Neighborhood Round Robin 2007

My stitching for this RR. Design is from LK Summer, Friendship. Added some french knots to the window's flowers. This RR will take about a year of 2 month stitchings in between rotation.

I am aiming for an overall oval look so I still have to stitch my welcome gate when this comes home. InshaaAllah. Flosses used are mostly variegated DMC and some DnT overdyes.

Surprise Me MA

For Angie in Indiana, USA.

Angie had been ill and thus, my exchanged MA was late. Hope to see it arrived safely. Will post picture when received.

Valentine/Redwork MA

For Jean in USA.

In exchange, Jean sent me these..love those stamps!

My MA collections

These are the MAs that I had collected so far. Love them all!

Mail arts

Mail arts are basically stitched envelopes. You picked a design for the theme, finished it into an envelope and mailed with some good glued-on stamps.

Margaret's Valentine/Redwork MYS exchange (front). Design is a freebie from Bent Creek.

Oh no!

This is what happened when you left all your stash items unattended! I was upstairs and I left my digicam downstairs on the table. The magnifier of course was attached to my 'stitching' table.
I must say that this is an instant weight-gain for Fahim..LOL!

And this is the master mind behind this all..

Croc shoes

Don't ask me why, but I love seeing these croc shoes on little children. Adorable! And they don't come cheap either. Balqis loves them! She can put them on easily on her own! She told me so.

4-patch pincushion

My exchange to Lillie. In return, I received this lovely one from Zalita.

My exchange to Lillie.

A day at the zoo

The last time when I was at this zoo, I was only 12 years old on a school holiday trip. I never knew that there are so many celebrities at the Zoo now.
Who? Well, do you know Simba the Lion King, or K-U-Z-C-O the llama in Emperor's New Groove? And they couldn't wait to meet Pingu the penguin! (His place being the among the last of the zoo round). They even had fun naming who's who for the animals and got on the ride with Thomas even though it's actually being towed by a tractor. :-)
Overall, it was a good trip. The kids couldn't stopped telling the others how they were being water-sprayed by the elephant during one of their dance routines. And about the time when they took picture with the orang utan, or how the tenok snored during his sleep, or seeing only the hippo's back in his deep pool or getting excited seeing the leopard jumping onto the top of the roof of his shelter!
If you are going to the zoo, I advise you go there during the evening. The animals are much more active then.

MYS Biscournus exchange

My piece to Yasmin with ladybug buttons and flowers using size10 Coats crochet/tatting thread! Design is originally a Rainbow Gallery blackwork freebie by Patricia Wainwright called Victorian Posy Blackwork. I like the way it turned out. Lovely! I want to do one for myself! (together with Just Nan's Rose, also an exchanged biscournu).

In exchange, I received my biscournu from Lillie. Love that rose-colored fabric!

MYS 2006 Exchange #6

The last of MYS 2006 exchange. We are to do a sampler and this piece is an old freebie by Lesa Steele. Added on bee, butterfly and heart charms.

New to view!

Halloween Exchange made into a treatbag. The design is a freebie by Lizzie Kate and the dangling ghost is made out of DMC Glow-in-the-Dark floss. Yes, it is supposed to glow in the dark.

Some simple beadings done on my baju kurung. And a picture of my niece who helped finished it off...reason being she needed some extra money for her school trip.

MYS Exchange 2006. A needlebook for Wendy. The design is freebie from Jeanette Douglas' A Bug Collector featuring a ladybird button. All hand-sewn because my machine was on loan to my SIL.

Where's the pictures?

While I'm here, I might as well write something.

I have loads of pictures to share, but have been very lazy to be online at home nowadays. I could probably do updating in the office but work time is too precious to do that. In any way, I always forget to bring along my card reader to upload those pictures in. (Sometimes I do bring along my compact camera along whenever I go).

My mini challenge is going along fine. I could not find the time to do the various 5 (5 ...'s, 5 Minis, 5 tattings) as I originally planned but at least there're something finished. In anyway, I still have one more exchange to finish before end of year. Need to clear that off first.

On the TV side..my most favorite TV to watch right now is Project Runaway on Channel 11. So brilliant! This year's participants are some of the best designers so far. Sometimes I even skip my fav series like Amazing Race, Hallmark's Midsomer Murders just so I can watch that series. (I would tape that other series and watch later). Wish I can afford an Astro Max!

Place I went to..Been to Arau visiting my sister. While I was these, I joined in her group of friends for a beading class at the local community college. We visited Padang Besar. I thought I am way beyond temptation at that shopping place. I'd been there before many times, but still couldn't resist looking at all those nick-nacks and wearables etc. Managed to control myself over other things but I did went crazy over the brooches. Hahaha..Won't tell you how much I did spent on them. Like I dont have many brooches at home...

What's that button doing over there??

Oh no! I'd been tagged. Well, since I haven't been at this blog for the longest time, I might as well do whatever the tagging is except maybe with a bit of changes in the rules..hehehhe

I've Been Tagged ......... by Azie

The Rules : "List 7 songs that you are listening right now. No matter what the genre, whether or not they have words or even if they are good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post this instructions in your blog along with 7 songs, then tag 7 other people to see what they are listening to"..

Ok, Azie..I'm going to put in my 7 songs but I'm not going to tag that other 7 people.Most of my blogger friends would probably been tagged already...

Since I am commuting on the trains, I dont really listen to radio on weekdays. Radio is for weekends while driving to places. So I am putting songs that I would like to listen over and over in my Sony MP3 player.
And the 7 songs are :
1--> Dalam Kenangan - Kaer
2--> If tomorrow never comes - Ronan Keating
3--> Button - Pussycat Dolls ;-)
4--> Kerna ku sayang kamu - Dygta
5--> Songbird - Kenny G
6--> Mungkir Bahagia - Hazami
7--> Keabadian Cinta - Anuar Zain

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.