It's the little things

This morning I told myself I would exercise. No matter what. Good thing it didn't rain because that would have stopped me surely. So it didn't rain. But it was sooo cold. I told myself I would exercise. No matter what. So I walked to the Senior Citizen's exercise area where I live to use the exercise machines. And no. I'm not a senior citizen. Seriously. These machines aren't designed for senior citizens. They would probably get injured. Or killed. And throughout the walk, I had this 1% chance that I would change my mind. If it even drizzled, I would turn back home. If I had a tummy ache, I would turn back home. But none of that happened. The universe conspired to make me exercise. And so I did my 1/2 hour's worth of joint rotation and stretching. I'm such a pain - even to myself! Later tonight I'm expecting an ache-fest. Tomorrow if the universe co-operates, I shall go for a jog.

Today is my lazy day. I did a bit of housework, a bit of grocery shopping, a bit of sewing, nothing too strenuous. I feel 100% better today.

Last night to give myself a treat for making progress in my lose-weight quest, I made french toast.

What is it about french toast that makes them taste better when you make them at home? I've eaten them at coffeeshops and restaurants and they suck. They charge a lot for it too. The problem is the cooks make them too eggy. I don't have this problem because I add a little water to the beaten egg. In the past I would even add a little sugar. But I can't do that now.

The last time I was at VivoCity Craft Market, I bought this little beaded bag charm. I feel so happy just looking at it. I have absolutely no time to pursue my beading hobby further at the moment. So the alternative is to buy beadwork done by others. It's only $8!!!

This miniature bag brought back some sweet memories for me. You see, I used to make little bags for my girl's Barbies. So I dug around and found a few. Making miniature bags was what got me started in bag-making.

See the crossbody crochet bag? I made that. Yep. The flower too. Don't even ask me how I did it. It took a lot of hand and feet coordination. I'm really not very good at crochet. Oh, did I ever mention I used to make outfits for my girl's Barbies? This "trenchcoat" was made from an old pillowcase/bedsheet set. Just look at the giant collar. If you're wondering, Barbie is commando underneath.

This outfit I did not make. I made the ugly crochet bag though. This was my shoulder bag. I've come such a long way.

Yes, I hate to admit it but the whole matchy-matchy outfit is all my doing. I'm really bad at collars yet I keep making them. And why on earth did I make a matchy-matchy bonnet? I made the scarf across the doll's lap as well.

I love this gown. It was made out of my old maternity dress. For the bag, I kept crocheting and didn't know when to stop!

My kids' pre-primary days were really the best years of my life. Well, that's how I remember it. I'm pretty sure there was a lot of crying as well. See you tomorrow.

My house

Today I felt a little blue. Maybe it's inevitable. After feeling high, I usually crash. Today I had a soft landing. I cushioned it with my butt. Today I got tired of being a parent. Some days I just want to be a child. Today was such a day. It's just a fantasy. I know tomorrow I'll feel differently and be ready to face being a parent again.

Nowadays whenever I feel blue, I seek distraction in my sewing. I wanted to see what wonders I could create with my ZIG pens.

I used 2 colours - brown and red. I'm not disappointed! If you click on this ZIG* link it'll take you to amazon. So far I've tried my pens on cotton and linen. The tiny amount of bleed is acceptable. Of course you can't expect to get zero bleed like on paper!

I think a handsewn house is still the best. I'm sewing these houses in backstitch. Ever since I discovered the disappearing power of Pilot FriXion pen (via a hot iron), I use it all the time when I do my embroidery. I'm guessing Pilot was not targeting people who embroider when it came up with the product! If you click on this FriXion * link it'll take you to amazon. I wonder how women from long ago did their embroideries?

Up to when I was 12, I lived in a village house. This house was upcycled from an older house which I'm guessing we had to move from as the government had reclaimed the land. According to my mother, around the time when we had to move, my father had died and due to lack of money, my family of 10 was left homeless. My father's brother and cousin went to our old house and took it apart and whatever could be reused was brought over to our new site. Both my uncles built my village home. My mother wanted me to know she helped with the cementing! We even had a well.

This is a simple idea of my village house. It was divided into 1 main house with a kitchen extension. There were 2 bedrooms which were raised from the living room quarters. The floors of the bedrooms were made of wooden planks. The floors of the living room and kitchen was cement. I love the feel of cement. It's very cold. Because my house was built at the bottom of a slope, there was a walled perimeter to keep out the rainwater. Down a short distance from my house was a well. We used the water for purposes other than cooking and drinking.

There was one window in the kitchen behind (you can see in the image) that my siblings would ask me to make sure was left unlatched at night as they needed it to sneak back into the house after gallivanting all over town.

I wanted to draw more houses for future use and had a look at momshoo's photos which they took during a trip to Germany. These drawings were based on some of the photos they took.

I would love to embroider these some day.

Today would be a good day to sum up my week. Sewing wise I feel great creatively. Still not producing as much as I hoped for. ePattern will be completed next week. Today I felt further weight loss around my hips. If I lose any more weight, I'll need a new pair of hot pants! Other than cutting out milk and cheese, I've also cut out fast food. It happened without much fuss as I don't really like fast food anyway. Next week I hope to cut out coffee and just have 1 cup of sugared tea a day. Is that achievable? Oh, I totally neglected my fitness this week.

It's been a tiring day. Tonight I want to be rocked in the arms of an angel. See you tomorrow. Promise.

*I am a amazon associate and will earn a meagre sale commission:)

Silkscreen printing workshop I

Hey folks,

Today I attended a silkscreen printing workshop conducted by Joe of Monster Gallery. I had attended a workshop conducted by Joe before so I know his style of teaching which is pretty cool.

The workshop was conducted in a shophouse at a location I'm not familiar with. The buildings look interesting like from a different period.

It was full house. There was a kid too.

This is what the the walls look like. I was quite unnerved by Steve Job's stare as I sat opposite "him".

This workshop has 2 sessions. Today's session is about printing from stencils. Next week I get to print on fabric!!!

First we had to draw what we wanted to print. I must admit I came quite unprepared so I drew the last thing I had drawn which is my dating bird. For this print I'm using 2 colours so I need a white and a dark background.

Then we had to use a marker to trace the drawing. I used 2 stencils because I'm using 2 colours. The first stencil I drew the lighter shape and for this stencil I drew the outlines for the darker colours. Hey, can you see my shadow in the pic?

Here's my mesh with my cut out stencils. I really thought cutting out the stencils was the hard part. (I was terrified of cutting myself) It wasn't because it all went downhill from here on.

I discovered I'm really bad at pulling the colour. You use a squeegee to pull the colour down over the stencil. Sounds easy enough? Well, my first one was not too bad, maybe a bit too much ink. But a guy damaged it so I had to make another one. The thing about mesh is once the ink dries on it, your subsequent inking won't look so good. So I made a few more and all sucked.

Finally I decided I would just go and do the 2nd colour. I had to clean the mesh and stencil before using it again. Meanwhile the first colour had to dry. Mine took forever to dry on account of my liberal dose of ink.

This was my worst effort. Let's call it Mutant Bird. Joe said I pull the squeegee too fast.

This one had way too much ink and I didn't even get the whole feet. Plus I dripped water on the ink. Let's call it Disappearing Bird. Like in Back to the future when Marty McFly's parents almost rewrote history when they did not fall in love.

Another valiant attempt. I got the feet this time but butchered the beak and the tail. I felt so sad. Let's call it Broken Tail Bird.

And then I ran out of the yellow bodies. So I pulled the blue on a blank paper and I think this is my best attempt. Let's call it Invisible Blue Bird. I realised  that I had been holding the squeegee too high all these while. If I have another go, I'll probably be able to get a better result.

It was quite a fun afternoon for me even though I did not achieve a very good result. Some of the students were really good. They simply had the knack for it. I've learnt that I'm one of those who learn slowly. Slow and steady, right?

On to another subject. This week is the week of the dead in Singapore. It's the week of QingMing. Some people burn incense paper where I live (I'm guessing it's for qingming) and it has caused considerable damage to my breathing apparatus - my nose. Today I can barely hear as my good ear is blocked up. Isn't it ironic that paying respects to the dead is causing damage to the living? I won't lie and say I'm not distressed by my hearing issues. Hope the burning stops so I can breathe normally. Peace out.