More Tatted Leaves, Doll ATCs and The Die Zauberflote Opera

I couldn't stop tatting these delightful leaves, but I get creative and added flowers for a touch of colours and for more weight to the portion of the bookmark that will hang outside the book. Prefer the pink roses (pattern of Jeanne Lugert).

The doll-ATCs were in from Linda Marino! The bottom 2 were for the June's 4 Seasons Swap; the top 2 were for an earlier Fibre Swap which I never receive from my partner and Lin was such a dear to send me a set. All so bright and cheerful, and cute too, really lift my spirit everytime I look at them! Thank you, Lin!


Spent a weekend helping my girl, Joey, for her school project, embellishing this yellow fabric with the Youth Olympics Games theme. I cut the felt words for her based on her sketch, and we explore difference ways to embellish them. She matched the colours and did the sewing herself.

This was the last opera written by W.A.Mozart, just before his death, and is his most popular operatic work - The Magic Flute. I have watched it once in 2007, a 100-minute production sung in English by the New York's Metropolitan Opera, screened in Golden Village's GVmax on its 22.4 m width screen. Not quite anything like watching it live, but the big screen was a plus, and what to complain when it was only S$15 a ticket!

Although Tan Dun's The First Emperor, directed by Zhang Yimou, and with the legendary tenor, Plácido Domingo, as Emperor Qin, left a much deeper impression of the 2 screenings then, I was still pretty excited to get to watch The Magic Flute again, this time live at the theatre. Sang at the Esplanade Theatre last Saturday, in German but dialogue in English, the love story of Prince Tamino and Princess Pamina unfolded the magical fantasy world of Die Zauberflote.

This time, I can better appreciate the music, and of course, the Queen of the Night's Die Holle Racht in Act II. The silly exchanges between the lovelorn bird catcher Papageno and Papagena, singing ‘Pa-pa-pa’ for about 48 times was tickling on the rib bones. Clearly from the applauses, Tai Hsia-Chun as the Queen of the Night and Song Kee Chang as Papageno were the 2 most favourite characters in the opera. Again, we have Nancy Yuen, soprano (Singapore) in La Boheme, singing the part of Pamina!

Tatting Gifts, ATCs and The Garden Festival

I'm back to tatting after a break of embroidering work. I like to tat leaves and make them a gift. A new leaf represents a new chapter in life, what's more suitable for colleagues who are moving on to study. Leaf pattern by Karey Solomon, and I modified it into a smaller leaf for the end.

And more tatting for birthday boy, Paul in Malaysia, for a Birthday Exchange - a pair of Paprika, the dragons, (pattern by Martha Ess), a snake bookmark and my tatted lucky clover paper clip, plus a birthday card, lots of threads and yarns and Apple beads.

Next is a tatted heart, not done by me, but by Cindy Michele, and mounted on a fabric, with felting and beads sewed on. A very pretty piece of ATC, no doubt about it.

Another heart, but this time, it is a felted one done by Satu of Finland, and adorned by simple yet effecive sewing and beaded flowers. I love the striking colour combination too.

More beading embellishment in this Morning Mist ATC done by Mary Strong of Australia. Such sweet and feminine colour combination!

A second piece from Mary, an oriental design, but with the texture magic for the background fabric. Very bold yet classic with red, white and black colours.

Just yesterday, we spent a good afternoon at the Singapore Garden Festival strolling the exhibition halls at Suntec City amidst the wide array of displays from themed fantasy gardens and landscape gardens to cut-flower displays by local & international floral designers, and seeing the diverse heritage of orchids. Just wanted to show you these 2 photos - these bonsai are simple yet one can imagine how much time and effort the cultivators had put in.

This first one has the Chinese words meaning "success".

And this second one has the Chinese word "Tea"growing out from a Chinese teapot!

Mainly ATCs

The children had no school on Youth Day, so Joey surprised me when I came back from work with her 3D Food TV. I find the pair of eyes on the word "FOOD" soo cute!

Received these ATCs. This first one from Teresa, acrylic painting on canvas, titled "Dead Beauty".

The orange one below is Lisa's ATC done with texture magic, she has also generously sent some texture magic and Angelina fibre for me to try. And the 2nd ATC is a RAK done with tyvek. My heartful thanks, Lisa!

The following are traded at our latest local ATC session at Bishan Library.

Roads Less Travelled - Growths of A Different Kind by Sor Huan, drawn with pens.

Up, Up & Away and Lady Bugs, origami done by Rita.

Now, my ATCs! These are the latest doll ATCs:

Spring Doll

and Winter Doll for Amy in the US. Both heads can turn!

Another set for myself.

Another few more of my hand-embroidered flowers ATCs.

Had enough of sewing, next I will be back tatting!

Sam Hui in Concert, More Scrapbooking Pages and Embroidered ATCs

This was one concert which tickets were selling 10 months before the event. Sam Hui's Live In Concert『许冠杰難忘往日情演唱會』at The MAX Pavilion@Singapore Expo was held last Saturday - the 3rd of Sam's concerts I attended since the first in Mar 2008!

A lot of similarities in the 3 concerts, it was always a family affair - both his sons, Ryan and Scott, and his elder brother, Ricky Hui, would always accompanied him in his concert tours and sang a song or two each.

A lot of photos were flashed - from his younger days till now.

His wife, Rebecca Fleming, made a surprise appearance this time, to everyone's delight, both hands in hands as Sam sang a love ballet.

He still came down stage and was mobbed by eager fans, so much so, armed security officers had to guard the front of the stage towards the later part of the night. Sam had so many songs to his credit, only some of everyone's all-time favourites were repeated in the concerts.

Paying tribute to some of his close colleagues, Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui (below), Roman Tam, among a few more, Sam sang one of each of their songs. They were some of my favourite singers too, a pity they died young.

Everyone could clearly see Sam's transformation, with a noticeable belly in the 2008 concert, to a very much slimmer waistline in Feb this year, and now a well-tone body. To sum it up, as one Hong Kong fan shouted, "Sam, 你好有型 !" (translated from Cantonese "you have great style").

Here's a short clip of the start of the concert - the 2nd song in the clip is L.O.V.E and the 3rd song 《心里日记》is one of my favourites.

After the scrapbooking class, my girls finished up another 2 pages at home, Kristine when she was in Kindergarten Year 2, and photos I took with my girls.

More embroidery works. Can you imagine I have worked thousands of French knots into these ATCs so far?

I'm expecting more fabric ATCs to come in, but here's the first from Satu in Finland. I love the way she used bits of lace to form the wings, and see the small face she sculptured from clay!

Lots of Activities! Dotee Doll, Scrapbooking, Embroidery and Orchestra

Received my first ever Dotee Doll from Lisa Ahmad. The doll is such a beauty - I love her figure and blue hair. Sweet smile too, oh, thank you, Lisa! Love the way you sign your doll too :)

Brought my 2 girls for a scrapbooking class again last Friday. Each of them did 1 page. This first one was done by Kristine.

And this 2nd one done by Joey.

Cos' I chanced upon this book, The Art of Embroidered Flowers by Gilda Baron, I'm so inspired to sew. So I have been sewing, lots of surface embriodery on fabric ATCs. And I'm love water-soluable crayons, feel like a real artist painting on the fabric (cos' I never can paint)!

How do they look against the photos in the book?

These are all I managed so far, pretty time-consuming, but really satisfying! Some of them are works in the process :)

To wrap this blog entry up, I attended this Irish Chamber Orchestra (ICO) last night at the Esplanade Concert Hall. This was their debut visit to Singapore. The ICO is critically acclaimed by Ireland's Sunday Tribune as "the best orchestra in the country (Ireland) by far". The ICO was joined by leading Irish accordionist, Dermot Dunne - first time I saw and heard music played from an accordion. The orchestra was made by of string instruments - volin, viola, cello and double bass. Not that I know much about classical music and all these instruments, but I sure enjoyed the night with the mix of celebrated classics and virtuoso pieces from Vivaldi, Mozart and Astor Piazzolla. Personally, I felt that "The Shanghai Set - A Medley of Irish tunes" topped them all!

Mayday Concert, ATCs, My Little Winnings

I was given a pair of complimentary tickets to the Best World Lifestyle (BWL)'s 20th Anniversary Mayday (五月天) concert for last Sat, so I just popped down to the Singapore Indoor Stadium to take a look. I went without much expectation, after all, this was a company event (the company specialises in the marketing of skincare, health supplements and lifestyle products), and the concert would be just part of the night. And honestly, I have not even heard any Mayday song previously!
Surprising, it was an interesting gathering, an eye-opener, with representatives from 13 countries, among them were people from Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc.; all dressed up in their cultural national costumes and head gears, all so colourful, glittering and sparkling! After all the speeches, success stories (so inspirational!), awards and oh, the launch of World Learner Cultural Immersion Program - the company started the World Learner Student Exchange Scholarship with a 1 million yuan (S$205,300) donation, and next month, the first batch of 23 Sichuan children, affected by the devastating earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, will be visiting Singapore on a two-week trip. This was in the newspapers earlier, and my boy's school will be one of the hosting schools they will be visiting.

Finally, the Mayday concert! As usual, all the young girls, fans of the young Taiwanese band, got so excited and delighted! I'm ok with the songs, but the music was a bit too loud for comfort, and we left at the start of the encore, to catch the new Circle Line MRT before the main crowd were out.

We had the monthly ATC session at Bishan Library on Thu. Due to the publicity, it was a good turnout, children too, since it is the mid-year school holidays. As Singapore will be hosting the Youth Olympic Games this coming Aug, the YOG was selected as the theme for the month. We have worked some ATCs based on the 26 sports in the YOG using finger printing.

Clockwise from top-left: Football done by Richard; Cycling (finger-printing) by my girl, Joey; Rowing, Sailing, Aquatics (finger-printing) I did; and Gymnastics by Pei Ling.

These are the 2 latest ATCs I traded with Kristine. She needle-felted the hearts and the background while I sewed up the edges for her.

I just have a soft spot for all kitties! Kristine drew this with marker pens.

These elephants were folded by Rita, and the photo (Singapore Lights) taken by Pei Ling

I was delighted to receive Mary Strong's fabric ATCs - Butterfly Girl and Forest Bird - love the colour combinations, and the peacock and butterfly are my other favourite subjects.

Finally, here's a giveaway I won a little while ago, but received these lovely items recently - Lime Time and Peachy Keen Soapy Pop from Kiss My Style, and also an eye pillow filled with my favourite dried lavender buds. Love the scents! A little too pretty to use though, especially the soaps!

When I reached home today, a box was sitting right there waiting for me! Here are the goodies from the bag in the box! This is one of the three generous giveaways from Gina, the Tatting Goddess! Wow! Thank you, Gina!