A Little Bit About My Life in Hong Kong ...

I guess I never really talk about my private life here but this time, I will make an exception.


I have been visiting Hong Kong, my home town for nearly 5 weeks now and I am heading back to London next week, time flies! I had so much fun here with family and friends. I guess one of the most important day was my 30th birthday and it is really rare that I could celebrate this BIG day with my twin!


I really want to thank my lovely parents for giving birth to us! I am so fortunate to have Kalam, who is always my soulmate, best friend and my lil sister!


I didn't buy any birthday presents for my sister but I have made her a small present - my first hand sew tote bag (I love totes!)

Custom made Baby Body Suits and Pillow for lil Jayden !

My very very close friend Lucia just gave birth to this cute little boy Jayden!
For a special boy like him, I must give him something really personal ...


So I spent nearly the whole day, handprinting some baby body suits and sewing a pillow for little Jayden. I hope he likes them!

Inspired by My Father (Albert)

I am really inspired by the lovely flowers/ birds photographs taken by my dad lately! He is such a dedicated artist, he would wake up really early to go to the park to capture the beautiful nature. Because of his lovely photographs, I am getting really into drawing some floral patterns and anything about the nature!

Kalo's New Cards

My dad found a lovely sewing machine from the cupboard a few days ago. It is a vintage as it is more than 30 years old! He taught me how to use it and here are some cards I created with this sewing machine ...

Kalo Make Stitches DAY 2 / Tutorial

Today is the second day I continue to stitch. I started a new project, instead of stitching my doodles, I stitched pieces of fabrics together to create one big pattern.


The technique is really simple, but the tricky part is it is very very time consuming !
I spent nearly 10 hours completing the shape (believe it or not) ... I know I should get faster once I get better at stitching. Luckily the pattern is rather successful !


Here are the steps :
Step 1
Cut out x 19 SAME SIZED hexagon shape PAPER templates - A4 printing paper 80gsm works AND
Cut out x 19 SAME SIZED hexagon shape FABRICS - remember to leave a border of approximately 0.7 cm bigger than the paper templates.

 Any sizes of hexagon should work, but my suggestion is not to make them too small, it is more difficult to hold smaller shapes while stitching.

I cut out hexagon shapes of 2.5 cm (E-D) and 4 cm (F-G)

Step 2

Wrap the slighly bigger fabric around the paper template, then stitch over (both the fabric and paper template) to form/ secure the hexagon shape.

Don't need to stitch perfectly here as the stitch would be taken out later. The key is to create a sharp hexagon shape. 

Step 3

Hold two pieces of hexagon fabrics together, with the ugly backs facing out.

Stitched them together along the top and side edges. Slowly stitching each fabric one by one, you will gradually create a bigger pattern. The key here is ... P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E !

After more than ten hours of patience ...

STEP 4

Use a hot but not super hot iron to iron over the whole piece, make sure you are aiming to flatten and sharpen the edges. Once this is done, carefully pull out all the paper templates and cut out all the stitches you did on each individual fabric in STEP 2.

    And after all the hard work, I finally had one piece of beautiful fabric !

You can stitch it on tote bags, cushion covers, skirts !!!

Kalo Make Stitches DAY 1

While in Hong Kong, I have also been looking for art groups and short courses to meet some like-minded friends and learn some new skills. I am so excited when I found these leaflets about arts + craft short courses at a workshop in Causeway Bay. It is great to know there are some handmake artists hidden in various corners in this tiny city.

There are a few courses caught my eyes, but the courses I like does not fit my schedule!
(I can't complain as I am going to Bali for a week!) So insead of taking classes, I am going to start self-learning something new - stitching and sewing !


First day, I stitched out what I doodled in my sketchbook and made it into a mini tote bag ...

Hello From Hong Kong

I am currently now in my hometown, Hong Kong. I am back for a couple of reasons !
To celebrate my big three zero with my twin sister (we haven't celebrated our bday together for nearly 5 years! We are going to Bali this Friday)
To spend some quality time with my supportive parental... and of course, continue to be inspired for my art in a 'new' environment and source art materials !!!


Yesterday, I was under a material hunting mission. I went to Shum Shui Po - it is literally all artists / crafters' materials heaven.  I swear to God that even though I come from Hong Kong originally, I still think it is mad! There were streets and streets of shops specialising in selling buttons, fabrics, felt, ribbons, laces, studs, decorations, crystals, threads, cotton, ropes ... anything you name. I was in heaven !


I am definitely going back once or twice before I head back to expensive London !