Quick sewing

Hi people, I've been taking it a bit easy these past few days. Long hours of working on the sewing machine have left my neck and shoulders really sore. I stayed away from working yesterday, but by evening my urge to make something went out of control and hence this little fabric bowl was created.

I'd seen this cute bowl at Spoonful of sugar . These little bowls are handy to stuff ribbons, bobbins, buttons etc. Aren't they cute? and they're reversible too. I've stuffed in my ribbons in this one. It hardly used up any fabric. I dug out some scraps and wallah! finished it in ten minutes. I must try making a bigger one too. Pop over to Spoonful of sugar, the mother - daughter duo have some really great tutorials. I must try the covered tape measure next...seee ya!

A surprise package

Last week Gaurav was on a day long business trip to Bangalore. He came back with a bag of goodies for me from a colleague in his office. I was so touched because I'd never spoken or met this young girl. Thank you so much Mrunalini, I loved everything in it. I'm sharing pictures with you lovely readers as well.

Wooden toy elephant

Clay necklace and earrings

Wood and straw keychain

Hand painted mugs

I especially love the mugs. I'm using both the mugs on my craft table. One holds my large spool of thread and the other my pencils. Isn't it great when you get a gift when you're least expecting it? I love shopping online because I can never remember the delivery date and one fine day a package arrives at the door, it just makes me so happy. Tell me about any surprise gifts you've got recently. 

XOXOXO

I did manage to get quite  a bit of sewing done over the Easter weekend

 A bento-box lunch bag using Ayumi's tutorial Pink Penguin

Fabric basket again using Ayumi's tutorial here

 Jewelry organizer using this lovely tutorial at thimble

 Tote bag for Vipul, using one of his lovely photographs he got printed on canvas

Zakka pencil cases using Anna's tutorial at noodle-head. This is an excellent project to practice sewing zippers.

Some more jewelry organizers for Roopa

Back after a long break:

Its been a week since I wrote a post, thanks to my broadband connection not working for a whole week. I never imagined I would be so miserable. My blackberry too wasn't of much help :( Anyway now that I'm back, have lots to share.
Gaurav's Birthday was fun on the 19th and we always plan a party to bring in his birthday, but this time Gaurav decided that he wanted nothing too fancy, so we had his brother and my sister over and a last minute surprise , an old school friend. I baked him his favourite plain vanilla flavoured cake, which I had to twice cause I goofed up with the temperature of the oven :) It was one of Nigella Lawson's recipes I'd seen on television a couple of months ago. I figured later though that lemon flavour would've been much better than the strong vanilla flavour. But, everyone loved it. Must share it with you all some time. Gaurav loves traditional Indian food so that was the menu for dinner. Roopa called in late in the evening to share a quick recipe of cauliflower manchow, cause  she knows cauliflower is his favourite :) Yup, I know you're surprised, but yeah, cauliflower is what I end up making twice a week because Gaurav loves it so much.
After a couple of beers, we eventually ended up shifting all the furniture in the living room and converting it into a dance floor. We finally went to bed at 4.30 in the morning.Here's some glimpses of the great time we had

Birthday cake with smarties (Gaurav's favourite candy)

Gaurav's school pal brought him some fancy vodka

Vodka shots 

Meera's present for Gaurav, a Playclan tshirt

Our living room

The gang

On his birthday, the four of us had a nice quiet dinner with a few friends at Soul Fry in Bandra, a restaurant known for its sea food menu. So thats the last of the birthdays in the family :) Am so thrilled that Gaurav had a great time. Love you Honey.

Enjoy the pictures you all :) XOXOXOXOXO

Mr. Husband's Birthday tomorrow..so haven't been able to write any posts today....will have to wait till tomorrow to reveal all the goodies and pictures....because Gaurav reads my blog....So honey if you're reading, soreeee got to wait till midnight....
XOXOXOX

Yippeee! The weekend's here:

Finally the weekend's arrived and I hope to spend some time with Mr. Husband, who's been travelling out of town :) Sadly this shall be his last weekend off because, he joins another company next week that works on Saturdays too :( So we shall make the most of this one. Hope you all have a great one too!
XOXOXO

Tidying up:

Spent the entire day in piles of dust and I still haven't yet finished what I started :( An old friend of ours is leaving to join work in Delhi and he promised me he'd send me his study table and television cabinet. I've been looking for another table for my sewing area and his was perfect, with drawers and shelves which are so so useful. He sent them over last night and I couldn't wait till morning to start all the rearranging. I look at such pretty pictures on blogs everyday of neat and tidy craft rooms and they make me so jealous because, here in Bombay its so dusty that anything I leave untouched for a day has a thick layer of dust. I wonder how people manage to display so much around the house. I spend an hour just dusting everyday :( Well so after hours of shifting stuff around and putting away all my fabric strewn across the room, I now have two tables : one for sewing and the other for my printer,laptop etc. The room looks a little crowded as its our guest room too but, its not too bad. I will post some pictures as soon as I finish up this weekend. The television cabinet has a cane finish and looks lovely with our existing cane and wooden furniture. I love it! Thanks a ton Vikram!

Dear Friend, I missed you...

Spent the morning making a make-up pouch which I made from a tutorial by Anna from noodle-head. 

All her tutorials are so well written and extremely easy to follow. I especially love her new 241 tote pattern. There's a great giveaway on right now on her website. The Cellphone cover I made from one of my favourite books, Pieces of Me by Janelle Wind. This book wasn't available in India so had to order it online from Australia and it cost me a fortune, but its definitely worth it. The book has great projects. 
Made these for my girlfriend who leaves town for good this evening. I hope she likes it.

I love using my scraps for packaging. Tomorrow I need to get lots of cutting done for my next project. A friend of mine needs something to send for his mother. Over and out.

Weekend pleasures:

Grand brunch of hummus, pita bread, kebab rolls and hot masala chai at Meera's  cute little nest

  I got to wear my favourite Catwalk loafers - a Birthday present from Meera

Fun at Bandstand, Bandra - I went there after ages

         

Yes! Chinese for dinner at Mainland China

Singapore Hakka Noodles, Broccoli corn & waterchestnut in yellow bean sauce and herbal tea. What you can't see is the yummy honey noodles and ice-cream for dessert. I'm hungry writing this post...going to grab my cup of masala tea, byeeeee....

The elephant arrives home:

I'd written about the patchwork elephant that I'd ordered online from masmara, it finally arrived in a little package this morning. Its just so cute and cuddly and is actually much bigger than it looks in their shop. The colours are so bright, makes me happy just looking at it. I've decided to display it in my craft room, how is what I have to figure out now.

                    
                              

This would be perfect for a nursery too. I'm not sure whether Masmara ships internationally, but you could always write in and find out, they are extremely helpful.

From Roopa with love:

I've had a very exciting weekend...shall tell you later about it. I'm so excited to tell you about a lovely package that my mother sent for me. I had no idea what she had sent for me and as soon as I opened the package, I was jumping with joy. Love you Roopa (yeah I call her by her name, wierd ha?),you're the most thoughtful person I've ever known.

 

I can't stop admiring the vintage buttons. Its going to be tough to decide which project to use them for. The orange and beige linen are my favourites. Isn't the lace gorgeous?

Along with the rest of the goodies was a box of gujiyas which are traditional sweet treats made during Holi. Its been years since I had them. But, they still had the same taste...Love you ma and miss you loads.

Yummy golden gujiyas

Haathi mere saathi!

I came across masmara on facebook and fell in love with their new stuffed elephant. I ordered it as soon as it was made available online and now I can't wait for it to arrive at my doorstep. Masmara is based in Bangalore and promotes eco-friendly and rural handicrafts. I love their colourful jewelery too. Oh! Mera stuffed haathi kab aayega...it'll be such a colourful addition to my sewing space :) 

Turtle Toilet Case

I tried the new ditty bag pattern by Keyka Lou and it turned out quite nice. The pattern is available in a PDF format and was really easy to follow. It comes with three sizes and I tried the large size to make things easy for me :) I'm calling it the Turtle Toilet case cause looks like one big turtle to me hee hee....don't you think so?

Pretty lining inside

I loved the way it turned out, nice and roomy to stuff my toiletries. Cutting out the pattern pieces always takes me some time, but then its worth it. Her patterns are very simple to follow. The good news is that there is an anniversary sale on at keykaloupatterns.com and her etsy shop till the 20th of this month. Hurry go pick up some as soon as you can.

I AM ANNA!

Am rather pleasantly surprised by all the youngsters who've gathered across the country to support the Jan Lokpal Bill. I didn't quite think that the youth even knew what they really wanted. All my generation is up to is living their lives on "FB",planning holidays abroad, discussing how the new Iphone is better and when's the new playstation out......gosh! I was stressed I wasn't "normal". I myself have been very FB shy and twitter shy...but I realize its power and want to be a part of it now. Okay so I'm in no way saying that I'm better than the rest here...its just that we get too carried away doing our own stuff. I have a funny excitement and anxiety when I watch Anna Hazare on television and watch all the youngsters staging street plays and singing songs....I feel tears swelling up too...I must be at Azad Maidan on Sunday not for anyone else but for my self and I cannot wait! In the meanwhile I'm reading up on the Jan Lokpal Bill at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Lokpal_Bill 

Finally.....

After months of " should I, shouldn't I" I've finally got down to writing my own blog :) and I'm thrilled. I've had such a great time since I bought my own sewing machine two years ago that I needed to record and share it. Ok so hieeeeeeee! I promise to be true and honest to my blog! 
Its been ten years in Bombay and I've learnt so much spending all my growing years away from home, having studied in so many schools in many cities....I've had quite an experience growing up. Must put it down for my grandkids to read some day ha ha ha! 
Will take me some time getting used to this thing but I'll learn. Cannot wait to get started!
UUUUUMMMMAAAS!