Teachers' Day Presents

For Teachers' Day this year, inspiration on what presents to make came pretty late. Thanks to a gift I received - the yellow "chick" cable wrapper on the top right-hand corner. This is a useful and practical gift, and not too difficult to hand sew, though I only succeeded on the 3rd attempt. After that, it was a breeze to cut all the fabrics and velcro. The children wrote on the shrink plastics buttons and sew up the edges. We sewed 22 altogether!

ABC's inchies I made for the August Mingle:

And my "S is for Swan" fabric ATCs.

Sherry (USA) stitched appliques for her O is for Overall Bill, P is for Peace and Q is for Quail. Love the tiny stitches!
Mari (South Africa) sent 5 in 1 mail! O is for Owl, P is for Pins, Q is for Quilting, R is for Rhino, and S is for Sheep.

Gayle (UK) embroidered a stunning Cherry Blossom tree for the Textile ATC Jun swap. It was really worth the wait. Do you believe Gayle is new to using textiles and stitching? I don't!

A New Winner!

I have been so busy, my blog has been neglected. I'll do a quick update.

First, I have to redraw a winner for my giveaway, as I have not heard from Tatterjil. New winner is Comment #15 - Diana of B4UStamp Studio 653!

Diana has never heard of tatting outside her quilting group, so I presume this rose bookmark will be the first tatting piece she will own now! Please contact me with your snail mail address so that I can mail it out to you, Diana :)

I received a really nice and cheerful fabric piece of work from Donna Chapman (USA), with a 3D sewing machine, pin-cushion and pins. Donna might have misread the Alphabet ATC swap for a postcard swap, so her "Q is for Quilting" turned up in my letterbox as a postcard! Can you guess what is this ATC below - the one with the Finnish postage stamp? The background is a page from a Finnish dictionary.

I really give up - don't know if it's my computer problem or the blogger problem or what, some of the photos just will upload in all sort of funny orientations. It spoils some of the fun, right? I really can't help it :( Anyway, when the card is opened up, it reveal a note and a landscape on one side...
and flip it over the other side, there are 2 paper dolls for the doll-ATCs, "My Country", and a nice sweet description. Riitta drawn these 2 dolls wearing the Finnish national costumes based on folk traditional festivity dressing in the 18th and 19th centuries. The one on the left (or top in this wrong orientation) is wearing the Ruokolahti region dress, and the one on the right/bottom is wearing the Keuruu region dress.
It is such a lovely concept - the booklet form, and when folded up, it slipped nicely into the ATC protector! Great work!

Then, there is this yummy-looking felted cupcake ATC from Linda Huggins (UK) for the July cupcake swap.

And my own Cupcake ATCs below. A piece went to Cat Candow (Canada). I applied mod podge to the fabrics to make sure the words and paper cupcake (top one in the ATCs) stayed on the fabric, and I sewed the bottom cupcake.

Why are they called "Recipes"? Cos' there are actually recipes tucked behind in a pocket!

The Q ATCs are done and sent too! Q is for Queen Bee. And I found my flower loom to make some loom flowers!

My 2 girls were so excited with the loom, they had to make some flowers with it too :)

THE ATC on Parade Exhibition is underway now at the Serangoon Library, located in NEX, till 31 Aug, afterwhich the exhibition will move to Bishan Library from 2 too 22 Sep. Here are just some of the panels in the exhibition:

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!

Last Days to Join Giveaway; Enjoying Some Crafts Together with Kristine

If you haven't join the giveaway, you can still do so before 9 Aug by commenting in my last post. Second chance if you leave another comment telling me you are following my blog.

These are the Make-and-Take projects I mentioned in my last post, which Kristine and myself did at Junior De Artist on 23 Jul (Sat) as part of their Great Singapore Sale party. The pieces were all cut and packed, we just did some stamping, gluing, and oh, cutting the holes for the Zutter Hanger for binding with the Zutter cutter. I must try making some small books with the Zutter machine on CD-Rom, which I'm told would work. I like the Easel Treat Bag (on the right) best. The other (top left) is the Heart @ Tag.

Then on last Sunday (31 Jul), we went to the Bukit Merah Library for 2 craft sessions - cross stiching and beading. Here Kristine was concentrating on stitching her initial "K".

And the products after our 2 hours of work:

Here's a tatted oak leaf bookmark with a pair of acorns at one end for another colleague who has resigned. Believe it or not, another 3 just quitted, so more gifts to tat!

I tatted another one for myself.

It was a free theme for the July art doll, so I decided to do it totally without paper. Using wire for the body frame, dressed in fabric and laces, I called her Mdm Redhead, and she is all dressed up for a dinner date! One is on the way to Lynette McNamara in New Zealand.

For the doll-ATCs on "My Country", I squeezed in 4 dolls into a pair of ATCs to represent the 4 main races in My Country - Singapore. 1 pair went postal today to Maureen Blakeley in USA.

To re-cap on where I stopped for the June China trip, we were staying in Kaili City on the 8th day.

Kaili city (凯里市) is the center of Miao culture, hosting more than 120 Miao festivals throughout the year. The Miao are known for arts and crafts, including jewelry, embroidery, brocade, batik, and papercutting. Kaili is a major producer of rice, hence all the padi farms we saw along the roads. The weather was really fine - blue sky and green fields.

The next morning (9th day - 16 Jun, Thu), we went for a little walk around the streets near the hotel. The Sport Stadium was right in front of our hotel. The night before, food carts lined the whole perimeter of the stadium, and they were still there even past midnight!

In the morning, groups of locals dressed in different coloured robes gathered in front of the stadium for morning exercise A group of ladies was even in their tribal costumes! Lots of silversmith works in jewellery and wall-hanging selling in the shops on the exterior of the stadium. In the morning, groups of locals dressed in different coloured robes gathered in front of the stadium for morning exercise A group of ladies was even in their tribal costumes! Lots of silversmith works in jewellery and wall-hanging selling in the shops on the exterior of the stadium. A lady (dressed in blue in photo above) carrying and peddling basket-load of fruits along the streets, using a traditional weighing scale.

I was looking for a post office to send postcards and found one, but there were long queues at the adjoining bank and everyone seemed very excited. DH had to check it out.

They were queuing for a 5-yuan commemorative coin for the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist party of China. Made of brass alloy, 30mm in diameter, with the party emblem - a 5-pointed star - as well as a peony and pigeon. Apparently people waited in long lines a few hours before banks were opened. We were lucky to be there at the right place and the right time, and we managed to queue twice to get 6 of the coins!

After checking out the hotel, we set off to the Leishan Miao Village (雷山县西江千户苗寨) where the ethnic minorities are mainly located. Along a street inside the village:

Here you can see and buy lots of stuff. An embroidery project in progress:

Numerous silversmith shops.

Wax painting:

Paper-making:

One of the local snack there - 糍粑, which is a glutinuous rice lump, just like the muah chee in Singapore, but they made them into a big piece and put the peanut filling into the centre, and there were more choices of the type of filling. The lady below was pounding the glutinuous rice dough with a real big hammer!

The Miao-style houses 'Diaojiaolou' represent the typical feature of Miao's architecture.

At the top of the mountain over-looking the whole village:

Our guide for the Miao Village tour - a Miao lady, of course.

After that, it was a long 4-hour drive back to Guiyang, and we reached only around 9pm, and had to make do with road-side stalls for dinner.