Birthday ATCs!!!

Remember the birthday ATC swap I participated ? I'm the next person in the group with birthday coming up - today! I have received fabulous ATCs and lovely extras from my wonderful swap partners. Here are part of them -

From Eileen Carkett (UK).

Eileen was thinking about peacock when she put this ATC together - black velvet with foil added, some Angelina and some eyelash knitting yarn. There are some beads too, threaded on silver thread, all machine-stitched together. And a very lovely crocheted bracelet with beads too!

This ATC from Marja (The Netherlands) has different kinds of wool, a few little dried plants and some other fabrics which Marja doesn't know the English word for;-). Marja also dyed "old" wool blankets to make the little birds (and other things).

The third ATC that came is this lovely cross-stitched butterfly, accompanied by a matching card, from Jeannette Luttmer (Canada). This is my first cross-stitched ATC ever received, they will be treasured!

Kalona (UK) used a lot of materials - fabrics, yarns, threads, papers, etc. to create this very festive-looking reddish-pink ATC. Auspicious colours for Chinese! And to tie in with Valentine's day too.
Susan Highfield (Australia) is an embroideress, and a fine one too. Such a lovely intricate-looking umbrella!

There are more, I'll show them in my next post!

There are more ATCs, but they're the alphabet ones, and the last ones to wrap up the series. These are from Mari (South Africa) - T is for Teacups, U is for Umbrella, W is for Washing Line, X is for X'mas tree, Y is for Yo-yo and Z is for Zebra.

And the last 3 ATCs from Sherry (USA) - X is for X-ray, Y is for Yo-yo and Z is for Zebra in a Zipper. A polymer clay zebra hiding in the zipper bag!

I also took a photo of all my fabric alphabet ATCs together - every alphabet with a tatted critter. It was a real challenge that took me a good year and a half!

Finally, I have come to the last part of the StitchMap's challenge to sew a stitcher's travel bag with accessories - a scissors case. I made it with matching tatted flowers and butterflies.

The scissors fob was tatted some time back, and now hanging proud on the scissors!

Here are all the items I have made - the first things I sewed with my sewing machine!!

Roses to wrap up the post and my day! From DH, of course!

Thank you to all well-wishes!!

More Tatting and Sewing!

Finally, I finished the last pieces of the fabric alphabet ATC swap. These are for Mari (South Africa). In my next post, I'll show my whole set of tatted critters from A to Z!I made up this simple floral pattern to show the following colour schemes for the Colour Theory course - from left to right: Split-Complementary, Triadic, Tetradic. Yes! I finally cleared this particular lesson!
Part 3 of the StitchMap's challenge for a stitcher's travel bag and accessories was a straight pin rollup and needlecase. Using the same fabric and adding more tatted flowers to adorn the front and inside, I was more confident of using the machine now (or rather, not so nervous!), though the sewing wasn't going all straight yet ;)

I have finished Part 4 too, but that's all for now!

February Challenges

My February ATC is done for The Linen Shelf's ATC Challenge. We are creating an ATC each month based on the calendar months. Again, like for January, using the same motif I tatted for the birthday gal, I sewed up my February 2012 ATC. This piece is dedicated to Annette, whose birthday falls on 6 Feb.

Also, here's "My Sweetheart" ATC for the Green Paper Collage February 2012 Challenge. As mentioned for my January ATC, I intend to print the provided images in black and white and added colours by tatted motifs. In line with Valentine's Day, the colour I have chosen for Feb is pink and my sweetheart's wearing a tatted pink heart necklace!

Moving on the StitchMap's challenge to do a set of stitcher's travel bag and accessories, Part 2 turned out to be a Name Tag Bag. I used my initial for the front, and the small tatted flowers as a continuation of the pattern on the Travel Bag. It was a bit messier on the machine because of the small size (5" by 3"), with all the starts and stops. And the top hem was hand-stitched because I couldn't get it round on the free arm of the machine. Again, I had to unpick and re-sew a few times. Also with no closure, but with lining on the inside.

After completing the StitchMap's Colour Theory course Lesson 4, my homemade colour wheel now looks like this. Quite cool, isn't it?

These are the edgings I tatted in various colour schemes as part of the homework - from left to right: Achromatic, Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary.

I did more creative tatting, originally intended as the other part of my homework for the course, but opps! I made some mistakes and is re-tatting. But one thing I can be sure - nothing will go to waste!

Day 5 in China (10 Dec 2011): We started the day in Shangri-la with breakfast in the hotel. A simple cafe with simple fare - fried rice, fried noodles, a few different types of stir-fried vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, some bread and pastry. The lady standing on the left would cook the "Acrossed Bridge Rice Noodle" (过桥米线) on the spot. No chunky pieces of meat nor any pricy ingredient, but nothing's more comforting like a bowl of hot booth of noodle on a shivering COLD morning.

The mural on the wall behind was Songtsam Lamastery (松藏林寺) . The must-visit place in Shangri-la is this 300-year-old Songtsam Lamastery (or Songzanlin Monastery) - the most important Tibetan Buddhist monastery in South West China that is home to aound 600 monks, and the largest of its kind in Yunnan. Built in 1679 by the Fifth Dalai Lama under the patronage of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, the main part of the monastery is on the top of a small hill in the northern end of the park and consists of three main buildings: the Main Assembly Hall, the Sakyamuni Temple and the Tsongkhapa Temple.

Here we were at the entrance to the whole area (松赞林寺景区), where we bought tickets.

The Songzanlin Monastery has very strict rules for entering the temple and has a list of 14 that include no sunglasses, no scarves around the neck, no taking of photos and to walk clockwise.

At the main entrance of the monastery.

With 146 steps from the foot of the hill to the entrance of the Main Assembly Hall, it may not be too tough for those who are fit. But at an altitude of 3,880 metres, oxygen level is low. I took it easy by taking the chance to snap more photos throughout the climb!

Some views taken from atop the monastery. The Kerner Village ( 崩热村) that was on the right of the monastery,
and the Lamuyancuo Lake (拉姆央措湖) on the right.

Interesting architecture...

We couldn't take photos inside the temple, but I found some photos here.

When we were leaving, it started to snow! This was the first time I see real snow and snowflakes!Here we're on our way down.

We had to wait for the bus to bring us go down the mountain back to the main entrance. While waiting...

the locals at a roadside food stall... domestic animals roaming... we saw yak, goats, sheep, chickens and pigs.

We were in need of a good hot meal for lunch, and found ourselves back at the same Western restaurant. These 2 dishes weren't too bad - curry chicken

and a local Tibetan bread with sweet and sour pork.

More photos for the day in the next post!