Moon Stories

Hello!

It's been a few days since my last post and I've been busy, busy, busy. Firstly, I've started my exercises again after getting very lazy for a few months. Two days ago I went for a jog and I'm still aching today! It seems after discovering ice-cream is a cure for migraine, I've been hooked on it. It didn't help that my freezer is constantly stocked with magnums. You know you can't eat so much ice-cream and not expect it to show up somewhere on your tum-tum. So my Giodarno jeans are no longer loose. That's my fattest jeans!

In my last post I mentioned that mid-autumn festival aka Mooncake Festival is on. I'm pretty sure it's over now as I no longer hear wheezing sounds of fireworks. Okay, I confess. I really dislike the Mooncake Festival. It started a long, long time ago. I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. How you celebrate the festival is on the 15th day of the 8th moon, kids walk around the neighbourhood holding lighted lanterns. My mother did not want to give us money to buy lanterns so my older brother who's really resourceful BUILT his own lantern. His was really fantastic. With leftover material, he built one for me and my younger brother. Of course ours were quite crappy. My mother wouldn't let us light the candles in the lantern until the actual day. I was really excited. Okay, here's what happened. My brother lighted the candles in the lantern for all three lanterns. MY lantern burst into flames immediately. I burst into tears. The big boo-hoo-hoo kind. I mean I had waited for days for this moment. Anyway, I stupidly continued holding on to the lantern while it was burning and would have burnt to death surely if my brother had not taken it away from me and stamped out the fire. I remembered holding onto my younger brother's hands sort of a token way of carrying the lantern when we did our parade around the neighbourhood.

That was the last time I carried a lighted lantern. I celebrated future festivals with unlighted lanterns. It really wasn't the same but I was ruined by the fire. When my kids were little and not embarrassed to do the parade, they had battery operated lanterns which were horribly annoying. Imagine kiddie songs played over and over again. Since I'm a Chinese mother, I felt it my duty to promote the festival to my kids and I dutifully accompanied them on their yearly parade. But I was ever so relieved when they grew out of it because what's really awful about this festival is the other kids would let off fireworks and sparklers. I often felt my life was in danger when doing the rounds.

News! I've a new date to sell at red dot design museum. It's from 2nd to 3rd October and that's next week! I've made a few zip pouches but this time, I wanted to use my scrap stash instead of the flower-flower kind.

I have a fat quarter of this very interesting print. I don't know the name of the manufacturer because it is in Japanese characters. I selected portions of the fabric which told a story.

A girl is pleased with a new outfit.

A card game.

My son said the 2 girls are getting married! This is what a 13yr old boy would say.

This is a Robert Kaufman print. The birds are adorable.

This RJR print is from the Trip Around The World MSU Museum Collection.

The sea theme print is by Lecien. My girl is so smittened with it she wants me to make her a pencil case out of it.

I wanted to show you the perfect lining I used for this pouch. Can you see I used a toy hair brush to prop open the pouch?

I hope to make 4 more such zip pouches and I'm currently working on 2 cotton drill shoulder bags. I'll show them once I'm done. See you soon.