another year...

nothing extravagant... simple yet memorable.

jobless...

as of today, i'm officially part of the statistik pengangguran m'sia! hehee... so while looking for a new job, i'm gonna do freelancing work to (hopefully) make ends meet. need to work out my daily schedule (and hopefully stick to it) so that i dun sleep the whole day away, everyday! :Þ

and seeing that i'm now not sitting in the office the whole day with internet connection anymore, i'll be updating my blog even less now. but will try to put up a word or two sometimes, just to let u ppl know that i'm still alive! hehehe...

accidental shopping...

was at ikea last week... just jalan-jalan after dinner, no intentions of buying anything. then i saw this box and immediate i see "tat box!!" flashing in my mind! hehe... been meaning to find a bigger tat box for my tatting stuff, coz with the additions of new threads and all, the box emily gave me got kinda crowded! emily, u want ur metal box back?

this box has so many compartments, i can even spare one out specially to act as the 'tat graveyard'! see the compartment at the top left hand corner? well, all the mistakes, practices and tats that din quite make it end up there! :Þ

oh, and i made another purchase --> a lazy susan for my tv! hehe...

i watch tv from ALL corners of my room... sometimes lying in bed, sometimes while ironing, or while eating at the table, wrapping books etc. so i'll just turn the tv around to face wherever i happen to be watching it at that time. and for the longest time, i've always harboured this secret desire to own one of those turnable base thingy for tv, u know, like in the hotels? hehe... so i was just mentioning it to the bf upon entering ikea (who then proceeded to *tsk*tsk*tsk* at me lizard style while shaking his head), when he spotted this lazy susan! i was so excited! well, who cares if it's meant for the dining table and not tv? i like it for my tv ar... and dun u think it goes SO well with my tv cabinet? hehehe...

*the thing has since been renamed 'lazy su' by the bf...

experimentat handphone ornament

as mentioned earlier, mom wanted a handphone ornament. so decided to try these:

Faizon, the sifu in our ShuttlesandNeedles yahoo! group, was supposed to write out the instructions for these... but she's caught up with something at the moment. so i thot i'd wait patiently for her to come up with it and then try it.
*pic taken shamelessly from Faizon's blog without permission

then i found these small plastic rings among my knick-knacks. i dun even know where they came from or what they were for.

then suddenly i thot, hey, maybe i can try doing the handphone ornament thingy for mom! so that's what i did... and the result:

i wanted to do a pentagon like Faizon's brown coloured one, but the plastic ring was too small. so i guess mom would have to live with a square one instead.

and i wasn't sure if my method is correct. just tatted by intuition (wah che! by INTUITION u know!! hehe...). but near the end, i joined the last ring to the first ring BEFORE completing the split chain on the plastic! yikes!! so i used a stupid method to finish them off (dun ask me how! too stupid to mention here!)

hehe... actually the reason i was so impatient in trying it out was coz i bought mom a handphone for my birthday, as with previous year. yeah, she gets a present from me on my birthday!

anyway, her phone konked out on her recently and she's been using dad's old phone. so i thot i'd get her a new one... hehe... dun have to crack my head for gift ideas this year!

so she was here in kl last weekend, and i wanted to give it to her together with the ornament. nice?

ah, nothing like a prettily wrapped present to melt one's heart!

frusTatted!

argh!!! wanted to do this as my 2nd tat, a bookmark for N for her upcoming exam end of may. looks so dainty and pretty, right? *pic copied from Mantia's Craft Page

so there i was, happily tatting along, when i realized i missed a join! no, i should say, the instruction failed to mention that i should join up the chains when tatting the 2nd half of the bookmark (the coming back part).

i got to this far:


and then i went like, "hmm... isn't this supposed to be joined to the opposite chain?". so i scrutinized the instruction again, coz i thot maybe i missed the part where i should join. no such instruction... then i scrutinized the picture... yes, it's supposed to join. then i compared mine to the pic... yes, mine didn't join like in the pic. argh!!!


see, A was supposed to be joined to B, but i din join it. wat to do? wat to do? in the end, i decided to abandon it. heck, if i were to continue working with it, do u know how maybe stitches i'll need to pick out? the whole section of C! and i've already closed the ring at D. i hate picking out stitches from a closed ring! *sigh...


and anyway, i've only so much thread left in my shuttle and i hate having to load a new shuttle coz it's such a chore having to tat with a knot in the thread until u can hide it... and i can't hide a knot properly.

so into my tat box it went! NEXT!

tatted...

finally, i've finished my butterfly bookmark! here are some pics...

my 'practice' butterfly. started the bookmark with this, but then i din like the way the colours got sort of segregated and separated according to the wings. so i decided to start again...

here's a close-up view:

and so, ta-da! the final finished product:

i love the way the yellow changes hue randomly. but eh, how come in the pic, the end looks broader than the top? hmm... i've not noticed it in the actual thing. must be the angle the pic was taken!

wait, here's another view:


i couldn't be bothered to hide the ends, so i just made a knot. if anyone can spot the knot, just pretend u dun see it, ok? :Þ