My tatting adventures..

Went to meet Faizon, Linda, and June on Saturday (12Aug) for my first tatting class. It was fun. Here're the result:

The picot is too small. I had trouble 'gauge-ing' the size of each picot. Maybe I need to come up with that gauge thing soon.

Yikes! Forgot to make up the joint!

Finally did the joint, only to find that I joined to the wrong ring.. :-)

Managed this small band. I am not sure if I did the correct sequence of rings, or whether i did the join properly or whether my double stitches are too loose. The rings looked un-uniformed, the picots varied in size.. Let's hear what the more tatting expert say...

Another exchange finished.

Bookmark for Wendy as part of MYS 2006 exchange. I adapted the freebie design of Lizzie Kate to make up the bookmark.

Book..not included. :-)

Winter Basket by Lizzie Kate, finished. Well, not really. Still one more floss color is missing.

This is how it looks so far. One more season (Autumn) to go. And the buttons to put on.

WIPpin' it out 11Aug

I am sharing my current WIP of Michael Powell's Village Scene. Been focusing on it for 8 hours and I started to feel burnt out already. One of the reason why I couldn't stick to hourly rotation. I had planned that I would stop once I stitched one third of it..Managed only half of the one third.

I think it's because of you couldn't really see what you are stitching. MP uses lots of backstitches and long stitches for outlines. Long stitches, as opposed to backstitches, are not recommended to do until you have finished all your cross stitches.

What do you do when you feel burnt out of a project? You start a new one! LOL! Taking a break by gridding another scenery-to-be project. Yeay! It feels good... I planned to take out my DT Sanctuary sampler but too lazy to set up the stitching workstation (the stand, magnifier, lighting and all).

If you notice the colorful grids, that's because I use leftover threads from finished projects. :-)

Jun & July...in pictures

The lack of pictures show that I was not stitching much these few months...Been very busy at the office too.

Margaret's RR. She provided the chart by Prairie Schooler.


MYS Exchange. A sewing pouch for Margaret.

April..in pictures

Aida's RR home theme. I stitched Elizabeth Design's freebie with a change of wording.

Finished Open A New Box by Just Another Button Co, buttons and all!

Veronica's RR. I stitched the Autumn.


The front/back pictures of another set of book covers. Variation of the hanging hearts.

Going Places photos

My new interest.. photography! These are taken with a compact Canon Powershot A520. One of the reason I bought this camera is because it can use the normal AA batteries as backup whenever my chargeables went out. And maybe one day, I'll get those macro and telephoto lenses to go with it.

Anis and Fahim 'chilling' out at Hutan Lipur Lentang, off Karak Highway. The water is very cold indeed.

Nadhirah, Fahim and Balqis at Pantai Kemasik, Kemaman. One of my favorite beach! The other being Pantai Kijal which is just up ahead from this beach. Taken during our balik kampung during Chinese New Year holidays. A few minutes after this, it was dipping the whole body, not just the feet!

Aki and his younger grandchildrens. Missing, of course, is Balqis..in bad mood just woke up from her sleep.

Early morning at our camp site at Taman Negeri Endau Rompin, Pahang. See how clear the water is..my kind of place!

Air Terjun Mahkota, Taman Negeri Endau Rompin, Pahang.

School holidays

I love school holidays. Love seeing happy faces of my nieces and nephews when we are going places. They, of course, love it. Me, well... guess who got to do the paying! Hahaha..
The first weekend, we went to PD. Jammed up the whole of my bro's family and the maid and my sis from Perlis and her daughter, Nabila in an apartment with one bedroom.

The second weekend, my other sis's family came down to KL with my father. The cousins get to meet again. THis picture was taken before we went out to KLCC and Aquaria.

What a way to spend the day? At the same time, there was a Popular Book Fair going on at the KLConvention Center. We went there the day after PD trip. As part of the book cum entrance ticket, there was a bookmark with some discount for Aquaria entrance. As we had to queue up to go inside, the maid and I would stopped anyone on the way back from the book fair asking for that discounted bookmarks! Hahahha..it was fun! Feel like doing the begging part from Amazing Race. Well, we did accumulated a lot. A saving of RM40 for our 4 families despite having to queue for nearly 2 hours!

Aquaria is amazing! Unfortunately, my camera went out of battery. Forgot to bring the spares. Well, there will be other time. inshaaAllah.

Isn't this baby turtle cute? Amir loves it. Definitely it's Amir's day out.

Saying hello in KLCC Park while the others playing in the waterpark.

KL Menjerit!!

Orang KL menjerit..that is.

I took my nieces and nephews to see airplanes at KLIA for this school holidays. They went screaming when I took them to the end of the runaway where the plane looked like it was going down on them..

Well, I told them to scream..it's good place to let your steam down..LOL!

Simple Pleasures are Best

Dont you think so? Even though it means picking up the phone and talk to someone or listening to some MP3s, or even just hanging out your legs..

Freebie by Waxing Moon Designs.

Round Robins

A round robin is a piece stitched by two or more people. Usually comes with a theme, a series of designs or even a complete design divided up to be stitched by each of the participants. A dateline is set for each person to finish the stitching before mailing it to the next person until eventually it will reach the last person who is also the owner of the piece.

This is my piece for 2006 MYS RR. Seasonal Postcards c Passione Ricamo. These are previously freebies at the website, but no longer available. However, these postcards will appear in one of the UK mags as part of their stitching series.

And this is an old designer RR. I chose Lizzie Kate's Friendship chart as my theme. I have always wanted a piece like this. It reminded me of old school book where friends will autographed all over..

Book Covers

Finally I had some time to make up these book covers. Previously, it had only been ideas in my head and in the pages of my book. The original idea came from a plastic book cover that I brought back from the US. It fits a standard paperback size (with some room to spare) of any thickness.

People said 'dont judge a book by its cover'. I wonder what they will said when they look at these covers.


My first design..the book Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

Hanging Hearts..the book The Devils Wear Prada by Lauren Weisberger.

Progress pictures..

Last finish of January..LK February stamp without those tiny buttons.



LK May stamp. Finish this quite a long time before..buttons still to be attached.


BC February snapper. I am so lazy to finish up that leftover stitchings!


BC March snapper. Missing the bottom line. Cant find the floss. I think I am missing a few swirls too.


JABC Open a New Box. Stitch this while waiting for car to be serviced.


JN Parlor Ribbons. Managed only 1 band after a frogging due to miscounting.


DT Sanctuary assignment #2. Still missing the fountain paths.

Stitching smalls..

Eight-sided pincushion or biscournu for MYS exchanges. Design is JN Whimzi Rose.

Sweets for my sweet..

These are Soan Papdi. Somebody came home from India and brought us these. They are like very finely pulled sugar made from sugar (of course), veg oil, chick pea flour, wheat flour, pistachio & almond with cardamon taste. I love them, but some are being put off by the cardamom taste. Here, you dont normally eat those cardamon, just cook with them for the nice smell..

These reminded me of semang (pronounced say-mong) that I had known as a kid. It was of pulled sugar too, but coarser and made into a rounded shape. I think you can still find some at the Pasar Payang in Terengganu. It is white in color though the one that I had known was pink.

At least for now, if I see a Hindi movie, I know what sweets they are serving..LOL!

Meme of Fours.

I need some posts that I dont have to upload pictures. So I am tagging myself with this. Read it at Zalita's blog (she got it at Harsha's). She wrote "if you're reading (and you haven't answer this set of questions) consider yourself tagged'..

Meme of 'Fours'

Four Jobs I Have Had in My Life:
1- teacher/tutor - a facilitator in some holiday camps..
2- consultant - in anything! LOL! Some of my friends would say that I have 'answers' to everything. I do 'kelentong' (made jokes) sometimes..hehehehe
3- AVON direct-seller (during the year after I finished my studies and hadn't been employed yet).
4- Reader - yeah..before i was employed, I did this a lot! LOL!

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over Again:
1- Sleepless in Seattle
2- Jane Austen's adapted movies like Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice. I wished I own a DVD of these ones, but couldn't seem to find one here. They dont like old, historical type movie here. No selling value..I missed P&P at the movies. What can I say? I love historical setting..
3- Disney's movies!!
4- Movies that has creativity (models created, computer generated etc) in them like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Day After Tomorrow, Perfect Storm..

Four Places I Had Lived:
1- Omaha, Nebraska, USA. I studied there.
2- Zurich, Switzerland. Only for a few days, on training, but I had been there more than once.
3-If you want to count the places that I had been for duty travel-London, Manchester, Sdyney, Jakarta, Bangkok etc..hehehe

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:
1 - All the CSI series
2 - Monk
3 - Akademi Fantasia (local reality TV show)
4 - Discovery Travel and Living channel and Discovery Channel

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation:
1 - Scotland (& London)
2- Los Angeles - Dallas
3 - Yokohama - Tokyo - Kyoto - Kansai
4 - Johannesburg - Cape Town - Buenos Aires

Four Websites I Visit Daily:
1 - Yahoo Mailbox
2 - Yahoo Groups
3 - Any links that appeared in any of my emails/YG. LOL! That's more than 4 if you want to count them.

Four of My Favorite Foods:
1 - Pizza
2 -Sweet and Sour
3 -Porridge
4 - Veggies

Four Albums I Can't Live Without:
1 - Siti Nurhaliza
2 -Malay R&B like Anuar Zain, Dayang & Kaer!
3 -Whatever they played on XFresh FM.
4 -AF Stars hehehhe..just to fill this in..I love Mawi's album!

Four Places I'd Rather Be:
1 - Where the is a body of water (esp waterfalls), some greens/flowers, mountains/high places
2- Vacation places. Anywhere!
3- Bookstores
4-LNS or craft stores.

Well, to follow suit, If you're reading (and you haven't answered this set of question) consider yourself tagged also.

Charity Day at RTK

I missed the days when we had Kem Penyayang with BPKC. It was a good thing that I am able to do this again with these friends of mine. ANd thanks to those who had made this possible. They did the gotong royong cleaning up the place and the kids had coloring contests and games.

I would had loved to do more but somebody had to mind the smaller kids..

A second home

Due to the long commute everyday to work, I have long for an apartment in the city. But it would take a lot more time to see that materialises..for the time being, I have this great views from my timeshare apartment's windows. We had an early morning gathering in KL so I booked myself an apartment out of my entitlement. My first time at the Legend Hotel and Apartments.