Tatted Bookmarks and Clip

I have been tatting the whole week for 2 colleagues who resigned this month. Although there are already a lot of floral bookmark designs out there, but I just love flowers so I came up with another one. I'm calling this "Floral Bliss".

Another flower - this one is a beaded version on a hairclip. Hope Cass likes these 2 gifts!

Faith would love cross, so I tatted Lene Bjorn's "Maria" cross-shaped bookmark in Flora 50 thread. There's still time to tat another small cross for her. More tatting to come!

Tatting Classes!

This was the 2nd year I conducted tatting classes in Hwa Chong Institution, with 2 classes of 10 JC1 students in all. This time, it was an especially memorable experience for me - 2 male students in each of the 2 classes! Can you believe it?

All the girls did quite well generally, some learnt much faster and of course, some struggled harder. A bit disappointed that the boys in the 1st class didn't try too hard and gave up towards the end. The other 2 boys in the 2nd class won my admiration though - 1 managed to tat even better than most of the girls, while the other did struggle a bit to do the double stitch, but he never gave up and really sat through the hours seriously and improved his grip and movement!

Whether it was feedback out of courtesy or for real, most of them found the 5 hours an interesting and enriching experience. The 2 days were real tiring, but a great joy and break! I'm over the moon receiving feedback like "brilliant course", "really awesome skill to learn", "very knowledgeable and talented instructor", "passionate about her tatting", "helpful and extremely patience in guiding us"!

A great theme was set for the October ATC session in the Bishan Library last Thu - "Trivial Pursuit". Do you know this is also a board game? Read about it in Wikipedia here. I did my ATCs based on 2 facts - one regarding snowflake, and the other on hummingbird.

These were what I traded for - all different medium and theme!

T is for Turtle done! Following the same idea on the border as my previous alphabet ATC, I sewed a "t" border :) This is my last design for the alphabet series. I did it - I have finished A to Z with all tatted critters, and some alphabets even with 2 designs! I must take a photo of all the different alphabets together one of these days, they really look awesome together!

For 2 Sunday mornings, I accompanied Kristine to a national Chinese calligraphy competition and the prize-giving ceremony. Her school came in as overall champion yet again.

Kristine didn't bag the top awards, but good enough for me who can't even write with a brush! Her piece of writing is on the extreme right of the middle row.

Kongming Lantern

Kongming Lantern (孔明燈) - it was said to be invented by the Chinese sage and military strategist Zhuge Liang. During the period of Three Kingdoms (220~280), Zhuge Liang was trapped in Pingyang (a city in ancient China) and he could not go out for help. However, Zhuge Liang, who was good at measuring wind direction, made a floating paper lantern to send out a message for help. Before long, he was saved by the army who received his lantern. Later, people call it kongming lantern as Kongming was the reverent term of address (i.e. Chinese style name) of Zhuge Liang.

I have only seen them in movies. Last month Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations at Kristine's school, we actually saw 2 been released. It would be a good guess that it was a first experience for most of us! See all the cameras and camera-phones snapping away!

Kongming lantern is constructed with a bamboo frame, covered with oiled rice paper and with a small candle inside the lantern. When the candle is lit, the air inside the lantern heat up rapidly. The density of the air inside reduces and the lantern rises into the air.

In ancient China, kongming lantern was usually used in wars. Nowadays, it is used for expressing good wishes (by writing well wishes on the surface of the lanterns), especially on Mid-Autumn and Lantern Festival. Kongming lantern is regarded as a symbol of “harvest success” or “well-being year after year”.
They really floated up and far, and soon out of sight even in the dark sky!

I love tatting bumble bees, especially this critter by Martha Ess, they are cute and fast to tat up. Here are all my bee inchies for the September Mingle!

Finally, I got my Y fabric ATCs done and mailed together with the Z ATCs to Sharon Scothern (UK) and Lyn Strauch (USA). They are a few months late, but they are better late than never. I was pondering on what to sew for the border, it suddenly struck me I could easily sew a "y" border. Just perfect for the alphabet!

And similarly, a long-awaited "Z is for Zinnea" from Merle (Australia).
My patchwork quilt is done up to the border - the result of 4 weeks of continuous hand-sewing. Next will be hand-quilting, more late nights!

See Valerie's quilt in her blog too. No prize for guessing - we're in the same class! It helps to have someone with you doing the same thing, movitating each other, having someone to listen and understand your frustrations and complaints.

My Computer Is Back! New Fave - Haiku and Patchwork

My computer was down and was sent in for repair. It is finally back today, and so I'm also back with my posting!

Haiku ... I don't remember learning it in my school days. I learned about haiku from my boy when he studied it in school a few years back, and more recently, my girl in her Primary Three class. Interesting poetry - the structure - and simple too! Just 3 lines with 5-7-5 syllables respectively, totally 17 syllables, and they need not rhyme!

Lenna organised a Haiku ATC swap, it certainly caught my attention, and soon, I'm composing! My language may not be fantastic, but I'm proud to say I composed them! Here's the first attempt to translate my haiku into ATC. They were done for the Sep ATC session at Bishan Library for the theme "Transition". Mine were titled "Transition~ From Dirt Road to Concrete Road" - a pair of footprints on mud.

And the 3 ATCs I'm submitting for Lenna's swap - "My Favourite Time". Calico painted with water-soluble crayons, my haiku printed and mod podged onto the fabric, buttonhole wheels hand-embroidered on, together with a pair of butterflies I tatted, and backed with an acid-free cardstock.

These are all the 5 I did!

Going back to the September ATC session in Bishan Library, I did another set of cards for trade "Transition ~ From Caterpillar to Butterfly". I love this quote by Richard Bach - "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."

ATCs I received from Rita (dog paper cutting - The Grey Hound, and the Stencil Wolf), Richard (Peranakan lady drawn with pen and colour pencils), Sor Huan (Mother and Child - dried plants with drawing in pen).

Did you know you can paint with those wooden disposable chopsticks? If you don't believe it, see these drawings everyone did with chopstick and Chinese ink in the half-hour!

The ABC's inchies I received from Rae Ann (USA). Cute!
Did I mention I joined a patchwork class? It's a beginner class on a weekly basis, so you know this is my first time doing patchwork. It's a small quilt with 6 blocks of 12" x 12" each. I'm hand-sewing the blocks, you can imagine how stress I am looking at all the patches of fabric! Ok, to make a fairer comment, it's stressful looking at the clock (speeding against time to complete my homework for the next lesson), but it's pretty relaxing to gather all those tiny stitches on the patchwork needle, and so fulfilling to see the blocks building up :) A triumphant feeling when the pieces meet exactly corner to corner, point to point!
Here are my 6 blocks all done up, going on to the sashes and corner stones. This was the progress in the middle of last week. I'm now sewing the border, and too busy with the sewing to take any photo yet!

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: