Another Small Quilt

And the sewing streak continues...

I opened up one of my precious charm packs this weekend.

 Couldn't decide if I wanted half square triangles or quarter square triangles... so I did both, heheh...

Of course after that I had to trim them all to the same size...

Pieced them all together, in random fashion...

Some layering, basting etc...

... and voila!

A cute little runner/table topper.

Quilted in a double cross hatch, boy did that use up a lot of bobbin!

And in other news, we visited a friend this weekend who happened to be cleaning house. He was throwing out boxes of old books (and it was a LOT of books) so invited me to take a few. So I did. Of course! It was madness trying to choose an armful - I was sooo tempted to take a couple of boxes, hehehe.

I hope I can practice some self-restraint and not try to read them all at once. But if you don't hear from me a while I guess you'll know why *wink*.

Wishing everyone a happy week ahead!

A Couple of Things

I'm happy to report that this week has been quite productive, yay!

First up I've made progress with my True Patchwork quilt top:

A little piece...

... that just grew ...

... and grew ....

This was such fun to piece together - anything goes, so no pressure!

Sadly, I've now run out of squares from the original batch. I'm not quite happy with the size of the top yet, I want it even bigger! I'm kinda loving the scrappiness of the whole thing, so I'll be collecting mismatched squares of all different types and textures from now on to add on to it (hmm... I'm tempted to chop off bits of Yummy Hubby's trousers now, and maybe some curtains?) Until then, I guess I'll just have to say hasta la vista to it for now :-(

I've also had to make an eyeglass case this week for Mum's friend. She saw one that I made for Mum and decided that she wanted one too. Of course I'm always happy for the excuse to play with my fabric. So I made this one from some Breakfast at Tiffany's fabric:

Really simple, with a velcro closure (just like Mum's)

But I didn't like the binding - I think it came out horrible!

So I made another one, without any binding:

A little better, hee.

I really hope she likes it... Or is long-sighted enough not to notice any flaws, ha ha!

Hope everyone's having a great week!

Small Quilts

Well, table runners actually.

I made these in the last few days of Ramadhan. It started of with me fooling around with some scraps. I made a nine-patch.  Then some more scraps and nine patches. Soon I had enough for a little quilt top. So in came the sashing, some backing, quilting and binding later and voila!

This runner now lives on the edge of my desk at the office (the work one). 

I think it fits pretty nicely and adds a bit of colour to my otherwise drab little space.

Of course once I got going I just had to make another. This next one came along pretty quickly too. It's a little wider and longer than the one I have on my desk, but actually took less time to make (less piecing - no nine patches!).

I wasn't too sure about the colour  scheme (bit on the bright side don't you think?) but Yummy Hubby loves it, so I guess that settled it. 

Completed just in time to decorate our kitchen for Eid.

Wishing everyone a happy weekend - have a great September!

A Birthday

We're a country on holiday, because today is a special day. 

Fifty-five years ago this day on this land, the Union Jack was lowered  and the Jalur Gemilang raised. With it, rose the hopes and aspirations of the millions of Malayans. I hope we remember that every once in a while, and never take what we have for granted. 

So to all Malaysians I wish you Happy Merdeka Day! 

Jalur Gemilang

Peace, love and togetherness, always.

XOX

The Week's Round-up

It's been a rather hectic but happy week with the Eid celebrations. We made our trip down south to Singapore for the customary visits.

AGAIN.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the place. It's just that I've been so many times I've got Singapore oozing out of my ears - I guess one of the 'perks' of having a Singaporean parent.

We pretty much had the usual Eid this year:

Food
Travel
Traffic
Tired faces (mostly mine)
Annoyed faces (mostly Yummy Hubby's - bless him though, he stuck to his in-laws pretty well overall)
Food
Large(r) cousins (shhh! Don't tell them I said so, but then again they're probably saying the same thing about me...)
Indigestion
Screaming (mostly Mum)
Blank faces (mostly Dad's)
Laughter
Nonsense
Money packets
Empty pockets, eheheh.
Food...

You can probably tell that we had a lot of fun, haha!

Anyways, we managed to extract ourselves and travelled home a little earlier this year, and guess what? I managed to get some sewing done. Can you believe that?

What I did was I finished up the box of patchwork squares from earlier. Well, most of them anyway. I basically went on a chain-piecing marathon. Such soothing, brainless sewing - don't you just love that? I've got everything sewn into rows, now I just need to sew the rows together. It looks like it's going to be a small top - lap size. When I first started this project I was thinking of something bigger. I may have to add more squares later... we'll find out soon, I suppose.

And now for the pictures:

A closer look:

Milo making a nuisance of himself:

I was going to sign out now, but thought I couldn't without showing you some of the pretty flowers I met in Singapore. We always try to visit at least one touristy place with each visit and this time we went to Gardens by the Bay. They have 2 covered (and air-conditioned! aaahhh) conservatories, the first is about flowers and the second is basically about the rainforest. I wasn't so impressed with the rainforest because, let's face it, you can get the real thing over here (try FRIM) so it felt a wee bit on the man-made side. The flower conservatory on the other hand was just my cup of tea. I hope you enjoy the photos, have a happy week ahead!

XOX

A Special Message

Meow!

It's me, Milo.

Human Mummy's really busy so she's asked me to say a quick hello. She's been running around like a headless chicken lately, cleaning the house up and down. I don't know why she bothers - my friends and I are just going to muck everything up again 5 minutes after she's done, hee!

In case you're not in the know, today is the last day of Ramadhan, and Human Mummy's been doing a victory dance with the vacuum cleaner, yelling 'Orange Fanta' all day. I'm trying to help too, that's why I'm up on this ladder trying to wipe down the fans and scaring myself silly in the process. Which is more than I can say for the other meows around here ... just look  at them - freeloaders!

So anyways, Human Mummy has asked me to wish everyone celebrating a really, really big and safe 'EID MUBARAK!' and happy holidays!

To everyone else - have a great weekend!

Creative Mojo Wanted (And a True Patchwork Patchwork)

Things have gone a little haywire around here lately. To start with, one of the Meows was taken ill. We found a little hole in her tummy one morning (I know - eeeks!) and panicked all the way to the vet. I don't know who was screaming the loudest: Meow, Yummy Hubby or me. Turned out she'd had a little injury that was infected by a fly. Surprisingly, we learned that it isn't all that uncommon for cats. But a sick cat is still a sick cat, and if you've ever had to medicate (or quarantine) a sick cat you will know that lots and lots of mental and physical strength (and vitamins!) are required  for the owners to not fall sick themselves.

Anyhow, thank goodness Meow and her humans seem to be settling back into health again (touch wood, fingers crossed etc), and at least one of her humans is now desperately trying to rediscover some semblance of routine.

Which was when I realised that I've lost my creative juice. I don't know where I left it, but it's nowhere to be seen. Nothing is singing to me in The Office. Fabric is not jumping off the shelves at me in a haze of ideas. Such bleak, colourless days - ack!  Thank goodness there's the Olympics for some entertainment!

Anyways, I did manage to do a little cleaning and found a shoebox at the bottom of a storage bin. It's been in there for a couple of years now, and I'd completely forgotten about it.

Inside this box was a big bunch of fabric squares:

I remember Yummy Hubby had got me these on one of his trips. Looking at the selection leaves me wondering about shop he must have gone into to get them. There's a multitude of different fabrics in there, some look like they belong on curtains, some on carpets, some seem like they've been cut of a pretty summer dress, some from a rich brocade tunic. There're a few precious ones that could have belonged to one of Cinderella's ballgowns and plenty that could have come off the Queen's tweed suits. At that time I was fixated with American cotton and Moda etc, so when he gave me the squares I kinda just looked them over a bit and put them in the shoebox.  

Fast forward to now, and although I definitely wouldn't turn down offers of Riley Blake and friends, I'm finding that all fabric has a value, so I'm thinking these squares would make a truely patchwork patchwork piece.

Like how I imagine patchwork to be back in the old days. Where blankets were made with true scraps.

The squares all measure approximately 3.5", and when I say 'approximately' I really do mean approximately. There're all slightly different.  Some of them aren't even square - just square-ish. But I'm NOT going to bother trimming them all to size. I don't think my sanity can deal with that after all the Meow excitement and what with Ramadhan going on around here.

So I'm just going to piece them together randomly. And to prove it, I've made a small start, see:

Progress hopefully soon. Till then, have a happy week!