My tee to girl dress refashion and hot springs trip

If you have any Asian friend you may heard about the Chinese zodiac which relates each year to an animal according to a 12-year cycle. This traditional spread through several East Asian and South East Asian countries including Thailand. The next year, 2014's sign  is the horse. So in this last month of the year, you may find many gift and apparel presents the sign of this animal.

My Horse tee to the girl's dress

Including this horse t-shirt. The horse illustrate on the tee was designed by H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand. This is a famous new year present. I already have my own in another color, so I designed to refashion this tee for my daughter.

It said" The horse bring joyful in the year of horse"

I use the pattern of the recess raglan tee from See Kate Sew and lengthen the body to create a dress. The sleeves was self-drafted. The sleeves were made by using my old knit strip dress ,the collar and the cuffs were made with my age yellow cardigan.  Then I got this dress for the girl.

The girl wear this dress to visit The Chae Son National park, Lamlang in the northern part of Thailand. This national park is famous for it lovely hot springs. The favorite activities here are including hot spring bath, trekking, massage and hot spring egg boiling!

Ready for hot spring egg boiling!

There are the hot springs observe area to wander around. The hot springs in this area are too hot to soak but it suits for boil the egg. You can buy  a bamboo basket with eggs or two to soak in the hot spring and then enjoy the heavenly soft boil egg with the jelly like yoke.

the path to the hot springs area

 We bought 2 baskets of eggs to boil there.

Boiling eggs

The recommendation is to wait for 17 minutes for the soft boiling eggs. We were enjoy the scenic surrounding during that.

The pavilion over there is for massage.  

There are private hot spring pool in the small stone huts for enjoy hot spring bath with the massage station near by. This place is such a heaven.

My girl is too young for hot springs bath. She was enjoy herself by the riverside which the hot springs merge to water fall and turn out to be a lovely luxe-warm water stream.

And enjoy hot spring eggs then.

If you have a change to visit northern part of Thailand, I would recommend the national park. It's awesome joy!

Thank you for stopping by. Sorry that this post is more like travel diary than the sewing blog as usual. LOL.
Hope you enjoy it! I really love to hear from you.

Refashion : Tee to the Hangout Hoodie

Hi all, seem like the entire sewing planet is countdown to winter and wonderful festival. I would keen to put my needle on the very stunning winter projects which pop around but the weather here is 33 degree Celsius... I would better sew another tee-shirt or sleeveless top for the girl and myself. But I really love to see all the winter outfits! Maybe one or two cardigans would practical for my girl.

Well, I will stop moaning and start sharing my refahion projects as my intention. This is the Hangout hoodie from Peekaboo pattern shop which I was done since Amy's sew-along in August and you can see some of hoodies featured here. I didn't have a change to write about it on my blog till now and this is a good time to link it with FLIP these pattern series of November.

Re-fashion Hangout-hoodie

I used tee-shirt for the main part of Hoodie, added my leftover pre-ruffled fabrics, printed knit from my last project and ruffled trim to give the girly details at sleeves and the hood.

Before

After my refashion, can't help to add the eyes for that cat!

I didn't alter main shape of the hangout hoodie much. Just did flare out a bit with the tunic length, lined up the hood and added ruffled trim. The pattern instructions are easy to follow. I've only little struck when try to finish the planket.(mostly because I didn't cut the fabric accurately)

The pre-ruffled sleeves and hood.

This is the first project which I use pre-ruffled fabric for sleeves. the second is this top for project run&play sew-along. Still have plenty of these fabrics left, any idea to use ruffled fabrics would be nice :)

Hankout hoodie tunic

Thank you for stopping by, I would love to hear from you. :)

My sewing for Fall 2013

Technically, Bangkok, my hometown doesn't has Fall. We do have a marvelous summer, a monsoon with flood and a tiny bit of winter which the temperature may get down to 25 degree Celsius for a week if you are in the capital city.

We have a plenty of summer, indeed! So, sewing for fall and winter here is like a daydream for me. Accept, we can have a vacation somewhere else. Then I've got the good reasons for fall sewing. Yay!!

These are my sewing for fall.

Red riding Nituna Jacket

1. The Figgy's Nituna Jacket was in the amazing bundle sale, Sew Fab. The pattern is cute and I decided to made it by up-cycled old red fleece blanket and lined up with my floral flea-market 2nd hand tablecloth. The lace which trims around tablecloth hem was perfectly being pretty hem for the hood.

Her signature post during this trip, the rabbit post!

2. The reversible A-line dress

3. Owl sweatshirt from my crop top up-cycling. Easy perject with lovely result.

4. Leopard hoodie scarf.

5. The Heart Jumper I made for Project Run&Play sewalong. Using W Pants from Blank slate pattern .

That are what I made for fall trip. Which one do you like most? :)

KCW fall 2013 : FLIP the Sunki pattern

The KCW for fall is on going. And I'm so glad that I can finished a dress from Figgy's Sunki pattern for October Flip These pattern sewalong in last minute (again). :)

The velvet Sunki from Sunki dress pattern

The pattern of this month, Sunki dress is not my normally choice to consider. Because from its look, I would think this pattern may too complicate for my beginner seam stress level. But my intention is to participate in every months of FLIP these pattern sewalong. So, I give it a try.

Sunki in tunic lenght

Apparently, this pattern is not that complicate as I thought. I faced a little trouble when tried to complete the 1st site of that curve pocket but with the helping from my dear seam ripper, it was done nicely. The 2nd pocket was smoothly finished without any issue. Learning curve, I would say.

My little alternation to the Sunki pattern

I keep it till the last day to start this project. Then, I want it so simple that I can made in a couple of hours. Knit is my fabric of choice but while I search through my fabric starch I found this lovely teddy bear printed stretchy velvet to work with instead. The red side panel was made from my old t-shirt.

I did alter the Sunki a bit to ensure it can finished with stretchy materials. I didn't use the back zipper, made it sleeveless and finished the neck and arm holes with bias tape. I was also shorten the length and created the band at the bottom end instead of hemming.

Look at my little model, can't help that she looks grumpy. I stole her time while she was playing outside with her friends to model these shots. She like the teddy bear printed on this tunic/dress but me, took too many shots was so annoying for her. She also refused to change her pants for photo shots and I let it went by as is.

Mom, did you done yet?

Wake me up when you got enough, O.K.?

Thank you for stopping by, I really love to hear your comments! :)

Project Run&Play # 7 : 4st week " I Heart Jumpsuit"

Woooo! Finally, I did it through 4 weeks of PR&P sew-along. I can't believe I can done all 4 outfits in a month. This was very fun and a milestone for my sewing learning curve!

And the last week's theme is "Signatures style". This theme knocked me out. Since I'm just a newbie in sewing, it's not easy to identified which are my most preferred looks for the girl.

As many ideas came and gone and I done nothing till Wednesday , I thought I have to make something that easy to finished and wearable.... here comes the Jumsuit, I Heart Jumpsuit.

As an official member of Romper/Jumpsuit & Suspenders lover club. I decided to make another jumpsuit for my girl. I've just can't resist the cuteness of Romper/Jumpsuit & Suspenders on little girl.

This "Heart Jumpsuit" idea came to me since FLIP sewalong on Sep. I want to flip the W Pants from Alphabet collection to jumpsuit but I have no time to do so.

This project was done on time without many details. I keep the design simple and clean since the main fabric is already stand out.

The W Pants have a ton of options to select. But I've done nothing from that wonderful list even the belt loops was eliminated due to my laziness time constrain. But I keep the pockets to made my girl satisfied.

I did add the elastics inside straps to make the suspenders like effect and ensure them stay on the shoulders.

p.s. The girl was not in the good mood for photo shot... That why she has got a stomachache like facial expression. Can not imagine how she react when she is being tween. :)

So, this PR&P#7 was done and I'm sure to waiting for start doing these fun sewing experiences again on the next season.  Don't forget to hop to the web to see wonderful work of the last round competition here and blown away with a ton of breath taking creations from sew-along entries here

Thank you for stopping by. I would love to hear from you. :)

Project Run&Play #7 : 3rd week " Hand Smocking Plaid Dress"

The 3rd week of Project run&play go for the theme "Mad for Plaid"...

Talking about someone who MAD for plaid, let's check my fabrics IN MY STASH.

A little collection of plaid from my sewing corner

You can guess that I have no need to buy fabric for this week. My problem is to select the RIGHT ONE to work with. So, I let the girl chooses for herself and we got the plaid with pink one.

Plaid with her favorite color

I want to learn and do some technique which I've never done before. After looking through my mom's sewing book, I thought I will taking hand smocking on the dress. I used very plain but cute pattern from this Japanese sewing pattern book. The girl model is so lovely, look at those hair.

I flip this pattern to my hand smocking plaid dress

I used the top part of this dress but changed the skirt part by adding hand smocking detail and lengthen it a bit. Hand smocking took me an age to finished. I'm not a fan for hand sewing and this smocking took so much time that I thought I have to submit this dress on the next season. Luckily! it was done on time.

Hand smocking details, this technique called weaven basket smocking in mom's book.

The process was such a pain but the result was as a gain for me. I'm so happy with them that I even thought to learn others smocking technique in the near future.

The finish work was such a reward for me.

In case any of you want to know how to make this smocking please let me know. I will try to make a tutorial if someone interested (and have a lot of time to do so)

The dress has buttons closure along the back

As we don't normally have fall or winter here this dress can wear all around the year. I plan to pair it with cardi and legging if the weather colder.

At the moment, the girl did enjoy to wear this with rain boots to play out after raining.

This week on project run & play, you will found A LOT of incredible plaid outfits both from designer here and from sew-along pool here. Let's check them out.

Thanks for stopping by, I would love to hear from you!

P.S. My plaid collections are the Thai traditional handwoven plaid called "Pa-kao-ma" 

Pha-kao-ma is a basic stable piece in Thai's household. It is a multipurpose garment. Used as a towel, sarong, sash, carrying, wrapping and etc. in Thai culture from at least 900 years. 

My ex-project with hand-woven plaid

Pink plaid from Feb this year, before my blogging era/ The maxi plaid from The roller skate FLIP here.