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Thursday, March 03, 2016

February has leaped away

I forgot to add in my last post that I had finished the final 7 flowers for the Hexagone SAL Exchange of one flower per week. All 52 flowers are done yet I will have much more to work on to make this into a quilt but for now this will have to wait a little until I decide the next colour to go with my scheme since I am now not too fond of the fabric shown here in the background. It's a little too overly "congested" (I am not sure if there is any quilting term for this).

COTM (Colour of the Month) This was the Pink Exchange from Zarina in Penang.

Look at the generous amount of fabric

and the floss that she sent

with that I finished this into a Scissor Keeper, which I have made once for an exchange but never one for me, so now this is mine to keep and a matching scissor fob to go with the scissor

A couple of finishes done on some pieces stitched quite sometime ago from various sources

Just before February come to an end, me and two other GF revisited Pantai (Beach) Redang, a fishing village and well known for its abundance of fresh seafood . Being a work day, there were no bus loads of tourists and there were less crowds. This is the same spot with the raining red wishing tree, the tree with dangling red ribbons of well wishes.

The fisherman has yet to return with their catch thus there were no colorful fishing boats; the fishing village in sight

The river that flows into the sea

Spotted a fruiting Morinda (Morinda Citrifolia) ; Indian Mulbery Tree

we called it Buah Noni (Noni Fruit)or the Noni Tree

It was our diva moments,ROTFL; Jaimis and me while the other GF was too camera shy

Lap Mei Fan literally translated to mean Waxed Meat Rice. It's a very deceiving term, because there is actually no waxy stuff, it's just meat that has been cured by a long process of salting, smoking and drying resulting in a waxy sheen on the surface of the meat. This is how meat was being preserved long time ago for winter seasons (in China) before refrigerator was invented.

It's relatively a simple one pot dish and rice cooker possible

Here I used only pork sausages and waxed duck thigh

Spotted one morning looking out. The birds are happily chirping and was very loud.

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments.

Until my next post, have a good weekend everyone.

Monday, September 28, 2015

September,

I thought I would have a bit more of me time in September with Diane in hostel.
I thought I would have more time to concentrate on crafting since I no longer have to chauffer her around and wait on her. I thought I could also keep up with blogging and my blog rounds. But no, I just don't know how the time went by so quickly leaving me feeling a little lost for not being able to finish what I had planned. There was so much to do without actually accomplished anything worth mentioning except those that came with a deadline like the Halloween Mail Art and my Red Hexa SAL. By the way, Diane is home on sem break for a week but she will have her stuff to keep her busy.

Speaking of which, I am a little worried that I still have no news of the Mail Art reaching it's new home. It flew slightly over two weeks now and the postie track and trace records at my end here recorded it boarded the plane on 15 September, until todate the destination postal department has not provided a feedback on their delivery status.

September has been depressing, imagine waking up in the morning with a blurry skyline . I thought it was my eyesight that's failing. But the sky is shrouded with a thick pall of smoke and smelling burnt of organic material . Our air quality in recent weeks deteriorated and worsen tremendously with the prevailing winds continued to blow haze from the Sumatra fire. The light thunder shower in the late morning and early afternoon only provide temporary respite. The sad part is that this is becoming like an annual haze season for us which should never even have existed, if only 'the government concerned' had exercise some form of enforcement and worked their MOA. At one point the Air Pollutant index breached over 200 in unhealthy mark that forced schools to closed.

Our skies turned grey, smokey and gloomy.

The effect of haze exposure may caused a variety of adverse condition where health is concerned
and thus forcing people to abandon outdoor activities. Sadly the thunder showers in the late morning and early afternoon is not enough to overcome the situation.

This was mid morning at the Lake Gardens when the sun should be shining brightly and full of joggers and children in the playground but now looking almost deserted.

The eight moon has come again, according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar. It's celebrating the moon , known as Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival that falls on last Sunday

I bake my mooncake again

no Jelly mooncake this year

The before and after bake

Traditional Mooncake with White Lotus paste and Single Egg Yolk

I haven't been into any serious baking lately

I received a box of mooncakes by RT Pastry House which look like the Penang Tau Sar Peh that's worth giving a mentioned because it's not shaped like the traditional ones.

Thanks to Edwin

Four more done for the month of September

My hexies now totaling 37/52

Found this Mooncake box from Baker's Cottage Bakery to display

Vincent bought me this when I asked him to check it out at Kino two weeks ago

Me and some crafting ladies; June, Margaret W, BJ and Jackie finally had our long awaited meet-up when we decided to go stashing at Spotlight at IPC Centre

Here's my haul

All kinds of stitching and paper craft notions including a ball of Patons Cotton in Off Cream

for doily crochet for SuSee. I'm not a doily person actually, I think I had enough of it along time ago.

MW also became the 'unofficially Spotlight spokeperson' for these grinder cum shaker

She's so convincingly good and I am sold without second thoughts, LOL

A lil'surprised from MW.

Open lid Mason Jar

Endless possibilities

Some books I picked up this month

I'm very sure I don't have these titles

A black tunic lacy blouse I started 2 years ago finally saw me finishing it a week ago

This is before wash

An afternoon English Tea at TWG Tea at Sunway Pyramid earlier of the month with Alice and Kimmi

A new toy, my smoothie blender

A visit to an Aunt, DH's who now occupy the ancestral home had me wondered into her garden. Besides growing vegetables, I found this rose bush

and this sweet pink daisy

I am currently working on my Annual Exchange, hopefully I get it completed by December this year, so that's WIP for now.

That's all I can squeeze in for this month. Hopefully in the coming weeks I get to be a little more regular with my blog rounds and with my blog post.

Here's my furbaby snuggled up on a seemingly cold, gloomy day. Even she stays indoors a lot lately.

Wishing you beautiful bright skies where ever you may be.

Friday, March 07, 2014

Missing time

I have been playing with some fabrics the past couple of weeks and attempted some hexis with scraps and ended up with two pincushions

and this . I don't know what this is called but it's been around and I made this once before about two years back as a birthday gift, but this is for me.

Learning to applique. I still have much to learn....I have reasons for the need to practice .

And so I have no stitching to show. I did work on Positive Thinking but did not completed it as I had hope to achieved but it's coming along. No photos to show, perhaps in my next posting. Am actually feeling a bit lethargic lately which put me in a mode of no interest in doing things except what needed to be done. I do have a first exchange coming up soon and I have completed my part last night. I do have my shortcoming and initial setbacks and some wasted fabrics because I math wrongly, I wasn't thinking straight and all. However, I managed to overcome it, only hopefully J will be all forgiving in receiving it later.

I shall end this post with some photos of my Bird Watcher in the house. It's the first time I spotted her in Diane's room window. And I don't know if the blinds is of her doing or Diane's.

Thank you all who came by and left comments in my last post. My apologies if you did not received a personal thank you mail from me, but do be known that your words are very much appreciated.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Thursday, January 03, 2013

The new beginning

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you had a wonderful great start to 2013 and I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for following me along on my crafting adventures and the occasional journey in life. Big thank you especially to you who stop to leave me with your lovely comments, it meant a lot to me for your words inspire me to keep on blogging and sharing this passion.

The days before Christmas
I thought I could end my post for the year with my Christmas post but there was this one ornament that got left out, not intentionality but because it didn't arrive when it should and I had the postie to blame for the delay it caused.

The design is actually from a Black Cat Silhouette, I used variegated threads on this kitty hoping to get it to resemble the fur of a Siamese kitty, and I failed miserably didn't I?

It wasn't even close enough although I had one living right under my eyes, that's my princess, LOL

I also finished this into a Bell shape and keeping the design clean and simple by adding only lace and a tiny bell for the kitty's neck

At the very least, I gave kitty its signature blue eyes and added a bit of holly? For that added Christmassy touch. It’s after all a Christmas Ornie for Jess W and I stole this snap from Jess too when I forgot to snap a closeup before I mail. Thanks Jess ;P

One last final finish. This was from last year's, never got to finish it then. Backing was in green velvet. No fancy finishing for this.

On Christmas day, we were at Genting Highlands Resort for an evening with the Australian Bee Gees. Glad the kids enjoyed it too and they recognized some of their songs to actually sing along.

Some bakes before Christmas, Chocolate Brownies with Chocolate Chips

My first attempt at baking a Fruit Cake, I am naming it, Crumble Fruit Cake, because half of it actually did crumble like this, LOL. Another disaster from my kitchen. I haven't figured it out where have I gone wrong.

This was dinner the evening before we left for Genting, Bake Chicken and Shitake Mushroom with Mashed Potatoes, my version of a one pot dish.

The New Year's

No, I did not pen down my resolutions. I am not a resolution type of a person. I rather put things into action with whatever ideas that came racing into my head and see it materialized rather than staring into a piece of paper over what need to be done. It's also the last few days to prep things for DD who has been conscript to join the compulsory (once selected) National Service for 3 months.

Surprisingly, I manage some few hours of quiet time to stitch this WIP from over a year ago. Once Upon A-Time the final chart of three, Hope. Although that few hours was from a day, I did get some good amount of progress on this. I will need a couple more hours of a day or two, I hope. Until another update then.

To all who came by, THANK YOU for a great year of stitching friendship !

I wish every one of you a year full of joy, good health, love, success and dreams come true.