The haze is back

The haze is back. It's so bad that the Ministry of Education has declared that schools are close today.  I dug out my scrap flannels and made face masks for my kiddos. They are custom fit. 

 I am giving a go at mobile blogging. I seriously do not have the luxury of sitty in front of the computer nowadays. 

Little Red Market 5

My Little Critters debuting at LRM5

Wow! My first entry for 2013. Third month in the new year!!!! That's bad. 

Not that I don't miss my blogging. I've reached the maximum storage space for my pictures and what's a blog if I can't upload pictures. It'll be a bore, even for me.

Anyway, I've missed the first 2 months. Nothing worth recapping I supposed. I've been taking it easy with my sewing. No particular reason why. Just taking a break. I stepped into 2nd gear as we're approaching March where my first bazaar for the year was due to take place.

Little Red Market was in town again. It happened last Sunday, 3rd March 2013. I just love LRM. I've been with them from the quaint beginning of LRM2; and loving the energy, the community, the creativity, everything.

It's my 4th association with them, the 3rd time at White Box, Publika. This time around my location was in the centre, facing the 2nd entrance that leads to Black Box. We're placed into an island where I and 3 other vendors have our backs to each other. I like the set up. It was quite cosy. We get to have our small circle to chat in between chatting with the shoppers. 

There was a good mix of regulars and new faces. I didn't actually get the chance to go and check out all booths. These are pictures of my intermediate neighbours. I like the personalised growth chart. It's such a great idea. From what I see, they get quite a number of orders.

Another fun thing to me was that my kids were with me to watch mama in action. Babah had to run errands and the kids didn't want to be sent to their grandma's house. I love the fact that Melissa and Sally set up a kids' activities corner where my kids were kept busy. They made their own Harry Potter's glasses and bookmarks. The bottom picture shows Danial totally exhausted as they waited for me to pack up at closing time.

All in all it was a good day for me. I never realised how much I miss bazaars especially good ones like LRM. I've a few things left from the bazaar and I'll be listing them in an album on my fanpage in Facebook. I'll put a link here when it's up later.

Boy, it feels good to be able to blog again :)

2012 in retrospective part 1

As 2012 is coming to the end, I'm doing a review of what the year was for me. My first target for the year as far as my crafts were concerned was to do 12 bazaars this year; an average of one bazaar per month. It was really easier said than done. Being a procrastinator extraordinaire, having my booth well stocked up is a real challenge. 

My utmost gratitude to Azzah of SewFabby for letting me in this joyride with her. She's a proper bazaar hunter. She did more bazaars than I and a real working machine when it comes to stocking up her wares for the bazaar. I couldn't keep up with her. All in all, we're together in 5 of the 12 bazaars that I took part in this year. Thank you Azzah for being a good sport, a great bazaar partner and a real friend I can count on. I can never repay the kindness that you've shown to me. May you grow and prosper in the years to come, dear friend.

So what's in store for 2013... maybe less bazaar, one bazaar in 3 months, 4 bazaar for 2013. That would give me time to stock up and keep my online business in equilibrium. I must admit my online orders suffered as I have to decline taking orders so I can spend more time preparing my stock. I'll be focussing on my online shop. 

How was your 2012? 

Arwen's Polkadot Tiered Dress

Last Saturday, we're supposed to attend Danial and Arwen's aunt's engagement. The theme was turqoise. Unfortunately, both my kids were down with coughs and flu. Arwen was running a mild fever even. Therefore, only Azrai went to represent the rest of the family.

Staying cooped up at home doesn't stop my little diva to dress up. Any little girl loves dressing up. I took her to the nearby park for a quick photo shoot session. You can never tell that she is having a fever from the pictures can you?

We forgot to take the shrug along when we were at the park so I took some last minute pictures using our front door as the back drop. I made the shrug a few weeks earlier. A simple lace pattern that I took from one of the magazines. I used Knitpick's Worsted cotton yarn in Sky and used up 3 balls of yarn.

Arwen simply loves her dress. Makes her feel so grown up. There'll be more full length dress for Arwen in the near future...

We have a WINNER!!!!!

Congratulations Aiza Azril! You are the winner of my Birthday 2012 Giveaway! 

For the rest, thank you for your participation. You guys are the greatest!

My Birthday Giveaway! and IBU Charity Bazaar Shoutout

Salam Maal Hijrah! It's a new year according to the Hijrah Calendar which fell yesterday, Thursday, 15 November 2012; which was also my birthday. Yeay! Happy birthday to me! It's my 39th birthday. What a big number. It was a public holiday yesterday, in honour of my birthday, heheheh... A quiet affair at home. We had the Big Breakfast at Equine Park's McDonald's and later to Maycraft in Taipan, USJ to get some crochet yarn. You see, I ordered the Sharp Crochet Hook from Ebay and it came in the mail on Wednesday. I wanted to make some crocheted edging baby receiving blankets with some flannel that I ordered from Fabric.com.

So, that was pretty much my activity on my birthday. It was a wet Thursday. It rained practically throughout the day. Or was it? I was pre-occupied with the blankets.  So here they are, I've made 3 but ran out of yarn for the first one, thus it's not in the picture. These blankets will debut at IBU Bazaar this Sunday, 18 November 2012 at Publika. The introduction price is RM60.00 These are fully imported, high quality cotton flannel and the edging are made with high quality 100% cotton crochet thread. I made this simple shell edging with the variegated crochet thread and loving the effect. 

Since it's pretty much what I did on my birthday, I'm going to give ONE crocheted edging receiving blanket as my birthday giveaway. Here's what you have to do to qualify for the giveaway:

1. LIKE my fan page: www.facebook.com/madebyrozirahman  (if you haven't already)
2. SHARE this blog post on your Facebook wall
3. and leave a COMMENT at the bottom of this blog post

You can do #1 or #2 or do both but you must do #3 to stand a chance to win an exclusive handmade Crocheted Edging Receiving Blanket. (edit: The comments will be my way of tracking you) You can also state your preference whether you wish for a 'GIRL' or a 'BOY' blanket. 

This giveaway is open now and closes at 12.00 midnight, 30 November 2012. 

Moving on to the next agenda, my next Bazaar appearance will be on Sunday, 18 November 2012 at Publika. It's IBU Charity Bazaar. Here are some line up of the things that I'll be bringing to the bazaar apart from the receiving blankets:

No Sew Tutu

Blanket+Pillow combination=Blankow

Travel Changing Mats

So come and say "HELLO" to me and perhaps bring home a handmade Made by Rozi Rahman :)

UPDATED on 3 Dec 2012: The giveaway is closed. The winner will be announced in the next post

Tutorial: How to attach jumbo ricrac perfectly, every time

It's been ages since I last post a tutorial. So I thought I'd do a simple one on how to attach ric-rac, in my case onto a kitchen towel. I've been married for 10 years now and I'm lucky to have everything in the house ready at my disposal. I practically moved into our home with just a luggage. I never did buy a single kitchen towel ever since we got married so after 10 years, you would imagine that any kitchen towel in my possession looks more like a rag cloth than anything else. So I decided to make some new ones using some face towels that I found at IKEA for RM1.50 a piece.

So, back to my tutorial, the items that you need for a kitchen towel is:
1. 1 IKEA face towel (size: 30cm by 50cm or 12inches by 19 inches)
2. Cotton strip. I made mine 13inches by 4.5inches
3. Jumbo ric-rac. I use the 5/8inch wide

 On the right side of the cotton strip, pin the ric-rac along the long side; matching the bottom of the curve along with the bottom of the fabric.

Stitch over the ric-rac; I use my foot as a guide which is about 1/4inch from the edge and just about right in the centre of the ric-rac. Do it on both the long edge of the fabric.

Once you've attach the ric-rac as mentioned above, just turn the ric-rac over along the stitch line and TADAAA!!! there you have it, a perfectly even ric-rac edging. Just finger press it so it stays in place of if you really have to, run a low heat iron over the fabric. The ric-rac is made of polyester so it doesn't withstand high heat as cotton does.

 This is how it looks like on the other side.

 Place the cotton strip on the towel, perhaps 1to 2 inches from the edge, make sure you have cut your fabric to include the seam allowance on both ends. I made mine an extra 1" long so i can fold in 1/2in seam. Pin it in place like so.

 Stitch as close as you can at the edge of the fabric all round.

TADAA!!! there you have it. A pretty kitchen towel to brighten up any kitchen.

Don't just make one, make a bunch of it. A great way to use up all the scraps. A perfect house-warming gift and you can make some for Christmas sock filler.