A Gift For a Friend

On Saturday, I will be celebrating the birthday of a dear friend of mine. Her name is Penny and she is from New Zealand. So, I saw this as an opportunity to try out that free-motion embroidery idea I blogged about days ago.

I got a picture of the New Zealand penny on line and I traced it onto Solvy - a water soluble stabilizer. I used an oil-based permanent marker for this so it wouldn't bleed or smear.


The penny I traced was dated 1957, but I changed it to 1960 - her birth year.




Then I stitched the design. This was not as easy as that sentence would imply. After I stitched the outside circle, I decided it would be prudent to put a layer of tear-away stabilizer on the back. And my sewing machine was most uncooperative. I think I must really replace it soon. I had to rethread and re-bobbin it every couple of minutes. But somehow, I managed to make it look all right.
This is sewn onto a zippered jacket, btw, in turquoise - our favorite color.



The penny had these dots interspersed along the outside edge, and they didn't stitch too well, so I decided to put a copper sequin in their place: three of them to be exact.

So, if you are reading this blog and you know Penny, please don't tip her off!

Faux Sushi

For April Fool's Day I met with some friends for a time of game playing - card games and board games.  This was my contribution to the snack table.  Not very sushi-like sushi.  They are cut-in-thirds Twiggies - a Singaporean version of Twinkies (not nearly as good, unfortunately) with a Japanese candy called Chocobabies stuffed into the frosting (these aren't like any American candy I know of, but they are good!) and wrapped with Fruit Roll-ups, in strawberry!  I wanted the green roll-ups, but I was lucky to get any, so I took the red ones.

I had to explain to many people that this wasn't REAL sushi (I am not the only one who doesn't eat raw fish), and that was pretty funny because I didn't think my sushi looked like the real thing at all.  Once I mentioned the ingredients, tho, people were happy to have one.  What a riot!

I also made a new friend yesterday, a new mom at my daughter's school, and she's a quilter - and not only a quilter, but a FUSER for heaven's sake!  I feel very blessed that God has allowed me to make her acquaintance at this point in my life, when I desperately needed to meet someone who speaks my language.  

A Return to Normal

That's a dubious blog title.

But Spring Break has ended, and both my beloveds have returned to their normal schedules.

Speaking of dubious, spring itself is a dubious season in Singapore.  There's scant seasonal variation here, so close to the equator.  So, we misplaced northerners must make spring for ourselves.

Bougainvillea: not necessarily a spring flower, but pink is a sort of spring color...

Some small yellow flower

Frangipani, I believe...

Something borrowed, something blue...

I don't know what this is, but it must be related to bird of paradise.

So, I don't have any pictures of baby birds or bunnies to make this post a true spring-like post, but how about...

Kittens!

A Nifty Idea

I saw this video tutorial on this blog I look at regularly, Craftzine, about free-motion embroidery t-shirts made by a woman who has a site called Girlpopcorn.com.  Apparently, she finds a picture of the thing she wants to embroider, puts it through Photoshop to make a line drawing of the object, traces the drawing onto water-soluble stabilizer, and then uses the stabilizer as a template to stitch the object onto a t-shirt.  

I may or may not fool around with this idea, but for now the inspiration button is all lit up on my dashboard..

Some Crochet Content

Granny square pouch for my mp3 player

Crocheted Free-form bowl

That urgent need to create thing struck again, prompted by necessity in the case of the pouch for my mp3 player.  The bowl was a frogged scarf, which I started but thought better of completing.  The yarn is itchy (what is it?  wool?  acrylic?) and I would never wear something itchy around my  neck deliberately.  So, thinking it would stitch up pretty stiffly, I decided to try and make a bowl.  In the not-too-distant past, I was often amused for hours by making fabric bowls, and so it was a natural to try and crochet one, especially since one does not wear a bowl, itchy or not.

I must comment on my lack of entries lately, if only to get back on track.

I started this blog, having an intuition that this year I would need to be reminded again and again to be grateful for what I have.  I was so right.  I need to be reminded again and again. In trying to create a good habit, the opposite has happened.  I have been a very grumpy curmudgeon, feeling very put-upon and not at all inclined to see grace or beauty in my life.  Most days it has been difficult to feel grateful for anything.  

Well, I am endeavoring to turn my eyes outside of myself and my poorly-attended pity party, and to blog something, anything, that I can be thankful for.  The content might be a bit light at times.  But I intend to keep trying.  

So, today, I am thankful for second chances.  Even if it's the 50th second chance...

Spring Break

Spring Break began on Monday, and my daughter and I started it with new haircuts.  We both look fabulous.  But, seeing that I usually do my blogging before I shower, I will post pix later.

My husband is away until Wednesday, so us girls are looking for fun things to do.  Maybe we'll spend some time down at the pool today, if it doesn't rain.  

Tomorrow we go to see an apartment for rent that probably wont suit us, it doesn't have enough bedrooms or bathrooms, but we'll look anyway.  We have less than 3 months until we have to move out of our current place.  

Beautiful Soup

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup from Scratch

This started with a rotisserie chicken I bought at the grocery store.  After we had eaten all the meat off of it that we wanted (just the breast, really), I proceeded to boil the rest of the bird in a dutch oven for several hours.  I kept intending to add carrots, celery and onion to the pot while it was boiling at this point, but was distracted by many things.  

Anyway, about an hour before I wanted to serve it, I strained the broth.  I then let it cool enough to skim the fat off the top.  While it was cooling I sliced carrots, celery, onion and fennel into a pot.  I added the skimmed broth, some water and a half of a bouillon cube and returned it to a simmer.  I put in some diced chicken breast, fresh thyme, a little salt and fresh noodles.  After the noodles were done cooking, I turned the heat to low and added a little fresh cream.  For the finishing, I sprinkles some chopped celery leaves.  Very beautiful and delicious!

The reason I was inspired to make this soup is because both my daughter and husband are on antibiotics!  We don't know for sure, but since one of my daughter's friends was recently diagnosed with micoplasma (walking pneumonia), and this is highly contagious, it seemed like they might have it, too.  Fun, fun, negative fun.