NNC Stitching Bee 21st June 2014

OK, I am behind in reporting this, but, heck, at least I am reporting right? LOL! *wink*

Anyway, this time around, the turn up is much smaller – only 5 of us.

I arrived with Faizon and Rose at close to 10.00am. The Food Court at The Gardens Midvalley was just about to open its doors! That’s how early we were! LOL!

We took a corner of the Food Court and got ourselves settled in.

I had brought along the lovely Birthday gifts Margaret and Bee Ee had given me to show off to Faizon and Rose and who else were coming.

I got a lovely pink polka dot aluminium box which in it were a pink measuring tape, a piece of pink fabric and a lovely pincushion, also in pink!

Bee Ee sent to me a lovely coaster with a hexy in the center. She also included in the packet a pattern for a tote bag which she won at this year’s Anniversary Meet.

She said that I’d probably have more use for it than she since I am into bag making.

Thanks, Bee Ee! I just love the pattern and the coaster.

Thanks to Margaret too for all the lovely things all in pink! I can never get enough of pink! LOL!

Zarina arrived as we were about to order our brunch, and while Faizon was showing off her lovely tatted doilies.

I just love all her lovely doilies, especially the colourful one on the left.

I have always love the end product of tattings but could never get into the hang of tatting. 

Oh well. If ever I add tatting to my already long list of passion, my craft room would be overflowing with more stash, not that it isn’t already! LOL!

Zarina added more excitement to the tatting passion when she brought out her lovely hand overdyeds and colourful tatting shuttles to match!

In the midst of all the excitement of looking at Faizon’s tatted doilies and Zarina’s colourful overdyeds and shuttles, who should arrive to add more excitement? Anna! We have not seen her in ages!

Anna has not joined our Bees for a very long time. She has even missed 2 of our Anniversary Meets. So it was great to be able to meet up with her again.

As if the excitement of seeing her after such a long silence was not enough, Anna made it even more exciting when she pulled out from her bag a lovely colourful ripple shawl in progress which we squealed in excitement upon seeing it! LOL!

As some of us took the opportunity to have brunch, I, as usual, took out my hexies to work on.

Faizon, as always, took out her tatting to do.

Faizon also brought along a tatting book which I thought if ever I want to go into tatting SOME DAY, this would be the book to get as it has easy steps to follow for slow learners like me, when it comes to tatting! LOL! 

We sat and chat for a while as I work on my hexies, Faizon on her tatting and Anna on her ripple shawl.

Before it was time to leave, we had a small Lucky Draw to recycle door gifts received from previous Anniversary Meets.

Diane, Anna got your cute measuring tape house!

Seen here is me and Rose trying to show Anna how to put the measuring tape house together.

Soon it was time to leave when Rose’s son came over with her cute granddaughter to have lunch.

We left for home but not before we dropped by Art Friends as I wanted to get a bottle of Mod Podge. I want to try my hands at making some Mod Podge projects. 

I just love the Mod Podge bottle caps Vivian made for the Anniversary Sale. I snapped up all the small bottles! LOL!

As always, every time I go to the Stitching Bees or Anniversary Meet, I always come back inspired to work on a craft project. However, this time, I came back too tired to do anything.

After dropping off Faizon, I dropped by the fresh veggie mart to buy some veggies for dinner.

By the time I got home, it was close to 4.00pm already.

I had a quick lunch (bought Japanese at the Food Court before coming home) and after a short break (fell asleep on the couch from pure tiredness and the heat), I got up and got dinner ready.

After dinner I thought I'd do come crafting but the heat gave me a bad headache. I decided to stay cool in my air-conditioned room for a while, but fell asleep.

I only woke up at 5.30am the next morning! LOL!

After Subuh prayers, I decided to start working on my Apple Core Quilt Project while I wait for the weekly maid to arrive.

Yeay! I have completed putting all the apple cores together to the size I want it to be!

Now I just need to drop by Kelvin’s or Yee’s or even maybe the soon to be newly opened Spotlight at Ampang Point, to buy the backing material and the batting!

Can’t wait to get this quilt done! It’s coming to 2 years already since I started on the project!

Taking over the dining room!

This is nothing new. Ask any of my stitching friends and they will tell you that it is a universal problem. LOL!

I think my hubby has given up on telling me not to take over the whole house! LOL! He kept saying that, for as long as he has space to do his work, read his books and be able to watch TV without having to step or avoid any of my stuff, he’s happy! LOL!

He reminds me, from time to time, that I have a whole craft room, yet my things are everywhere! LOL!

Well, when I was only doing cross stitch, crocheting, scrapbooking and making cards, the space in the craft room was sufficient. But, when I started making bags and quilts, I realised that my 10’x 11’craft room is no longer enough! LOL!

I needed space to lay out my fabrics and battings, and since my craft room is an L-shape, I kept banging onto the shelves and my 3 sewing machines just couldn’t all fit into the room. So, I slowly started inching my way into the dining room! LOL!

I also prefer to work downstairs at the dining room because I want to be as close as possible to where my hubby is watching TV, and the dining room is just perfect! The dining table is also the place where my son does his homework and workbook, and so, I can keep an eye on him while I work on my bags or quilts. It might not be quality time, but, at least we are together, instead of me being cooped up all alone in the craft room, while hubby watches late night movies on TV and I get to properly supervise my son as he does his work. I also get to multi-task as I can get the cooking going while my embroidery machine is running. *grin*

I did some reorganising of the dining room last weekend, and re-oriented the dining table to make more room for my son to do his work and my hubby can bring his laptop down should he wants to do some work and still keep my company as I work on my projects.

When before this I would be sharing the dining table with my son to do my cutting, sometimes eating into his work space with my fabrics and rulers, this time, I created some sort of a nook for measuring and cutting, which is away from the dining table.

My son likes this new layout, and my hubby is happy that things are a little bit neater and more organised. I now have a proper place for my rulers which I bought at Sakura, and had placed it at the top of my cutting board. Makes looking for my rulers easier now, when before this, I kept losing them under all the fabrics and my son’s books! LOL!

I also went out to buy some plastic containers to organise my big collection of embroidery threads, and I like it that now I can see all the colours that I have at a glance.

I also have less problems with my threads getting entangled as they are now separated by colours. I don’t have all 40 threads getting entangled together, but, instead now only the threads that are put in the same container gets entangled. It’s less of a headache. Now I just need to find a way on how to get my threads to tangle less. Any suggestions?

Here’s the corner for my Janome sewing machine.

I still need to organise the back portion of the machine where I had just dumped some of my UFOs. I am still thinking how to do it.

On the dining table, I still have my embroidery machine, but at least it looks neater and I have direct view of my son as he does his work.

I hope this arrangement stays neat for as long as possible, though you and I know that that is almost impossible! LOL! But, I am sure my hubby thinks otherwise! LOL!

Thanks for your patience, Dia! Hugs!

NNC November Stitching Bee 2009

It was the biggest Stitching Bee thus far this year with 21 turnouts at our November Stitching Bee held at Bangsar Village II starting from 10.00am on 7th November 2009!

By the time I arrived at about 10.45am, there were already Alynn and her daughter, Usha and her 3 daughters, Anna, Margaret, Janet, Radha, Rose, Veronica, Tini and June. Soon after that Jo, Mel, Wendy, Zarina and Faizon arrived.

Paul came despite an ankle injury and Sabariah dropped by despite being on the way to go to Fraser’s Hill.

It was like what June said, it was more like 21 of us talking and none listening! LOL!

Maybe next time we should get a hall? *wink*

The lady at Starbucks where we had our meet thought that it was a meeting of teachers! LOL!

No offence to Ying or any teachers here, but, did we look like teachers? She actually asked if we are primary or secondary school teachers! LOL! I find that so amusing! *grin*

She must be thinking that probably we were all getting together to discuss craft projects for the school! LOL! *wink*

Anyway, when I got there, everyone was already engrossed in showing off what they had brought over, but none were actually sewing, crocheting nor stitching! LOL!

The Stitching Bee is now becoming more and more like a `Show and tell’ meet than a meet to stitch and chat to try to complete that UFO piece or current project at hand! LOL! But, never the less, it fulfilled the other intended purpose, and that is to meet and chat with friends sharing the same passion.

I can’t recall everything that everyone brought, but Alynn and Veronica brought many lovely cross stitch pieces.

Zarina brought quite a number of quilt pieces to show off that she got distracted from her other intention, and that is to learn how to do smocking. *grin*

Jo got her much awaited crocheted shawl from Usha which I was made to understand, it was a personal exchange between her and Usha some 3 years ago! LOL!

I believe Usha got a bag from Jo in exchange, though I did not get to see the bag that Jo made for her.

Anna was busy crocheting a lovely bookmark. We teased her about already being ready for the upcoming bookmark exchange which is being planned for only next year! LOL!

Usha brought along another crochet piece to work on, while Wendy brought along a lovely crocheted bag which I was immediately smitten by and would love to make one myself too. Unfortunately, I forgot to snap photos of the bag.

Tini brought along to show off a very lovely laptop bag complete with a cable bag. Mel brought along a very lovely crocheted laptop sleeve which was in a colour many find so sweet! I just love it!

Mel, want to do a personal exchange with me? *wink*

BTW, Mel, thanks for the mahjong papers and tracing paper, and the buttons too!

June did a demo on how to pleat for smocking. June stayed up till passed midnite it get things ready for me, Paul and Zarina, though Zarina got distracted by the many things to see and show! LOL!

June had brought along her pleating machine or whatchamacolic, and showed us how to start smocking the proper way.

She also brought along some lovely smoked dress she made for her daughter many years ago.

Thank you so much, June, for taking time to teach us the basics of smocking. I really appreciate it.

I am sorry to have made you stayed up passed midnight the night before to prepare for us the pleated pieces. It was worth it because now I know what I might have done wrong for my first smocking piece, no thanks to eerr……never mind….at Epal *wink*

Radha gave a lovely neck wrap to Rose. She also showed a few of us how to do a hairpin lace shawl.

Janet, thank you so much for making the trip to join us at the bee. Thank you so much too to Wendy and Radha who came all the way from Johor and Kedah. We sure appreciate it.

Thank you so much to everyone for making it to the bee. I hope you all had great fun!

A special thank you to Paul too for making it despite the ankle injury, and to Sabariah for the effort to drop by despite it being a `touch n go' situation.

Need I come next time to ensure that you stay long enough? LOL! *wink*

Many stayed till 2.00pm, where we adjourned for lunch at Kopitiam.

The next meet will be our Stash Shopping Trip scheduled for December! I hope to see as many turnouts too!

A raya gift and a present for getting a 4.0!

I received the loveliest gift from Radha on 15th September 2009 in the form of a soft sweet pink hairpinlace neckscarf!

Radha said that it is a raya gift as well as a gift for doing well in my recent PTK! I feel like an excited kid that just got a gift from her mummy! LOL! *wink*

It was a gift I never expected, and it was so sweet and thoughtful of Radha to think of me during her recent holiday trip to Europe as she told me that she bought the wool for the scarf at Hobbycraft, a shop I hope to someday visit, but when, only God will know!

Thank you so much, Radha! It is so lovely and sweet! Really love it! It's so PINK! It's so sweet! It's so ME! LOL!

But, I was quite shocked when I saw the packaging. The box came wrapped in plastic and chopped "Dijumpai terbuka/terkoyak dan ditampal semula dengan rasminya pada 4 Sep 2009" (Found opened/torn and rewrapped again officially on 4th Sept 2009).

The postal people in Kedah must be one curious lot as Margaret told me that a gift she received from Radha also had the same notation.

I wonder what were they hope to find.....

Anyway, I am glad that nothing is missing, and I received the package safely, after all the hard work that Radha had put into it.

Thanks again, Radha! Hugs!

Keep those postings comin’……

Over at NNC recently, I gave away two posting prizes to the members who hit the 50,000th posting at the board, and also to the 1,000th message posted in the month of May, 2009.

The winner of the 50,000th posting was Mel, while Paul posted the 1,000th message in the month of May. As Paul had won the posting prize before, I think this is his 4th win, so, when he won again, he was like calmly going, “Oh., ok. Thanks.” Instead of “Yippeee!” and then doing a happy dance like I did when I won the lucky draw at Mel’s Shoppe. LOL! *wink* Typical of someone that hardly wins anything, huh? LOL!

Anyway, here are the prizes which Mel and Paul won – the box in brown is for Paul, and the pink one is for Mel.

I wanted the things to be as different as possible so that I can keep it interesting for Paul, as I don’t want him getting the same things from me.

I just hope that both of them will like the things that I had packed up for them, and hope that they both will find some use for all the things in the package.

For Mel, I added something extra as a token of appreciation for teaching me how to crochet the bag which I have been crazy churning bag after bag lately and also for lending me the very expensive Clover crochet hook.

Thanks so much, Mel. I hope you noticed that I had attached the hook to the side of the box as I had forgotten to put it inside the box when I was packing up the box.

I have thus far bought my own in a set of 3, which cost me a bomb *grin*, but I really love the soft grip handle, and feel that the money I spent on them were well worth it.

Anyway, back to the Thank You gift that I made for Mel, it is actually a small pouch made in the same way as the big crochet bag, only very very much smaller, and I played around with adding buttons, a first for me in crocheting. *smile*

Thanks, again, Mel, and congrats to Mel and Paul, for winning the posting prizes! Do keep those messages coming!

A bag for June

Remember I gave a sneak peek of two bags about a month ago?

Well, today I will reveal one of the bags as the receipient, June, has received it yesterday, just in time for her birthday, which is today! Yippee!

Not bad, huh? I thought that I was going to be late as I had only mailed it out yesterday.

Anyway, here it is.....

When I was choosing the shades of blue yarns, the orange yarns kept calling out to me! LOL! I knew then that I was going to combine the shades of blue with the orange, as I could already picture it in my mind how it was going to look like. For some reason, I had a gut feeling that the combination was going to look great.

So, what do you think? Was I wrong? *wink*

June described it as scrumptious! LOL!

Here's a closer look at the store bought flower and the beads.

Here's a closer look of the beads, which I got the idea from Rose who has also been churning out bag after bag after learning how to make the bag from Sifu Mel too.

June, I hope that you will have loads of great time going stash shopping with the bag. You now own two AZNIQUE branded bags! LOL! *wink* Pass the word around, will ya? *wink*

By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, June!

Happy Birthday, dear sister!

My sister, Lin’s birthday, was on 28th May, but as we were already meeting up for dinner to meet my mum who just came back from the US, we decided that it would be great to have a triple celebration – a celebration to welcome home my mum, a belated birthday celebration for my brother, Azan, and an early birthday celebration for my sis, Lin, though she was the one that bought us dinner that night! LOL!

When we got there, I immediately handed over a birthday present I handmade for her. I bet my stitching friends can guess what it was since I have been mentioning about it at the NNC group a couple of times. *grin*

Seen here is my sis looking at the bag after opening the present which came in a simple silver box.

I had wanted to make a card and tie up the box in ribbons, but, as the dinner was kind of unplanned, I did not have time to do all that. You see, I was planning to give the present to my sis on Friday, 29th May, but my sister was already flying off to Beijing on her birthday, 28th May for a holiday.

Here’s my sister again modeling the bag.

Noticed that the bag is looking very bulky already? *grin* She has filled it up with her very heavy handbag already! LOL! I just hope that the bag is strong enough to withstand my sister’s heavy duty usage! LOL! *wink*

Here's a closer look of the bag. No, I did not make the flowers. It is store bought as I could not find time to make one. Also, I am not sure if I can make one as beautiful as the flower I had bought at a shop along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman.

She said that she might be bringing it to Beijing. I wonder if she did. Even if the maker has never been to Beijing, it’s nice to know that the bag has made it there! My bag has gone international! LOL!

Back to our dinner, while we waited for dinner to be served, my mum related all the good times that she had while in the US - the travels, the good food that my SIL is now able to cook (read that, Eli? *wink*), the great art work that my niece, Sarah, has been able to churn out courtesy of the artistic talent that flows through her blood *wink*, and the wonderful music that my nephew, Farhan, can now play on the violin, a talent he inherited from his dad who can play the organ just by listening, with no formal music lassons.

As for the food, my sister ordered ribs and when my brother Azan heard that it was just ribs that was ordered, he was already worried that he might still be hungry by the time dinner is done with, as both my brothers are big eaters, but, when the ribs were served, everyone agreed that my sister had made the right choice of food. But, of course she would! Tony Roma’s is her playground and favourite restaurant. All the waiters and waitresses there know her, and she knows them! That’s my sister for you! Ever the sociable one, in stark contrast to me, the very shy one! LOL! *wink*

The ribs were so very delicious, and the meat was so tender! It just pulls away from the bones!

I could have eaten more had I not eaten so much of the baguette dipped in garlic butter that was served as a starter while waiting for the main meal to be ready.

There were other dishes which we ordered, apart from the ribs – fish and chips for Aiman and burger for my nephew, Ayin, though both dishes did not look that appetising.

Kids eat free here for every adult that dines here. To keep kids entertained while dinner is being prepared, they have puzzles and quiz sheets. Now this is one restaurant I will frequent often, not just for the delicious food, but for the thought and effort given to take care of the restles kids! LOL!

Thanks, Lin, for the great dinner! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! May you be blessed with many great things in life! Happy birthday again to Azan too! Hugs!

By the way, I completed another bag today. I can't show a full photo of it just yet though, as I might want to give this away, but, here's a sneak peek of it.

As a result of doing 5 bags already, I have accumulated so many leftover yarns in so many different colours.

I am wondering what I should do with it, since most of the left overs are not longer than 1 meter in length, though a few are more than 2 meters. I am thinking of making them into granny squares, and then putting them together to make a bag. OR, I am also contemplating of mixing around the colours to come up with a multi-coloured bag.

Hmmm.....that's a thought!

Look out for further posting on what I ended up doing......or, anyone have any other suggestions?