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.

Twin Nephews and an Inspiration

Yesterday, we visited my sister inlaw who just gave birth to a pair of twin boys; Dylan Ahmad and Aydan Omar at Pantai Medical Centre. Only Aydan was in the room with the new mommy as Dylan was taken to NICU for observation. Here's Aydan on day 2. Isn't he precious?

Aydan Omar

 I made a nursing pillow earlier on when I received the news of the births. Below is my in-house model with the pillow and I gave a matching nursing cover along with it.

Nursing pillow with slipcover

 Last night, while I was browsing the internet on the ipad for ideas of a newborn baby gifts and I came across a tutorial on sunshine plushie here. And if you search for images you'd find similar plushies with different faces. I saw one that I like and it looked more like a lion's head, than a sunshine so I couldn't decide to go with which one. I made mine with white flannel and monogrammed the twins initials on the back of the plushies and simply love it. I drew the face freehand and blanket stitched an oval shaped brown felt for the nose and buttons for the eyes.

Aren't they just the cutest?

Bazaar #10: Little Red Market

It seems like a whole life time ago since I last opened a booth at a bazaar. That's me exaggerating. My last bazaar was before fasting month in July. I took a break throughout fasting month as my mother in-law was staying with us while the maid went back for a month break. Having a guest around didn't quite allow me to sew to my heart's content and my sewing room was reduced to a store room where the kids' toys and what have you were chucked there to make room for my MIL. She took the kids' room so the kids bunked with us. 

Alhamdulillah, the maid came back as promised to resume her tour of duty on Merdeka day. That day brings a special meaning of 'Merdeka' to me. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't hard to take care of my MIL. But it was tough emotionally for all of us especially when her memory is failing her. I'm just glad to put that episode behind me. 

I was quiet the whole of August too where I couldn't face clearing the tsunami-hit sewing room. I resorted to knitting, rag-rugging with the jumbo hooks and other stuff that doesn't require me to go and clear the room. I even lugged out the sewing machine and parked it on my dining table to sew baju raya for my kids and myself and even made a bigger mess.

I am so good at side-tracking aren't I? This is supposed to be about the upcoming Little Red Market.

I finally bucked up and cleared my room. Let me show you the before picture:

You can't even see the surface of my working table nor the surface of the floor! This is no exaggeration.

After a whole morning at it, things looked up and the room looks more workable:

I had to use the safety gate to keep Arwen out of the room or I'll never get anything done. The writing on the whiteboard were the list of things to make for Little Red Market last May!!!! 

This is going to be my 3rd appearance at Little Red Market. My association with Little Red Market started in February this year where I joined them for the first time for their 2nd LRM in a residence in Jalan Beka, Bukit Damansara. I went there without any expectation as I was curious on how are they going to pull crowd in to a private residence. But the reception completely blew my mind. I was busy from the word 'GO'. 

In May, they moved to White Box, Publika and I followed them. Bigger venue, more vendors, bigger crowd. Loving it more.

This time around, I need to put on my thinking cap and start making new things for the bazaar. I came out with my chalk mats and banners which was a runaway success, baby bibs and binkie clips sold well too. 

So for the 4th Little Red Market and the last for the year (according to the banner), I made new items: Wet bags with PUL lining, Tunisian Crochet Ipad cosy, and my very own Blankow, a Blanket and pillow combination.

There's more... want to see what else I have? Follow me on my fanpage on Facebook and make a date with me at the Little Red Market on Sunday, 14 October 2012 at WhiteBox, Publika.