This tatting pieces were done several years ago and I have decided to take post them.   I could not remember where I got the pattern from.  The turtles were soft toys given to guests who stayed at Bayan Tree in Phuket.  They were very well made indeed.  

Just finished the Raven Dance quilt block from the book ""Quick & Easy Quiltmaking -  26 Projects featuring speedy cutting and piecing methods".  This book was purchased in 1998.  This is supposed to be  a much bigger quilt but I ran out of fabrics.   Size of this quilt measures 47"x 47"after adding the borders.  May extend it further but lets see.  The original pattern does not have the pinwheels in the 4 corners.  I think they look ok except that I have orientated one of the corners wrongly.  Can you spot which one?

  

This sewing machine belonged to my mother in law who passed away in 2014.  The machine used to sit on a little wooden cupboard with beautiful iron cast pedal/legs.  However one day without our knowledge she got her helper to remove the top, threw the pedal, cupboard down at the bottom of her flat and sent the machine to someone to have a handle fitted to the handwheel.  We were shock and tried to retrieve the cupboard and pedal but someone had already taken them away.  A great treasure for that person who picked it up.  Anyway, I inherited the sewing machine.  It was bought in 1950 and should be 70 years old now.   I even have the receipt and a small worn out instruction manual of this vintage sewing machine. The present iron cast pedal with a marble top was given to me by my sister in law when she moved home and it is now sitting at my home too.  The sewing machine is still functional and manual.

 

I have also just started to learn how to crochet and managed to make a throw, yay!  These lovely yarn were Christmas presents from Brenda 2 years ago.  It is not perfect but I just love how the colours come together.  It is a very relaxing hobby - I crochet while watching TV, in the bus, in the car, with whatever spare time I have. Have finished most of the yarns and last Christmas, another lot came in with lovely crochet hooks as well (will post another time), also Christmas gifts from my girl.  She knows what I love 😀

I am also into origami.  Amazing  how a simple flat piece of square can create such beautiful pieces😊.  For these cubes, of course you need more than one sheet.

These are Star Sonobe by Maria Sinayskaya.  See how they turned out differently when using different coloured papers.  Watch instruction video from Happy Folding.  She gives excellent step by step instructions on how to fold this fantastic origami model.

Embroidery

These embroidery pieces were done way before Circuit Breaker.  After my cataract surgery several years ago, I was not too confident to sew anything, let alone embroidery.  Also put tatting on hold time being.  Tried to make small pieces like these and love how they turn out.  Embroidered one on Thai silk and another on jeans material.  May turn them into brooches or as embellishment for something else.

Besides tatting, I am interested in other crafts too - origami, quilting, felt piecing, embroidery, painting, etc.  All these excite me and seeing what I have created makes me happy.  What have I been doing during this Circuit Breaker period?  I looked into my stash of fabrics and found some unfinished quilt blocks.  Managed to piece them together and added borders to them.

This first quilt block looks Christmacy which is not meant to be.  It is supposed to be Williamsburg Star by Mary Hickey from the book Quick & Easy Quiltmaking.  Instructions of making the bias triangles are very simple and clear in this book.

Above quilt is granny squares blocks using whatever scraps I have in the stash.  I have now managed to put borders on this piece and did a mitre corner as well!  So happy to see how it turned out.

My goodness, I realised that I have not posted anything since 2016!  Initially I thought of creating another blog to show what I have been doing but decided not to as I do not know how to create another blog, hahaha.  Therefore I will continue to post my crafts on this site instead.

7 April - Due to COVID-19, I have started to work from home since.  There were some challenges in the beginning as the notebook given to me was an old one, the keyboard sucks and the screen blurry.  To help me move along with my work, I took my TV monitor and use it as a monitor.  Took a spare keyboard at home for the keyboard.  The old notebook acted like a CPU.  It was smooth sailing until my WiFI was down on Labour Day night - Friday night.  Called Starhub who sent a technician to check and found that it was the cable laid outside my apartment that was faulty.  Since it was a Saturday, the company Netlink was closed and no one could come to fix the problem. After numerous called to Starhub, they managed to arrange an appointment with Netlink who could only come on Tuesday morning.  With government encouraging everyone to work from home during this period, it was impossible for me to work without WiFi.  Not possible too to go back to the office.  Frustrating!  I had to use my phone data plan temporally but to avoid additional cost, bought a Singtel prepaid card instead.  This was also temporary.  Technician only managed to change the cable on Tuesday noon after several phone calls exchanges to Netlink.  Apparently the problem was - the rats have been enjoying a feast eating through the cables in the false ceiling outside the apartment!  I pray that it will not happen again.  😂Happiness when WiFi was restored on Tuesday, hooray!!

Got new HP notebook on 13 May 2020.

Work has kept me so busy that I do not have time to do my crafts but will post them soon.