I Smock

Yesterday I took a break. I had the flat to myself for several hours which is quite rare. I often craved "alone time" and thought of a dozen things I could do at home which I would enjoy. Instead, I ended up doing serious housework. The funny thing is serious housework is something I can do only when there's no one else around.

So I blew my morning and I found that I didn't really need a break so I started on my second attempt at smocking. More on that later.

This piece of ready pleated green fabric with lace trim was given to me by Dee, my smocking mate. It is so nice of her! I have no access to a pleating machine and have a vague idea about hand pleating so I use this green fabric for reference. Dee has a blog Make Mine Silk. Check her out.

To do my pleating I use water soluble ink to mark dots on the linen. Then I used a basting needle to insert running stitches on the dots. I noticed on Dee's gift-fabric, the stitches on one side (lets call it the right side) are longer than the stitches on the wrong side. I could not achieve that with manual marking as it would be too tedious so all my stitches are even.

My pleats look pretty even.

My desire to learn smocking started many years ago when my girl was still little. Her paternal aunt, let's call her "Ah Mai" gave her a lot of gorgeous handmade dresses and many of these dresses had smocked details. Apart from my primary school teachers, Ah Mai is the only other fabric handmade person I know. She is old school. She does crochet, embroidery and dresses. Could I learn from her? I doubt it. The language barrier is too huge to overcome. My girl has outgrown dresses. She's into Tees and white shorts now. I had kept Ah Mai's dresses in storage imagining one day in the future, I could give them to my grand daughters. Hehe. (Hope my girl doesn't read this. She'll scream!) Unfortunately a couple of years ago, Ah Mai insisted I return the dresses to her. She wanted to keep them for someone else's grand daughters. So I had part with the dresses. But I kept two. Shhh. Don't tell her. I hope she didn't keep track.

Check out the smocked details. Did you see the lovely bullion roses?

I hope that in the future, I could make a smocked dress for you know who!

And this is what I sewed last night. I used diamond stitch which was very hard to understand but after a while, I got the hang of it. The most important part was where to place the loose thread before you sew! I think this is a major improvement from my first smocked effort.

For my next MAAD, my target is 6 new bags. It should be easy to achieve. This week I'm working on a camera bag. It's my first camera bag so it may take a while. Last night, my mom ordered a bag to give to a friend! No, of course I'm not charging her. My mom is one of my surprise supporter of my handmade bags. "Surprise" seeing how she was so resistant to my using a sewing machine. (She's a hand sewer) She owns 3 of my bags one of which is a bag similar in design to the Recessed Zipper Shoulder Bag for which I wrote a tutorial a while back. Her brief is simple: Must fit a foldable umbrella and have 2 inside pockets. 

I'll see you guys in my next post.

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Milestone

I decided to take Dee's advice and started on my smocking. I ditched the book I'd been consulting because it was too advanced. I tried good ol' google and found Marie Grace Designs. I thought I'd make a pocket (another suggestion from Dee) instead of a bag seeing how I don't even know how to smock. You know, swim before you fly. I really like having Dee as a smocking mate because she really nags you. Thank you Dee. I smock you.

Hand pleating.

All pleated up.

The stitches. I dunno the name - I just chose the simplest.

After I'd released the threads holding the pleats, I found the smocked part not very smocked. So I went back to Marie Grace Designs and you know what? I'd forgotten to stitch a very crucial stitch called the cable stitch. It's to hold the pleats together!! For my next pocket, I'll do better.

Some happy news. Today is my 15th wedding anniversary. Yes, I've been married 15 years. Doesn't seem that long to me tho'. I still remember when I was single and thinking I'd never get married because I just didn't meet the right person. Also I was quite insecure about my deafness . Ok, relax. I'm not exactly 100% deaf. Just the one ear. (some gym accident) Fortunately my husband is exceptionally accepting of people deaf in one ear. So I got lucky. Also, I had a hot body.

He got lucky because I wanted a spouse with a head larger than mine. Have you seen the size of my head? I mean, can you just imagine this man who'd married me waking up in the morning looking lovingly over to his left and sees this huge head of mine? He'd be driven to drinking. So you can imagine my delight when I realise how much larger my husband's head is next to mine!

Today we had round 2 of our anniversary celebration. Last weekend, we ate at a dim sum restaurant with the kids. I think the kids liked the food but they didn't want to admit it. Today it was just the 2 of us. Yes, we had a date when the kids were in school. We had Thai food.

Thai phaad, I think.

Tom yum soup. No kick.

Free keropok.

My husband's present to me - Journey's Houston Escape concert DVD. (I gave him undies. hehe)

I managed to complete one new bag. It's one of those bags I'd made before. Soft and floppy and not exactly everyone's cup of tea. But it's a bag I would make for myself. One day I should make one of these babies for myself. Made in raw linen and linen-cotton by Lecien.

 As a tote.

As a cross body bag.

April MAAD countdown. 8 out of 15 bags completed. 7 more to go in 7 days. You know what that means? I have to make 1 bag each day. Impossible!

Slouchy Shoulder Bags

It's been a while since my last post and I thought I'd show you the few items I had made.

First I want to show the changes in the space I work in. I've been inspired by Dee and her blog where she dee-clutters her life. I "met" Dee thru' my blog where she would leave little notes for me to read. I never realised she had a blog until one day she SUMMONED me to go read her stuff and I sure did. Anyhoo, I looked at my own home and it is one big clutter. I live with 3 other hoarders with my husband being the biggest hoarder of all. I'm No. 2 with my fabric and sewing stuff. So I decided to start to de-clutter starting with myself. The first thing I did was rid this cork board of all the junk. I discovered newspaper cutting from years ago and expired warranty cards. In its place I have put 2 drawings by my girl. This space is now reserved for to-do lists. Let's see how it goes.

Below this cork board is a little table which used to house an antique Dell computer. I gave it to recycling because it finally died. Now I use this table to do my cutting and template making. I wish I have a longer table to do my cutting but there isn't any space in my home for a long table.

This is my sewing machine where I do all my magic. I cleaned up the mess before I took the photo. This machine sits on an Ikea table which is a heavy table. I like it that it's heavy because the table won't rattle when I use the machine. Most Ikea products we bought are quite flimsy but this table is real solid.

Another de-cluttering "project" I have on-going is to have as little leftover fabric as possible. My next leftover fabric project is going to be a placemat or another coaster or a pin cushion. I don't know yet. But the idea is not to have so much scraps lying around.

One other thing I used to do but discontinued but picked up again is to do a complete mop down of my sewing area after I complete a project. This is to get rid of the lint and prevent a pile-up of fabric.

Here are the items I made this week.

This cork board is a good place to hang my bags.

These 2 batik bags are similar but different in some small details. The one above is curvier and longer. But you probably can't tell.

Here they are side by side.

This one's similar in design. The outer fabric is a Kate Greenaway print by Lecien. I really like how the striped lining goes with the outer fabric! All 3 bags have fat bottoms.  The Kate Greenaway print bag is now available at Etsy, Artfire and Zibbet!

Lastly a canvas sling bag.

Check out the bottom. I use a formula to calculate my bag bottoms. If anyone's interested let me know and I'll post it next time. You know, I've grown in my bag-making. I think. In the past I would try my best to get the bottoms to match the base of the bags perfectly. But now I find the crinkles rather attractive and I use running stitches to create pleats before I sew the bottom on.

I am in a friendly smock-off with Dee. No, no, it's not star trek related. I'm making a smocked bag while she's making a smocked poncho. Hehe. I'm kidding. I have no idea what she's making. But she's way ahead of me. She uses a smocking machine and she has a smocking teacher. You can go to Make Mine Silk to check on her progress. As for me, I'm still ploughing thru' this Smocking Book. It's really advanced so I have not even started. Time out, Dee!

I said I would make 15 items. I have 4 out of 15. 11 more to go.