Mid Year Giveaway!

I haven't had a giveaway on my blog for the longest time... so I thought why not!

I think I am a jack of all trades... but master of none =/

So why not have a giveaway for my favourite two =).

I decree the following to be the rules of the tournament:

1. there will be separate draws made on each of the prizes;
2. leave a comment on this post to enter the draw(s);
3. you can enter the draw for both prizes - when you leave a comment please state whether you're interested in both prizes or just one;
4. if you blog about this giveaway on your blog it will entitle you to an additional entry (if this is so, please state "(2)" somewhere in your comment;
5. each person is allowed a maximum of 2 entries per prize;
6. the draw will be open for entries till 12 midnight on 16 June 2012 (Singapore time), the draw will be done on 17 June 2012;
7. each receipient of a prize is strongly encouraged to 'pay it forward' by having a giveaway of their own.

The first up for grabs is... drumroll please...

A pair of spangled, unpolished birch English bobbins.

I spangled them myself with tigertail and crimps. I put a close up shot of the spangles too.

I love this head bead to be frank. It strikes me like a mini crystal ball... like gaze into my crystal ball and you will see pretty fields of flowers =).

The next up for grabs is... more drumrolls please...

A decorated shuttle =) Please note that there is only 1 shuttle up for giveaway. The reason there appear to be two in the photo is because I'm showing both sides of the shuttle. I decoupaged this with Japanese Origami paper. =)

Don't just stare! Leave a comment!

No time for craft but things to share

My life has been a mess. I'm being stretched in all directions and facing problems from most fronts.

I haven't really had time to do much craft but I wanted to share some stuff.

The local craft store is having a 30% sale onf Guterman threads which I find really lovely to do bobbin lace with (and tat with if you don't mind looking at things funny for a while). I took the chance to stock up on stash =).

Speaking of bobbin lace, my bobbins arrived!

I ordered a lot from SMP Lacemaking Supplies. The bobbins are lovely! Especially the Jaspe ones! Those are the ones in the centre of the photo.

The people were helpful, the prices (at least to me) were affordable and so was shipping. I can't wait to spangle them!

While this isn't exactly craft, I just had to share my new 8GB bright pink pen drive!

And I leave you with a cool afternoon drink (it was tea I swear) from a warm sunny island.

The latest thing to share my pillow...

This is precisely why you can never have too many bobbins!

Plus my almost forgotten challenge! Honour from the Exqusite Collection of Tatted Butterflies by Ladyshuttlemaker. Done in size 20 DMC Cebelias =).

Update update update

Happy Good Friday everyone!

So I had great plans of going out and about to spend the public holiday but my plans were drowned by a torrential downpour that hindered my plans.

So I had time to finish this up.

This is the ring pattern by Ms Jane Eborall. I did this in size 20 Milford with size 11/0 seed beads and a cats eye bead centre. I'm so going to show this off at training tomorrow. I love it.

I found it a little challenging due to its size. It was a little fiddly but the outcome was so worth it. =)

This photo is long overdue...

As a present to myself I custom order a pair of chainmaille earings from Jeff at his etsy shop. They are sooooo cool. I'm going to be showing them off together with my new ring tomorrow! =) Thanks so much Jeff!!!

Last but not least, my latest conquest in Bucks!

Bobbin Bling

I've spent quite a number of evenings spangling and respangling bobbins.

Yaay!

pppreeetttyyy

Quick post today just to show my homework!



Am so pleased with it =). Buckspoint bobbin lace in gutterman threads with a DMC perle gimp. Heart heart. I... am... resisting... temptation... to... buy... more... bobbins!!!!!!!!!!

After work experiments

I've had a constructive evening today and am rather pleased with myself. =)

I saw a project sheet for some scrap fabric key rings and I thought I'd try them myself... so far I haven't been sucessful. Initially I couldn't even get the 'a' sewn on right =(. I never tried anything like this before.

Today I think I didn't do too badly.

Considering this is attempt no.2, it isn't that bad right?

I applied interfacing to both sides but I felt it was too flimsy to be a key ring =( So I abandonned it for now. Even with interfacing on both sides! I'm wondering now whether it may be better to quilt it... but that wouldn't help with the stiffness now would it...

Hmmm...

The key ring also involved sewing a circle which I did badly with! Now that I've turned on the PC I've found this. A bit late isn't it =(.

I saw on my last meeting with Jessica and Sheila Jessica's divider pins... So I decided to fashion some myself.

Not too bad if I don't say so myself.  =)

But having done them I'm now wondering if the pins are too thick =(. I'll check with Jessica and Sheila when I next see them.

I'm now so tempted to buy some bobbins from Roseground! But do I really need more bobbins????

I'd really like (thought questionably not need) the chocate ones but they're 3 times the price of the birch ones! Decisions. Decisions. 2 friends that I've asked (who don't do lace and are in fact, men) said go for the 'expensive' ones. One says "I don't like cheap things", the other says "if you like them better go for it, it's not thaat pricey to go for the more expensive ones".

Decisions decisions! Any input? Should I listen to the men?

Bobbin lace

I look forward to Sheila coming round every year.

For those who don't know, I learnt the lovely art of tatting from Sheila, quite by accident.

I was walking through Spotlight (a craft store here) one day and Sheila and Jessica were at the 'teaching tables'. I walked over to check out what they were doing and someone Sheila engaged me in conversation.

I don't think I started immediately - I went home and pondered whether to take up the classes. I was still a student then and was earning some money teaching tuition. I was wondering whether my 'salary' could take it!

I decided to take the plunge and never looked back. I went for lessons with Sheila 3-5 times a week (scary I know) until she returned to England. After that I took ad hoc lessons from Jessica as well. Jessica is also a student of Sheila's, albeit she's been tatting for waaaaaay longer than me and is of course a much much much much much better tatter. So a new addiction was born... and that's where all my salary went!

Tatting bling is awesome. Colourful threads in various sizes, tatting pouches, lovely shuttles from the 'cheapie' but brightly coloured clovers to the lovely feel of David Reed Smith shuttles (still my favourite!) to the expensive scrimshaws and the priceless antiques! (Magpie tendencies setting in...)

Sheila and Jessica have taught me all the techniques, tips and tricks that I know about tatting. And they share with me much more.

One of the things Sheila got me started on a while back was bobbin lace, but I somehow never really continued (possibly becuase I was too confused). But being the hoarder as I am, I never tossed or sold my pillow or my bobbins.

So this time round when Sheila came, she gave me a refresher course in Torchon...



and graduated me to Buckspoint! (I don't think I deserve the graduation to be frank...)

I think I'm going blind staring at this... and this is not even the proper Bucks thread. I do however  love the way the honeycomb looks. Like little bubbles =). I heart!

As with tatting, the 'bling' is fabulous. Who can resist nicely turned smooth wooden bobbins, decorated with shiny and colourful spangles, in a "happy fabric" bobbin roll. Not to mention working with lovely and smooth colourful threads, hopefully turning out lovely laces!

I am blessed to have Sheila and Jessica, my two great lace mentors, in my life.

it's been a while

It's been a while since I've posted.

Haven't been doing much craft to be frank. Guess life is catching up with me.

But I did got some things done in recent times. Thought I'd share.

My sister celebrated her birthday in Feb and she asked that I make her an apron. I intially bought fabulously striped fabric but when I showed it to her she didn't like it =(. Go figure. So I bought some more fabric and made this.

I made it double sided (I love reversible things) with a pocket big enough to pop her Iphone in. Yes I know it looks like a mini skirt, but she wanted it like that. Shrug. But isn't the fabric so wonderfully fruity! And it wasn't all that expensive (I think it was $10.00 a meter) =). It was such a bright cheery fabric that I was so happy doing it! It took me an afternoon from measuring and cutting to full assembly. =). I got off to a late start since I had apparently forgotten to bring my cutting pad in the move but a lovely person made me a gift of one =). 

I went through a bit of a pincushion phase (when I dropped a needle and was dead scared that my dog would impale himself with it when I couldn't find it =().

Since I had lovely strawberry fabric left over from the apron...

This was done with little plastic dessert cups that I got at Ikea. I thought the strawberrys were yummy! I think it looks like a lovely strawberry dessert (but I could be dellusional). This is my new prefered needle nest. Is it strange that thesse fabrics made me happy? My sister of course got one to match her apron.

I also made 'strawberry jam'.

I was sick and tired of sticking my fingers into my pin box and getting stabbed. So I wanted a place to store my pins (that I couldn't drop and spill) where I got easily get the pins out and a pincushion to boot. This is what I did in the end. =)  

Eventually I changed the design because the magnet wasn't strong enough, but you get the idea =).

And of course now that I've got a fantasic pin jar I had to use it to make something right?

My lovely lace teacher is in town and she's got me started on bobbin lace again and what's bobbin lace without accessories! So I had to made myself a bobbin roll! (With of course the help of my new nifty pin jar).

I found some lovely bright pink stuff at Spotlight (not my preferred place for fabric  but who can resist a sale) on sale for $5 per meter. At first when I saw the fabric I quite liked it but I didn't love it. But since it was quite affordable I went ahead. The more I worked with it the more I loved the fabric. It made me happy! (Am I normal at being happy at my fabrics?)  

I also bought the green at $4.50 per meter. I would have prefer a bright lime green but there wasn't any =(.

This is the 'main side' with the little pockets for the bobbins and a little protective flap so that the bobbins don't easily drop out and the spangles don't get easily damaged.   

The reverse side.

Loaded! (with flaps positioned so that you can see the lovely bobbins!)

And ready to go!

I'm quite pleased with it (mainly because I love the fabric). But I did muck it up at the binding. I did a really bad job of the binding. I don't know if you can see it from the pictures. =(. I had to do it with binding since I needed to add a thin layer of batting to protect the bobbins and the spangles.

All in all I'm quite pleased with it, considering that I did it from scratch without a pattern. I did the measurements myself and figured out construction myself and everything. It took me three after work nights to complete (I spent 2 nights struggling with the binding =( - I really need to learn to do binding properly). I guess this is my first completed 'quilt'? The first time I completed something with batting.

I love it. =)

Looking at the fabrics again is putting me in a Happy Fabric Mood again.

Happy Happy Fabric Mood Day everyone!