4th quarter and 2016 round up

Last day of the year to do a blog entry. I wonder other than the pleasure of personal rambling space, who else would be reading my blog? I wonder what do they think of me? Or should I be bothered what other people think of me? 😕

OK, last post was in September, so here's a quick fourth quarter round up:

October:

I finally took the plunge and bought Embrilliance StitchArtist 1, an embroidery digitizer software to complement my Embrilliance Essential pack. Starting small, I practise with making simple pencil topper. Check out my Instagram (@madebyrozirahman) on the other designs for pencil topper that I’ve digitized.

I initially planned to have the design cut out on heat transfer glitter vinyl and ironed on but the vinyl wasn’t cooperating with me. So I digitize the same design and embroidered it onto Arwen’s black abaya for school. Gorgeous isn’t it?

October 7, 2016; my first class at Sewtizen, Wangsa Melawati. A nice fabric and notion shop which I would love to spend more time at if only it’s not on the other side of Klang Valley.

October 15, 2016; my first class at The Craftsical, Bandar Baru Bangi. Joinly operated by Abby of SarangCraft and Nina Primus. Beaufiful spacious place with fantastic natural light to unleash some creative flow. Congrats Abby and Nina for the venture. For those in search of craft classes, check out The Craftsical on Instagram for their class schedule. 

I’ve dabbled with heat tranfer vinyl and made personalized T’shirts with them. I do take orders for personalized T’shirts with heat transfer vinyl starting from RM25 (depending on design and type of HTV used) Drop me a line if you are interested to have some customized T’shirt made.

November

Joined forces with Mastura Mustaffa aka Rimaumanja for some children craft activities at Muzium Negara on 12 and 13 November 2016.

I have established a regular class at Spotlight, The Mines for knitting and basic sewing. Basic sewing class starts at RM50 for 2 hours especially targetted to those who have not used a sewing machine before. It covers the basics of a sewing machine and how to get started sewing with a sewing machine. My knitting class for regular knitters starts at RM20 for 2 hours. Class normally starts around 10.30am to 12.30pm. It’s biweekly on wednesdays second and third week of the month.

I was again asked to do a Brother’s sewing machine promotion on Go Shop on 21 November 2016. Here’s a group photo of us post live show with the host, Akma Abdullah.

I made new dress for Arwen and a lounge pants for Danial with cotton knit. Bought a nice black print cotton fabric and made Danial’s prayer robe using his old prayer robe as reference. I didn’t quite nail the v collar but it’s passable. Arwen wanted a pencil skirt which she calls her office skirt while trying to explain it to me. I made her one with the leftover cotton knit from her earlier dress.

My first class for Silhouette and heat transfer vinyl. It was priced at RM80 inclusive of t’shirt of your choice and HTV. I’ll be doing some more classes for this in 2017, إن شاء الله .

December:

I made a bunch of this phone pillows and put them at a friend’s booth recently. It’s a phone rest if you’re still wondering what it is. I’m selling them at RM10 each. Let me know if you’re interested in them. 

I made a thank you product tag for my custom t’shirt to have the care instructions for the vinyl. Love the play time with my Silhouette Portrait. I’m also selling my services for custom price tags or thank you tags cut out with Silhouette. I used good quality Kraft paper and thick cardstock.

Testing out some cake toppers. My test partner is Midnight Bakery. Check out their IG for seriously tasty assortment of brownies and butter cakes.

I’ve joined a fantastic group of sewists recently on Facebook and they’ve organized a loop giveaway which I took part as one of the vendor. Check out @modernsewistsmy or my instagram and look out for this photo to take part in the giveaway. There’s still time and it closes on January 8, 2017. There’s five loops in different colours. Follow them all to increase your chance to win a total of RM500 gift cards! 

I’m not much of a scrapbooker or a paper crafter but I’d still give a hand on it because papercraft is something I can do with my daughter. This is a simple mini accordion album my daughter and I worked on to document our short family trip to Taiping. 

 My daughter is one who love to wear accessories. Once when we passed Pandora boutique in Alamanda, she told me that she loves Pandora charm bracelet. Wow! I was dumbfounded. I myself don’t own one yet she expressed preference to one. So I took out my wirecraft bag and made her a simple charm bracelet with whatever charms and beads that I have. Good thing she doesn’t mind if it’s just Mom’s made so long as she gets to wear some jewelry.

Last project for the year I think, a new school backpack for my daughter. Do you know how ridiculously expensive a schoolbag is? Especially that with licenced Disney characters? I’m too stingy to spend money on one but don’t mind the arm wrestling I got putting this bag together. This bag is cost me nothing because everything is from my stash. It’s my first time experimenting with flex foam from Legacy which I bought from Spotlight sometime ago. I love how well it helped the bag keep its structure. Elsa image is printer on printable heat transfer material Arwen’s name is cut out from glitter vinyl. The bag measures 13” height by 10” width with 4” depth. I’ve read up somewhere in the internet on how to get the correct size for a backpack. Basically, you measure from the bottom of your neck to the top of hip to get the length. It is small for Malaysian standard schoolbag I guess but my daughter doesn’t have to carry all her books to school. She has a cubbie to keep her books at school.

2016 Summary:

الحمد لله I’m grateful for what I’ve accomplished for 2016. I’ve grown into sharing what little knowledge I have and evolved as a teacher; a turn of event that I did not foresee. I am humbled to see how the craft community has grown over the years and the presence of new and talented crafters with their creation. I feel old and ancient noticing how young the age group in the craft scene. I counter that with my thirst for knowledge. This year, I took up leather bag making and natural henna drawing. If you check out my instagram, you’d see some random henna drawing and my canvas is of course my daughter’s hands and mine. I would love to expand this art and do more henna drawing but for the time being, I’ve not figured out how to go about doing it yet. I’ll keep that incubated in the meantime and do more practise.

Well, that’s it folks. Thank you for stopping by. I would love to hear from you if you’ve read any of my post or when did you first follow my blog or I ni syok sendiri ke... 

Here’s wishing everybody Happy New Year 2017!

September Run Through

Opps! I didn’t again. I missed out on my blog post for the whole September. OK, lets see if I can round up my activities in a single entry.

Heat Transfer Material

I found a t’shirt supplier online that also provided heat transfer materials. They cater for the custom design t’shirt makers I think but they also accept small orders from the likes of me. So I got some t’shirts for the kids and myself and personalised them.

Danial loves his Star Wars storm trooper Elite Squad t'shirt

Arwen loves her Frozen’s Elsa t’shirt too

 Baby Announcement Pillows

I still make them. There’s a bunch of them delivered to the respective owners. Thank you for your support. I hope you love receiving the pillows as much as I love making them for you. Here’s one that I made recently. You can check out the others in my instagram: @madebyrozirahman.

 Dar Salam’ s To Know Malaysia Exhibition

This happened on the first of September. Arwen is representing the state of Melaka. I cannot make her nyonya kebaya and the ones I found online is ridiculously expensive. So,  we settled for the traditional baju kurung. I love the cheerful and bright floral motive and the contrast of her orange sarung, don’t you?

 School Merdeka Celebration.

Everybody was supposed to wear a traditional costume. Arwen’s baju raya isn’t quite traditional so I had to whip something up only after I made her a baju kurung. This time we went for baju kurung kedah. I obviously I messed up some measurement, it came out slim fitting. The sarung is from her baju raya peplum.

DIY Laminated Fabric

I bought Legacy’s Vinyl Fuse Matte during one of Spotlight’s storewide sale and got it for 40% less. I’ve always wanted to make my own laminated fabric because one, the ready ones are expensive and two, I’m limited to the designs the store has. It isn’t too difficult to make your own laminated fabric; just follow the instructions and you can make your own. I made a simple wristlet purse from one of my earlier stash of Woodland Creatures.

My First Lace Shawl

I’ve always shy away from knitting lace as I’m a sanguine when it comes to crafting. You need to be someone rather Phelgmatic and Melancholic to actually be able to follow the pattern religiously. But then, I get bored easily if it’s all knit or all purl or occasionally ribbing, (that’s the problem with a Sanguine) so I challenge myself to make my first lace shawl.

I got the free pattern from Ravelry. It’s called ASHTON Shawlette. I could have made it with one ball of sock yarn but I made an extra row of the pattern and I had to get another ball of yarn. I was careful to use lifeline and had to frog my work several times too. Thank God for lifelines!

Air Dry Succulent

Always a sucker to pick up a new craft, I went for an air dry succulent workshop conducted by Schila Iskandar, a fellow ACG member. I love it! No issue of my plant dying if I forget to water them.

After call, I bought all the materials needed for more succulents and I made some more. For the next few days I was in succulent heaven :)

Heat Transfer Vinyl

After the successful trial and error experiment with printable heat transfer material, I ordered some heat transfer vinyl. Danial needs a new bag for school so I thought I’d give a try and make his backpack. I duplicated the storm trooper design I did for his t’shirt and cut it out with my Silhouette Portrait. I added Danial’s name for the bag. Long story short, he absolutely love it!

Spotted in Cameron Highlands 

Wedding Gifts

School breaks are peak season for weddings. We had two wedding reception invitation. My go to wedding gift is embroidered couple’s towels. 

Henna Art Workshop 

Idayu, whom I know from a planner group on Facebook and Instagram is an expert henna artist and when she announced that she’d be doing a basic workshop for henna, I quickly contacted her and signed up. I was the eldest in the group when we had the workshop but one with zero knowledge! Luckily, Dayu really went down to basics and 101 of henna art from the way to roll the cello to how to draw the henna design. 

She gave each participants 2 cones of natural henna and I put them to good use and guess who is my canvas? I love the smell of natural henna and nowadays the henna artists would add essential oils into the henna mix. I love the ones Dayu made where she mixed lavendar essential oil into it. Arwen loves it too. It became a therapy for both Arwen and me. I doodle at least once a week when the henna stain clears up on my hand or Arwen. I’d do a new design.

Arwen’s 3 Way Bag

OK, last but not least for the month of September. Arwen wanted another bag too after seeing how Danial loves his backpack. So I took out my old Cath Kidston stash and made her a 3 way bag. It has 2 handles which she can carry like a tote and the long strap can be attached as a crossbody bag or a backpack.

Leather Class: Doctor's bag at Yee Button

When Carmen first text me about the class, it was held during Ramadhan. Good thing I didn't sign up then because the class definitely require a lot of elbow grease and muscles. 

We made arrangement to have the class on 6 August 2016, plenty of time for all of us to save up for the class fee. Its RM450 and by we, I mean the ACG members who decided to form a group to take the class.

It took us 8 solid hours to make the bag. Seen here, ACG team with our instructor, Muriel.

Check out Yee Button's facebook page and Instagram for other classes.

Ramadhan 2016 Round Up

It is the eve of the 28th day of Ramadhan as I am typing this entry. Ramadhan is almost over and it flew by so swiftly. I’ve just completed some Hari Raya kits for my Hari Raya Card Demo/Workshop at Mitsui Outlet Park KLIA Sepang tomorrow. Earlier on, I finished Danial’s baju melayu. I am grateful and relieved that I manage to sew without too much complication. It’s been a while since I made Danial’s baju melayu. We bought him a pair last year because he wanted the Cekak Musang version. I can only make the Teluk Belanga version, ie. the same as a baju kurung. Last year’s material was the shiny type and with teluk belanga collar, it proved to be a bit uncomfortable and warm. This year, Danial himself requested for the Teluk Belanga collar like what I used to make for him before. I guess, he learned his lesson. Here’s a sneak preview of Danial with his baju melayu; photobombed by White the Cat. You can tell that our theme this year is green.

A recent turn of events made me make a few changes to my Ramadhan sewing activities. Initially, I planned to take it easy during the month and do some personal sewing. However, I had a small accident recently and had to pay damages. It was a real bummer for me as it would throw my Raya budget off. But the Big Guy Up There, had other plans for me. I received a call to do a raya card and batu seremban demo at Mitsui Outlet Park KLIA Sepang. Just the thing I needed. 

The first session was last Sunday, 26 June 2016. I had 2 separate slots; Hari Raya Card Making between 3 to 4pm and Batu Seremban between 5 to 6pm. I was pleasantly surprised with the turn out at the mall. All in all, it went well and even I have to admit, slowly I’m feeling the hari raya spirit.

Hari Raya Card Session

Danial helped with demonstrating Batu Seremban game

MadebyRoziRahman team

 Just a day after I confirmed the job for Mitsui, I got a text message from Kak Helen asking if I want to be on TV for Brother sewing machine promotion. I was desperate for some extra money so I said, Yes. Monday morning (27 June 2016) bright and early, I was at Astro for the life telecast on GoShop channel 118. Here’s some pictures:

I had to plan my week to replenish the kits for this weekend’s demo/workshop and finding time to make baju raya for the kids and myself. I would be cutting it pretty thin if I leave it till after the demo because I only have 2 days before hari raya to sew for everybody. I tried to negotiate with Arwen if she let me make the usual baju kurung for her. Initially she’s been asking me to make a peplum top as her raya outfit. She went into great length in explaining and sketching her dream baju raya. I wasn’t into figuring out the pattern so I counter offered. Her face changed and her shoulders dropped when I asked her. She reluctantly agreed but I just couldn’t stand to see her that way. So, I figured, I could just take one day to work out Arwen’s peplum top and get it out of the way. I took out my stash of Robert Kauffman’s cotton and got to work. With His grace, I finished it in time for her to try it out when she came back from school. Guess who’s feeling on top of the world that day? 

I had another downtime last thursday when I had to drive Azrai after his small eye procedure at Sunway Medical Centre. Good thing I planned the week on my Bujo and prepared my batu seremban kit to go so I can make them while waiting for him at the hospital. 

Going back a little further, the only thing that I fit in during Ramadhan was my first leather craft class in Putrajaya. My former telekung student, Shafizah requested me to do a class for her and her student. It’s for the school coop project. 

So now, the only thing left to do is to conduct the demo/workshop tomorrow. Do come and show me some love. I’ll be at Mitsui Outlet Park KLIA Sepang between 3 to 6pm tomorrow. After that, I can start on my baju kurung and pay off the remaining balance that I owe the guy I hit so I can celebrate my hari raya without guilt.

I take this opportunity to wish all Muslims 

“Eid Mubarak”.