A drawstring pouch for a suona

One day, my son came home from school and asked me casually if I have any spare lunchtime pouch lying around. Yes, lying around.

He's referring to this lunchtime pouch which I used to sell at craft markets years ago and I have a pattern for it at my Etsy shop.

My son is in his school's Chinese Orchestra and he plays the suona.

This is a regular size suona. It has a mouthpiece but it's not shown in the image above. To carry it around, the wooden piece is kept in a long plastic tube thingy while the metal horn is kept in a drawstring pouch.

My son currently plays a larger size suona.

Actually it's huge. It comes in a big sturdy trunk.

Anyway, I have no idea how it came about, but my son wanted to either sell or give a girl in his Chinese Orchestra a lunchtime pouch to keep her suona metal horn.

But I don't have any lunchtime pouch lying around. Seriously I don't. Well, except the one I made for my pattern and that one I'm taking to my grave.

So I offered to make her one. That was a while ago. Having stopped sewing for so long due to my previously on-going saga with my digestive health, I found it hard to start sewing. Finally one day, I felt ready to start sewing and then my gallbladder incident happened. Last week, I felt I had fully recovered from my surgery and I started measuring the horn and it didn't take me too long to complete the pouch.

I used a linen polka dot I have lying around and for the lining, a big polka dot cotton I have remnants of from my craft market days.

It's a little different from my lunchtime pouch. Just a bit.

It's more important it fits the horn.

 For no particular reason, Bear wanted to make an appearance.

As you can see, I'm abusing Bear again.

And here's the new owner of the pouch. Hope she likes it!

Pattern shop updates

Recently I made a change to my Etsy shop to accept Direct Checkout. To my customers, it just means more methods of payment are available.

Previously, I only accept payment by paypal. Now you will see 2 options - the default points to the card you have registered with Etsy. After you click "proceed to checkout", there is an option to change the card and you can also pay with Etsy gift card or Apple Pay where available.

The second option is Paypal. If you prefer to pay with your paypal account, that option is still there. Nothing has changed. Through the Paypal option, you can also pay using a debit or credit card (without having to own a paypal account).

Hopefully, this will be a win-win for me and my customers.


In other news, my other shop at Luulla will be slowly phased out. Most of you probably don't know I have a Luulla shop. I haven't sold many patterns at this site so I don't feel motivated to carry on. Plus this ancient site still does not support instant download so I need to manually email every buyer. Recently I needed to relist a pattern and discovered I had run out of store credits. At Luulla, you can pay by month and relist as many as you want or you pay as you go. To do that I used to buy $10 store credits. Now the minimum is a $30 store credit. I decided I don't want to give Luulla my 30 bucks. So once I sell the remaining patterns or they expire, the shop will be shut.

Anyhoos, I still have my Craftsy shop.

Reflections

It's been 18 days since I had my gallbladder removed. When it first happened, everything went so quickly I did not have a chance to feel afraid or wonder if it is the right decision. After the op, I had a lot of time to think and reflect. Especially those 4 long nights in the hospital when I literally stared into space.

One of the thoughts that kept entering my mind was I need to take much better care of myself. Although the doctor said there is no definitive answer as to why some people have problems with gallbladder, I think my lifestyle must have contributed in one way or another. I struggled with digestive issues for most of my life. As hubs puts it, "food is my enemy." If I had been more persistent in seeking out the right doctors earlier, perhaps I could have saved my gallbladder. Another factor that could have contributed is I don't eat in moderation. I don't mean I eat a lot. Because I don't like a large variety of food, whenever I like anything, I would eat a lot of it, like daily until I get sick. Did I ever tell you the time when I lived with my mother-in-law? One time she went on an overseas tour and before that she cooked me a huge pot of curry chicken because you know, I lurve curry chicken. Guess what? I ate the curry chicken every single day for one week. And I got sooooo sick. That's the kind of person I was when I had my gallbladder.

Today I went for a post-op check-up at the hospital. My doctor said I'm healing very well, wound wise. Also, great news. My gallbladder, according to the pathologist is not cancerous. Honestly, that wasn't even on my mind at all. I do feel well although I can't eat as much as before at one sitting. It's no big deal. I just eat more times a day than regular people. Ha ha, I'll probably get fat again. The issue with my taste has not been completely resolved. Thankfully, the bitterness and ultra saltiness have disappeared. However, food does not taste as good as before. The doctor says this post-op effect on the taste is not common but should go away on its own. If not, I'm screwed. (my words, not his) Hubs thinks I should eat food I don't usually eat instead of eating food I used to like and finding I don't like them anymore because the taste is different.

So I've occasionally ventured out of my comfort zone and ordered food that I would never eat before. Like this braised duck noodles. It doesn't taste bad but it's not something I consider enjoyable.

So yeah. I've started eating in moderation. I try not to eat the same food 2 days in a row if I can help it. Fruits still taste great which is one area I could go nuts. But I've been very disciplined. I've allowed myself one orange a day. Those days of eating several oranges a day are over. I also allow myself one other fruit like apples, grapes or bananas. Ideally, I will eat a fruit that I normally don't eat at least once a week.

Another thought that has been occupying my mind lately is clutter. After spending 5 days at the hospital owning so little material stuff, I have started to resent the clutter in my home. In all honesty, it's not possible for me to simply throw our stuff away. However, I have started decluttering some areas in my home. It's not much but it's a start.

I started with the fridge.

We have this system for our fridge: the top compartment is for hubs' stuff. Next is mine and the third compartment is for our kids. The last two drawers are for vegetables and meat.

 

Most of the junk in our fridge are packets of sauce and takeaway chopsticks, forks and spoons. I was too lazy to go through the expiry dates of the packets of sauce and seriously we don't need any of the takeaway chopsticks, forks and spoons. So I threw them away.

This is the after photo of the fridge. Actually not much has changed!!!

I am the only person in my home interested in decluttering so it's quite an uphill task doing it on my own. I do intend to tackle a small area in my home every day until I'm satisfied. It'll probably take me one whole year at the rate I'm going.

One other thing I've been thinking about in relation to decluttering is not to buy more stuff. Having said that, today I totally went nuts and bought 3 pairs of sandals. I had given my black Teva sandals to my daughter and my current 10 year old black ipanema sandals was in danger of splitting into two. It's going to be hard - this not buying more stuff.

I have come up with a list of stuff I will absolutely not buy unless my life depends on it. (I did not include sandals and shoes!)

• craft books
• any book
• fabric
• magazines
• pants
• craft supplies
• new hobby stuff
• notebooks
• containers
• bags

Hopefully, this will help control the clutter in my home.