Spring Cleaning

I haven’t been sewing this past few days as I’ve been trying to restore some order in my chaotic sewing room. I repurposed 2 book shelves that Azrai threw out. Originally it has 4 tiers but the bottom were rotten so Azrai saw it off and salvaged the top half. I asked him to paint it white. I used one to keep my books and patterns and notions and the other one to keep my fabric stash. Note to self, no more fabric shopping for the year.

This morning, I side-tracked again while folding more fabrics. I found some leftover lycra that was used for my mom’s scarf. I wanted to make one that didn’t use a stiff interfacing on the hood (or commonly called ‘awning’) Here’s me with my prototype taken with Iphone. 

Azrai took the kids out for errands today, leaving me to sew to my heart’s content. I made a prototype of a zipper pouch with a tissue holder at the back. Some sort of a zipper pouch+tissue holder combo.

This one measures approximately 3.5” x 5” which fits the tissue packet very well. Then I had a eureka moment and tried to fit my Iphone into the zipper pouch but the pouch was a bit short. So I adjusted the length and made a second protyotype. I added a carabiner just to see how it looks. Here are the two prototypes side by side:

The adjusted size is approximately 3.5” x 6” and can fit my Iphone. Observe:

So I decided to make a bunch of it to add to the stuff I want to bring to the next Craft Market.

I love the contrast of the colorful zippers. Good thing I bought a few from my last trip to Karysma. I might add some key fobs to go with these pouches.

All in all, it was a productive day :) If only I can sew without interruption everyday... *wishful thinking*

Side tracked - Project Tudung DIY

Last week, I went to Kamdar Kajang with Naza for fabric hunting. I bought some cotton fabric for my baju kurung class at LSN (Read about it here) and picked up some lycra material with the intention of making my own tudung now that I have my overlocker.

I made my own template using my old tudung and here’s my ver 1.1 of tudung DIY:

A lot of tweaking and tuning the machine to get the stitches right. I had to open up the manual, change the foot and use a fine needle. Read a few tutorial from Zila Kassim and Rimbun. The fabric is tricky to handle too. You can’t pull the fabric or the stitch will jump. I spent three quarter of the time undoing the stitches (tetas benang). 

From that, I made the second tudung, ver 1.2. It’s shorter and I chose black as it’s a catch all colour. Something easy for me to grab and wear to fetch Danial from school or go the mamak shop.

Black thread on black fabric is more forgiving. I got away with unsteady stitches. 

And finally, here’s my 3rd tudung, ver 1.3. It’s the same length as ver 1.1 but I cut in a bit more where the fabric is suppose to fall on the shoulder.

Third time’s the charm. Stitches are much better. Work is much neater if I must say so myself. *Pat myself on the shoulder*