Mid March Finishes!

I've been taking morning walks lately to enjoy the perfect spring weather we've been having!  Therefore, haven't done much in quilting except for completing two small sewing projects.

 Yuwa oilcloth was used for this particular bag.  It's quite sturdy and perfect for those rainy day grocery trips!  Thank you, Hana, for sharing this bag pattern.

I made this Bella stuff doll in celebration of the Year of the Rabbit!   Thank you, Peggy, for sharing this pattern!


More WIP to finish this month....!

After the rain...

After a few days of continued rain, these lovely flowers sprouted from the ground to grace my garden with their beauty. 

Do you see a pot of orchid at the bottom right hand corner of this photo?  That orchid is one of my husband's orchid collection.  It has never bloomed before.  We don't know if it's because the weather is too hot in Kaohsiung or we need to place it under the shade during the hot summer days.

I feel embarrassed to say this, but does anyone know what kind of flowers (has bulbs) these are?  My husband said it might be in the narcissus family!  When there aren't any flowers, all we see are the long green  leaves. 

So, after the rain... I finished another oilcloth tote!  The oilcloth is a MIT (Made in Taiwan)  product.  It has that English countryside/ Laura Ashley feel to it, don't you think?  

This time I challenged myself to sew a tote that's made of oilcloth both inside and out.  Some helpful hints when sewing oilcloth can be found at my last post. 

Happy sewing!

Oilcloth Tote

This is my first oilcloth tote made possible by participating in a tote bag quilt along hosted by Hana.    I've had these oilcloth for ages.  Though they are not Cath Kidton's design, the color and print are timeless classics.

I encountered a few technical difficulties while making this tote. First, it was difficult to run the oilcloth under the foot because the foot grips the oilcloth. Usually you can just buy a "leather foot" designed for sewing specialty fabrics like leather and oilcloth. I didn't want to spend the extra money on this accessory. So, I remembered that there was one fellow blogger who had suggested placing a piece of paper on top of the oilcloth to help the foot "glide" through the fabric. I tried it but didn't work that well; plus I would had to tear off the paper afterwards. Then I remembered seeing one seamstress placing a drip of sewing machine oil on top of the oilcloth. It worked. But got to remember to use a larger size needle and adjust the stitch length to about 3 (on my Bernina)

The second problem I had was that the seams wouldn't stay tucked under because I didn't want to pin the seams fearing that the pins would have left holes on the oilcloth.  Hence the solution of using   double-sided tape (designed for fabric use) to tape down the seams. 

After thought:  We had rain on and off during the end of May and beginning of June.  This oilcloth tote sure came in handy on those rainy days.  I love it!