ALQS finished!

Earlier this week I received the name of the recipient for my little offering to the current"Another Little Quilt Swap". It is winging its way across oceans as we "speak" and I hope it will arrive safe and sound. To keep the suspense a bit longer, I won't reveal the destination quite yet.


With guests constantly coming and going I have only managed to make a couple of these little string bags. They are hand pieced and are actually a lot of fun to make. Hand piecing is not something I do often; to be honest, I don't think I'm very good at it. But I did enjoy making these as they can be finished in a couple of hours.

I better go and see what my guest wants to do today.

Cheers

Vreni

The first finished silk quilt!

I forgot to show you the finished silk quilt my friend Jeanette made. Sorry, the photo is terrible, but you can still see how beautiful it turned out. Now I have to get my skates on and finish mine as well!

Cheers

Vreni

Another "Good Bye" and other stuff

This friendship quilt was given at a farewell dinner this week to one of the members of our sewing group. She is leaving Singapore to return home to the UK early next month. It's always sad to say good bye but luckily she will be coming back from time to time as her son is still living here. All the best Carol, we will miss you!!!

I had a blast with my Dutch friend. We did a bit of shopping, a bit of sight seeing and a LOT of talking. This is her before the final of the world cup; as you can see, she still has a big smile on her face. After she left, I found the orange t shirt in the rubbish bin ;).

I haven't been very productive the last few days. I've played a bit with my hexagons (taking over the dining room table)

In case you are wondering how I prepare my hexagons, I will show you:

1. Cut your fabric (I fussy cut mine) and then cut a piece of aluminium foil (can be reused many times) a bit bigger than the fabric. Layer the foil, fabric and paper template.

2. Fold over all sides, taking care to get neat corners.

3. Press with a hot iron on both sides (be careful not to burn your fingers as the foil will get very hot).

4. Wait until the foil is cool to the touch and then unwrap the "parcel" carefully.

5. Press again on both sides.

6. Voila, you have a very neat hexagon and if you are careful, you don't even need to baste it.

I leave you with this picture of a sun set taken a couple of days ago from our house. Doesn't is look like the sky is on fire?

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Cheers

Vreni

Silk Marathon

Last week our sewing group had a two day sewing marathon. The week previously we went to Arab Street (that's where a lot of silk is being sold) to choose the fabrics. It was quite a palaver until we could agree on a colour scheme. We needed to get three fabrics each of three different colours for the blocks as well fabrics for the sashing and borders. As the silks fray badly we had to back them first with interfacing before starting to cut them up into rectangles.

The rectangles had to be stacked, cut and shuffled before they were sewn back together into blocks.

This is how far I got. I have all the blocks made, now I have to sew them into strips and then decide on the sashing. It's looking good so far (I think!).

This is how the quilts should turn out. One of the ladies has already made one previously. Isn't it beautiful?

I won't be doing much sewing over the next week as a friend is arriving later today. Yay.... can't wait to show her around and doing all the touristy things.

Cheers

Vreni

Flying visit

Yesterday, I had some breakfast guests. Our friends were on a 24 hour stop over on their way from Australia to Europe. I've decided to make them a "Zopf", a plaited bread, normally eaten on Sunday morning. It tuned out OK, although my "plaiting" skills still need improving. My mother is the real talent in that department. Hers turn out more like this:

I also made some cinnamon rolls, except mine are not made with cinnamon but a filling of apricot jam, ground hazelnut, lemon zest and sugar.

We had a lovely lazy day before they flew off at midnight. It was great to have them here and to catch up even though it was really rather short.

Vreni

World Expo in Shanghai

Where do you think this picture was taken? You would probably say somewhere in the alps, right?

Well, you would be wrong as it happens! I took it on the roof of the Swiss pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai last weekend. This chair lift took us up to the top. Usually one has to stand in line for hours (up to five, I've been told) but luckily we had a special pass and were able to get on directly.

The Swiss pavilion outside.....

..... and the view from inside overlooking the German building.

This is the Chinese pavilion. Unfortunately we were not able to get in as we didn't have tickets. Apparently one has to stand in line (another one) at 6 am each day when the tickets are dispensed. (Sorry for the quality of the pictures as I forgot to bring my camera and had to use my iPhone)

There were crowds everywhere. The average visitors number is around 500'000 per day. We did manage to see a few more of the pavilions. Generally we visited those with the shortest lines. All in all I must say that we liked the Swiss pavilion best, but then we might be slightly biased ;). Luckily the temperature was quite comfortable at around 25 degree C. I wouldn't want to be there at the height of summer when it often gets close to 40 degree C. Well, I have seen it now but I'm not convinced I would make the effort to go again.

Of course that was not the only reason for our trip. The more important one was to spend time with the kids. I also made a quick trip to the haberdashery street where I just had to get some of these lovely Christmas ribbons.

All in all it has been good to go back and to catch up with friends (and the kids) but the pollution was still as bad as ever and the traffic nightmarish so we were quite glad to return home.

Now it's back to "work" as I have to finish a quilt I've promised my friend in the UK for her "Open Garden" in August in favour of the Christina Noble Children's Foundation. I have been involved with fundraising for this fantastic organisation in one way or other for quite a number of years. I hope to be able to show you the finished quilt very soon.

Take care and have a lovely weekend.

Vreni

Three Little Birds

Rise up this mornin'; smiled with the risin' sun.
Three little birds pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs of melodies pure and true; saying,
"This is my message to you-ou-ou.”
Lyrics by Bob Marley



My three little birds are not sitting by my doorstep but on a flower pot of sorts. I've made this little wall hanging for "Another Little Quilt Swap 4". The pattern is very much influenced by Kellie of "Don't look know". I've used raw edge applique (I followed Kellie's tuition) and machine quilted it.

On other news: we're off to Shanghai later this week to visit the Expo as well as to see the kiddos (not necessarily in that order). By chance both our kids are in China at the moment; DD and her young man in Beijing where they are both working and DS in Shanghai where he is doing an internstip. He will go back to Boston in Autumn for his last year at Uni. It seems our timing is really off considering we only moved from Shanghai about half a year ago. Oh well, at least we are all on the same continent for once.

Have a great week ahead.

Vreni