Archive for September, 2009

Patchwork Lunch Box Bag

September 17, 2009 at 9:43 pm · Filed under Craft & Art ·Tagged , ,

At this point of time on finishing this lunch box bag, I just couldn’t figure out why on the earth I would do something like this? I have never done a patchwork project in my life, neither have I gained enough confidence on sewing anyway. I suppose that when I had this idea initially, if I was not so crazy, I must be really “high”.

However, it did not all start from me. It was just the other day when I was wandering into one of the fabric shop near Cassidy Arcade in Queanbeyan, I saw some beautiful décor materials. I went in and asked the price. The lady checked her order book and it costs a fortune to just get one meter. Then we had some very random chat about what I was looking for and what I want to make.

At the end of conversation, she pulled out one of plastic bags from the floor and took out a dozen of sampler fabric. Most of them are lining + cotton with neutral beige colour background having either strips or flower texture with all sorts of different colours. They have square shape about 23cm big.

“You know what you can do?” The lady said, “you can make a patchwork bag with these pieces…” Mmm…it sounds a plan. I tried to quickly grasp that idea by having a mental picture of all possible combination of these pieces, and I found myself actually liked it.

So I asked how much she would charge for these. Guess what? She let me have them free. I thanked her and promised her that if I ever could made something out, I will bring it to show her. Well, that’s how I got here, this patchwork lunch box bag in the photo.

The whole two weeks after this, I had all sorts of ideas passing through my mind. I finally decided to combine these samplers with one of my old navy blue jean shirt to make a even more bold and interesting plan. I completely ruined the shirt and cut each sampler into 4 little squares, making a total 8 x 4 patches to form a bigger piece for exterior panel. For the interior lining, I just used whatever was left-overs from shirt and samplers.

It all work out all right, except that I found myself really lack of patchwork skills (and tools) to make all the small squares all lined up well :-) I managed to do it anyway to comply with the possible “lowest standards”. I was never a person who is hard on myself, and I am not going to, especially when it is the first time :-)

I found a sewing pattern from here and I made a little bit changes, but I guess if I sticked to their sizing suggestions, I wouldn’t have ended up such a big and with wide opening bag.

But I am still happy, even though when I am looking back into what I have done, I still think that I was crazy and if I had just used some one big piece pretty materials, I could have saved so much trouble and time to achieve a better results. Also, I don’t really think that the bag is so aesthetically beautiful, but it was made with passion :-)

Well, from tomorrow and on, I will be carrying this bag around Queanbeyan. If you see this bag on the street, then that person who is carrying it would be ME :-)

Some features of my lunch box bag version:

  •  Size: about 25 deep x 25 long x 18cm wide;
  • All the materials are made from recyled fabric, old jean shirt, free fabric samplers (cotton and lining)… even the cords for handles were from one of my old bags;
  • The patch piece is about 9x 9cm big. I used 32 patches for the exterior panel;
  • The same materials for the interior panel and used fusible layer for interface lining;
  • I tried eyelet tools for the first time, it’s an easy job and a great idea. I enjoyed so much and it looks quite tidy.

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Spring Bulbs Series 6: Grape Hyaciths Blooming

September 16, 2009 at 11:37 am · Filed under Home Sweet Home

Except the leaves are too long, I have nothing to complain about this tiny blue flowers. I admit that I have never seen them before and when I actually see it in my pot blooming, I was truly amazed by its shape and colour.

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Strawberry Yogurt Cake

September 8, 2009 at 9:39 am · Filed under Food & Cusine ·Tagged , ,

I made this cake last night and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT.

It’s so moist and tasty. I have already finished a quarter 20 minutes after it was out of the oven. And I cut another big piece this morning and took it to the work.

No, I don’t feel guilty at all, as this is one of the best home-made cakes that I have ever made. I highly recommend this recipe from Happy Home Baking website. Well, the photos of her version look much nicer than mine.

Ingredients:
125ml (1/2 cup) yogurt, I used almost 1 cup
100g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar, I used castar sugar
60g (1/2 cup) brown sugar
3 eggs
95g (1/2 cup) ground almond
140g (1 cup) plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
125ml (1/2 cup) oil, I used olive oil
some strawberries, diced

Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degC. Grease and line a 20cm round pan with baking paper.
2. Mix yogurt, sugar, eggs in a large bowl.
3. Add ground almonds and sieve over flour and baking powder. Mix till combined.
4. Add oil and mix well.
5. Fill 2/3 of the batter in the prepared pan, arrange diced strawberries on the batter and pour the rest of the remaining batter over the strawberries.
6. Bake at 180 degC for 40-50mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
7. Let cool in the pan for 20mins before unmoulding.

If you like a moist cake like me, this is probably something that really is worth giving a try.

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What does a simple life look like?

September 7, 2009 at 7:58 pm · Filed under Opinions & Thoughts ·Tagged

We spent the whole Sunday just re-tidying up and cleaning off some old stuff at home. We threw out hundreds of paper boxes and another thousand of assorted unused items. I can’t believe that it took us so long to do it and it’s even harder to believe that we have so much clutters that we don’t really use at all or just forgot that we had them.

At the end of the day, it really triggered me to reflect my life and also triggered my thoughts on pursuing a simple lifestyle in the future.

In those cupboards, I saw clothes that I used to fond of or no longer interested, electronic gears, old or new, little things I collected for my hobby that I hardly touch now, souvenirs that I bought on trips being dumped in the drawers, gifts that friends gave but I don’t really like ….

For the stuff we can afford, everything seems to have its duplicate counterpart, and everything is just gone beyond what we actually need. But guess what, do we actually see the problem? No. The stupid part is that we keep buying and get new things in.

Down to the earth, nobody really needs so many shoes, socks, scarves, waist belts, black pants, handbags, hats, cables, desktop lamps, wallets or purses, books….and as a matter of a fact, you only wear or use very little of all the stuff everyday or only for one third of your time. For those stuff you think to make your life easier to have it or you think you could get benefits from using them only once a year, it’s actually not worth to have it at all. It wastes money, wastes space, wastes time to clean, organise and eventually get rid of….it’s such an endless and fruitless practise that makes our life more complicated, tiresome and less happier.

In the context of a world of materialism and when purchasing new stuff, I don’t know how many people have a mechanism in them to ask “if this is something I actually need or it’s just what I want or desire?”

I don’t think I have that wisdom yet, though I really want to be on that path to embrace it. There are just so many things that we can not sacrifice or give away. From the surface, it seems that having stuff makes us feel safer, but when it’s gone too far on the opposite direction, like depending on materials too much in our life, it only makes us less satisfied and feeling more unsecure.

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Spring bulbs Series 5: About Tulips and Grape Hyacinths

September 3, 2009 at 7:49 pm · Filed under Home Sweet Home

Since the jonquils started to flower, my spring bulbs plan seems to have already achieved two third. However, I had lowered my expectation towards another two kinds of bulbs, my tulips and grape hyacinths.

The former one had been slient for the whole winter, nothing came up from the dirt at all, which made me believe that they had died. The grape hyacinth looks even worse. They had the shoots the earliest among all the spring bulbs, but they just grew grew and grew like wild grass. Now all their grass-like leaves have grown to a length that they kind of have to fall down and touch the ground. “Are they just going to end up like this?” Sometimes I wondered.

Now I feel urged to share some new findings about them,surprisingly, according to my observation in the last a few days. I am glad to see that they have all moved up to the next stage. Tulips have their big breakthrough out of the ground, and grape hyacinths are forming flower buds underneath the grass jungle.

My expectation once again had been raised high somewhere in the air :-) I supposed that I will see something to happen in the next a couple of months?

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DIY framing is not an easy job

September 1, 2009 at 11:46 pm · Filed under Home Sweet Home ·Tagged ,

As I had wished for a very long time, I finally got a mount board home and ready to go with my DIY framing for my favourite four paintings. I call it “Four Seasons”. They were painted by Xiao Xue, a young but talented artist who lived in Zhou Zhuang, Suzhou, China. My husband bought these paintings on his visit many year ago. I love them very much, but we never had a chance to properly display these gorgeous work in our home.

There have been a number of reasons for this. First, we have never really settled in the past 10 years. We had been here and there, and a tasteful art work display has never been a high priority in our life. Second, the professional framing is very costly in this country, I don’t want to open that door before I have a clear idea about what I want to do. Third, we have been renting and I am not sure about our chance to survive in ruining the surface of the wall by putting some nails in, or a possible glassed frame falling down and getting broken with using 3M adhesive hooks to hold the paintings up, which would be very ugly and probably the last thing I want to see.

But now, none of them is any more important. My husband and I finally reached an agreement the other day. We decided to do it, though nothing mentioned above had ever changed. We just want to get the framing done first and then think of the next step.So, me holding a box cutter knife, a 30cm long plastic ruler and a pencil, sitting here and tried to do a perfect job to make the world look prettier. The mounting board I bought is about 1.75mm thick and big enough to do all 4 paintings, but I have never thought it could be this hard to cut the board through.

For every edge, I have to repeat at least 6-7 times to cut one edge up. And especially if it is a long edge, I just felt that my hand wasn’t big enough to control the ruler to give it the right pressure. I was so exhausted after only having had finished four edges. Then when I got to cutting the inner edges, it became a total disaster. The corner is extremely hard to deal with. It easily becomes very untidy on edges or simply just torn off. I realised that I can only do a straight cut on edges with a simple Stanley knife, instead of the professional framing, which creates a 45 degrees angel for this thickness of the mount board. It looks totally different.

I can’t remember how I muddled through. I just did my best and now I completely was convinced why people keep saying that it’s better to go to a professional framing service to get it done.

Anyway I got them all done, don’t know where to hang them now :-) but I will find a home for them. I am not saying that I didn’t enjoy DIY framing, it’s just too hard to do it right. I am thinking if I will ever have to do it again (and it’s highly possible as we have too many photos and paintings we can display), at least I need to get my tools right or get some cutter like this one. Believe it or not, My plastic ruler almost split off :-(

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