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.

Our urban stroll

2 October 2008

Today Peen took the day off. Yay!!! :) We call him the LF. Har har.

We decided to go shopping. It's been a while and the primary objective was to buy him some clothes. We decided on Vivo City and we went after Kim's morning nap. She took a long time to fall asleep. Thot I'd get her to sleep in her cot but this was what she ended up doing the entire time - trying to stand up to admire the art on the wall. :)

Had lunch at the food court upstairs and Kim had her own lunch which consisted of fish, spinach, pumpkin and brown rice cereal. Her food is pretty standard these days cos she doesn't seem to want to eat alot of other stuff. Or maybe I haven't tried? Hmm...

Well, I must say that we had a very successful outing. We bought clothes for Peen. There were two pairs of casual pants (one grey and one brown) and two short sleeved shirts (white and charcoal grey). Quite nice. Couldn't post the pants up cos they have gone for alterations.

I went into Toy R Us for the first time since Kim was born. I think we have resisted that for a long time. We also bought quite a number of things for her "development":

1) magic board (like she can write yet loh)

2) animal puzzle

3) shape sorter

4) classic beads on wire

5) flash cards

Here is a video of Kimmy riding on Peen at Toys R Us.

Hmmm....nothing for mommy. Think next shopping trip will have to be for mommy. Until the next urban stroll then.

1 October 2008

What a full and eventful day it was yesterday.

In the morning, we went to Punggol Park with the whole family. That means the two doggies were included. We had originally wanted to bring them to West Coast dogrun but it was raining the day before and according to the weather forecast, rain in the morning too so we decided to go somewhere nearby instead.

The doggies took a while to get used to walking beside the pram. Dopey had tyre marks on his body cos the wheel was just so big. I think he had his paws run over a few times cos he kept so close to the pram.

We saw a man who offered to take the photos for us with Peen in it. Peen declined politely. I was a little apprehensive cos he looked a little dodgy. Then he followed us for a bit, calling out to our dogs and Kim. Like yikes!!! I was trying to walk VERY briskly away without appearing to be doing so. The picture is too small to see my facial expression and yes, that is the guy there.

When we got home, Peen immediately started to busy himself in the kitchen. He was cooking chicken rice for lunch!!! I've complained about how I keep hearing him talk about the numerous things that he can cook but never got to sample it, so here we are. :)
There was the white and roast chickens too! Wah, such a feast. It was yummy! The rice was very good. It can be more fragrant but already as it is, it's really delicious. The roast chicken was alright. It wasn't quite like the roast chicken for chicken rice but the white chicken was nice. A little salty but otherwise, GOOD. :) Well done, Peeny flea!

It was also Hari Raya Puasa yesterday.

We were invited to Nora's (Peen's

colleague's) parents' place for dinner. Man, the food was really really good. But her mum didn't really want to share recipe so I guess there is no chance to replicate it.....as if we could!

Here are photos of Nora and her mum carrying Kimmy. Kimmy was a little uneasy amongst strangers but we later warmed up. However, she was still apprehensive to be carried by Nora's mum. Guess she's not used to the head scarf.

We starved poor baby cos we didn't bring her dinner out. We thought we'd not be long. So she had to make do with milk on the way home. But she woke up after the car ride and was all ready for dinner. I whipped up something really quick - Nestum, breakfast cereal and pear. She ate all of it!

Well, aside from daddy and mummy calling her scar face at the moment, she is also periodically known as crusty nostrils. Haha. See the photo above? It's cos she smears her snort all over. Poor baby. Hope she gets completely well real quick.

Kimberley at 9 months

Well, Kimberley is now all of 9 months, going on 10 months. She has started crawling (long awaited!!!). Though it started with really dainty steps, she has managed to hunt down Chyna from time to time. Here is a video of her taking her little steps and pausing to dance to background music.

She simply adores Chyna and would always crawl after her to try to get her little hands in her thick fur. When she sees daddy patting Chyna, she would definitely want to be part of the action too.

Last Thu 25 Sep, we took her to the beach for her to play with sand. I read somewhere online that at 9 mths and 3 weeks, she now knows that objects though hidden, are still there. So the suggested activity was to bury her toys while she is watching and let her find them. Of course, we didn't quite get to the activity but we just watched her as she experienced sand with her little hands and feet for the first time.

Kimmy fell sick for the third time (meaning since she was born) last week. It has been about 4 days now. Fever off and on. Coughing and running nose. She has never had so much snort before. I think she is really quite bothered by it. Poor baby. She keeps rubbing her button nose. She even scratched herself really badly. I suspect she was trying to scratch off her nose. :) Silly goose. I shall attempt to take a photo of that scratch later tonight.