February has leaped away

I forgot to add in my last post that I had finished the final 7 flowers for the Hexagone SAL Exchange of one flower per week.  All 52 flowers are done yet I will have much more to work on to make this into a quilt but for now this will have to wait a little until I decide the next colour to go with my scheme since I am now not too fond of the fabric shown here in the background. It's a little too overly "congested" (I am not sure if there is any quilting term for this).

COTM (Colour of the Month) This was the Pink Exchange from Zarina in Penang.

Look at the generous amount of fabric

 and the floss that she sent

with that I finished this into a Scissor Keeper, which I have made once for an exchange but never one for me, so now this is mine to keep and a matching scissor fob to go with the scissor

A couple of finishes done on some pieces stitched quite sometime ago from various sources

Just before February come to an end, me and two other GF revisited Pantai (Beach) Redang, a fishing village and well known for its abundance of fresh seafood . Being a work day, there were no bus loads of tourists and there were less crowds. This is the same spot with the raining red wishing tree, the tree with dangling red ribbons of well wishes.

 The fisherman has yet to return with their catch thus there were no colorful fishing boats; the fishing village in sight

The river that flows into the sea

Spotted a fruiting Morinda (Morinda Citrifolia) ; Indian Mulbery Tree

we called it Buah Noni (Noni Fruit)or the Noni Tree

It was our diva moments,ROTFL; Jaimis and me while the other GF was too camera shy

Lap Mei Fan literally translated to mean Waxed Meat Rice. It's a very deceiving term, because there is actually no waxy stuff, it's just meat that has been cured by a long process of salting, smoking and drying resulting in a waxy sheen on the surface of the meat. This is how meat was being preserved long time ago for winter seasons (in China) before refrigerator was invented.

It's relatively a simple one pot dish and rice cooker possible

Here I used only pork sausages and waxed duck thigh 

Spotted one morning looking out. The birds are happily chirping and was very loud.

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments.

Until my next post, have a good weekend everyone.

Catching up and Finishing up

About the WSG Birthday Exchange

These are the fabrics I picked for my finishing

and these trimmings

which I ended not using it

RED HEXA SAL

Six more done, completed just in time before November ends

Counting 45 Hexa Flowers 7 more and 1 month left

Thirty-Two years later

A welcome home luncheon for Michelle (sited in the center) 

who flew in from Kansas, USA for a visit and

for this meet up at PUTIEN, Chinese Restaurant

Our afternoon lunch

Top Row

Fried Toufo/Yam Fritters/Bittergourd with Honey

Middle Row

Steam Chicken/Pickle Papaya & Hazelnuts/ Chinese noodle

Last Row

Steam Fish/Fried Vermicelli/Pork Ribs

 Desserts by Putien
Variety of Yam and potatoes in
Pumpkin or Coconut Milk and Jelly

Hereafter, we adjourned to Betjernm & Barton for Tea

The motifs crocheted tunic for Diane in Lilac is finally done

and fitted. Just hope one day she will wear it and I'll remember to take photo. 

For now, she ain't gonna model it for me. 

Our WSG Birthday Exchange meet is this weekend.

It's finally happening!!

My exchange are all done and packed. 

The shops are now filled with all things Christmas

and my boxes look Christmassy too as I wanted the same box design

Sorry the pictures here are a little dull as we  have entered the Monsoon season, which means higher rainfall and gloomy days and shorter sunny day light. As I am writing this now, it's raining very heavily outside and it's kinda chilly inside.

Thank you all for coming by again and especially to all who left comments in my last post.

From haze to rain, November

As the year is coming to an end, so  is my RED HEXA SAL.
I have only 39 flowers completed as of last month with 13 flowers more remaining to finish on our one flower per week SAL for  the duration of 52 weeks. Hopefully I get to complete it by year end.

A little teaser here on my secret stitching in progress for the annual Birthday exchanges with WSG group. If you have been reading me, I am very sure  I have rant about it in some months about my distraction, doubts and how my mind swayed from designs, patterns and finishing ideas on off .  Well our DEADLINE is anytime before YEAR END , a conclusion we came to agree with in the beginning of the year, instead of delivering on each and everyone's Birthday. The  year end is fast approaching, and so I thought until here came  a twist. It's been decided  in October that we are delivering it personally during our  meet up in December, the first week. So imagine me scrambling and out came my turbo needles and burning the midnight oil on some nights.  We still can deliver by year ends after some of us ranted, but what fun could that be ? So here are my peek-a-boos.

This was my initial choice

Then I was attracted to this

The classic , this came to mind too

I thought how pretty this looked

while I was browsing the net, I knew I had this in my stash

I am currently assembling and putting in the finishing touches. I will have to think of a way to wrapped the gift too,  it's afterall a Birthday gift .  Then should I have Birthday cards or just tags ?Reveal day  in December.

Bought this thread from Spotlight the other day when I met the girls for lunch. I have been crocheting some doilies for Su See in Hong Kong. She was thinking of having some doilies to showcase her collections of tea sets. These are before blocking and in various sizes. I hope it will suit her needs. I haven't been crocheting doilies for ages, I am a no doily person, 

Some sparkle threads and in gold...Christmas come early for me

and it has my name written all over it, LOL

It's really gold, too bad the camera did not captured the real thing.

It's a tunic in progress. I am so bitten by the knitting and crochet bug lately although I have not finished a single item from my WIPs from a couple months back. I am really bad.

The rain has come like always. It's the monsoon season since we don't get snow. So it rained and rained, day and night, especially when it's time to knocked off from work and I don't like to carry an umbrella . With that, we get flash floods in the city and traffic jammed  to the extreme. 

Like last year, November also denote me attending the 12th Charity Event for the underprivileged students. This year I attended alone as hubby had   another event elsewhere and there's usually more invites to weddings and Annual Dinners too.  Work is getting hetic too by the weeks.

Thank you to all who came by and left comments, I truly appreciate it very much, least to know that my blog is not forgotten by you while my visit to your blog is far and spaced out, but I do visit whenever I could find time in between work as I hardly had time to sit in front of my pc at home these days. I will be taking a short vacation soon again in December. Until then take care everyone and stay warm in winter and to those with great  blue skies, have a wonderful summer. It's a  very, very heavy downpour outside at this moment.

September,

I thought I would have a bit more of me time in September with Diane in hostel.
I thought I would have more time to concentrate on crafting since I no longer have to chauffer her around and wait on her. I thought I  could also keep up with blogging and my blog rounds. But no, I just don't know how the time went by so quickly leaving me feeling a little lost for not being able to finish what I had planned. There was so much to do without actually accomplished anything worth mentioning except those that came with a deadline like the Halloween Mail Art and my Red Hexa SAL. By the way, Diane is home on sem break for a week but she will have her stuff to keep her busy.

Speaking of which, I am a little worried that I still have no news of the Mail Art reaching it's new home. It flew slightly over two weeks now and the postie track and trace records at my end here recorded it boarded the plane on 15 September, until todate the destination postal department has not provided a feedback on their delivery status.

September has been depressing, imagine waking up in the morning with a blurry skyline . I thought it was my eyesight that's failing. But the sky is shrouded with a thick pall of smoke and smelling burnt of organic material . Our air quality in recent weeks  deteriorated  and worsen tremendously with the prevailing winds continued to blow haze from the Sumatra fire. The light thunder shower in the late morning and early afternoon only provide temporary respite. The sad part is that this is becoming  like an annual haze season for us which should never even have existed, if only 'the government concerned' had exercise some form of enforcement and worked their MOA. At one point the Air Pollutant index breached over 200 in unhealthy mark that forced schools to closed.

Our skies turned grey, smokey and gloomy.

The effect of haze exposure may caused a variety of adverse condition where health is concerned
and thus forcing people to abandon outdoor activities. Sadly the thunder showers in the late morning and early afternoon is not enough to overcome the situation.

This was mid morning at the Lake Gardens when the sun should be shining brightly and full of joggers and children in the playground but now looking almost deserted.

The eight moon has come again, according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar. It's celebrating the moon , known as Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival that falls on last Sunday

I bake my mooncake again

no Jelly mooncake this year

The before and after bake

Traditional Mooncake with White Lotus paste and Single Egg Yolk

I haven't been into any serious baking lately

I received a box of mooncakes by RT Pastry House which look like the Penang Tau Sar Peh that's worth giving a mentioned because it's not shaped like the traditional ones.

Thanks to Edwin

Four more done for the month of September

My hexies now totaling 37/52

Found this Mooncake box from Baker's Cottage Bakery to display

Vincent bought me this when I asked him to check it out at Kino two weeks ago

Me and some crafting ladies; June, Margaret W, BJ and Jackie finally had our long awaited meet-up when we decided to go stashing at Spotlight at IPC Centre

Here's my haul

All kinds of stitching and paper craft notions including a ball of  Patons Cotton in Off Cream

for doily crochet for SuSee. I'm not a doily person actually, I think I had enough of it along time ago.

 MW also became the 'unofficially Spotlight spokeperson' for these grinder cum shaker

She's so convincingly good and I am sold without second thoughts, LOL

A lil'surprised from MW.

Open lid Mason Jar

Endless possibilities

Some books I picked up this month

I'm very sure  I don't have these titles

A black tunic lacy blouse I started 2 years ago finally saw me finishing it a week ago

This is before wash

An afternoon English Tea at TWG Tea at Sunway Pyramid earlier of the month with Alice and Kimmi

A new toy, my smoothie blender

A visit to an Aunt, DH's who now occupy the ancestral home had me wondered into her garden. Besides growing vegetables, I found this rose bush

and this sweet pink daisy

I am currently working on my Annual Exchange, hopefully I get it completed by December this year, so that's WIP for now.

That's all I can squeeze in for this month. Hopefully in the coming weeks I get to be a little more regular with my blog rounds and with my blog post.

Here's my furbaby snuggled up on a seemingly cold, gloomy day. Even she stays indoors a lot lately.

Wishing you beautiful bright skies where ever you may be.