Back in The Swing of Things

Well, I've been back in Singapore for over a week now. Like 10 days, actually. I had an easier time with the jet lag than I did when I got back from England. I think that is because I was determined to not sleep through my life. So I kept my naps to a minimum and just really went to bed early. It seems like I'm back on my normal sleep schedule, and for that I'm thankful.

I also spent the last week doing housework. Not just the obligatory dish washing and laundry, but changing sheets and towels, sweeping and mopping, dusting and throwing stuff away. There was something territorial about it. And it helped with the feeling of being somewhat depressed because I'm still living here. Well, if I have to live here, I'm going to make it as nice as I can!

I bought a Christmas panel by Laurel Burch at Hancock's in Paducah when I was there, and I took some time after cleaning my studio and setting up my new sewing machine to make a border for the panel. Man, it's been a long time since I made a pieced border for anything!



Pretty durn colorful, no?

So, all in all, I feel like I'm back in the swing of things and everything has settled down to a quiet roar, as usual.

In The Right Place At The Right Time

So today was Carnival Day at my daughter's school. We weren't really committed to going, but then she decided she wanted to, so off we all went. On the spur of the moment, I decided to bring Release, the latest quilt, because a friend (Carol!) said she was interested in buying it, but she's never even seen it in person and I expected to see her there.

As soon as I walked onto campus, I was accosted by the woman who was organizing a quilt show for the carnival. I had no idea they were even having a quilt show. She hoped I had a quilt in that bag I was carrying, she said, and I did. But I wasn't planning on showing it, I assured her. I just brought it to show to Carol! Being taken off-guard, I argued a bit and then acquiesced and agreed to put it in the show.

I went and looked and my friend Marianne had entered two of her quilts, and that was all there was. So OK, I displayed my quilt and didn't think another thought about it.

Later, someone congratulated me on winning first place.



Isn't that a hoot?

And here's a picture I forgot I had in my camera of my daughter on her school's picture day. She's so gorgeous, if I do say so myself.

She had PE that day, or she never would have worn those shoes. And yes, my studio is a mess. That's why I cropped most of it out of the picture.

My Mornings

Well, after being diagnosed with kidney stones, I was further diagnosed with a staph infection in my urinary tract, so I have been mostly just convalescing for days and days now. Not much interesting to report about that, but I'm off my antibiotics and have been released to take caffeine again, so it would seem that whole episode is behind me. Funny thing about drinking so much water everyday: your body gets really used to it and you feel thirsty if you don't drink. My doctor didn't leave me with a prescription for how much water I should be drinking now, but 1 and a half to 2 liters a day feels about right, with at least 300 ml of that being tea! Woo hoo!

So, I thought I would talk about what I do every morning. I get up as soon as my husband gets in the shower, to iron his shirt. I actually lay in bed until I hear the water hitting his body before I get up - dragging it out, see? I know, I could iron his shirts the night before or during the day after he's gone to work, but I like having to get up that early because then I can see my daughter before she leaves for school, too.

After I iron the shirt, I sit down at the computer with my breakfast. Lately it's been blueberry yogurt. I have all my blogs open in tabs so I can just click one after the other, and that takes some time to load, so that's when I go to the kitchen and get breakfast. I take my yogurt to the computer, and usually all my sites are loaded. Here they are, in the order I look at them:


Fibermania: My sister's blog. We often communicate about what she or I have blogged for the day, altho I haven't left too many comments there lately.
Exuberant Color: This is a blog I just recently started visiting regularly, and I got to her from my sister's blog. They are friends, and I enjoy reading about what she's making and about the weather in northern Illinois.
Craftzine: This is one I find inspiration at regularly. Always has several posts for each day, usually something catches my interest.
Softies Central: This blog is a little less consistent since the author moved to Los Angeles and seems to hate her job there (poor thing) but when she's on, it's really good. I like soft sculpture.
The Needle: This is a site for softie makers to post their creations, and there's always something cute/interesting/disturbing to look at here.
Create!: This is the blog of a woman named Alicia Kachmar. I first found her site after a google search for amigurumi. Alicia is a crocheter, but her site is about all sorts of things.
From One Chick to Another: I came to this site after doing a search for silver seabright chickens. This is the type of chicken I want to own in some far away someday I dream about sometimes. This blog is created by a Christian woman in Canada, and she has chickens, ducks, goats, horses, pigs, and she takes great pictures. Funny how you can get hooked on reading the blog of a perfect stranger.
CraftyStylish: This is another collection of creative-types posting articles about various things, some of which I'm interested in. Jeffrey Rudell is a regular contributor that I really enjoy - he does amazing art with paper.
The Toy Society: This is a woman in Australia who started this site as a way to keep track of soft toys she's made and abandoned in various places in Australia, with a note saying Take Me Home I'm Yours and instructions for toy recipients to contact her to let her know they've found the toy. Almost as soon as she started the site, tons of people contacted her to ask if they could participate in their own towns, and she agreed. I was one of those people, and I have a toy all ready to be abandoned, but I've been sick and it's been really rainy in Singapore. Hopefully soon I will have something to post about this.
After these sites, I have two blogs done by friends, and I'm not sure they would want me to post a link here, so I wont.
Lastly, it's: Flickr SingPacer: My husband's flickr account. Since he often works on and posts his pictures while he's at work, I'm not always aware that there's something new to look at, so I just check it regularly.

Oh, I almost forgot. I also regularly visit Pixdaus, which is a site like Flickr, except it seems to be managed over on this side of the world as many of the photographs are from Asia and Eastern Europe.
And lately my obsession has been with this Free Rice site. Warning, highly addictive! It's a site created by a dad of a 15 year old boy who didn't want to study for his SATs. Apparently, the dad was a computer programmer or something like that, and he worked with charitable organizations. So he created this site to help high school students study for their SATs (I never took one, you know) and it has all these different categories. For every correct answer, they donate 20 grains of rice to someone who needs it. For every incorrect answer, they give you the correct answer and then they give you the question again, a little later, so you have the chance to learn it.
My favorite categories are English vocabulary, English grammar, Art, World Capitals (I suck at this, but I'm getting better), French, German and Spanish. I never go near the math or science stuff, but then I don't have to. Great site for those of you with high school students! Or not, like me.


Taking a look at all of this blogs/sites can take very little time, or it can tie me up for an hour. Especially Free Rice. But now that I'm feeling better, I plan on visiting one more site on a regular basis: the blogger create page. In other words, I plan to blog more frequently.

I'm back!

Get Back to Blogging!

Oh for heaven's sake. What have I been thinking? I haven't blogged for a long time.

Well, after the incident with the kidney stones, I spent several days mending. During this time, my husband had a paid week off from work, so naturally, there wasn't anything I could blog about. And at the end of his week off, my symptoms returned. So this last weekend I spent on the couch. Nothing to report.

La dee dah. Life goes on.

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.