Where I get my fabric...

I'm asked often where I get my fabric for my sewing and craft projects.  Well, I use to venture into Chinatown (Sampeng/Parurat) if I had the time but now that's not an option so I go to a wonderful shop on the corner of Asoke (BTS Sukhumvit Station), oppisite Terminal 21/on the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit side.  A good selection of fabrics and comparable prices. 

And if you're looking for sewing supplies (thread, zippers, buttons, yarn, etc..), just walk about 2 doors down and you'll find a nice little shop that has all your basics.  Sadly, I'm sorry I never remember the names of these shops but I've taken snaps of how the store fronts look.  Hope this helps!

Halloween: Hawaiian Hula Costume

My children had Hawaiian Day at their school last week (yes they are in school--very short story but long in so many other parts--but they are loving it) and I wanted to share how I made my daughter's costume just in case you would like to make one for Halloween. 

1) I love these plain tanks and they were so cheap, 90 baht ($3) at Cotton On Mega Bangna.  You will see that I am using these as the foundation of all my costumes this year.  I took brown fabric and used fusible webbing and ironed them on for the coconut bikini top.

2) Then I used some pom pom ribbon for the string of the bikini, you will need to sew all along the back and also the shoulder straps too and just a little right in the middle of the coconuts.  And you're done with your top!

 *** Quick Tip:  I found the lint sticky stick works great when you want to clean up all your thread bits!

3)  Now the bottom part, the skirt I used this wonderful tutorial here and do everything the same but before you put in the elastic, get your scissors and cut strips!  I used 2 layers of different color green fabric so it looks just a bit more grassy!!  

And there you go!  Easy and fun!  Btw the grass skirt gets a bit frazzled if you put it in the washer and dryer but I thought it added a nice effect to the skirt.   As for the lei, I got them at Daiso but cut and strung them on some green yarn.  Made one for my daughter's head piece and one for her neck.  If you like, you can also use the left over petals and decorate the skirt with them.  Aloha!

Sew Thainie: Wonderful Stuff Toys Holder

 I am such a neat freak, I'm always trying to keep everything organized and I feel horrible that my children have to bare with this!  Well I usually try to go through their toys every now and then to see what they aren't really playing with or which can be donated but we have a bunch of stuff toys that we just can't part with since they each have some kind of sentimental value.  Thanks to A Lemon Squeezy Home, I was able to make this wonderful stuff toys holder/net.  Also thanks to my friend Rach for her generous jersey fabric too!!! 

*** Just be on the look out once you put this up, my daughter has decided it is a great chair/canopy that she wants to lounge on....sorry that I don't have a pic of that.

All the birds of a feather...

Did I mention my kids are crazy about the movie Rio?  It's playing almost once a day in our home and they love dancing to the songs, the soundtrack is really good.  It made me think of a project that I wanted to do and thought it was the perfect opportunity to tie it in with the movie.  

 Eri of Llevo el invierno has a diy tutorial/pattern avail­able on her site that is ahmazing!!!   I adapted her tute and tweaked it a bit.  Here's what I did:

1) I cut the 2 side wings from the same pattern and I reinforced with fusible lining (sticky side up) so that it would be easier to hold the feathers when sewing (I'm thinking that it would have been more airy if I did without it but too late...you can leave this out if you want)

2) I precut all my feather pieces, you don't have to stick with the rounded feathers, I think it would have looked just as nice with more of a pointier look.  

3) Lay your feather strips in the order you would like and iron if you did the fusible lining OR pin and sew later OR you can just use fabric glue.

4)  Since I did the fusible lining, I just kept ironing my feather strips on.

5) It's a quick project actually and there you have your wings.

6) Sew your layers of feather strips.  Again, this is optional but I wanted to reinforce mine so that my kids don't have them torn off from wearing them.

7) The inside of the wings will look like this.

And there you go, fun wings for your fun kids!!!!  Here's a pic of my daughter modeling hers.