Christmas is Coming! Bonersan is Rejoicing!

Christmas is coming!!! Believe it or not, Christmas trees are already springing up in Singapore on the last few days of Oct. I have also started on .... gingerbread man! Done with a free template I printed out quite a while ago, with brown felt on cardstock backing, they are all ready for the Nov Paper Doll swap!

This "Lace" ATC went to Emily Wilmarth in Sweden for the Textile ATC Oct trade - tatted lace and machine laces.

I enjoyed drawing and assembling the skeleton so much that I decided to trace another one out, this time on a Japanese food wrapper I saved. Bonersan, as I called him, is jumping with joy over what I won in another 2 giveaways!!

This is a hand-painted canvas on the theme "Have Needles Will Travel" I won in Cheryl's giveaway. Cheryl has put the canvas on stretcher bars, and it also comes with a stitch guide. She graciously include some embroidery flosses too! I must admit I'm not a stitcher, so all the stitching terms are foreign to me. I must really do some research before starting! I'm hoping to make this to slot into the cover for my ATC album containing all my fabric ATCs :)

Another win! 2 skeins of Zarina's hand-dyed threads in her Fall into Fall Quilt Bloggers Giveaway. Zarina is in KL, Malaysia, and if you like vintage-looking thread colours, check out her etsy shop for her HDTs.

Thank you Cheryl and Zarina!!!

HDT, Cute Brooch and Knotty Bicsie's Tea Party

The school exams are almost over, well, almost! My boy has finished his PSLE 2 weeks plus ago, and this week, we are done with the DSA selection finally. Now to wait for the PSLE and school selection results. My P1 girl finished her exams on Fri, and the P4 girl will finish hers on Tue. In Singapore, school exams are stressing not only for the students, but parents too!

Didn't have time to take photos and post about these earlier. Zarina has generously gave away her HDT to a number of people and and I'm one of the lucky recipents. This particular colourway is named "By The Seaside". Thank you, Zarina!

Next, I was very, very lucky to win this porcupine/hedgehog brooch from edwardandlilly (there was about 150 entries)! This little critter was hand-stitched on black hemp canvas and about 3.5 cm in diameter. I like this button brooch for its simplicity, and it looks like there is no metal part except the brooch pin, which may be re-sewn on with a new pin, so there shouldn't be any rusting problem which I have with normal button brooches! Thank you, Rebecca!

For yesterday KBCC, Betsy organised a Knotty Tea Party "Handmade-A-Fair", in celebration of Knotty Bicsie's 3rd anniversay. Betsy invited a few crafty friends to set up stalls in her cosy home-cum-workshop place as part of the party. A great turnout and everything went smoothly! I put up some of my tatted laces for sale, and it generated some awareness and interest in tatting. I'm proud to be able to do a part promoting tatting! An eye-opener for me too, seeing all the wonderful works from Betsy herself, another crochet-guru, Jullie, and quilted works of Suzanne, amongst others. Congratulations, Betsy, and Happy Anniversay!

Going back to make sure my girl is doing her revision!

Heather's HDTs, Felicia's Heart and ATCs

Heather at The Tarnished Tatter celebrated her blog-a-versary earlier with a giveaway and I won her HDTs (hand-dyed threads). Actually, I quite hate to make choices on colours as I just can't make up my mind which I want. That's why several times I had stood in front of all the colourful crocs shoes for half an hour trying them out and I still ended up not buying it. That's why I will try to get all the colours if possible when the purse allows! Yes, it was difficult deciding, but finally, I chose Rainbow Cotton Candy, Many Colors and Golden Cranberry Avocado. Cranberry, avocado, cotton candy are some of my favourite food and what better colours than many colours and rainbow colours!

The threads came yesterday, and they look as great as their names, so sweet! Thank you, Heather!

Have been spending more time with the children doing last-minute revision for their exams, and now after exams, their school hoildays. No time to relax still, they have tons of homework and projects (their projects will become "our" projects, if you know what I mean). And attending all the talks and open houses for the Direct School Admission - Secondary Exercise (DSA-Sec), and preparing copies of certificates and submitting applications, things sure are getting complicated nowaday as compared to my time in the 1980s!

In-between, we have Felicia from Indonesia came a visiting. She tats pretty well already, so it was more of showing her a few more advanced techniques. Here's a sweet heart she gifted me!

Here are a few more ATCs in the "Thank You" series I did using different embossed backgrounds:

Latest Buy and A New Tatted Heart

I enjoyed most crafts even as a child, and have tried quite a lot over the years. Love tatting the most. I learnt tatting from Sheila Dutton in 1999, and also picked up a bit of bobbin lace later.

I have accumulated a small collection of shuttles and a pretty decent stash of tatting books and threads. I have photos of most of my shuttles in my Flickr album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8463498@N02/sets/72157600602387671/ and threads: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8463498@N02/sets/72157600602580216/
Here is my latest buy from Sherry Pence - a ceramic shuttle and 10 skeins of her hand-dyed threads.

I have been pretty active in tatting exchanges in the last few years. These are the exchanges I have participated in : http://www.flickr.com/photos/8463498@N02/sets/72157600602578394/

And now, I have just joined Sharon Briggs' International Round Robin. Those in my group are Jennifer (USA), Victoria (Canada), Hanna (Sweden), Meme (Chile) and myself (Singapore) - a truly international group, all of us are from different places. I have designed and sent a heart to Jennifer for Feb 08. I got the inspiration from a piece of jewellery, and tatted it in Flora 20 mainly. My 2nd child, Joey, named it "Heart Destiny".