For this particular project, I ordered my fabric online at Kewl Cotton. I came home yesterday from Friday brunch with Syad to find my package arrived on time! Yeaay! I was so excited to start on the project, and I immediately pre-washed the fabric. Luckily the weather was in my favour and the fabrics dried within an hour.

Just a note, I always pre-wash my cotton fabrics. Since this one doesn’t have much starch (which is great!) I didn’t have to soak it. So I only pre-washed it incase it shrinks (although the owner claimed this one doesn’t shrink) it doesn’t hurt to be on the safe side!

I recommend this shop to get your cotton fabrics, she has some really cute designs! However, do be careful with the colours as the colours in her albums are not so accurate. Regardless, the owner is really nice and she helped me to match the fabrics according to the colours. Weee! It can be confusing to match colours on screen.

Anyhow, after sewing most of the evening, I finished this project this morning. Normally, I should’ve done it in shorter time, but being enormously pregnant, sewing was definitely a challenge. If it was not for my belly getting in the way, my feet would get bloated when I stay in the same spot. So I had to take a break every hour or so or I’ll have to walk like a zombie in the most awkward way. Not very elegant I would say.

Set Tilam Kekabu. I’ve been looking for it for a while. Found online ones, and they are pretty expensive. The good looking ones cost above RM200. So Eddie asked his mum incase she knows where to get them in Penang. And guess what, she got a set for us! Yeay, Alhamdulillah. She said Eddie’s aunt got this one on the roadside or something, just like that. Kekabu is really hard to find in the city.

My mum said it’s very rare nowadays. She put all of us on tilam kekabu when we were babies, and she even made it herself. She only had to make one set, and it lasted all through her 5 babies, only the covers changed. So, Alhamdulillah for this one. I hope this one will last as long too.

The set comes with two bolsters and two infant pillows. The first bolster was a pain, only because I didn’t know how to construct it. Once I figured it out though, it came easy.

The pillows.. I screwed up the measurements but I guess it worked. Just not as perfect as I envisioned it.

I had a lot of facepalm moments with this one.

First, the table light on the working table was mysteriously missing. I pretty much sewed the bed cover in the dark. My eyes almost went blind because I couldn’t see where the threads were going. After I was done, I realized the table lamp was sitting on the floor, right next to where I was sitting when I was measuring and cutting the fabric! WTF??!!! UGH HAHAHAHA. I facepalmed really hard. Literally.

Next, as I tried the bed cover on the tilam kekabu, I realized it needed velcro or some sort of closure to make it look neater from the top. So, I grabbed the thinnest velcro I had. Only, this velcro has glue on the back. I was happy to use it because of the convenience of the glue.

Then I started sewing the velcro on. It was great for a couple of stitches  before the problem arose. The machine stopped stitching! After much struggle, I realized that it was the glue getting to the needle and thread, thus making any stitch impossible. I had  12″ of velcro to sew on, and there were two pieces! I just, wanted to stab myself for getting into so much trouble. I should’ve just used the 2″ of regular velcro and saved me all these trouble.

Finally, no thanks to this preggo brain, I measured AND cut both of my bolster and pillow covers wrongly. The bolster covers were fortunate because I cut them bigger in size. So it was just the extra work. However, the pillow covers were 1″ short. And I had to compromise. Unhappy about it, but I had to compromise because I used up all my fabrics. and I hate compromising my projects! *architect in me talking LOL*

The conclusion is, I should’ve started making the baby projects earlier. Best is before 30 weeks. Being 37 weeks and trying to work, is definitely a challenge. For me, I just can’t avoid it. I was so busy before and now that I’m not, I’ve got this crazy eyes going on that I just HAD to make all these projects.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the result (if I can forget the imperfect pillows). LOL. Now lets just focus on the cuteness of this tilam kekabu! Love! Hope my baby will love it. She’s got a dedicated (and crazy nuts) mummy  ;D

In my past entry, I talked about my baby DIY projects. I made a 2-in-one maternity nursing pillow and it was super comfortable! Now, since it made me very very happy, I would like to show you how I made it. If you are farmiliar with most of sewing technicals, this will be easy and simple to understand. For beginners, I’m sure you can do it too, although it may be a bit of a challenge to understand.

Before we begin, I would like to apologize for the poor image quality. It was middle of the night and I was too flustered to check the images I took. Or maybe it was just the preggo brain. haha

Anyway, let’s get on with it, shall we? 

I realized I’ve been neglecting my blog, yet again. So sorry guys. I was busy with work in the past, and since last 2 weeks, I’ve been busy with baby projects DIY! Yeaay!

Ever since I started working on baby DIY projects, I’ve been more and more excited about baby’s arrival. It made everything seems more real. I’m at 36 weeks at the moment, and honestly, sewing is a challenge when your tummy is in the way. It was much harder for me to measure, and cut fabrics especially. So that slowed down the progress.

Anyway, baby project #1:

1. DIY baby binder

Made 6 of these. My mum recommended me to make 10, to last between washes. I also made them in slightly varying sizes, only because I don’t know how small or how big my baby will be. It costed me RM1.60 for the ropes for all these. All the fabrics are scrap fabrics I found in my fabric stash. I was surprised to find that much cotton scraps in my stash, and they are all perfect for baby’s skin! It would cost RM5 each to buy at the stores for plain ‘ol white ones. I say, BORING!

I’ll probably make some more when I’m bored. It only takes me about 10 to 15mins to make one. So easy. 🙂

2. Baby travel nap mat.

This is for my baby to take a nap on when we’re visiting or out and about. This is not really a huge necessity. I mean whenever I’m travelling, I can just find a regular comforter and fold them for the baby but hey, I’m a stylish mama, I want my baby to look and feel stylish too! HAHA.

The straps keep all the components together; two pillows, a mat, and a blanket.

I added batting onto the blanket for extra comfort. I also made my own nap mat. The chevron and doll house fabrics are both Robert Kaufman’s fabrics. The pink pin polka dot fabric is English cotton from Jakel. 

I thought I lost the screenshot of my old Scrapbook wordpress theme. To my own surprise, however, I made a  backup of my old blog before I deleted it. So, I uploaded that theme and tried it on wordpresss live preview. Ta-da! Of course, there are broken things like the far too big of an image below because this theme was crafted in 2008, and back then responsive design was not even thought of.

Then, I made a small modifications to the theme to add another sidebar widget and removed the image post thumbnail.

And, that was probably the last wordpress theme I ever made. In 2008. UN-BELIEVABLE.

Now, it’s 2013 and welcome to the era of responsive webdesign, flat design, and  user experience. Here’s to this yummy Minty wordpress theme! Yeay! Oh, I’m so proud of myself *flips hair* hahaha. So, this theme is based on vintage style, in a more simplified way. I don’t want it to look ‘heavy’. I guess the current Flat Design trend has it’s influence on this one.