Finding my bag-making mojo back: Large Boxy Bag

 Arwen has been stuffing her telekung inside her school bag and when I asked her why, she said she can’t leave her telekung at school because it doesn’t have a bag. A sneaky way of getting me to make a bag for her. And in the process of moving my things from home to RRCraftHub, I’ve found materials I’ve forgotten I had them. One of which is this sweet pink floral material.

Originally, I set out to make a large boxy bag for her telekung. It finishes 12” length by 10” height by 4” depth; too big to fit in her cubbie. so I made a smaller tote with pink cotton webbing.

In the meanwhile, I finished the large boxy bag with leather handles. I’m going to make a few more prototypes with different dimensions just because.... 

4th quarter and 2016 round up

Last day of the year to do a blog entry. I wonder other than the pleasure of personal rambling space, who else would be reading my blog? I wonder what do they think of me? Or should I be bothered what other people think of me? 😕

OK, last post was in September, so here's a quick fourth quarter round up:

October:

I finally took the plunge and bought Embrilliance StitchArtist 1, an embroidery digitizer software to complement my Embrilliance Essential pack. Starting small, I practise with making simple pencil topper. Check out my Instagram (@madebyrozirahman) on the other designs for pencil topper that I’ve digitized.

I initially planned to have the design cut out on heat transfer glitter vinyl and ironed on but the vinyl wasn’t cooperating with me. So I digitize the same design and embroidered it onto Arwen’s black abaya for school. Gorgeous isn’t it?

October 7, 2016; my first class at Sewtizen, Wangsa Melawati. A nice fabric and notion shop which I would love to spend more time at if only it’s not on the other side of Klang Valley.

October 15, 2016; my first class at The Craftsical, Bandar Baru Bangi. Joinly operated by Abby of SarangCraft and Nina Primus. Beaufiful spacious place with fantastic natural light to unleash some creative flow. Congrats Abby and Nina for the venture. For those in search of craft classes, check out The Craftsical on Instagram for their class schedule. 

I’ve dabbled with heat tranfer vinyl and made personalized T’shirts with them. I do take orders for personalized T’shirts with heat transfer vinyl starting from RM25 (depending on design and type of HTV used) Drop me a line if you are interested to have some customized T’shirt made.

November

Joined forces with Mastura Mustaffa aka Rimaumanja for some children craft activities at Muzium Negara on 12 and 13 November 2016.

I have established a regular class at Spotlight, The Mines for knitting and basic sewing. Basic sewing class starts at RM50 for 2 hours especially targetted to those who have not used a sewing machine before. It covers the basics of a sewing machine and how to get started sewing with a sewing machine. My knitting class for regular knitters starts at RM20 for 2 hours. Class normally starts around 10.30am to 12.30pm. It’s biweekly on wednesdays second and third week of the month.

I was again asked to do a Brother’s sewing machine promotion on Go Shop on 21 November 2016. Here’s a group photo of us post live show with the host, Akma Abdullah.

I made new dress for Arwen and a lounge pants for Danial with cotton knit. Bought a nice black print cotton fabric and made Danial’s prayer robe using his old prayer robe as reference. I didn’t quite nail the v collar but it’s passable. Arwen wanted a pencil skirt which she calls her office skirt while trying to explain it to me. I made her one with the leftover cotton knit from her earlier dress.

My first class for Silhouette and heat transfer vinyl. It was priced at RM80 inclusive of t’shirt of your choice and HTV. I’ll be doing some more classes for this in 2017, إن شاء الله .

December:

I made a bunch of this phone pillows and put them at a friend’s booth recently. It’s a phone rest if you’re still wondering what it is. I’m selling them at RM10 each. Let me know if you’re interested in them. 

I made a thank you product tag for my custom t’shirt to have the care instructions for the vinyl. Love the play time with my Silhouette Portrait. I’m also selling my services for custom price tags or thank you tags cut out with Silhouette. I used good quality Kraft paper and thick cardstock.

Testing out some cake toppers. My test partner is Midnight Bakery. Check out their IG for seriously tasty assortment of brownies and butter cakes.

I’ve joined a fantastic group of sewists recently on Facebook and they’ve organized a loop giveaway which I took part as one of the vendor. Check out @modernsewistsmy or my instagram and look out for this photo to take part in the giveaway. There’s still time and it closes on January 8, 2017. There’s five loops in different colours. Follow them all to increase your chance to win a total of RM500 gift cards! 

I’m not much of a scrapbooker or a paper crafter but I’d still give a hand on it because papercraft is something I can do with my daughter. This is a simple mini accordion album my daughter and I worked on to document our short family trip to Taiping. 

 My daughter is one who love to wear accessories. Once when we passed Pandora boutique in Alamanda, she told me that she loves Pandora charm bracelet. Wow! I was dumbfounded. I myself don’t own one yet she expressed preference to one. So I took out my wirecraft bag and made her a simple charm bracelet with whatever charms and beads that I have. Good thing she doesn’t mind if it’s just Mom’s made so long as she gets to wear some jewelry.

Last project for the year I think, a new school backpack for my daughter. Do you know how ridiculously expensive a schoolbag is? Especially that with licenced Disney characters? I’m too stingy to spend money on one but don’t mind the arm wrestling I got putting this bag together. This bag is cost me nothing because everything is from my stash. It’s my first time experimenting with flex foam from Legacy which I bought from Spotlight sometime ago. I love how well it helped the bag keep its structure. Elsa image is printer on printable heat transfer material Arwen’s name is cut out from glitter vinyl. The bag measures 13” height by 10” width with 4” depth. I’ve read up somewhere in the internet on how to get the correct size for a backpack. Basically, you measure from the bottom of your neck to the top of hip to get the length. It is small for Malaysian standard schoolbag I guess but my daughter doesn’t have to carry all her books to school. She has a cubbie to keep her books at school.

2016 Summary:

الحمد لله I’m grateful for what I’ve accomplished for 2016. I’ve grown into sharing what little knowledge I have and evolved as a teacher; a turn of event that I did not foresee. I am humbled to see how the craft community has grown over the years and the presence of new and talented crafters with their creation. I feel old and ancient noticing how young the age group in the craft scene. I counter that with my thirst for knowledge. This year, I took up leather bag making and natural henna drawing. If you check out my instagram, you’d see some random henna drawing and my canvas is of course my daughter’s hands and mine. I would love to expand this art and do more henna drawing but for the time being, I’ve not figured out how to go about doing it yet. I’ll keep that incubated in the meantime and do more practise.

Well, that’s it folks. Thank you for stopping by. I would love to hear from you if you’ve read any of my post or when did you first follow my blog or I ni syok sendiri ke... 

Here’s wishing everybody Happy New Year 2017!

September Run Through

Opps! I didn’t again. I missed out on my blog post for the whole September. OK, lets see if I can round up my activities in a single entry.

Heat Transfer Material

I found a t’shirt supplier online that also provided heat transfer materials. They cater for the custom design t’shirt makers I think but they also accept small orders from the likes of me. So I got some t’shirts for the kids and myself and personalised them.

Danial loves his Star Wars storm trooper Elite Squad t'shirt

Arwen loves her Frozen’s Elsa t’shirt too

 Baby Announcement Pillows

I still make them. There’s a bunch of them delivered to the respective owners. Thank you for your support. I hope you love receiving the pillows as much as I love making them for you. Here’s one that I made recently. You can check out the others in my instagram: @madebyrozirahman.

 Dar Salam’ s To Know Malaysia Exhibition

This happened on the first of September. Arwen is representing the state of Melaka. I cannot make her nyonya kebaya and the ones I found online is ridiculously expensive. So,  we settled for the traditional baju kurung. I love the cheerful and bright floral motive and the contrast of her orange sarung, don’t you?

 School Merdeka Celebration.

Everybody was supposed to wear a traditional costume. Arwen’s baju raya isn’t quite traditional so I had to whip something up only after I made her a baju kurung. This time we went for baju kurung kedah. I obviously I messed up some measurement, it came out slim fitting. The sarung is from her baju raya peplum.

DIY Laminated Fabric

I bought Legacy’s Vinyl Fuse Matte during one of Spotlight’s storewide sale and got it for 40% less. I’ve always wanted to make my own laminated fabric because one, the ready ones are expensive and two, I’m limited to the designs the store has. It isn’t too difficult to make your own laminated fabric; just follow the instructions and you can make your own. I made a simple wristlet purse from one of my earlier stash of Woodland Creatures.

My First Lace Shawl

I’ve always shy away from knitting lace as I’m a sanguine when it comes to crafting. You need to be someone rather Phelgmatic and Melancholic to actually be able to follow the pattern religiously. But then, I get bored easily if it’s all knit or all purl or occasionally ribbing, (that’s the problem with a Sanguine) so I challenge myself to make my first lace shawl.

I got the free pattern from Ravelry. It’s called ASHTON Shawlette. I could have made it with one ball of sock yarn but I made an extra row of the pattern and I had to get another ball of yarn. I was careful to use lifeline and had to frog my work several times too. Thank God for lifelines!

Air Dry Succulent

Always a sucker to pick up a new craft, I went for an air dry succulent workshop conducted by Schila Iskandar, a fellow ACG member. I love it! No issue of my plant dying if I forget to water them.

After call, I bought all the materials needed for more succulents and I made some more. For the next few days I was in succulent heaven :)

Heat Transfer Vinyl

After the successful trial and error experiment with printable heat transfer material, I ordered some heat transfer vinyl. Danial needs a new bag for school so I thought I’d give a try and make his backpack. I duplicated the storm trooper design I did for his t’shirt and cut it out with my Silhouette Portrait. I added Danial’s name for the bag. Long story short, he absolutely love it!

Spotted in Cameron Highlands 

Wedding Gifts

School breaks are peak season for weddings. We had two wedding reception invitation. My go to wedding gift is embroidered couple’s towels. 

Henna Art Workshop 

Idayu, whom I know from a planner group on Facebook and Instagram is an expert henna artist and when she announced that she’d be doing a basic workshop for henna, I quickly contacted her and signed up. I was the eldest in the group when we had the workshop but one with zero knowledge! Luckily, Dayu really went down to basics and 101 of henna art from the way to roll the cello to how to draw the henna design. 

She gave each participants 2 cones of natural henna and I put them to good use and guess who is my canvas? I love the smell of natural henna and nowadays the henna artists would add essential oils into the henna mix. I love the ones Dayu made where she mixed lavendar essential oil into it. Arwen loves it too. It became a therapy for both Arwen and me. I doodle at least once a week when the henna stain clears up on my hand or Arwen. I’d do a new design.

Arwen’s 3 Way Bag

OK, last but not least for the month of September. Arwen wanted another bag too after seeing how Danial loves his backpack. So I took out my old Cath Kidston stash and made her a 3 way bag. It has 2 handles which she can carry like a tote and the long strap can be attached as a crossbody bag or a backpack.

Leather Necessary Clutch Wallet

You know when you have all the tools out, you might as well make the most of it before you start cleaning up and put them back in their proper storage. After Danial’s back quiver, and my mystery braid key fobs, I decided to dive into making my leather version of NCW to replace my old fabric NCW. I had to make a new one because I broke the turnlock of my old purse. 

Since I have the pattern, I printed a new set of pattern and adjusted them to take away the seam allowance. Working with leather, I don’t need the seam allowance. In the original pattern, the flap was done separately. For my leather version, I glued the flap to the body pattern and use it as a template to cut out the whole external piece of the NCW.

I used a 2mm vegetan leather and stained it light brown. My wool douber has felted after only a few uses and it gave the streaking effect on the leather. I like it. It looks like wood grain. Before anything else, I have to fix the turn lock.

I used a mix of leather for the interior of the purse. A nice soft lamb skin for the side gusset and card pockets (I didn’t trim it to reduce bulk, I should have). The other pockets were from scrap leather that I bought from Yee Button. All the pieces were painstakingly hand-stitched. The most difficult part was to stitch the sides for the divider and zipper pocket. After I stitched one side, I realised I could have just used rivets instead. Duh!

I love the look of my new leather NCW and have changed my purse. I wanted to attached some D rings so I can hook my strap and wear the purse as a cross body. 

A special project for a special new arrival

Erpha passed me this lovely fabric sometime October last year and asked me to make her a diaper bag. I was honored that a skilled seamstress like Erpha trusted me with this pet project. ( Check out her blog here) We bounced emails between each other to get some ideas on what kind of diaper bag she would want to have. I scoured the internet for some inspirations, sent her some photos, asked some questions, she gave her input and I made lots of doodles on my sketch book. 

I have the basic design in my head. The tricky part was to work out the dimensions so that everything falls together. Erpha sent me a 15” zip along with the fabric. 

Then, it took a back seat in my list of projects as I took part in Crafty Art Bazaar in December and needed to prepare some ready made items for stock. In the meanwhile, I spent more time on the drawing board finding the best way to translate the design from drawing board to the sewing machine. 

I knew Erpha is slowing down on her sewing activities in January to prepare for her baby. I made a promise to myself to finish the bag by Chinese New Year and have it sent to her before January ends. Oh, and I resolved to get cracking on it after my first bazaar for 2012 in Berjaya Times Square. Read about it here.I needed to get into the zone, no more excuses.

I finalized my designs during the Chinese New Year public holidays. Prepare the panels and ironed the interfacing, cut and attached the batting to the interrior panels with adhesive spray and what have you.

I just love the fabric. It’s the French Journal collection by Micheal Miller fabric. It’s the motivation I need to see to the completion of this project. I took my time to sew this bag and took great care at putting it together. It’s a real labour of love. I have a reputation to keep. Making a bag to a seamstress with exquisite touch in smocking, I have to make the bag equally exquisite, if not better.  I picture a beaming new mom with her bundle of joy, toting this bag. Proud of her new baby and proud to carry this diaper bag and call it her own. That’s why I dubbed this bag, the ERPHA bag :)

It measures approximately 12”(length) x 13”(height) x 6” (deep) at the bottom with a zippered closure of 15” long. It’s fully padded; 2 bellow pockets on the exterior sides with pearl snaps closures; 2 small bellow pockets on the interior and a bigger bellow pocket with capped snap closure on the opposite side. Check out the pictures below for details.

It’s going to it’s owner next week. Plus, a sweater for Mr. Dodo. From what I heard, Mr. Dodo is not feeling too well and has lost some weight. I just hope the sweater still fit him.