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Secret Garden Trapunto Quilt Pattern

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I spent almost a year to get it up here and on my daughter’s bed, from idea to drawing, to the actual quilt then to this pattern and tutorial sharing. The reason behind this long stretch of time is because I have too many tasks on hand. I was being carried away with and lost my sense of priority. In early last year, we bought a new condominium (yes, we are moving from a landed double story house to a condo, crazy!) so that we could have a place of our own. The quilting idea emerging into my mind and I told myself that I am going to make each of my kids at least a quilted blanket for their new bedrooms. A quilt that they can remember for their whole life and perhaps can make it a heirloom piece to show the next generation “See, this is designed and made by your grandma.”… ok, may be just a photo to show if the quilt is too tattered to display…

I bought a Bernina B550 QE (quilter’s edition) from Bernina Malaysia and million thanks to Kelvin who came all the way up to Penang to demonstrate how to use the machine to the fullest. I really love this machine as it has a cruise control on the sewing speed, the BSR stitch regulator, the hand-free foot lifter and many more….. not to mention the reliability of the machine which is well known to be able to pass down for generations. Love love love it!

Hope you will quilt one soon. I am almost finished with my son’s quilt, the “Road Runner”…… stay tuned!

{Get full pattern and tutorial on next page.}

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Sew a quilted snowman pillow cover

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As the last piece of my Christmas sewing project for this year, I transformed a quilt panel into 3 throw pillow covers. I cut up the “Share The Joy Snowman” (from Moda) quilt panel, and split it into 5 parts in order to get 3 snowman panels and 2 strips of text banners. With them and additional matching fabrics, I sewed and trapunto quilted 3 throw pillow covers that has 3 different snowman prints on each. In order to make all 3 pillows a little different, I changed the side panels with quilt blocks: Christmas Tree [updated] and Pinwheel (tutorial to follow soon).

Oh my, I deeply fell in love with this quilting style and technique, not only that it gives the 3 dimension effect on the print, it makes the quilt so soft and nice to touch. My kids can never stop stroking their face and hands on the snowman, squeeze and cuddle them all the time. I bet if the weather can get any cooler, they will sure love to hug them to sleep…. Kids, blankets are on the way… please be patient

Remember the Whale baby trapunto quilt blanket I sewed for my friend’s newborn son, where I mentioned that I have lost all the step by step tutorial photos and only can write the tutorial with some “done” photos to explain. If you landed here from that blanket post, you will be able to see some photos that could help you to understand better, especially the 3D trapunto quilting part. Click page 2 for details.

Christmas greeting from Craft Passion, together with the kids here to create a little hoax that spice up my already-challenging crafting world, and not forgetting Mr.CraftPassion that helps up the household core while free my time to craft and create………………
We wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS, let’s share the joy to the world!!!!
Wish you all have a wonderful time at this special holy season of the year with friends and families!

{Get full details on next page.}

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Zipper Pencil Case

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To welcome you back to the craft room of Craft Passion, here is the zipper pencil case pattern and tutorial which I did before my recent weekend getaway. Honestly, this is not suitable for beginner sewer because of the piping and the way I lined it, but intermediate or advance sewer should have no problem in getting it done.

As you can see from the photos, this zipper pencil case has a zipper that opens all the way down from top to the sides. This enable a widely open view that make getting things from the pencil case straightforward. Also, there are internal gussets at the sides to prevent contents from falling out.

This pencil case would make perfect storage for many purpose, pencil case, cosmetic pouch, stationery, accessories, craft tools etc… you name it!!!

{Get full details on next page.}

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Sewing Project: Queen Gown

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Finally, the long waited “Queen” gown I made for my daughter is published here!!!! With details and photographs, including those taken during the performance

A big thank you to all of you who encouraged me to sew it instead of buying it off-the-shelf. I never thought that I could finish it on time when I was given only 7 days before she wears it for the dress rehearsal and 11 days for the performance. I thought of getting one off-the shelf and embellishing it but I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied with the result. So……

Every time I walk into my craft room and see the gown hanging there, I’d think “I made this?” It is just like a dream that I spent 7 late nights and early mornings (I have a day job, so I can only sew it at night) to get it finished, with no pattern to follow!!!! Even my daughter couldn’t believe that it was made by her mum as I didn’t let her see the gown until I almost finish it. By the way, kids are not allowed to enter my craft room, with pins and needles every where, it is a dangerous playground!!!

The performance just ended last Friday and the gown is a great keepsake especially for my daughter. Though the gown just had been on stage for a few minutes for the performance, that’s good enough to surprise the audiences. I received some sweet compliments from other parents, most of them don’t believed it when I said “I sewed it”, anyway I may not look like a tailor or a fashion designer, but I definitely am a hobby craftswomen.

Upon making up my mind to go for the “DO IT MYSELF” decision, I quickly drew the pattern for the gown with the inspirations from some gown photos I found on the web. I am no professional sewer or seamstress and I didn’t attend any proper tailoring class before. All I have is self-taught from book and guidance from my mum. Yes, I made a few garments by following pattern book since I was in my high school, with no proper training. I met with failure along the way but it didn’t stop me from sewing. Here I am, drawing my own paper pattern for the first time and it is challenging.
If you wish to made this gown, there are some online gown patterns available in places like McCall and SewingPattern.com. But you can’t find mine there, oppppsss!

I went to a few shops during my lunch time the next day and quickly got some materials for the gown, like red linen and black satin (I changed to white in the later stage), ribbons, pre-pleated ribbons, laces, buttons, zipper and also a pair of open-finger long hand glove… basically anything I came across that I might need. I ended up buying more than I needed :p

The cutting began after the kids went to bed and there was no one to disturb me. I was excited and started to cut the fabric, made a few mistakes and wasted some fabrics though. Well, at least I learned something through-out the process.

I made the black top (right) on the first sewing night and let my daughter try on it to check if the measurement was correct, and her first reaction was “Mummy, why did you use black, I don’t like it!”…. emmmm… I had the same opinion too, so I wasn’t surprise when she made that comment. Without a second thought, I trashed the first night effort and replaced the black satin with white satin, resulting in a white-red-gold combination (left). And, I also extended the V-waist a little as the first pattern was too short and the V is not noticeable… problem with self design pattern… lol!!!

Next, on to the sleeves. That was a pair of puffed sleeves where I embellished it with 3 stripes of ribbons.
I called up my mum to ask for some help in drawing the puff sleeve as I never sewed one before. It is not difficult, just split the sleeve into 6 equal vertical parts, glue them onto another paper with double the spacing in between them (if you want it puffier, add more space in between), and extend the curve on the top of the sleeve with same spacing. Redraw the sleeve with correct curvature, that’s it! I later found a website with detail photos for the “puffing”, but it is only “puffing” the top and not the arm hem.

Phew, luckily the sleeves came out PUFFY. I got it right
The red center piece on the top is a combination of gold powdered lace with red fabric. I later found out that it is non-washable… dry cleaning may work but not water.

The top was finished and I needed to get on to the bottom skirt fast. I was running out of time and the bottom need more time to finish as it was heavily embellished.
Basically the bottom was made up of 4 pcs. of rectangles and 4 pcs. of triangles (curved bottom).
I sew lots of pre-pleated ribbons onto the white satin triangles. At first I sew them slightly over-lapping each layer, I later added another layer in between to make them look “full”.

Sewing them up took up a lot of time as there were 22 layers of pre-pleated ribbons in each triangle. Took me a night to finished it.

I added 3 stripes of ribbons on 3 pcs. of the red rectangle fabric, otherwise it will be too plain for that part. The center piece is a combination of golden lace and red fabric exactly like the top.

Had all of them sewn up. Sent to the craft store nearby for serging services as I don’t have a serger machine.
Gathered on the top side of the dress and joined up with the top to make up into gown. Went for another serging service again. There was an interlude for this trip, the lady who did it for me gave me a big eye and said “You made this?”, I said, “Yes, it is for my daughter’s stage performance”. Their customers (mainly seamstress) all hovered around it showering compliments on it… I was like “oh my goodness!!!” blush blush… I am not a pro by the way and this is my first gown sewing

Back to the details of the gown. I later sewed in the long open-finger hand glove onto the puff sleeve and added a ring of pleated ribbon at the wrist.
I also put in a line of small pleated ribbon on the waist to make it looks more “ROYAL”

Also, another line of pleated ribbon for the end hem of the gown with the same purpose… ROYALTY LOOK!!!

Side view of it.

Finally finished the whole gown. This gown is displayed with a crinoline in it. I need it to make the gown look inflated and domed. I am saving this for my next post on how to make a crinoline, quite easy compared to sewing this