My Baby Erfan Turns One!

Yup, on the 27th of April my lil honey bug turned 1 and I still can't believe how fast time flies...Goodbye baby and welcome toddlerhood!

We had a small family celebration at my parents' place in Bangi. I wanted Erfan's first birthday celebration to be special even if we are not having a full on birthday party, I still wanted to have a theme and plan around and sew the decor myself. Brace yourself for pic heavy entry! :D

First up, the cake! I wanted a bright aqua and red, baby elephant theme. So I ordered this cake from Scrummycakedesign (she's on Instagram) and it turned out amazing!

LOVE the cake! And I also ordered some sugar cookies from Rollypops by Lyza Ghazalli (she's on Facebook). I wanted elephant shape cookies in the theme colors. And she did an amazing job!

I made a quilted table topper a week before the party. I used a table topper pattern by Kimberbell Designs. This one is truly made with love! :)

Sorry phone pic :P

Sorry phone pic :P

So overall I am happy with how the main table was set up :

I also sewed some buntings and garlands to add to the festive mood :

And the birthday boy? I sewed this cute shortall the day before :

I appliqued the elephant on the chest, I think it adds character and of course to fit the theme lol...I used an older shortall pattern by Tie Dye Diva.

Birthday boy was having a nap when I woke him up to change and blew the candle, hence the spaced out look on his face lol :

Here's the front and back of the shortall :

With big sisters who were having a blast because they get presents too lol

My 3 Angels....

The highlight of the day, baby first cake bashing session! It was so funny how Erfan keeps messing with the cake. He only ate a handful though lol...

Love his expressions! 

And finally, overwhelmed and perplexed with all the presents he gets lol

It's been a long time since we had a family birthday celebration. My parents now have 7 grandchildren and we always celebrate at their home and the tradition is each child will get a present from grandparents, aunties and uncles. So we had to combine the celebration to save lol

My bubba Erfan, he has come so far! He is my cheeky sunshine, so active and a happy baby. Kisses and more kisses!

A Quilt For My New Nephew Afeeq

I made this quilt as an excited aunt, for my new nephew baby Afeeq :)

I am used to using a mix of different fabrics for my quilts, mostly scrappy but this time I used a baby safari themed collection called Imaginarium from Camelot Cottons. The mix of soft turquoise, yellow and grey just exudes sweet elegance. I especially love all the prints! Each print showing a mama animal hugging their babies, so warm and sweet!

This quilt is a labor of love. I made 9 pinwheel blocks, sashed & bodered. But I machine stitched the binding because at that time my sister in law was already in labor!

Lucky I made it in time for this sweet boy to enjoy....

Afeeq Farhan bin Mohd Fathirrahman...the first born of my baby brother...such a cutie!

I have to say photographing a quilt is SO hard! I can't seem to get all of it in photos lol...but I love making this and will continue making more baby quilts...

Baby Afeeq is now almost 3 months old, already smiling & cooing. He is my 4 nephew (3 of whom are my sister's kids) and my parents' 7th grandchild. Here's to many more babies to cuddle and sew for!

Baby Afeeq...you are loved!!!

I Love Making Mug Rugs

Yes, I do!

They are easy projects, almost instant gratification when I feel a bit bleh about sewing dresses yet not enough time for making a quilt. So I make mug rugs lol...

Last night, I finished this beauty. I designed it myself, a cottage chic mug rug made from mostly Lecien florals, which I adore and hoarded to no end...

I used a pretty natural linen fabric also from Lecien as backing as well as the binding, which I sew by hand. And I also added a delicate lace edging to complete the updated floral, linen & lace look. I love this style and colors but I need to sew more using these fabrics instead of just keeping them stashed away.

This is not my first mug rug. I have made a few for myself and friends. My first mug rug was this one made using the quilt-as-you-go method :

And later when I was still working I made this one for the office, and experimented on my free motion quilting :

Recently I made this as a gift, also using fmq and hand binding :

I plan to make more for sale too. Do you love mug rugs as much as I do? They are great scrap busting projects and quick too!

Patchwork Pillow in My Sewing Room

I recently fell in love with patchwork, big time.

Everyday I dream of patchwork and have so many ideas my brain is in constant buzz. So I made it a point to have a patchwork or quilty projects in between sewing dressses. It somehow invigorates me and keeps me motivated to sew more :)

So, we went to Ikea last weekend and I bought the Fjadrar pillow insert, the one with duck feather filling. I love how fluffy the pillow feels & know that the cover has to be patchwork.

The pillow is a 20" x 20", so I just sewed some simple 4.5" squares using fabrics from my stash. I find that when it comes to patchwork I tend to gravitates towards reds & yellows. They are just so bright and cheerful, I love how it brightens my cramp & tiny room.

My favorite print here is the chairs by Laurie Wisburn, it's cute! And the chevron & hounds tooth provides a balance to the whole look. I did put a layer of batting keep the quilting simple with straight lines a quarter inch away from the seams.

I took the shortcut with the backing. Just made it envelope style using my favorite yarn dyed linen by Robert Kaufman.

I have a few other patchwork projects to show you in coming posts. Till then, am enjoying my huggable patchwork pillow! :)

A Quilted Table Runner

Hello! Hahah I can't believe it's February already!! Sighhhh....ok just a quick update as I have been tardy as usual :P

I made this quilted table runner from a free pattern given by Sherri over at her blog.

It's a simple but oh so fun to make table runner!

Excuse my crappy photo....I used Happy Go Lucky mini charm pack for this project.

And quilted with some loopy free motion.

I machine bind it because it's faster hahah....

Thanks Sherri for this fun project and for including mine in your parade!

I need to find time to make more of these kind of projects, they keep sewing fun and invigorating for me. I have more sewing projects to share in the next post till then, have a beautiful day! :)

The Quilt That Is Yet To Be Finished

Now that I am quilting as my hobby, I realised that it is very normal to have unfinished quilts lying around for months (or even years!). I have one at the moment. A baby quilt also started when I was pregnant.

The quilt top was made when we still did not know the gender of the baby, hence some reds and pinks there lol. It's a scrappy quilt I made. I have quilted it but until today I have not found the motivation to sew the binding :P

That does not stop me from putting the baby on top of it to see how it look sin pictures lol...Erfan was around 3 months old here :

I think the quilt is SO pretty! I really need to find the time to bind it but for now it is what it is :P

This pic of the baby looking rather unhappy perhaps should push me!

Another Quilt I Made For The Baby

This is the second quilt I made for Baby Erfan, and this time I was on a roll! :D

I mean, I was so eager to try the real deal - piecing the patchwork, free motion quilting & the works. I felt like I've grown a lot as a quilter after this project.

I used a Lilly & Will layer cake for this quilt. I sashed it using white Kona cotton. For the backing I used a soft polkadots by Robyn Pandolph from my stash, while the binding is from an older Laura Gunn's collection. I love the soft baby'ish hue of green, cream & chocolate in this quilt! It is a bigger quilt of crib size.

This quilt will forever be in my family. As I mentioned in the previous posts, it tells a story of how I was having contractions 5 minutes apart when I was hand binding it lol...

And now that the baby is here, this sweet quilt has been in so many snapshots of my lil bubba....I still cannot get over how precious he is and how lucky we are to have him in our lives :)

Above are his newborn pics, the little boy with a thousand expressions lol...

And this is him at 6 months, already rolling over...that smile is just so contagious!

Till next post, have a blessed day my friends! *hugs*