ATC on Parade 2011

I have the winner for my giveaway - Comment #16.

Tatterjil, thanks for your lovely comment, please send me your snail mail address so that I can mail out the blue rose bookmark for you. I have left a message in your blog too a few days ago, but have not heard from you yet. Please do contact me with your address by 19 Aug, else I'll be picking another winner.

I have been working on my fabric alphabet ATCs, finished the "R" before the "Q", but I have already tatted the Q critters, just need to sew them up.
And some ATCs for the August trading session in Bishan Library. I did these very simple "Shapes in My Garden" for the theme "Shapes". I'm sure you can spot the 4 basic shapes. Incidentally, I have also used 4 different materials on them: metallic sequins, wire, fabric and paper.

A pair of button fairies "Blue Tinkle" on ATC.

Traded for these: Rose (water-colour painting by Lyn, Stars (colour pencil and pen by Sor Huan), and Dog (paper cutting by Rita).

We had Marianne Bos, a New Zealander quilt artist who is residing in Singapore, for a little talk on quilting and fabric works. Lots of beautiful quilts, fabric postcards and ATCs she brought with her to the library.

Swaps are moving slowly of late. This was the only mail I received in 2 weeks - art doll from Cindy Peck (USA). Cindy chose to make a garden fairy. I'm impressed how the different layers making up the doll were held together with only 1 brad, which also enable it to be folded down in half. The card behind is also the work of Cindy. Thank you, Cindy!

Onto the last 2 days of my China trip, we spent an uneventful day shopping in Guiyang 西市路 on the 10th day (17 Jun, Fri).

Most of the locals shop there for all their shoes, clothes, household items, stationery and everything.

Cross-stitch and knitting/crochet are the main craft hobby there. There are lots of cross-stitch kits selling in shops scattered all over the area, and knitting yarns and needles on one of the streets.

We ended the day with a visit to the massage parlour where DH usually goes for foot massages. I didn't want to try as the one I did in Toa Payoh/Singapore was not a very gentle one in my memory, but I gave in. Not too bad services - both the foot trimming (where they will shave off all your dead skin on your feet and trim the toe nails with a knife!) and the massage itself! Not painful at all, and it ended with a hot glass bottle capped to the bottom of the feet to draw out the "wind" in the body.

I ended my day with a trip to the hair-dresser, which I kind of regretted, as I ended up with real short permed hair that costed 400 CNY and only done past mid-night! Felt kind of been conned as I only originally intended for a simple hair cut only, but well, it's a change everyone will notice!

On the 11th day (18 Jun, Sat), we left DH's condo for the airport at 6.30 am to catch the domestic flight back to Guangzhou. Luckily the weather was good enough for us to fly. There was time to still do a little shopping in Guangzhou Baiyun Airport during the transit, but things were pretty expensive there. A small plate of simple fried bee hoon costed more than 60 CNY! We were finally back in Singapore by 6 in the evening.

I do have more photos to post - more on the food in Guiyang in the next post!

Just a little announcement on our 4th annual ATC exhibition, "ATC on Parade 2011", which will start next Thu, 18 Aug, at the Serangoon Public Library. The exhibition will then move back to the Bishan Public Library from 2 to 22 Sep. Pop in to the libraries if you can!