Easter altar cloth

Easter is round the corner hence busy sewing altar cloths with easter theme

Kai's quilt

Felix (my nephew) has been sending us pictures of his little boy Kai and he is really cute... and looks a bit matured for his age!

I think these are real cute photos of him - being punished (having to pull his ears?), sulking(alone on a chair in the corner?) and he does look rather "old" for such a little boy in the last picture!

I made a quilt for Kai for his full moon and I hope he will find good use for it! it has got magicians etc (see pix). I do like to make quilts for my nephews and nieces' babies now to remember me by! So far I have the priviledge to present quilts to Kai, William Lai, Megan Wong and also Alfred Lai! and the quilts are waiting for more grandnephews to come of course!

Most recent photo of Kai

Agnes's Fortune Cat piano cover

I finally managed to deliver Agnes's piano cover and cushions in time for CNY 2007! I owed Agnes a set of cushion covers for 2006 because my delivery is so bad and she would not let me forget about it!

Here are the items in its rightful place - hope it managed to get some fortune for Agnes and her family! See Agnes's princess Jia Yi posing with the fortune cat cushions!

Blue & white

This blue & white quilt belongs to Pek Hoong. I could not make it in time for her wedding! Look at the love ring and also the love swans!

Japanese king size quilt

This is a quilt stitched using Japanese fabrics and designs. I made it for my elder sister Rosemary in 2004. There are symbols such as the Shinto shrine gates, yin yang, pigeons in Mistletoe etc. Most of the designs were from the book Circles of the East by Kumiko Sudo.

Bags and more bags to come

Recently I was inspired to make bags after subscribing to Quilt Japan. Here are 2 bags which I completed recently.

The "Fortune cat" bag was made in time for Chinese New Year to enable me to receive some good fortune. Well, I have not seen much "fortune" come in but I hope fortune comes in other ways like happiness, health for 2007.

I used to bring lunch to work using some paper bags and I decided to make for myself a lunch bag using strong denim cloth as the paper bags would break easily. I appliqued some "hearts" onto the bag using some decorative stitches. I also sewed some decorative buttons onto the handle so that I can reuse the handles if I wish to do so. It also makes it easier to wash the bag as I can remove the handles.

X'mas tree ornaments

Would you like some X'mas tree ornaments which are really unique this year?

You can hang these ornaments on your X'mas tree individually or string them together to hang around your house. They are really cute and has front and back. Do let me know if you are interested as I have limited stock of these specialty items.

Nien nien yu yi & Fook cushions (for CNY)

This pair of fish cushions are very symbolic and ideal for Chinese New Year. If you are interested, please feel free to contact me for next CNY cushions! I also have some nice Japanese fish fabrics to make the fish cushions.

Animal's in love

Here is another marvel using one of my embroidery machines. It was a b'day present to Agnes princess Jia Yi!

Jungle quilt - Gazelle

This "jungle" theme quilt was designed by my niece, Gazelle. I stitched it for her to remind her of animals in her favourite hang-out "The Farm" in Malaysia - the monkey (named Brandy), dog (named Dickie), the tortoise as well as the birds and other animals.

The quilt has been signed specially for Gazelle, made with love by Aunty Marg. It was completed in 2004.

Circles of the East - Kumiko Sudo cushions

This series of cushion designs are based on the designs in the books Circles of the East by Kumiko Sudo. All cushions are made from Japanese fabric and quilted using free motion quilting. I have put piping in the cushions to complement it.

This book has a series of 30 designs. It can be made into cushions or a quilt. If you are interested in any of these designs please feel free to contact me.

Japanese specialty cloth products

My favourite place to shop for fabric is Japan, of course! I have been to Japan 6 times and I never tire of their fabrics especially the designs and the colours. I was in Japan recently for CNY 2007 (Kobe, Nara, Osaka and Kyoto) and all I bought from Japan was fabrics!

I love their "specialty fabrics", actually these pieces of fabrics are used to wrap lunch boxes or gifts. I buy them to make cushions as I like to have a collection of different cushions. Here are 2 cushions which I recently finished in time for Chinese New Year 2007.

Flowerbed

Look at this pretty quilt with the lovely flowers. I have made a special border for it too. If you are interested to have this quilt on your bed do let me know as it is still available.

Teddy crazy

I found some lovely Teddy fabric in Wellington when I was there for X'mas and also some borders which complemented the centrepiece Teddy. As my friends know, I am a fabric-holic, collecting fabrics wherever I go, so far in the following countries: Japan, NZ, US, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, UK etc.......

The outcome of my collection of Teddy fabric is this cute Teddy quilt and my friend Gan presented it to his little nephew for his 1st birthday. I hope he will be happy with the quilt in years to come!

Quilt fit for a princess!

I managed to finish this very colourful quilt in time for CNY 2007 for Agnes's princess! I bought this lovely piece of cloth in US and it has a fairytale story.

The blocks have pictures depicting "once upon a time there was a princess in a magical kingdom....... came a prince, princess was up the tower....... fell in love and lived happily ever after".

I had to be really careful to choose the borders to match the cloth and I found some lovely fabric in Kelvin's shop which I frequent every Saturday, so that I do not fall asleep on my couch if I am at home trying to do some patchwork projects during the weekend!

To complement the centre of the quilt I also appliqued using blanket stitch some story of "magicians". Kelvin finished some of the machine quilting for me as I have not perfected the art of doing curves using freehand motion quilting techniques.

X'mas quilt for my niece - Yasmin

I made this X'mas quilt as a present for my niece Yasmin and presented it to her when I was in Wellington for X'mas 2006.

I love X'mas items as the colours (green & red) are very vibrant. I went "nuts" collecting X'mas embroidery designs on my favourite site. http://www.emblibrary.com.

Takes a long time to do a piece of embroidery but the effort is worth it!

I have personalised the quilt for her too...it says "Yasmin, Merry X'mas, Aunty Marg".

Embroidery crazy too

Some of my friends know I am sewing machine crazy. I have 4 machines and they are state of the art machines - Bernina Aurora 440e, Bernina Artista 200e (sewing machine cum embroidery machine), Bernina overlocker and also a Janome MC300 (embroidery).

My current favourite is to do applique as well as machine embroidery. I made heaps of "fortune cat" cushions for the Chinese New Year.

Here is an example of one of the cushions.

Refer to the following site for explanations on the Japanese fortune cat http://www.amy.hi-ho.ne.jp/~mono93/cat/english/what_e.html