My very first doll

 

I drew her head, arms and body separately on a piece of calico fabric using my Sharpie Stained Fabric Markers. Then I stuffed her with some synthetic pillow filling and sewed her up. Her head unfortunately won't sit on her shoulders. It just flops to the back. Eeep!

She is wearing a longer version of the kebaya called kebaya labuh. Kebayas are usually adorned with elaborate brocade or embroidery but I was impatient to see how she would turn out so I didn't bother adding much detail to her clothes.

Here she is wearing a selendang or long scarf / shawl on her head. The lace is leftover from my very first bag. It's way long and big because I didn't want to cut what precious little I have left :) 

And here she is wearing the selendang over her shoulder typical of ladies attending weddings.

Oh. BTW The tween thinks she's creepier than Pouch #24! Haha!

My first reversible bag!

Here it is - a reversible bag I made from the batik I bought. The dark blue side is Italian cotton I found at the same shop. I have yet to sew the bottom though :)

I used the stiffest fusible interfacing I could find and used it on the batik and straps. It keeps the bag in shape. But I think the thinner interfacing I've been using for the pouches would work better although none is fine too.

When I made my very first bag, I didn't think to look up any tutorials online so it was a long process of sewing, resewing and figuring out how to put it together. 

This time I searched for a tutorial and found this fairly simple one . I'm not very good with instructions so there was still a bit of figuring out to do but it definitely helped :)

Pouch #24

The tween likes the colours but thinks it's a bit creepy. Haha! I think it has something to do with the red eye :)

Pouch #23

Today the toddler and I did some potato printing. You can see she went bam! bam! bam! all over the fabric so I helped get some clearer Xs in for contrast.  

I looked at our potato printing and thought it would be a nice idea to turn it into a pouch. So, next I gave her another piece of fabric to doodle on using my Sharpie Stained Fabric Markers.

After that was done, I asked her to choose between a black and a red zipper. She grabbed the red one.
Great choice!

Here's the finished pouch below with print and doodle on each side.

I love the texture from the toddler's potato banging! 

And her doodling is just as pretty too.

Pouch #23

Hand printed and doodled on calico. 9' X 6"

Tween Art

The tween was in a rare mood to draw when she did this. Her inspiration - a Maroon 5 CD cover :)

Toddler Art

The tween was a prolific doodler, drawer and painter from the time she was a toddler till she was about eight. These days she'd rather bury her head in a book or surf the internet.

Sweetie #2 on the other hand hadn't shown much interest in sitting down with a pencil and paper until recently. Sometimes she would come up to me swishing her arms around and say "Draw, draw!" 

Here are a few paintings she did this morning. When she thinks a piece is done she would say "Dah" which means enough or done. Haha :)

Acrylic paint on watercolour paper.

Batik!

I took my mom to Kamdar, a fabric shop nearby to get some material to make new curtains. I wasn't planning on getting anything but I ended up spending more than I should :)  I bought some cotton linen mix and these two batik. The colours are gorgeous. I want to make a few totes although I'm a bit reluctant to cut them up. Typical! :)

Pouch #22

Technically this should be Pouch #20 because I made this before the other two but it slipped my mind :)

Pouches #20 & #21

Back to making pouches. I used to baste the zip and labour over corners and getting straight lines. Practice really does make it easier. Now I just pin the zips in place and sew away. I don't even change to a zipper foot. And my lines are straighter too thanks to a stable wooden table. Bye-bye plastic foldable table. You have served me well.

Hand painted pouches. 9" X  6"

Happy Family 2

Here's another version I sent to my friend J for her book project. 

I went back to watercolour for this one. I gave the donkey an eye patch because I had smudged his eye beyond repair. I must say I like it. Troubleshooting! 

Happy Family

I did this piece at a friend's request. It's for a book project she is working on. It took me quite a while to finish since I could only grab 5 or 10 minutes here and there before the little one started climbing on my lap and knocking things over. 

I've been wanting to try gouache for quite some time so this was the perfect excuse to get myself a set. It was surprisingly not easy to find. Hmmm.