The One About Inori

This has been circulating in emails but I thought it deserves a mention here!

Check out the last diagram!

I sewed these wheat bags yesterday. They were very very quick projects.

The top one was used last night, therefore the crumpled-ness. *Blush*. I heated it up in the oven and draped it over my shoulders to give some relief. It has 3 compartments to it so that the wheat and rice will not ‘gather’ at one spot.

The one on the bottom is sitting in the freezer. It’s for putting over the eyes when we nap or sleep. This doesn’t have compartments.

Both are stuffed with wheat and rice with a few drops of Lavender essential oil.

You cannot imagine how hard it was to find wheat… you’d think it’s easily available in supermarts and/or health stores but they only have wheat germ or wheat bran. -___-”

Finally found a bag in a obscure pet feed store.

I made 3 altogether. The last one is for someone special along with some other goodies for her but will wait till she receives the parcel before I post the pictures. (In fact, I’ve made a few things for a few people but will not post them until they receive their pressies!)

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When Janice was here, I made felted soap for the first time.

Amazing handmade soap which smelt OH-SO-GOOD and gentle on the skin too! Bought from thesoapdish .

I bought them from eBay but now found out about her webpage which has so much more choices! YummY! I’m definitely hooked and going back for more…

I bought fleece from Spotlight. These are very cheap. $3 per packet.

Wrapping the soap up with the dry fleece.

I wet it with hot water and touched it with my bare hands, which, was a stupid move bytheway, and scrubbed it against the metal airing rack (I used the airing rack for airing cookies).

This is how it looks like in the end.

I think this will be my first and last time making felted soap. It was fun but just not my type of craft. I prefer using the soap as it is with a separate bath mitt.

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I know this is long overdue – I have been given lovely gifts from fellow knitters from Ravelry.

Salihan sent me a surprise package few months back:

She knitted a beanie from Malabrigo Merino Worsted (American Beauty) for baby Chubbs and also knitted a wristband with wire and beads!

Then, lovely Sasha gave me this book for my birthday:

Picture from thebookdepository.

I also got a surprise package from Singapore from Rane. She sent a lovely dress for Sunshine and packets of food seasoning (Laksa and Chicken Rice) for my birthday!

I should have taken photos! Will take one of Sunshine in the dress soon though.

Last but not least, Beth and Maree sent me this:

And inside this huge bag was this:

Orange fibre! Orange handspun! Orange yarn from the ACS mill shop! Wow!

They sent me this because I had a bad orange swap and they wanted to cheer me up. Awww. How spoilt I am! These are people I’ve never met and they are sooooo nice to me… I’m really really touched!

Of course, there is Ms Debra, who has been sending me clothes for Chubbs and Sunshine. Comfy hand-me-downs which I love (I prefer clothes that have been worn in and all soft and smooshy and it’s also more eco-friendly) and she has mentioned that she and her daughters have been putting together a parcel that’s due to come my way. I don’t know the contents yet and I’m not supposed to be nosey. So I shall wait patiently.

I’ve been knitting and sewing diligently. Hopefully more updates on these in time to come. Especially when the recipients of these gifts have received their parcels – Can’t risk them reading my blog now and spoiling their surprise! I’m horrible enough at keeping surprises (ask Debra. She knows).

Thank you everyone who has spoilt me and my little family.

Argh… it’s been really really hard to pick a winner!!!!!!

I find most of the stories posted really funny and feel so sorry for some of them! I wanted to choose one entry as the winner but the other judges preferred another. It’s so hard to decide..

And the prize goes to this poster:

purple Says:
January 31st, 2009 at 8:09 am

My mother was a knitter,
But now she is too old,
Her hands are very gnarled,
Especially when it’s cold.

I thought I’d make a pretty scarf,
To wrap around her neck,
I picked a lovely woolen yarn,
Expensive, but what the heck!

It knit up quickly, one, two three,
She was so very pleased
It wound around a couple of times
Or hung down to her knees.

I am a lot taller than Mom,
And I didn’t really figure.
That what fits me fine will not fit her,
Because I’m so much bigger.

But that’s not the problem, I have to admit,
I just called that a feature.
I said it’d keep her really warm,
And make her a gorgeous creature.

But that was not the worst thing yet,
Dropped a stitch, which I didn’t see,
Until one day when she put it on,
And it was shaped like a V.

The dropped stitch had become undone,
Right down to the very start.
And now the long scarf was twice as long,
It no longer looked so smart.

My Mom is such a happy gal,
She said don’t feel like a dummy,
When I die, just wrap me in it,
And I’ll become a mummy!

True story (with only a little poetic license)

Oh, hang on a minute. Another vote came in from one of the judges and we have a tie. Therefore there will be two winners!

Her post is:

Elaine Says:
January 31st, 2009 at 1:51 am

I don’t have a photo. You’ll see why once you’ve read the story. I’ve knit all my life – well since around age 5 which is a looooong time ago. Once my roommate in college’s mother came to visit and saw all my lovely sweaters and asked my roommate would she like her to knit her a sweater. Roommate said, “I didn’t know you could knit”. Sure, said Mom, no problem. So we picked out a pattern and home Mom went to start the knitting. One day roommate gets a note from her mother saying the sweater is done, packed up, and will be mailed shortly, but there was something wrong with it that she could not figure out – maybe Elaine can figure it out.

Uh oh we thought. Uh oh was right. When the package arrived and we unpacked it, I realized she had sewn one of the sleeves into the neck opening rather than the armhole. In order to wear it, you would have to keep your arms in a permanent semaphore position, with your neck craned way over to one side. Not good.

I offered to remove the sleeve and sew it back on in the correct place but roommate thought it was ugly anyway (which is was). It “got lost unfortunately” in the end of year packing

I will be contacting you via email now to get your addresses.

Thank you everyone for participating. I loved your stories. Truly.

Happy knitting and crocheting!

Just dropping a quick note to say that I will be announcing the winner soon. My dad has just arrived with his wife for a visit and thus I’ve been busy catching up with them.

I haven’t forgot about it!

I have to apologise for not updating my blog for so long – I have been going out rather often with Janice here to visit. Janice goes home tomorrow. And my dad comes the day after to stay for a week.

Gosh, never ending stream of visitors! It’s good but it bums me out totally. I’m so tired!!!!!!! I hardly get any knitting or sewing done.

I did, however, cast off a lace cowl last night (it’s blocking now so I will update the details later) and also managed to sew a plastic bag dispenser one night when Nad, Sunshine and Janice were taking a nap.

This was how we used to store our plastic bags:

I got fed up and decided to use left over fabric to sew this:

Please pardon the horrible pictures – it was rather dark indoors and I didn’t want to draw the curtains for the fear of letting the heat in.

I should really start utilising my Nikon D70 to take better pictures!

Some updates on the babies:

- We found out that I have gestational diabetes AGAIN this time. But no biggie.. will continue to observe a healthy diet and try to exercise more. Try. Try.

- Chubbs is very active in there. Tap dancing on my bladder all the time!

- One night I gave Sunshine her milk in the bottle and since she was in the study, she took two cushions, lay them on the floor and lay down across them before taking the bottle from me.

No one taught her to do this. Neither have we done this for her before. She just knows what ‘being comfy’ is all about!

- We brought her out in this dress my mum sewed quite some time back.

Windy windy day!

- When Janice was shopping in Good Sammys, she went up to a fat woman, pointed excitedly at the woman’s bottom and exclaimed, “BUTT! BUTT! BUTT!!! BUTT!!!”

I was mortified and quickly did damage control, “Yes darling, the lady is carrying a BAG. Now come along!”

The lady must have heard her since she was only beside her but probably chose to ignore her. Thank God. Otherwise I could have gotten into trouble!

- Yesterday, I ripped a fart while on the toilet. Sunshine giggled, raised an eyebrow and deadpanned, “Poots…..”

How weird! Do 17 month olds usually possess such humour?

- We went out to the next town for shopping today by bus. This is Sunshine’s second bus trip. The first one was when she was very very young.

She looks very stoned because we woke her up this morning.

I dumped toys into the cart and put her in with them. Alas, she was only amused for a very short while. She soon started to whine and we had to let her walk around. She wasn’t tired. But we were. Just by chasing after her.

Amusing herself with shades.

And lastly, a picture of Janice with her loot.

I think Janice is not going to shop for a year from now. She has enough clothes to last her at least 3 years.

I must think she is weird, spending so much time and money on apparel. But it suddenly hit me that it’s even weirder spending time and money on yarn and fabric. :-/ I think I’m the weird one afterall.

PS: Blog contest ends tomorrow!