The Beader

Hello dear friends,

I was so taken by The Giver that I went on to read Messenger which is a loose sequel of The Giver.  It is set several years after The Giver and revolves around a boy whose job is much like a postman - he delivers messages. The village he lives in is under threat and he has to save it. The ending is again abrupt, like The Giver. Unfortunately, like most sequels, they disappoint. I think it tries too hard. The Giver felt so innocent and delightful.

You know, in another life, I often imagined I was a braider. Now I think it's possible I could have been a beader. No, no, I'm not a believer of previous lives. Just saying. This week I made progress on my spiral necklace. Beading, I've discovered is not that hard. It's much like sewing except you weave the thread onto the beads.

This is my temporary beading tray. It's not really suitable but I don't really want to invest too much in my beading in case my interest dies off. But I must say I really enjoy beading. It needs a lot of patience and is rather straining on the eyes. So I only do a little at a time and I do it when there's good daylight.

See this amount of necklace I've completed? It took me 5 hours! An experienced beader would probably do it at a fraction of the time. I made a few mistakes in the beginning and had to undo.

My necklace uses a very simple technique. Basically you just have x number of beads on the thread and you loop back thru y number of beads. You keep repeating until you hit strategic spots where you insert decorative crystals or other stuff, the names of which I haven't learnt yet. As I was beading, I thought to myself that I could possibly be making my family heirloom!

I've made two more iphone pouches with my Echino fabric. You can see more pics in my shop on Etsy if you're interested. See ya.

The Giver

Dear friends,

Long before I could sew bags, I was crocheting bags. Recently one of my blog friends, Tamdoll asked me about these bags. So I hunted high and low and managed to find two of these babies. My skills in crocheting is quite basic and once I discovered I did not like crochet "raw seams", I gave up making crochet bags. Yes, I do feel sad about it.

This is a simple drawstring pouch crocheted in a spiral manner. This spiral method does not leave an ugly "seam line" so I'm happy with it. Don't you just love the colour of this yarn? Olive green.

What I really like about this pouch is the cord. It is made with simple chain stitches one way followed by a slip stitch (or the join stitch?) the other way back. I've never learnt crochet from a teacher so I don't really know the terms. I learnt it the visual way by looking at a pattern. I like the cord so much that whenever I found the excuse to use a cord in one of my fabric bags or pouches, I would crochet one this way.

Okay, this bag was quite ambitious. I did not make it the spiral way. Instead I made the individual pieces and joined them together at the side seams. Exactly how you would sew a fabric bags. But the result is I have really ugly raw seams inside.

Yesterday I went on a beading adventure. I've always had a vague interest in beading but my knowledge never went beyond stringing a few beads together. My friend, Vivi wanted to learn to bead a complicated butterfly from a teacher. So I tagged along and before you know it, I'm officially a beginner beader. These are my supplies for my beading project. I was of course gunning for a beaded pouch or bag but that's too complicated for a beginner. So it's gonna be a simple necklace. Anyhoo, I discovered there's a class for crochet beaded pouches so I'm really, really wanting to sign up for that too. But first, I have to practise my crochet stitches.

Recently I finished reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. Have you read this book before? My son is studying it for Literature and since I have interest in books, I decided I would read all the books he has to study so we could talk about them.

It's a very easy book to read because the story is very compelling. It's about a community of people living a kind-of utopian life where everyone is governed by sameness done thru' genetic engineering perhaps? There is only one eye colour and one skin colour. The people do not suffer pain. Jobs, babies are assigned to the people. Can you imagine being assigned the role of birth mother? You get to enjoy life, give birth to 3 kids and afterwards you become a labourer for the rest of your life.

On surface, it looks like a pretty perfect world. But as you read more, it is revealed that it is a world robbed of choices, senses (colours, ability to hear music) and the ability to know any better. The main character is a 12 year old boy, Jonas who has the gift of colours meaning he can see colours and he is chosen to receive memories of the past from The Giver. Once Jonas starts to receive the memories of the past, he realises that his people are governed by lies and he decides he wants to help his community change. There is no neat ending to this story and you have to figure it out for yourself. My son asked me why Jonas chose the world where you could feel pain over the world of sameness where you don't feel pain.

My answer: I believe it wasn't pain Jonas chose. He chose a world where choice, emotions and basic human rights were respected and pain is a price you pay for it. I have realised that literature is not as easy as it was in my days.

I made another iphone pouch with another skulls and roses fabric. Me hubs asked me why I don't put the skulls in front. Well, the skulls are rather creepy and I was making it late at night. That's why. The next time I make another one, I'll do it in the day and put the creepy skulls in front. See ya.

March MAAD 2010 Post-mortem

So I survived another MAAD weekend of selling bags. Oh man, it was so physically draining. I think I made it worse by sleeping very late on Friday night due to my sudden urge to sew ONE LAST BAG. I'll show you the bag later.

MAAD hours are from 11am to 7pm. On Saturday I have to wake up early at 7am in order to reach red dot by 9am to secure a good table. It's first come first served. I have this constant fear that I'll wake up late and end up with the "dead zone" spots.

Next comes the difficult part. The set-up. I'm not good at displaying my bags so I just do whatever works for me. I know I can do better. Despite the long hours and so-called hardship, I enjoyed myself tremendously. It's probably due to the good company I have at MAAD.  There's Sally who's been my "neighbour" on my right twice in a row. Then there's Vivien who's on my left twice in a row. Of course there's Mandy but she's INSIDE the museum while I'm on the red floor area which is not air-conditioned.

I remembered February MAAD was quite bad in terms of traffic so I was seriously annoyed when I saw that the concert area was not booked on Sunday. When you sell your stuff at a location, you depend so much on human traffic and red dot design museum is located at a business district area where it's dead on weekends due to 5-day work week. So having events is so crucial to bringing in the crowd.

Nope, no crowd once again. Quite a number of people who showed up told me they had no idea MAAD was on. I'm losing my confidence!

So how many bags did I sell? I was aiming for 10 but I only sold 8. It's a small improvement from last month. Still...

Weng and Jon, whom Mandy nicknamed my "two hunks" came by to visit me. I think... I forgot to do a photoshoot of three of us.

Anyway, Jon took some photos of my bags with my camera. I think he has a really good eye.

 I have to start using my dumb bells more often! Look at my arms. This was the bag I was sewing on Friday night. I sold it!

This is a handphone pouch I made using raw cambodian silk with my favourite running stitches. It went to Jon. Thanks, buddy. I wished I had taken measurements of his iphone before I made it tho'. It's a little too small for iphone.

 This is Tiba. She'd bought a batik bag from me before and came back for more! Ooh, I wish I have more customers like Tiba. This is a checked zip tote I specially made for her. You know what? Yesterday, she also bought a bag which I made a while ago but somehow couldn't find a owner.

Remember my gibbon tote? It went to Tiba! One of the craft sellers had noticed my "monkey bag" on the "Never Sold" shelf month after month. Later when I went to tell her the bag was sold, she said, "You finally got the monkey off your back!" Anyway, I'm really glad my Gibbon tote went to Tiba because she said she liked the "movement" of the gibbon. No one ever commented on the "movement" before. No one ever noticed, I'll bet. Yes, dear Internet readers, this applique was all about the "movement".  Tiba, you kill me with your gibbon movement noticing eyes, you. You made my day!

 This nautical striped bag did not sell. I think the pocket killed the bag!

These two linen slouchy bags didn't sell either. People tell me they're too long. I should stop using my freakishly long torso as a guide!!

Lastly, I'd like to tell you guys that next April would be 1 year since I started selling my bags. Remember my debut in April last year at MAAD?  To mark my 1 year anniversary I'm planning on making lots more stuff for April MAAD (3rd to 4th April). Yes, pulling out my big guns, cannons, once again. I aim to produce at least 15 new items by  1st April. (No more last minute sewing for me.)

Till we meet again.
Jane out.