A Few ATC and Christmas Swaps

There was a set of missing ATCs in the earlier Round Robin swap over at Paper Traders. On the replacement set that came, I added origami morning glory,  paper cutting umbrella, saxophone and leaf. And off they went to the 4th person for more embellishment. 

Love owls?  I'm so happy to receive these owl ATCs from Debra Claxton (USA) - top piece, and Eileen K (USA) - bottom pieces, from the Paper Traders Oct ATC speed round swap. 

I did mine with a tatted owl.

Eileen also generously enclosed extra ATCs she did for a few previous swaps. Oh, wow! 

For the Christmas ATC swap hosted by Nikki Smith (USA), I sent these.. the wrapped up one, with the ATC booklet on quotes on gifting, is meant as a secret Santa exchange.  I also sent along a tatted flower which I hope Nikki will like.

Received my Christmas swap from [going clockwise from top-left corner] Jo Murray (Australia), Barb Adams (USA), Susan Peeler (USA) and Nikki.  The bottom ATC is my secret Santa piece from Barb.

I didn't have much time to do more Christmas crafts, only tatted holly and berries for 2 large wooden pegs and folded a troop of Santa Claus.  Christmas came and past in a wink!

Kristine does have a flair for drawing, don't you think?  These, she drew on A3 or bigger papers.  After these, she is now working on paper clay.  Last few days to play before school starts!

Happy Tatting Day!

Happy Tatting Day - it's 1st Apr here in Singapore now, and it's International Tatting Day! I'm not sure who started this or when, but it's sure better than celebrating the good-for-nothing April Fool's Day. Tatting uses a needle or shuttle to create lace which is a more delicate of work compared to crocheting. On this day, tatters around the world celebrate our hobby and introduce it to others. Often, we celebrate by eating chocolates and making tatted lace. Over at Ambitatterous, Isdihara is celebrating with a lovely giveaway. Want to learn tatting? Hop over to the TattingChic's blogoversary giveaway for a chance to win the book "Learn To Tat"!

Time flies! How true! 2 weeks has gone by in a flash. My office work sure gets busier by the day, but no, I haven't stopped tatting. In fact, I was tatting up quite a bit and doing them up for the up-and-coming Pameran Poskad 2010 to be held on 18 Apr -1 May 2010. There is no restriction on the medium, but my 10 pieces are all tatted laces - some tatted previously and some new ones, but all mounted on acid-free cardstocks with added embellishment for presentation. I'll show them over 2 posts.

This first piece is "Parrot Talk". I think this is one of the greatest parrot design, by Mary Parrott. My own design is a far cry from Mary's one. I tatted Mary's parrot pattern twice, one with size 10 threads, and this one with size 20 threads. Cool, right!

Next is this "Blooming In Spring" - a bookmark design by Jos van der Helm. Another one of my favourite floral designs.

Ha, owls are next in the line! "Listen To The Wisely" comprises 2 of my small owl design, and Dianna Stevens' horned owl bookmark design. HOOT!

I did 2 pieces in creative tatting, which I have not done for some time. Hope to tat more flowers for my girls' dresses and clips, but see how it goes later. Well, this is "Floral Scroll" - with embossed background done with QuiuKutz embossing dies.

And the last one for now - "Pretty In Red".

I had to miss KBCC's activity last Sat to rush these entries. Betsy taught the group to weave alphabets and patterns onto regular pens, the Friendship Pens. I didn't do these during my school days, but I did make some Friendship Bands in this form some years back. Managed to dig some up and gather them together for a shot. Not too bad, right?

Just realised I have not posted about these 2 fabric Easter ATCs I received from Ann Seidel of Germany. They are a great addition to my collection, thank you, Ann!

More Tatting, KBCC #21 and An Evening of Opera

This is the latest name I tatted for my colleague. I love this sweet pink variegated Gutermann Sulky Cotton 30 thread best.

Here are more tatted ATCs. Actually, they are tatted motifs glued onto fabric. A 5th one is not in the photo as it was already traded.

More of my tatted owls, aren't they cute?

Yesterday KBCC was an exciting one, at least to me - sewing a fabric tissue pack holder. I don't sew much and definitely not on the machine, so I can only hand-sewed everything. Quite stressful, especially as I was rushing against time to finish it to make my way to the opera in the evening. Anyway, after working non-stop with the needle for more than 2 hours, most of us finished it. And Betsy bought a most delicious birthday cake for all the Feb babies too! Thanks, Betsy! And thank you Suzanne for her instructions too!

Can you guess which is mine?

Well, this is the piece I sewed. The tatted lace behind the buttons is a scrap piece I received from Faizon earlier when she offered to give them away. It fitted in nicely.

And to the next segment of the day: La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini in the Esplanade Theatre, an opera sung in four acts, directed by Andrew Sinclair, set in Paris in the 1930s, when France had lurched from one chaotic government to another in a short time and life was unstable economically as it was politically. Despite these, Paris remained a melting pot for artists and writers and their hopes and ideals. People were determined to enjoy themselves and the cafes, theatres and restaurants were full to overflowing. Beneath this superficial gaiety, life was different.

The two lead characters, Rodolfo [Simon Kyung Lee, tenor (US/South Korea)] and Mimi [Nancy Yuen, soprano (Singapore)] met and fell in love during the winter, separated in spring and reconciled in summer before she passed away from illness. Rodolfo and Mimi are very much human and simple people; they love, they work and they fight like most of us do. Although the opera was sung in Italian, and it took a little while to get used to reading the subtitles at the sides of the stage and re-focus quickly on the stage, it was still very much an enjoyable night watching and listening to the singing and music filled with emotion and passion, and I was fighting my tears all the way through Act IV, sob..sob... Ok, Mimi died, but she united all the characters at the end.

I will wrap up this post showing you this Workbasket magezine I won and received from the LadyShuttleMaker's latest giveaway. This is my first Workbasket magezine. Thank you, LadyShuttleMaker, I enjoy reading every little articles and even the advertisements!

And co-incidentally, there are more Workbaskets to be won in Crazy Mom Tats' giveaway, pop over to check it out!

Come back soon to read about my giveaway in my next post :)

A Long 100th Post - ATCs from Laura, Motif No. 4 - Owl on Paper Clip, Tatted Gifts, And A Giveaway!

First of all, I'm so happy and glad to receive Laura's ATCs. These 2 cards have travelled to and fro Australia and Singapore at least twice, and God knows where else or what happened between Apr to June. But finally, they made it to me! Look at the beautiful fabric ATCs adorned with tatting, and the beaded flower!

More ATCs I did. Again, the top 2 are tatted motifs mounted on scrapbooking papers, while the 3 bottom ones are paper cutting using 80 gsm acid-free paper.

NEW paper clip pattern for the month: an OWL! Isn't he cute ? Not quite difficult to tat him up if you know pearl tatting, but you'll need to go through your stash to find some felt and plastic eyes. This will be Motif No. 4 for my Round 2 of the 25 Motif Challenge. You can find the pattern on Georgia's Online Tatting Class, or click here for the pattern.

More tatting gifts for a few more colleagues who quitted, and these are not the last.

Last but not least, remember the giveaway I promised for my 100th post? How about this tatted periwinkle bookmark and some Flora threads in size 20? Just leave a comment for the draw. I will get my girl to pick a winner on National Day (9 Aug). If there are more than 20 comments, I hope to pick one more winner, but the Flora threads will be spilt among the 2 winners. So, 1 will get the periwinkle bookmark and 3 balls of Flora threads, while the other winner will get 3 different tatted paper clips and 4 balls of Flora threads.

Note: This giveaway is already closed. Winners will be announced shortly.