Turtle Pincushion - Greeny & Pinky

Did you get it right? [click here to see the question]. Yup, the hexagon quilt is for the back of my little turtle pincushion. Let me introduce ***drum roll***** WELCOME, Ms.Pinky and Mr. Greeny!!!
I created Greeny as an experiment, if you go back to my hexagon quilt tutorial post, you will see Greeny is hiding in the background as I photographed the steps. From idea, to paper, to sewing and finally the birth of my turtle pincushion, I created my first sea creature. The project went on smoothly and I never thought that I can be successful in the very first trial. Lucky me, I think!The toughest part for the hexagon quilting is the fabric matching part. I sat in my craft room with my pile of fabrics around me ***matching matching matching***, half a day gone by and I still can't make up my mind which colour theme to choose. Finally I decided to have a green male turtle, this is how Greeny was created and got his name!
Draw, draw, draw, cut, cut, cut and sew, sew, sew... taa daa.... here he is, exactly like what I had in mind! Yippy yah yah yah!!!He is so cute that I couldn't help myself and wanted to make another one. Mmmm, may be I should make one for my sister. She is as "crafty" as me and her work is so fine that every piece made is perfect. I will add her works into my blog to share with you all, and I hope she will grant me the permission to do so.
Ok, coming back to my turtle tale: --- Since Greeny is a male turtle, I want to make him a girlfriend [they ended up apart when I gave her away to my sister, sob, sob, sob :( ] .
What colour symbolize feminity? ***Pink***, yeah!!! I have some left-over pink felt from Chi-Chai Monchan felting that I had used as a part of the purse for my friend Sumay.
Sew, sew, sew.... Pinky is hatched!!!
Pinky is the improved version of Greeny, I made a bottom shell for her which Greeny doesn't have. I even machine-sew her back for 2 more circles to add more dimension. She has bigger eyes, she even has eye-lashes on it but it is too short to see in the photos :p

Ouch, ouch, ouch!!! Hubby said that I am too heartless, poking needles into them, wouldn't I feel their pain? They are pincushion afterall!!! So, I decided to fully utilize them by poking more pins into them.... Ouch, ouch, ouch!!!

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Basic Hexagon Quilting - Tutorial

I am doing bit of hexagon quilting during the weekend for a project. I am not telling what it is, you got to guess. Some photos here should give you a great hint!!! I will post up the finished piece, so come back later to check out. See if you get it right! Sorry, no prize!
Since I am doing it, I photographed the steps just to show you the process to make a hexagon quilt.
First, you need to cut out the hexagon shape cardboards and fabrics of your choice. The size of the fabric must be big enough so that you can fold it over like the picture shown below. An estimation of double the size of your hexagon cardboard is required.
Tack stitch the fabric while folding it to the cardboard as shown. This is to secure the fabric in place in the shape of a hexagon.

The back.The front.

With front facing each other, sew the 2 pieces up. Only pick the fabric to sew, not the cardboard.
After sewing a centre piece surrounding by 6 hexagons, you will get a flower look of 6 petels. The one I made (as shown on the first photo) is slightly different where I have 2 centre pieces and that make it look elongated like an oval shape. That is going to be my secret project that I will tell you later. So, stay tuned!

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Craft Fair: Baby Quilt Blanket

Aren't these 2 baby quilt blankets lovely? If I have the time, I would make one for my new born baby who is due to arrive very (yes, very very) soon. Don't they look warm and cozy!!!!

Wow, I have so many plans and future projects. I feel so excited about them that I feel as though I am "neglecting" of my baby who is still in my womb. Ha ha ha Hubby thought that I must be crazy to get too involved in handicraft and setting up a blog at this point of time. I told him this is what having a hobby is, you must love it before you can put such patience and effort on it. Moreover, handicraft is really a time consuming hobby, you can't produce a good work if you rush to finish it. Luckily he is a very supportive person which makes me feel so happy and secure :)

I am currently working on some purses and handbags project using sewable metal frames. Each of them takes me about 3 days to 2 weeks to complete. I will post them in the blog once I have enough material to show. It could be in month's time or more as I don't know how attached my baby will be (or vice versa). Well, just hope that I will have some of my own time to do what I like while take care of my baby.....

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Craft Fair: Hexagon Quilt Blanket

This blanket recalls childhood nostalgia. We (with siblings) helped my mum make this while I was in primary school, in return for the hard work and time spent, each of us have a warm and homely cozy piece of blanket that lasts for years, which is priceless.
About the process and work, I remember my mum needs to trace and cut out lots of hexagon templates from cardboard, all must be in equal size. Then collected lots of loose pieces of cloths with all kind of textures, colours and patterns; cut them into a slightly bigger size than the hexagon template. Then she has to fold and loosely stitch the cloth to the hexagon tamplate in such a way that they form equally size of hexagon just like those shown in the picture above. This is not all, she then matched the colours of the centre piece and the surrounding 6 pieces so that they look like a piece of flower. After that, the most important step.... hand sewing them up!!!! Hand sewing is the most time consuming process and need skill to make a good piece of creation. In order to encourage us to produce a good work, my mum will pay us each 5 cent for each quality flower that we have made, ha ha ha that was my first part-time income!!! Once completing a sufficient amount of flowers, match the tone and colours again, this time my mum will sew all the flowers into a big piece of blanket. All in all, the process took months to complete!
Thanks to my mum, without her encouragement and motivation, I will not be interested in handicrafts, a hobby and skill that can produce so many unique crafts that we can't get from the market, not to mentioned the satisfaction to see a new creation made by my own hand.

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