Large grandmother's pants into something nice? (part 2)

Ok, remember I was trying to figure out how to make this dress more flared at the bottom so Kim doesn't have it all bunched up around her hips? You can see from the photo that she can hardly lift her leg. It was just too tight.

Well, I gave it alot of thought and I finally decided that I had to use the other side of the pants instead of amending this one because I had snipped off the width allowance (of the already made dress) around the chest so that it would be more snug and since I would be making (I don't even know what to call it) an upside down V down the back of the dress, it meant that I would need more fabric for joining of the seams.

I didn't have enough of the orginal fabric so I used this one to make the inner layer.

I can't even begin to explain what I did and how I did it. I basically cut a rectangular piece that was almost the length of the dress - almost cos I didn't need it to go all the way to the shirred area. And I folded the two lengths inwards so that I got an isoceles triangle. That would make the inner fabric but I wanted it to have a fold when opening out so I had to do a zig zag fold and then stitch the pieces together. For the top part, I simply sewed the shirred parts together, straight at first along the shirred part and then curved towards the edge like a curved L just to close the area. Ok, I don't know if that made any sense. I just was too impatient to get the dress done to take pics.

I had to make the straps from the second fabric and I added some lace to it. Finally, it is completed.

So here is what Kim will be wearing on her birthday.

Front of dress


Back of dress


Matching bottom of course

Here is Kim wearing the dress. Difficult model she is. Very hard to get her to pose and take a nice pic in decent lighting.

Hurrah. End of this project. Just in time for her birthday next week.

Look what came in the mail

Have been waiting for a parcel in the mail. Lorraine had sent two pairs of shorts for Kim for her birthday and a corresponding shorts pattern for me to follow. Yay!!

It arrived on Wed this week and here is wat we got! So cute the two pairs of shorts! Thanks Lorraine. And the cool pattern to follow. But I will need to reread her tutorial and make sure I get the steps right. :)

Now I can put these pairs of pants (which I also bought from Punggol Plaza for $2 each) to use. I love the prints. They are so cute.

Well, I started by unpicking the pair of pants. Wanted to save every bit of the fabric so I unpicked every single thing instead of snipping it off. It took me all of one day in between feeds, entertaining Kimmy and what not. I started with the pink one just in case I make mistakes, which of course I did. So hopefully, with the experience, I would make fewer mistakes on the green one, which is my preferred of the two. It's got pigs! And Kim is well, born in the year of the pig! Haha. Not that it would matter to her.

Well, here is the finished product. Yay. Am quite happy with it. I had the most problematic time with the machine. It just refused to do top stitches so had to keep trying it again and again. Somehow miraculously, it worked so I managed to complete it so here it is.

Kimmy & Chyna....a friendship develops

Kimmy adores Chyna. Since Kimmy was about 7 months, she had taken a keen interest in Chyna - her furry friend. She would enjoy watching her mangle her toy teddy while she pointed at her and chuckled. She had also learnt to sign "dog" by patting her thigh and inevitably do that when she saw Chyna. Incidentally, she does that same sign at every animal that she sees now.

As she wasn't all that mobile, she depended on us to bring them together so that she could pat Chyna and run her fingers through her fur, and of course, tug at her tail and pull at her paws.

Here are some pictures of Chyna and Kimmy looking out of the window together.


Here is one time when we put Chyna next to her and she was positively thrilled. She looked so cheeky, like she was going to do something really naughty. I think Chyna knew! Look, she was going to run off!



On a few rare occasions, Chyna would actually take an interest in Kimmy. Kimmy would be very tickled (literally) but pleased.

As she got more mobile, she would crawl after her furry friend, just so that she could pat her but she was usually 5 steps behind her furry friend. There are those precious moments when she managed to get to Chyna before she ran off somewhere else.

Recently, Chyna seems to have warmed up to her somewhat and would even take time to interact with her and check out Kimmy's toy for the moment. Look at the pics below. Awww...so love.

Chyna gets a massage and ear rub every night. Sometimes, several. Kimmy has realised that this is a nightly routine and would want to be a part of it. Actually, she just wants to hug and pat Chyna and rub her face in her fur. She then giggles. I think she finds it ticklish but thrilling at the same time and keeps on doing it until Chyna is off the bed. This is now part of her winding down routine! :)

What a wonderful start to a friendship. Chyna is such a sweetheart and she is the only one who is always able to cheer Kimmy up.

Year End Family Time

It is coming to the end of the year. We've toyed with the idea of going away for a short break but prices have all gone up. With Kimmy, it'll be a little difficult where food is concerned as well. So we thought we'd have a hotel stay but the dates we wanted in the hotels were booked up. We ended up with Peen taking time off and us just filling the days with activities (a main one). We called it the home holiday.

24 Nov

We decided that the zoo would be the activity of the day. Ended up making a late trip near lunch time instead of the early morning after Kimmy's breakfast. Actually, it was cos we were all just moving really slowly.

Kimmy is now alot more responsive to her surroundings. She would wave at the people and animals that she sees....in the car park, at the restaurant, at the lift lobby, in the zoo. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that she looks a little upset (or wondering why) she doesn't get a friendly response from others. I suppose it is a stark contrast to her very enthusiastic parents and grandparents who are absolutely thrilled when she takes the initiative to wave or tell us where her head is. But I guess she will need to learn that it's ok that others aren't as friendly.

On this trip, we saw rhinos, African Lions, some monkeys, and went to the new Playland for kids. She was in awe of the Lions and sat on Daddy's shoulders watching them feed on chicken (poor things). The entire time she had her mouth wide open and drooled continuously. We went to the playland and she saw rabbits. Refused to pet them and was content to smile at the guy who was carrying it for her to see.

Of course we had to visit the White Tigers enclosure and took this photo.




25 Nov

Our anniversary.

We went swimming with the Chengs at Chinese Swimming Club.



Claire kept saying how cute Kim is and how she wished Kim was her sister. Hmm... Time for the Chengs to have number 4?

Here are Joel and Kim going down the slide with Claire. Note the contrast in reactions.





She still preferred amusing herself with the water.



In the evening, we decided that we would go out for dinner alone. So we left Kimmy at Neptune Court with mum. We basically got there, set up her chair and food for mum and scooted off. According to mum, Kimmy didn't realise that we were gone. Until mum asked her where Chyna was. That was when she looked around for the dog and realised that we weren't there and started to cry. She then fretted off and on and mum had to bring her downstairs to look at the cats just to distract her. When we returned to pick her, she was sobbing away. She looked so sad. Poor baby.


26 Nov

We decided to go supermarketing so we went to Giant at Tampines. It's our new hangout. The place is huge and the foodcourt there has very decent food. Basically bought lots of stuff to do batch cooking of Kim's food.

Mini Christmas pressies project

Made a trip to Spotlight yesterday and bought some stuff. It was such an exciting place. I never knew so many things existed. My eyes were almost popping out and I was really excited but had to restrain myself and pace the purchases as I can't possibly embark on so many projects at one time and certainly the pocket will not allow it. So here is the stash from Spotlight and Carefour for the kids' pressies this Christmas.

I followed this tutorial and here is the first product.

I sewed too close to the edges so I couldn't trim them with the pinking shears. Also realised that the colour pink for the pockets are a little light and it gets dirty all too quickly, even when I was inserting the crayons into them.

Also, my top stitching wasn't very nice so I was sewing and redoing them till I got a little worried cos the felt started getting furry. Thankfully, it was much better after I pressed it.

Here is the second one. To improve on my first one, I did the following:

1) sewed from the bottom edge of the pocket towards the opening instead of the other way so that I could do a backstitch at the end to reinforce the opening of the pocket with inside piece together. Also, cos I'll be doing a final top stitch on the bottom, it didn't matter as much if the threads unrevelled at the bottom as if they did at the top opening of the pockets. You'll be trimming that away in any case.

2) Made sure I gave a slightly wider allowance so that I could pink the edges.

These first two are for girls as you can tell from the colours used. The next one is for a boy so I didn't think ribbons would be suitable. Instead, I gave it a flap and used velcro instead. This is what it looked like. Again, the outer yellow is a tad too light and is already stained! :(

So..that's three pressies done in one day. Rather productive. Cool. Am pleased that I'm better with those top stitches after the first one and didn't have to redo them again and again.

Just a quick mental note. Would be good to stock up on ribbons and elastic straps on the next shopping trip.

Large grandmother's pants into something nice?

After my first attempt at a sewing project, I was eager to start on my second one. So off I went to the nearest place I thought might have some stuff that I could pick up. I went to Punggol Plaza, recalling that there was a store in the wet market that sold some sewing supplies.

I was wrong. It now sells food. :( Oh well. But the trip was not in vain cos in the plaza area, I found this pair of large grandmother's pants. It's huge. And I mean huge. But I thought that the print was kinda cute and it had smocking at the waist area which I thot was kinda nice (I have absolutely no idea where I can get this sort of fabric here?). It could possibly make a nice dress.

So I cut the pants into two parts. One part I'm keeping for another time when I get to go buy some fabric to make a dress with a gathered skirt. The other part, I used and sewed the sides together and trimmed the bottom and used the extra fabric to make two strips for the shoulder straps. I thought it would be simple enough.

So here is Kim in the finished dress.

I thought it looks really cute. But the problem is that the dress is so straight and too fitting so it has tendency to ride up and bunch up. Hmmm.... Maybe that is why Lorraine suggested to attach a gather skirt to a bodice instead. Now I need to think about how to make the dress a little more flared.

To be continued.....till I can figure out what to do to the bottom part of the dress.

Thus begins my sewing hobby

I was inspired by my friend, Lorraine's blog. She is just so blessed with such creative juice . She is "so accomplished" as Jane Austen would say, for she sings, dances, cooks, and sews all day long and makes really creative things for her kids that even I want!

So last Monday 11 Nov , we finally got hold of a working machine, courtesy of my MIL's seamstress. She was going to take a look at our second hand machine that wasn't working and even loaned me one to play around with meanwhile. Then we went to Ikea after collecting the machine, and bought some fabric. It was the only decent looking fabric which I thot I could turn into a dress of some sort for Kimmy.


Here is the tutorial that inspired me to try a dress as my first project! Talk about ambitious. That night, I proceeded to make a cute spaghetti dress for Kimmy when she was finally asleep. It took me about 2h 45mins in all. And here is the end result.
Here is Kimmy in the outfit but without the final hem done.



I was very pleased with my first project, though the finish wasn't great. I even made a sling bag for her to go along with the dress and a diaper cover.

I guess I shall now be brave enough now to venture onto other projects. It was definitely a very different sewing experience as compared to my only other experience in school. It's fun and very addictive too! Will need to begin to stock up on haberdasheries then. This is exciting. :)

Kimberley is now 11 months

It's been 11 months since we first welcomed the little girl into our lives and I can't believe that it's only a month left before she turns 1.

She's been such a sweetheart in our family. She loves to make funny faces to amuse everyone. She makes her grandparents laugh at the dinner table with her cheeky looks and yells out to us when everyone is watching TV instead of paying attention to her.

She adores Chyna and loves patting her. She has also learnt to sign "dog" and would constantly remind us that she knows it by repeating the sign over and over again. Her favourite ad is the Fedex dog commercial where she would point with her four fingers and go, "Aah!" She squeals and screams her girly scream whenever she feels like it.

Kimmy's favourite Fedex commercial

This is Kimmy when watching her favourite commercial. Completely glued to the screen.

She has learnt to shake her head and would do it cheekily when you say, "shake shake shake". It almost seems like a part of her dance moves. She still loves music and would inevitably bounce and rock, whether seated or standing, and rock back and forth while crawling, in response to the music.

She sits on her rocker and hops across the kitchen to get to her destination and just keeps flapping her arms and now tries to do that with her high chair.

Sometimes when playing by herself, she would hum little tunes along with the lyrics "Mmmm, mmm, mmm...".

Her first four teeth have broken her toothless grin. The top two are huge and are almost twice the size of the bottom two. Biting her fingers whenever she remembers, it seems more are coming out now. Still, her cheeky ways are undaunted.

During bath time, she would sometimes bend over and lick the water surface. Such thrill she gets from that. Splishing and splashing in the water is her favourite, causing us to be drenched along with her. She loves that her action causing the bubbles to foam and can't understand why she can't feel or hold the bubbles. She loves to spin around in the tub. So round and round she goes. She has started to bend over the edge of the tub and wipe the wet floor, as if to clean it. She loves to feel the squirting water with her tiny fingers and when you squirt water at her tummy, she sucks it in.

Before bedtime, I would sit crossed legged with her on my legs. We would read a few books together, me reading and her pointing and going, "Mmmm, Mmmm!" She loves pointing at the bath sponge.

Her little ways are so adorable and we will definitely miss this period when she is so tiny and is only just crawling and pulling to a standing position. When she points her four fingers and exclaims loudly. When she keeps patting her thighs to tell us she sees the dogs. When she sits on her butt and rotates round and round. When she is still small enough to sit on our lap.

I love my little girl, more than I ever imagined I would. This is my favourite look of hers - when she does her mega pout with her lips.