Here comes the rain in November

A few more days and November ends.  Everyone will be so busy with the coming festivity, especially more if you have  not started your shopping, baking and decorating; can you feel the festive season yet?  The malls are already filled with everything Christmas for weeks. We are getting more rain while the malls are all deck with fake snows and snowflakes....
Christmas is definitely in the air.

Gift for a special lady : Remember I mentioned about stitching something in blue variegated ? Well this is the design, Belle that I stitched and finished into a Pinkeep with the backing fabric as shown. It's a little surprise for Kim . I am so glad she is happy to receive this little gift of mine.

The color of the wrap caught my eyes and was calling out to me and thoughts of Kim came to mind.

I made a very simple card to go with my package

I had a very limited resources when I made the card at my MIL's home where it's  miles away from a decent craft supply stores and I am no where near home and I can't just mailed my package without a note.

 A RAK for BJ : I forgot to take photos of the items before I got it wrapped. Actually I wanted to just bind it with ribbons but I forgot to bring along some ribbons when I went visiting my MIL and wrapping papers are all I could find at a nearby Sundry shop. It took me like ages to get this delivered personally, but finally I did, bad me

Finally delivered after weeks that became months of waiting

I hope Jamie O will keep BJ company in her kitchen happily and the Quilting book will serve as a compendium of references when the need arises 

(I forgot to take photos of the books before wrapping)

Crafting time input : Time to start crafting some Christmas smallish. Hope I'll  have finish photos to show in my next post.

Diane requested for a sewing kit as a parting gift for her roomie whom she shared a room with at the hostel in her University for 2 sems. She gave me such a short notice that I couldn't think of what to stitched, so I made her this all fabric and felt in cheery yellow.

An Angpow cum Wedding Card is what I made for the daughter of gal from college's who got married in a lavish wedding recently.

Angpow is a an envelope that has to be in "red" as it symbolize luck and prosperity as well as auspiciousness where one puts in money of a certain amount depending on the occasion and given out as gift in lieu of a wedding present. Angpow is a very universal gift for the Chinese, one may received an Angpow on your birthday, Baby fullmoon or any happy occasion that is befitting.  The amount of it's contents may varies depending on your status in the society, relationship or what suits your pocket and at times the economic situations of where you are from to who you are gifting it to.

For a wedding , it can costs hundreds to thousands for a couple attending the event.

Angpow is also given out during Chinese New Year as a token of luck and auspiciousness to family, friends and those who come visiting especially children. Single unmarried  young adults may also be given, unless one is "overly over the Young Adult age" and still single; one may not receive an angpow then unless, the host is teasing the recipient, but always in a good away. An employee will normally received from a Chinese employer, married or unmarried , while still single colleagues will received from their  married colleagues during Chinese New Year too.

For this, I had all the symbolic wishes. There's the character of double happiness, the peking ducks a symbolic of love and the names of the bride and groom . However, at the end of the day, this was what that actually went out when someone suggested we get the bride a gold bracelet instead and shared the cost. With the last minute changes, I had a quickie re-vamp of the little red packet that was intended into a gift card so we could all put in our names instead.

Dressed for the night : Wedding is always a good place for a meet-up. The opportunity came when we, the girls from college got invited to Sally's daughter wedding at St Regis of Kuala Lumpur

Having a little girly fun at the polaroid booth, this was a wefie before the actual booth snap

Lynn and me with the mother of the beautiful and radiant mother of the bride, Sally

A weekend dinning celebrating the 38th  Anniversary Annual Dinner of a Youth Club with Jamis where the Lions graciously became our backdrop

From my Kitchen : Steamed pau or steamed Chinese pau.  I have never attempted to made pau as I always had this thought that it's a tedious process. It spells difficult just by looking. I mean how do you get the tissue like skin to peel and a soft and fluffy  texture too. I can't even bake a good decent bread yet. That is not until Jaimis who seem to be making these pau so effortlessly gave me her recipe. Thank you sifu!  So here goes. This is my second attempt after I forgot to let the dough rest the first time. A total success and very please if I must say so.

On a serious note, making pau is definitely a lot easier that making bread. In view that now pau is getting costly from the shops, I think I am addicted to making pau for the time being.  I need to improved my pleating (to close the pau) and even out the dough for the fillings.  With the basic dough I managed a lotus paste filling pau 

The 3rd time with a pumpkin dough for some color on the pau skin and a better improved pleating, thou the pleats are not prominent after the steaming, more practice needed

Sometimes the mind can be inquisitive and so on my 4th attempt, it's purple skin pau that derived from purple sweet potatoes

Made breakfast Quesadilla  one morning

And we harvested some mangoes  from the small plot of land near MIL one weekend

I am sorry some of the photos are looking a little dull. It's bad lighting on one part and gloomy weather on the other since  we are currently into the monsoon season which means wet days are here to stay for awhile.  

Flea Market : We had a mall that houses small individual vendors with all kinds of everything, call it antique, old junk;  just like a flea market only a very small scale but the mall caters to these vendors on every of it's floors.  I don't frequent often, the occasionally that I do, there's always something that caught the eye. Like this blue porcelain teapot  set with a snake/lizard head? Intriguing yet intimidating . Nope, it did not came home with me, nor did I asked for it's price.

That's it for November, until my next post, take care everyone

Wishing all

and may your Thanksgiving be wonderful

A RAK from Kim, sweet surprise

I was over the moon when Kim  , Wisdom With Needle & Thread named me as one of her 60th Birthday RAK recipient. It was a real honor. And imagined my surprised, I was thrilled to bits when I came home last night from my MIL's to find this wonderful package waiting for me.

It was very early when I took the photo before I left for work. Kim stitched me the monogram of my initial and finished it with matching floss color fabric. The package include fabric , Anchor floss , lovely scissor fob in blue and cute card.

It's a fantastic package put together. Thank you so much Kim for this lovely package.

It was such a sweet color and beautifully finished pillow, only my photo didn't do justice compared to the real thing.

Some little stashing I did when I popped into a local bookstore during the weekend.

Hoping over to a New Year

Another year, the year of the rabbit is coming to end very fast, like last year the firm toast goodbyes to clients and suppliers last night. On the home front, the year end hasn't been pretty good. Some unforeseen event leading to some plans having to be temporarily shelved. School will start  its new term on the 4th, which means I will need to re-shuffle my time yet again. I had no new year resolutions, like last year and the year before and years before the years, I just take one step at a time and deal with it, what come may. So at the stroke of midnight, the kids and me will take a short stroll to watch the fireworks at KLCC from a distance, if it didn't rain.

I haven't been stitching the past week or rather after I completed all my Christmas mailing. Instead I have been battling with my old machine. Its the time of the year again for another Chinese blouse . Its quite done but not without flaws, I thought its going to be easy since I manage one pretty well last year but apparently not. I had the front slit a bit too low. Must have placed my template a bit off . The collar was also tiny bit too large for my neck and can't be rectified unless I want to with  remnants fabric to cut the entire back piece. I don't know if I will sew another  piece but I'll proceed with the Chinese frog buttons to complete it anyway cause I spent way to much time figuring and adjusting already. I rather find time to get on to the Haberdashery to get the buttons and get busy with other stuff.

One that got left out from posting. A little gift for Mylene's birthday.

Freebie by Cherry Wood design Studios titled 'Have seen my 'ouch ',  finished into a fob. Fabric Belfast White.

On Friday, the mailman drop by with  a surprise RAK package. Its a beautifully finished tote from Janet  C.  I just loved the fabrics and it had an attached drawstring closure. Its simply perfect  for hand carry.

I sincerely thank you all for following me and to all who have been coming by all these while. I appreciate  your time for leaving me your comments, your words are very encouraging and supportive  whereas I had not been regularly visiting you in return, although as much as I wanted but time sometimes is just not on my side to go on my blog read in one sitting. Work can get in the way of needs and it can demand to be given priority especially when its constantly staring back at me especially so in the later part of the year. The new year will be yet busy times ahead especially the first  two weeks is going to be busy, busy with preparation for the coming festivity, Chinese New Year. I am glad I manage to do some early shopping during the Christmas sale especially for the kids and some home furnishing. The coming weeks will be utilize to get the house in order and a bit of baking plus to fulfilled the list of things from MIL.  Mom is feeling much much better and is able to walk with ease  and so has gone home for now. 

Here's wishing everyone

HAPPY NEW YEAR

May you have a wonderful  great start into

the year of the Dragon

2012

image  : Yahoo image search

Two Festivals and One Parade

I'll begin my 1st November posting by recap some happenings in October that I had not posted. Firstly, Mid-Autumn Festival or the Moon Cake Festival falls on October 3rd and the beauty of this festival to me are the moon cake boxes.I have been collecting the boxes intended for finishing that somehow never got around to doing it. Every year, new box design appeared on the market to lure buyer and you'll get a gift bag to hold them; the whole package is often given as a gift to family and friends . We usually stay at home and savor the moon cakes with Chinese tea but this year it coincide with MIL's birthday and so the family had 4 tables of family and friends at the restaurant

The 2nd Festival for the month in October falls on the 17th is Diwali festival

A Hindu festival that marks the victory of good over evil, and uplifting of spiritual darkness. Symbolically it marks the homecoming of goodwill and faith after an absence, as suggested by the Ramayana.

October 18 marks the begining of the 9 Emperor Gods Festival where devotees normally observed 3 or 9 days of vegetarian. Such festivity normally ends with a parade on the eve of the ninth day, but in Hatyai, Thailand, the parade was held on the eve of the 6th day . Was here last year for the festivity with my MIL, this time I was with Jamis.

The parade, a carnival-like atmosphere pervades the street. Participants in the festival dressed all in white which has come to be translated as abstinence from eating meat, poultry, seafood, and dairy products.

The purpose of this festival, in its simplest terms, is to provide a venue for the annual renewal of cosmic power which rejuvenates human life and allows human conflicts to be resolved.

A bit on crafting for the week that was, the only stitching done is my square for Margaret W's Christmas RR. Wasn't feeling well for the entire week due to a mild sore throat that gave me a mild fever and a cough that followed thereafter. The medication that the doctor prescribed made me drowsy and very sleepy. My Santa design is Project #23159, a freebie from Michaels and I am the last to stitch. On October 30th, Mom had an appointment with her Ophthalmologists, to kill the time while waiting for her at the hospital, I took with me some threads and a tape measure and crocheted this in the waiting room. The second one with arcylic yarns .

The mailman brought me a wonderful mail yesterday. I was RAK by Tracey, from my wishlist. Tracey, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, the chart arrived with the button intact, thanks for the extra care taken, I appreciate it alot. It gave me something to smile this morning at work after days of sniffing and coughing.

Thank you for visiting, have a happy weekend everyone.

Home sweet home

Finally, my baby is home after 2 years. Never mind that one square is not done, I am happy that its home, thank you so much to Zarina, who due to some unforeseen circumstances was not able to complete mine, I appreciate it very much for returning it to me. This started its round on February 2007 and now its home...Many thanks to all the ladies who had stitched, namely Yasmin, Rozita, Zalita and Margaret W. One regret thou, I forgot to leave note to the ladies to put in their names as I forgot to put mine and everyone sort of follow the leader, my blunder. I will need to make time to complete this including the last square. This is not the only thing that came out of the envie from Zarina from that Tuesday's mail
Zarina mailed me a big and thick envie and contents of which are her generous gifts, makes me feel like its my birthday again. Appreciate it very much, everything super fabulous !!

Wednesday 's mail brought me the giveaway that I won from Tammy's . This delivery was fast, I remember reading it only a couple of days that she has mailed and its here already. Thank you so much Tammy, its sweet of you to giveaway all those wonderful charts and gosh! I do loved my choice. Another blurry pic, sorry, it looks good when it appeared on the camera's screen until its here, it gotta be my doing, the charts are 3 Sweet Heart tree's sampler, The North Star, Shamrock,Everything's Coming up Roses and Lavender Wings' Saturday's Sampler . You can click here to see a clearer pic on Tammy's blog.

and this piece of amazing art. It looks like some form of origami, correct me if I am wrong Tammy. It flips open into a box. Cool! Its gonna go travelling with my stitching project now.

AM ON CLOUD NINE

and I thought that I won't be able to blog until after the draw day of my giveaway, but I can't wait, just had to share these happy news :D

Stitching wise, I am in the mist of stitching 2 smalls at one go alternating it every now and then.

Pictures for next week, my camera is giving me a bit of a problem for now.

Thank you for visiting, have happy weekend everyone