SEW MY NAME

I am tagged by Sewing Mom and this is the first time I’m doing this meme thing. Never really understand it’s function but I guess the idea is just to have fun and to know more about the person you have tagged. This is 4 x 4 meme and basically it is answering 4 questions on 4 topics and then tag 4 people to continue with the meme. Ok here are my answers to the questions.

4 Jobs I’ve Had in My Life

1. My first job was a tutor to 12 year old group of kids but only for a year. And I did bump into some students many years later and couldn’t recognize them but they recognized me. How could I when they blossomed into pretty ladies and I was still the plain Jane, till today.
2. I tried working as a telephone operator for a short while and quit as the job was too monotonous for my liking.
3. Next I work at the postal department. It wasn’t a great place to work as it’s always dusty with mails and parcels everywhere so I didn’t stay long.
4. My last job lasted for more than 20 years in the airline industry in three departments. I enjoyed working life, especially the many friends I met. I quit after moving into the last department when I met the first and only b**** in my entire life who made things so difficult that my husband told me to quit my job.

4 Shows I DVR (TIVO)
I don’t record shows and in fact has never been a TV fan because I can’t sit still for too long. So I watch little TV which are mainly -

1. Korean dramas
2. Americon Idol
3. Thurday TV forum in Bahasa Malaysia
4. Comedies like Desperate Housewives, Mr Bean( when I remember to tune in)

4 Places I’ve Been

1. Johannesburg - The kids love the safari very much and on our second visit we went animal hunting everyday for 5 straight days.
2. Switzerland - A beautiful place I wish I can visit again one day.
3. LA Disneyland - The place where I get to be the kid again - running around, jumping into roller coasters and see all my favorite childhood fairy tales characters.
4. Cairo - A colorful and enchanting place with the pyramids, museums and arts.

4 Favorite Foods

1. Cheese Cake - love all type of cheese cake whether it is the Japanese cheese cake, traditional cheese cake or the crust type.
2. Spaghetti - I’m a lousy cook but my family love my version of spaghetti. Of course must top it up with cheese.
3. Kebab - Started liking kebab when I visited Cairo. Here we found a nice eatery serving Turkish kebab.
4. Bread - I am more of a bread than a rice person. I eat bread with almost everything and I also have a bread maker.

4 People I Tag

1. Verlyn from http://verlyn.name/
2. Evelyn from http://www.amethysti.com/
3. Serine from http://www.insbeaute.com
4. Doris from http://www.dorislive.com/

Ok gals, happy me- me-ing.

I have been busy for the whole week that I did not touch my patchwork quilt. For those who don’t know me I love to sew patchwork and fabric crafts, I love to make beaded jewelry and I also love blogging and surfing the internet. Let me see what I have been doing for the past whole week.

I managed to do a matching set of pearl beaded watch, bracelet and ring for my youngest sister. She wanted in combination of black and white. I did a simple white freshwater beaded pearl watch for my younger sister-in-law who is a sweet, simple person and a teacher by profession. And my eldest sister-in-law who happens to be my favorite for she is a very good cook, wanted her pearl watch in gold. And I can see that she loves it very much. All my sisters and sister-in-laws each has got a watch hand-beaded by me. So, one woman’s craze is other women’s gain.

I have always loved the classic look of pearls so the reason why I bought many strands of pearls. Moreover Swarovski and freshwater pearls are quite reasonably priced here. But not gemstone or semi-precious stones which are quite expensive. I guess that is why many enthusiastic beaders use crystals, pearls and other glass beads for their beading projects. Jewelry making hobby is popular here because it is not as difficult or time-consuming as sewing and patchwork. But it is also an expensive hobby once you are addicted. Each time I visit a bead store I can easily spend a hundred dollar, so I try not to go often. And I do not want to calculate or keep track of my beading hobby expenses, else my hubby faints.

Recently my dear friend Liudmila has bewitched me with her malachite beads that I have been busy buying them and other gemstones over the internet as I cannot find malachite beads here. So, soon I will be beading gemstones instead of just pearls and crystals. And guess what else I did? I have just bought another domain name www.beadedgemstone.com and right now cannot figure out how to make time to maintain another site. So I shall just park it with my hosting company until I am ready.

One more thing which I have been busy with is that I am helping a friend who is a Forex trader to produce and launch his Forex Ebook. Digging another grave for myself? The reason why I do this is because I get to learn by helping others. I don’t have a product or Ebook to sell right now but who knows in the near future?

And I have just changed hosting company and many graphics are missing and need to be restored. So pardon me if I am slow in updating my site but I intend to get the quilts for my sons ready as soon as possible.

Talk to you again next week for update of my quilts and meanwhile happy stitching, crafting and happy blogging too. Please check out Mr Linky at Blogger Craft Club to see what others did.

Welcome to my new home =)
(I have just changed Hosting company)

There is still a lot of stuff in the boxes, waiting for me to unpack. I will get them ‘display’ asap.

Meanwhile, feel free to look around.

PS : Most of the graphics were not uploaded during the move and I will try to restore them but I believe it will take sometimes.

I am supposed to do the third quilt for my youngest son and complete main patterns for all 3 quilts before adding borders. But I may have to look for more materials to match well the earlier 2 pieces sewn. So I decided to plan for the borders for the first 2 quilts before going on to the last quilt. So the last quilt will be designed on the left-over materials of the first 2 quilts revolving around Overall Sam applique which I have just sewn.

I drew Overall Sam onto a drawing paper and when satisfied I cut the paper patterns to transfer to the materials mainly using scraps which I have collected over the years. It is simple and fun pattern to sew for young boys.

Sunbonnet Sue or Sunbonnet lady is also one of my favorite patterns which can also be sewn on projects for young girls as it is also another easy pattern to reproduce. I did this Sunbonnet Sue patchwork bag many years ago when my daughter was younger.

This is what I love about patchwork, able to use scraps to make other projects. The designing,the color-matching and co-ordinating is also the fun part.

Until next Monday for the quilts update. See you soon.

This is happy Liudmila with a patchwork table topper which I sent before Christmas and only arrived early this week. She did warn me that she may not get my present but I didn’t worry too much about it as I’m sure things couldn’t be as bad as she painted about the postal situation in Italy. Anyway at the same time I sent out another package to SewingMom in Texas who received hers in the first week of January. So it wasn’t a problem at my end. We both have given up about her receiving my little gift but it finally came after 2 months! And she called it a miracle.

Click here to go to Liudmila’s blog. She always has interesting posts to read and at times she is comical. She thinks I need to do engineering calculations to do the patchwork! Ain’t she funny?

Liudmila, it seems Christmas comes early this year for you. Anyway you are more beautiful than the patchwork.

This is my second quilt (in progress) for my son Zurikh. I love it as it is bright and cheerful and suitable for my fun-loving son. I have finished with the main pattern and will add sashing and borders before sewing it with backing and batting. Like my first quilt with BBC (WIP too), I will only do that after doing the third quilt for my youngest son so as to be able to use the materials effectively.

Last night I asked Zurikh what color border would he like for the quilt showing him my colorful collection. He said orange and I asked him why not green to which he replied that it didn’t really matter as he will use the quilt for sleeping only. I told him that I like to make a nice one so that he will think of me when going to sleep. He just gave me the ‘whatever look’ answer .

And I remembered reading a joke somewhere of this lady at check-out counters with very slow-moving queue to the point that she felt being ignored. She then lamented that if she wanted to be ignored she might as well stay at home and get ignored by her kids. Poor mom but I believe in most cases this is just a passing stage in bringing-up a teenager.

Just for a laugh and see if we can identify ourselves guilty of having said similar craps in times of exasperation.

Things My Mother Taught Me:

My mother taught me LOGIC.
“Because I said so, that’s why.”

My Mother taught me MEDICINE…
“If you don’t stop crossing your eyes, they’re going to freeze that way.” My Mother taught me TO THINK AHEAD…
“If you don’t pass your spelling test, you’ll never get a good job!”

My Mother taught me ESP…
“Put your sweater on; don’t you think that I know when you’re cold?”

My Mother taught me TO MEET A CHALLENGE…
“What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you…Don’t talk back to me!”

My Mother taught me HUMOR…
“When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don’t come running to me.”

My Mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT…
“If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll never grow up.

My mother taught me ABOUT SEX…
“How do you think you got here?”

My mother taught me about GENETICS…
“You are just like your father!”

My mother taught me about my ROOTS…
“Do you think you were born in a barn?”

My mother taught me about the WISDOM of AGE…
“When you get to be my age, you will understand.”

My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION…
“Just wait until your father gets home.”

My mother taught me about RECEIVING…
“You are going to get it when we get home.”

And, my all-time favorite - JUSTICE
“One day you’ll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like YOU…then you’ll see what it’s like.”

My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.
“If you’re going to kill each other, do it outside - I just finished cleaning!”

My mother taught me RELIGION.
“You better pray that will come out of the carpet.”

My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL.
“If you don’t straighten up, I’m going to knock you into the middle of next week!”

My mother taught me FORESIGHT.
“Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re in an accident.”

My mother taught me IRONY.
“Keep laughing and I’ll *give* you something to cry about.”

My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS.
“Shut your mouth and eat your supper!”

My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM.
“Will you *look* at the dirt on the back of your neck!”

My mother taught me about STAMINA.
“You’ll sit there ’til all that spinach is gone.”

My mother taught me about WEATHER.
“It looks as if a tornado swept through your room.

My mother taught me how to solve PHYSICS PROBLEMS.
“If I yelled because I saw a meteor coming toward you; would you listen then?”

My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY.
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times - Don’t exaggerate!!!”

My mother taught me THE CIRCLE OF LIFE.
“I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.”

My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION.
“Stop acting like your father!”

My mother taught me about ENVY.
“There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don’t have wonderful parents like you do!”

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year or the Lunar New Year celebrated by the Chinese all over the world. It starts with the reunion dinner tonight with all shops and shopping centers here close early for the day follow by 2 days of public holidays. Living in a multi-racial country and surrounded by Chinese friends and neighbors, inevitably the spirit of this festival can be felt by the non-Chinese here too.

As a neighborly gesture I made some pineapple tarts for my neighbor and my favorite blogging buddy who wouldn’t mind growing fat because of my yummy tarts. He sometimes serves as my punching bag when things don’t go right, he puts up with my grouses and also backs up as my technical support. Lucky me to have such a wonderful friend.

Pinapple Tarts Recipe
For the jam :
3 pineapple or 2 big pineapples
sugar (depends on how sweet or sour the pineapples are)
For the pastry :
500 gm butter
2 eggs
450 gm flour
1 tbsp sugar
a little salt
vanilla powder (optional)

Method :
Grate the pineapples and use a strainer to strain the juice out. Add sugar and cook on fire until the jam is not wet yet soft.

Put softened butter in a bowl and use a mixing spoon to hand mix the butter with sugar. Add egg, salt and vanilla. Lastly add the flour and knead with hand. Roll a portion of dough on a pastry sheet and use a pineapple cookie cutter to cut the cookies. Finish all the dough and fill the cavities with jam. Arrange on baking sheets and bake for about 25 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius (320 degrees Fahrenheit). You may have to adjust a little to suit your oven and normally at mid-way I will switch the top and bottom tray for more even baking.

To all my Chinese friends and readers, I wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year .

It has been a frustrating week for me. My internet was down due to some modem problem since last Tuesday but my nephew has managed to fix things yesterday. Also, since last Saturday I could not get connection to my website and only a few minutes ago things were restored. Some server problem it seems. In addition, my second son has been having problems too and was at that stage when the whole world seems to be against him. He ran foul of the law and shook the family a little. But I’m happy to announce that he is putting in a lot of effort to get back in the right track and things should be back to normal pretty soon. So Mommy dearest has been real busy running around.

Here I am behind time as I am in the Blogger Craft Club and we are to update our progress each Monday. It is good to be in the club as there is more motivation to get things done. Each member can do any craft not just restricted to sewing, so do feel free to join us if you are in any kind of craft.

I have been wanting to make new quilts for my 3 boys and with the club’s motivation has started with the first one. Just a simple quilt from my fabric collection for a kick start. Being a member of Fabricoholics Anonymous, I have a huge pile of cotton collection to make as many quilts I wish to. And another blogger, Sewing Mom did a pretty bag and I just love her choice of colors in her sewing. Do pop over at Hadias and click at Mr Linky to see the awesome things the members did so far.

So here is my progress. It is all using quick-piecing method and easy to follow for beginners or those hard-pressed for time. I will put a border around the quilt before attaching to batting and backing. But not now. I will do it now only after I have finished planning for all the 3 quilts. In this way I can effectively used all the solid colors as planned earlier which I have bought each in half a meter.

Please drop me an email for anyone wanting the method of quick-piecing method until I have put up the instructions when the project is finished.

Happy crafting and piecing everyone. Update you with my progress next Monday.