOW that I don't go out looking for underwear malfunction. These situations just present themselves to me.

So, my guy and his friend sat across me thru'out my meal. They talked and talked. Occasionally, my guy jiggled his arms, I'm guessing demonstrating his dancing prowess to his pal. To be honest, he's not a bad looking guy, from the back. That is, if you can look past his undies poking clearly out of his pants. He has a pretty trim body. I could not see any tummy fats at all! He dresses daringly - pink checked long-sleeved shirt with dark coloured pants. Plus teal undies.

Well, I tried my best not to stare at his you know what. Plus, I needed to eat and the sight of the teal peeking out would send me into tears.

Mercifully, my guy decided to leave. He stood up tall and happy, thinking everything is alright with the world. As he walked away, I could see standing proudly out of his pants the darn teal undies shifting left and right with every stride he made.

It took all my self-restraint not to shout out:

Mister, next time don't let your mama dress you!

Told you it was mean. See ya.