Getting Something Accomplished

After languishing around the house for the last week, I finally felt well enough yesterday to make something. What a wonderful feeling it is to be healthy. And, it also happened to be my husband's birthday, so I had a project in mind.



I had seen a project like this online, using freezer paper as a template to paint a shirt. Basically, you trace your design on the paper side of the freezer paper, cut it out using an xacto blade or small scissors, and iron on the shirt where you want it. Then you iron on another sheet of freezer paper on the inside so the paint wont leak through. Then you paint it.

Unfortunately for me, I had to put the paint on 3 different times. Or rather, I had to try 3 different paints. The first one I tried was Setacolor Jaquard fabric paint. But this is transparent. Wont show up on a dark green shirt. Then I tried this Pentel fabric paint. It seemed to work, but when it was dry, it was barely visible. So I resorted to good old acrylic paint. Of course this worked. Duh.

'THIS SHIRT GOES OVER MY HEAD' get it? It's a double entendre. If you don't get it, then it's perfect.

Anyway, while I was waiting for the paint to dry, three different times, I decided to make a small quilt for this frame I bought 2 weeks ago at Muji.

Mini Mansions

5" x 14"

detail

This frame is plexi with stainless attachments and sits on a desk or bookshelf.  I like the way it looks a lot and will probably be making more mini quilts to frame this way.

DRINK MORE WATER

I once saw a girl walking around on Orchard Road here in Singapore, wearing a t-shirt with the above caption on it. The funny thing was that I saw her a few days after returning from a stay at my sister's house, where I was encouraged to drink more water nearly everyday. I wish I had listened.

If you think you drink enough water everyday, drink more.  You probably don't drink enough.

Roughly 80% of all kidney stone cases here in Singapore are caused by dehydration.  Or so my urologist informed me yesterday.  I drink at least 2 cups of tea every morning.  And I have milk or water or something with every meal.  But apparently, that isn't enough.

I was told that I need to take 2.5 litres of fluid everyday.  This is after I had been diagnosed as having kidney stones.  It doesn't have to be all water, I was assured.  It could be tea or coffee or soup or whatever.  But, for now, I'm to stay away from caffeine.

Trust me when I say you do not want to develop kidney stones.  

So, go and have a glass of water or two.  Drink it cold or warm, like they do here in Asia.  Whatever.  Drink, drink, drink.

Since the UK

I've been back in Singapore since July 14, over a month now since our trip to the UK. And altho I've been slow to post my blog, I haven't been just sitting around. Here's some of what I've been doing:

I don't think I posted a final picture of Release.  Here it is, all ready to upload to my website.  More on that later.

I've also been working on a series of smaller quilts that are fast and easy to make and very fun.

...now I can see that this picture doesn't have the quilting in it.  Oh well.  Look for it on the website.

More on that later.

Detail.

It's difficult to say which picture inspired which here.  Never mind.

I made english muffins for back to school breakfasts.  I got the recipe from Joy of Cooking, and was pleased that it wasn't nearly as fiddly as I was expecting.  Store bought english muffins can't compete with home made.  I'm drooling just writing this.  Unfortunately, we finished them on Monday.  But I will be making them again.

Of course, when I said series, I meant that I was going to make more than one.  You can see the quilting on this one.

And I had to have some cute injected here.  This is Little Orange Hen.  She has a special purpose, which I will write about later.

For those who are still waiting, let me 'splain about the website.

My husband and I are currently working on building my website.  We actually have just one more quilt to photograph, and then we will begin to upload the pages and then I have to commit to prices (urggh) and all that technical stuff.  Naturally I will announce when it is ready here in the blog, and will put a link and encourage readers to go see!  But things are in the works.  Stay tuned.

Finishing Up the English Trip

Sorry about the delay. School started last week and where did the time go? Busy, busy, busy. But enough about that.
So, where were we?  Didn't I just astound all of you with pictures from Chatsworth House? That was truly the highlight of the whole trip for me, I'm sure you can tell.

That was Thursday.  We flew out Sunday morning.  So there's just a few more days to blog about.

Friday we woke up in Uttoxeter and climbed into our little car to make the trip back to London.  This would be the last drive I took in England, and naturally, we had a huge traffic jam.  We actually had to turn the car off for about 20 minutes.  My husband snapped a photo, but who wants to look at that?!

 Here are some other things we saw on our drive back:

We had seen this field of mustard (correction: probably not mustard. Probably rape - for making rapeseed oil.)on the drive out and wanted to make sure we stopped to take a picture of it on the way back.  It was just yellow for as far as the eye could see.

The English countryside, so different from Singapore.  Just breathtaking, really.

So, we finally arrived back at our host's home in London on Friday evening. We had to return the rental car, unfortunately. Saturday we headed back into downtown to do some final sightseeing. First on the list: The Tate Modern Museum. No pictures, naturally. I only recall seeing a Matisse that gave me some pleasure. I'm not a huge fan of modern art. Here's some other noteworthy things we saw:

This is The Globe Theatre.

This is a replica of the boat Sir Francis Drake sailed to the new world in.

This is just a funny picture.

Next we found our way to St. Paul's Cathedral.  And the weather cleared up.

It's hard to get the scope of this building in a teeny picture on a blog.  It's really startling to stand next to it.

Ah, the glorious sunshine.  I hadn't really missed it that much during the trip, but this day really felt like July should feel.

And of course, no trip to London would be complete without a visit to

Buckingham Palace.  

Bit of a let down after Chatsworth.  And they weren't allowing the public in when we were there.  Oh well.  How much of that stuff can you look at?

My husband is so creative with his pictures.

I know you were wondering when you might see these guys.  I felt so sorry for them, constantly bothered by the tourists.  Poor guys.  Funny hats, too.

Next we walked down to the Gardens attached to the Palace.  There were so many interesting and beautiful things to look at and enjoy, but I only had eyes for the birds.

Look at those feet!  And since they are so used to people, we could get quite close.

This Canada goose wanted his picture taken just like the coot in the former shot.

Just like shooting ducks in a barrel, or something along those lines.

Well, that's the end of the interesting pictures.  We ate dinner in a pub that night.   Terry's meal was most memorable: pumpkin and spinach lasagna with goat's cheese.  We left the next morning and arrived in Singapore a long, long time later.

And now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

The Last of Chatsworth, Maybe

I went through my pictures for the last part of our day at Chatsworth, and found over 20 that I want to share!
But then I should be done with my favorite day and I can move on to other things.

These are actually three different baby robins that we saw after leaving the house.  The first two were momentarily captured by myself and my daughter, respectively.  No baby birdies were injured, and they were immediately released after a short cuddle.

After a few more steps, we found ourselves near the Vine House. Oh my. Another wonderful place to spend the rest of my life. Don't these look delicious?

Just a few of the magnificent blooms we encountered.  

And here we are, blooming ourselves.   Idiots, that is.

The top of the Cascade.

Someone really happy at the top of the Cascade.

Breathtaking.

We caught this pheasant helping himself to some chicken feed.  We happened upon more pheasants in the woods a few minutes after this shot.  Just wandering around, eating whatever.

Did I mention I love chickens?  Aint he a beaut?

Not the maze, but it reminded us that we hadn't conquered the maze earlier.  My daughter really wanted to conquer the maze.  So, we decided to give it one last try.

We were heading down some stone stairs towards the maze when I noticed little bugs jumping out of our way.  Little bugs that weren't bugs at all.  As soon as they warmed up in our hands, they stopped trying to get away.  

I told you this was a magical place!

Here is a view of the maze from those stone stairs.  Taunting us.

And they have wonderful gardens planted around the maze to tempt unsuspecting tourists.  I think these are called lupins.

And here is proof that we conquered the maze!  The olive tree is at the center.  We just missed a hidden entry in one of the corners.  This attempt took us little time at all.  Almost anti-climactic, after all we'd seen and done.

But it was getting on past 5:30 when we came out of the maze.  We were one of the last to leave Chatsworth, and it was with a full heart that I climbed behind the wheel and drove us back to Uttoxeter.

Goodbye, sheep of Chatsworth.