Time sure flew by really fast this week for me. While I love weekends, sometimes when the week moves by too quickly, I feel like it means I haven't been productive enough or that I didn't use the time wisely enough and that's why it slipped away. /wails

Which is why I knew I had to have a clock in my studio as soon as possible... maybe I can cheat myself that time moves slower by constantly glancing at the clock (just like how I unintentionally did while I was in school, waiting for the time to go home.. hahahaha).

And my timekeeper's in his roaring twenties. Ha-ha. See what I did there? Ok fine so maybe he's not really in his twenties, he does look a bit jaded with life. Just a bit.

What you'll need:

A plastic animal

A clock kit
(I took apart the Rusch Ikea clock)

A piece of wood

Acrylic paint

Strong glue like 2-part epoxy

Screws & Drill (optional)

Drill a hole into the centre of the piece of wood-- the hole has to be large enough for your clock kit to go through. 

If you don't have a drill, no biggie! A sharp pointy object like an awl may work, depending on the thickness of the wood. 

If you're going with a drill, mark the points where you want to insert screws.

If you don't like screwing around, simply attach the two together with strong glue. I highly recommend a 2-part epoxy which can be easily found in hardware stores. If you're in a hurry, go for the 5-minute quick dry ones. If you have Moses-like patience, go for the industrial strength ones-- they're used for boats! :O

Attach them together, and...

Attach the clock kit. Feel free to use some double-sided tape to secure it if needed.

And you're done!

Now, hopefully this psychological game of "let's look at the clock more often so time doesn't slip away" will actually work outside of my school years... Anyone has any tips on how to make time pass by slower?

I was never interested in woodworking when we had Kemahiran Hidup (Living Skills classes that comprised of cooking, sewing and woodworking) back in school. The sawdust made my highly sensitive nose sneeze like mad, the tools felt scary to me (afraid of sawing off my own finger) and I could never hit a nail in straight. What a girl, pfft. Hahaha.

It's quite funny how things have changed. I'm staying up late looking for reviews of saws and rotary tools and looking for electric sanders. I look at old furniture in a whole different light. I don't think I'm particularly good at woodworking yet, but I think it's fun to hammer stuff and finish things with a coat of paint... so it's pretty much a hobby since sewing turned into a job for me heheh. Also, it doesn't hurt that this hobby bonds me and my dad-- I only recently found out that he built a wooden sofa back in the day and that he has a jigsaw. :-O

Stains n' stickers, that's how student tables roll.

My mom pointed out that this table was actually still pretty solid, which I never noticed before. Initially I wanted to just sand it and stain it in pickling white, but when I went round poking my nose into the nooks of this table, I realised I could take this table apart. HEY!

Loosen up my buttons babe a-hah

Just a matter of looking for screws and unscrewing them, and then kicking the pieces to to push them apart from each other. 

Being an old table, the pieces were quite tightly joined to each other so it took some elbow grease to separate all the pieces. Though my elbows didn't get greasy. Ha... ha okanywaymovingon.

I had my eye on a few adjustable table legs from Ikea (I wanted this table to be a cutting table, so it had to sit higher than regular tables to prevent hunching and backaches which I get a LOT :-/ ), and ended up with these Finnvard trestle legs which I assembled sans shelves to keep the airy look of its non-adjustable cousin here. 

Painted a coat of primer and topped it with 2 coats of leftover paint from our house renovations. Yay for leftovers! 

The painting isn't perfect as I didn't manage to get a really smooth coat compared to spray painting... I think it's because of the brushed I used, so I shall try the next painting project with a different brush. I probably need to practice more too.

Meanwhile, I sanded the table top with the electric sander (tiring!). You can see from the 2nd pic at the top of the post that the table had some dark stains on it, and sanding it down helped clean it up.

Next, my favorite part: staining the table top with ingredients from the kitchen. In the photo above, I was trying to stain the table with a mixture of tea, instant coffee and turmeric. After a layer, I decided that I wanted a darker color. A muchhhh darker color.

So, back to the kitchen!

11.00PM: "It smells like Starbucks in here!", said the husband. Hahaha.

Bought some coarse black coffee powder, boiled it up, cooled it down, and applied the coffee all over the table top, rubbing the coffee granules into it and let it dry overnight.

The black coffee stain really bought out the grains of the wood, and darkened it. You can see some light patches in the photo above-- this was where, after 1-2 coats, I realised I did not sand those parts down evenly and the stain couldn't penetrate below. So I sanded those areas by hand and stained them again.

I had some wood oil in hand so I oiled the table top after having enough of coffee stain layers.

This is what it looked like after the oil had penetrated the wood fully.

Look at all the grains, the shading of the dark and light tones! I am in love.

My husband helped me with affixing the table top onto the trestle legs... that was definitely something I couldn't do on my own because this table top was HEAVY as an elephant. No I've never carried an elephant before. Yes I am probably exaggerating. Maybe a baby elephant? I don't know. 

The photos of the process were taken with my phone. Here are a few more taken with my camera, which I think is a more accurate representation of the color:

Really, really love the tones. Did I mention that the table smells of coffee??? OH. MYYYYY.

I sniffed my table many times since we moved it to my studio. I don't think the smell will last forever, but I wish it would.

I really wished it would.

/love song fade to black

I love you, coffee stained cutting table.

Hello! How has everyone been? (Why am I writing this like an email? What is wrong with me?)

Feels like it's been ages since I blogged (although it was just last month)-- I've been setting up a new online store for L.A.R.K and it's finally up and running with new products, hurrah! 

Here are some of my favorite pieces which goes with the colors of today's tutorial:

Young Ambition in Orange Brown

Summer Kaleidoscope Silk Twill Scarf

Totorigami in Orange Brown

They also come in other colors, so please do pop by and have a look! :) There is a also a live chat widget on the site if you have any questions on the products.

Setting up the online store was very challenging. I guess I could've hired a programmer to do it, but I wanted to learn how to do it on my own to see if it was really that difficult. Armed with minimal HTML knowledge and lots of great tutorials online, I spent many nights setting up this PHP store and trying to troubleshoot the errors, while juggling my freelance work and consulting work. At times I really felt like pulling my hair out like a crazy ape, but I'm glad it turned out ok in the end.

So today, apparently it is Relaxation Day (August 15th). I decided to make something to relax from all the work, and ended up painting an old shelf plank into a colorful geometric art display. 

Super easy project. Let's go!

Grab some:

Acrylic paint

Masking tape/Painter's tape in 2 sizes

Paintbrush

Scissors

(or you could use your teeth to tear the tape, whatever works for you wild child)

and of course,

Something to paint on

(I used an old shelf plank)

Paint the base color. I did 2 coats of the white to cover the "blemishes" if you will. 

Oh and I didn't have a large enough brush for this, so I just wrapped some sponge batting onto a toothbrush (not the one I brush my teeth with, don't worry).

When the paint has dried (I cheated by using a hairdryer heheh), tape your design on the plank. Straight lines, long lines, short lines, zig zag lines-- YOU'RE THE BOSS and the tape has to obey you. 

/cue evil bossy laugh

Paint over!

Watch paint dry.

Or, cheat again with the hairdryer ho ho...

Peel the tape! Be gone, tape!

Bye tape.

Hello geometric pal!

Vintage buttons gifted by my mom's friend :)

That's it, easy right? Anyway, it was a nice way to spend Relaxation Day. 

What do you do to relax from work?

If you like this tutorial, please consider sharing it!

Hey guys, I'm back! Apologies for being away, it's been too long, and hopefully this makes up for it. My grandmother spent a week at the hospital for an operation, and was just discharged yesterday. My mom asked me if I could get some material to make my grandma some pajamas to wear at home once she gets discharged-- her current pajamas was too short on the legs and too tight on the waistband, and the sleeves of the blouse was too long. 

Since my grandmother spent a few days floating in and out of sleep at the hospital while the anaesthetic wore off while being in pain from the surgery scars, we couldn't really take her measurements so we decided to base the pattern off one of her pajama sets.

The sleeve was drafted using Winifred Aldrich's book (bless her)-- I tried googling for a shortcut easy way to draft sleeves (haha lazy me) and found this video by Fettucinnetube, but after drafting it and showing it to my mom, she said it looked weird and I had to agree. If anyone's tried the Fettucinnetube technique, let me know if it worked for you. I ended up drafting the sleeve the correct way with the Aldrich book and am glad I did it coz the fit is nice!



I drew the pattern in Illustrator and was in such a hurry to finish it because my grandmother was discharged a day earlier than we anticipated. Sooo the pattern isn't perfect by industry standards (you will have to have experience in sewing pattern pieces together), but hopefully it will make sense and be of help to anyone who is looking for some pajamas to lounge around in.

After sewing it, I shortened the sleeves by 9cm from the hem (the pattern's sleeves would sit at the elbow-- an oversight of mine during the drafting process as I had forgotten that my grandmother wanted shorter sleeves, oops). 

It's made for size XL, and I would recommend lightweight fabrics such as cotton, rayon, satin, polyester, as long as they feel good against your skin (a good excuse to play with the fabric like a cat at the fabric store).

The pattern is available for free as a print at home copy. The top/blouse prints on 30 pages, and the pants pattern prints on 20 pages. 1cm seam allowance (SA) is included, and there are guides to help you line up the pages to stick them together. More instructions on the pattern pdfs.

I sewed a little satin ribbon on the front of the pants as a reminder of which way's the front. Though, technically, since the crotch curve of this pants is pretty low (nobody should wear tight crotched pants as pajamas, please just don't), the pants can be worn either way.

Download the PDF patterns here:
Sweet Nana Pajamas (Top)

Sweet Nana Pajamas (Pants)

Feel free to use it to sew a loved one some pajamas! This is my first pattern that I'm sharing here, so please share it and let me know if you like it. If you have any questions, do leave a comment or tweet to me at @chiiiiing (5 i's). Enjoyyyy! :D

Yeah, I was so happy I felt like hugging her to sleep!

Just kidding, they're Sha Nay Nay's! Heh. Now stop checking out her cleavage! :P

This slip was fully draped on Sha Nay Nay, so no paper pattern pieces. I learned some pros and cons, which I'll get to below.

The edges were finished with small zig zag stitches, as I didn't want anything too bulky.

Having a dress form has really helped me in my sewing adventures. It cuts down fitting time, and I'm able to create patterns from draping directly onto the form, like I did on the wedding dress. Here are some tips for getting your own dress form.

Tips on buying/making dress forms

If you sew for yourself and others...

1. Consider getting an adjustable dress form that falls within your measurements. Amazon sometimes has discounts-- while searching I found that the common size was M, and they were cheaper than the other sizes.

2. Check if the tailor form is pin-able. A pin-able form is needed for draping designs (some pin all the way into the body, and some pin halfway meaning you will have to angle the pin at a slant to push it in)

If you only sew for yourself...

1. Measure your body measurements (key areas: bust, waist, hips) and try to look for one closest to your size. It may be easier to buy a slightly smaller one and pad it up later to match your measurements, rather than buying a bigger one which might not help much with your fitting.

2. It won't be essential to have an adjustable dress form, so you get to save some money there :)

3. Like the above, check if the tailor form is pin-able.

4. Make your own! Here are a few ideas:

Shannon's duct tape dress form, made mostly on her own with the help of her adorable son. The thing I like about her version is that she filled the insides with spray foam.

Threads' mama got swag paper tape dress form

Sartorial DIY's amazing plaster bandages dress form. One word: WOAH!!

lazylinchen's sloper dress form filled with sawdust... another of my favorites!

Do you have a dress form, and if not would you be interested to make one on your own?