Hand-stitiched Books, Motif No. 13 - Snowflake Paperclip and ATCs

Last Thu was the release of the PSLE results and the whole family went to the school together to root for my boy. His results - a score of 272 (highest score this year was 290), 4 A* and Distinction for Higher Chinese! We are so proud of you, Ivan!

Then on Sat, we attended Betsy's KBCC session to make these hand-stitched matchbook notebooks. Thank you Betsy for hosting the session, Moses for sharing with us how to make the books, and Suzanne for the home-made keuh patti!

Time really flies, we are less than a month from Christmas. Have you done all your Christmas tatting? I haven't :( But here's a quick pattern for you, a snowflake paperclip, available on Georgia's Online Tatting Class. This will be my Motif No. 13 for the 25 Motifs Challenge.

These 2 ATCs and a tatted butterfly paperclip went to Lynette for a Oct Fabric ATC swap,

while these 2 ATCs I sewed up and a tatted "Joy" paperclip went to Carol D for a Nov Christmas swap. Can't wait to receive mine!And the extras I stitched up. As at now, the blue X'mas ornament on the top right corner is still available for trade.

And to show you 2 more photos of the bazaar on 19 Nov.

Me arranging my stuff at my store.

My colleague, Sally, and myself.

A BIG Thank You to Sally for helping to man the stall throughout! I couldn't have managed without you!

A Bazaar and A Concert

For the last few weeks, I was partly busy with tatting up items for a bazaar sale at my office on Active Day on last Thursday. Thanks to all the support and generosity of colleagues, I managed to sell close to $500, and as I had pledged 15% of my sale to the relief effort for the Padang Earthquake, I had put a cheque of $73 into the donation box in the office on Friday. Sales aside, it was a most satisfying day! There were a few who have mothers and/or grandmothers who tat (or tatted) and they were so happy to see all my tatted works, some lingered around to slowly appreciate all my works, and of course, a lot were simply amazed :)

Well, I didn't have time to take photos, so I will wait for the photos taken by the officials for the event. These were some of the items I sold, together with more bookmarks and cards.

I tatted this flower and leaf quite some time ago. In fact, so long ago that I could not remember where I took the patterns from! I would take them out now and then thinking about assembling them up, but it was never done. And finally!

I'm not too sure if the shaping of the flower is as per the original pattern, but I'm very happy with it. Of course, I had to show it off, and wore this throughout the bazaar!

As I went through my photos in the camera, found these 2 photos I took on one weekend, when I found them on the bed! I called them Animals Go Camping!

See who were still sleeping!

Joey's favourite Barney and her Star-star (bear) with Care-bear and Honey-bear,

and also Kristine's Bear-bear and Hamster inside!

Joey and Kristine built the "tent" using all the pillows, bolsters, blankets they found.

Perhaps due to the recession, there weren't a lot of concerts in the past year, but they are back. Last night, my mother and I attended Fei Yu Qing Live in Singapore, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, after his last concert in Jan 2008.

Fei Yu Qing, the Taiwanese evergreen singer, has maintained his reign as one of the most famous singers in Taiwan all these years, well-known for his pristine vocals, risqué humour and mimicking abilities. His powerful voice delivered endless hits during the 2-hour plus concert. He never left the stage throughout, singing all time hits from oldies to modern contemporary songs, only breaking in between to introduce the songs, telling a few jokes or to say a few words. His mimicry of 刘文正 Liu Wen Zheng, Lin Feng, 周华健 Wakin Chau, 蔡琴 Cai Qin, drew lots of laughters from everyone! And for the very first time, a specially commissioned futuristic stage featuring gigantic LED screen with 3D motion pictures added thrill and entertainment for the night.

ATCs, New GR8 Shuttles and Book and a Bazaar

I have to show this first - Bonnie and myself had a one-to-one ATC trade, and I have just received her fabulous Apple Tree ATC, sewn on fabric. I love apples and the red beads look juicy-licious!

This is "My Love" which I traded with Bonnie, with a tatted bee.

My favourite shuttle-maker, The Shuttle Brothers, added plastic resin to their line of GR8 shuttles a few months back. Naturally I have to get some. I wonder how I have waited till now! Well, hot from the envelope are what Randy did for me: An orangy resin with swirl, the second one with curved roses, the third one with an embedded trinket and the fourth one in olive wood, all with a ball hook on one end, and with my initials scrimshawed on them. These bring my collection of GR8 shuttles to 13! Got my autographed copy of “Tatting GR-8 Alternate Threads” from Randy too. It looked like a Mathematical book with lots of ratios at the first flip, I think I need to spend some time to sit down quietly to digest the text! Should be worth the effort looking at the doodles of the possible flowers to tat up.

Earlier on, when Jon offered her tatting scraps, a few of us jumped on the offer. I received them over the last weekend, and look! Can you believe your eyes - her so-called scraps couldn't be more beautiful, some of the edgings are easily more than a foot long!My intention is to use them for ATCs, I think I should start doing some fabric ATCs right after the bazaar on next Thu.

That's right, I am tatting up some items for sale at the coming Active Day Bazaar at Surbana One, Jalan Bukit Merah, on 19 Nov (Thu). I don't expect a lot of sales, but I hope to generate more awareness for tatting and at the same time to do a wee bit for the victims of the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck the city of Padang on Indonesia's Sumatra island on 30 Sep 09. I am pledging 15% of my sales collection to the fund-raising effort that is currently in the way in Surbana office. All the donations collected by our office will be passed over to the Singapore Red Cross, which is working closely with the Indonesian Red Cross, also known as Palang Merah Indonesia (PMI), to provide help and relief to the survivors. So, local friends and colleagues, hope to see you on 19 Nov at my store!