Plums

I love plum flowers. In fact, my logo is inspired by plum flowers. I finally finished this bag after it was cut into a shape of a bag long time ago...

My first introduction to leather!

This is my latest shoulder bag that I made for my friend. It is made with corduroy, woollen kimono fabric and a piece of suede at the bottom. Sewing this with my poor Janome proves to me how leather is thick and tough and strong. For a long time, I kind of avoided using leather for handbags for the sake of vegetarian people. However, I just wanted to see if my sewing machine could cope with leather. It did. Hooray!

My favourite incense

I know you can't smell this lovely incense, but I wanted to share this with you. This is my favourite one at the moment. It is called "Goddess" by Moondance. I usually love Japanese incense, but I discovered this brand at my local health food shop recently and I am hooked! I intend to try all the fragrances eventually but I like this one most so far. It has subtle sweetness and the fragrance stays in the house all day long. I tend to light the incense when I make my coffee. As my espresso maker hisses on the stove, I light the incense and just look at the beautiful twirls. Serene....

Tin Tin Costume

My children's school hosts a book character dress-up day once a year and it's that time again this year. My son knew what he wanted to be straight away so I thought I would have enough time to search op-shops...but couldn't find the right coloured top and pants, so I decided to make them for him. He is a big fan of Tin Tin and he showed me in his Tin Tin book to tell me what type of clothes Tin Tin wears. He already had a white shirt so I got the fabrics to make a turquoise blue top and a pair of brown trousers as shown in the photo above. In Prep year, he didn't want to become anything as he was too shy to do dress-ups, but now he is 9 years old, and so grown up, he is willing to dress up as his favourite book character. It is so nice to see this transition in him. By the way, my daughter didn't know what she wanted to become until the day before but we found a nice dress to make her look like Laura from "The Little House on the Prairie"...

Mounted fabric

I really love old fabrics. I love the stories behind them. I am not an artist so I cannot paint a picture but I mounted a beautiful old fabric on to a frame, and, voila, it has become an instant artwork. These frames are on my bedroom wall. I fell in love with these delicate Shibori(tie-dye) silk kimono fabrics as soon as I saw them. They were very old and some of them still had stitches from its original garment or some had small stains. I feel I own a piece of history...

New Addition to our Family

This is nothing to do with my creativity, but I just wanted to show off the latest addition to our family - Medaka (or Ricefish)! We have a small fish tank with gold fish which we adopted from our old Japanese friend who used to live in Melbourne but returned home 4 years ago. Initially 3 fish, but now reduced to 1 after the untimely death of 2 of them, the gold fish has been enjoying the freedom of the fish tank all to himself until last Thursday. We added 4 Medaka to our fish tank. The gold fish we affectionately named, Rock 'n' Roll, has been dominating the tank and pushing the Medaka to the side, but gradually Medaka seem to find their presence in this small water world. Another reason that I wanted to have Medaka is that there is a famous Japanese nursery rhyme called "Medaka no gakko (School of Ricefish)". Now everytime I look into the fish tank, and see these little fish swim, I think of this beautiful children's song and think of old time Japan. Kids are so happy to have new pets.

A Linen Shoulder Bag

I have just made this linen shoulder bag for my friend. We selected the fabrics together, and I think it turned out really beautiful. 2 tones of brown linen and dark red Kimono fabric at the front really blend well. Basically, it is a long bag that flops down naturally at the straps to close like a lid. Black linen lining is used and the magnet button is attached, too. It is such a simple concept, so I think the beauty of fabrics stand out. I like it very much!