My sewing project -Raffle Skirts for little girls

I try hard to squeeze some time out from my busy chaos to do some sewing.  I have not been touching my sewing machine for days now, haven't been "productive" these 2 weeks.

Just a quick sharing on what I have sewed up so far..there are all raffle skirts with the same pattern for girls aged 5-9 years old.  It is pretty easy to make.

I made this pink raffle skirt for Pearl, the colour is nice, most importantly she likes it so much.

Same pattern, this one with ribbons at the front

in green and orange checkers

Cutting out the material.  Below is the finished product, they look different in colour due to the lighting.

Will post more successfully finished sewing items in time to come.  If you come across any helpful site that provide good tutorials on sewing, appreciate if you could share them with me, I need to learn and practice to polish  up my sewing skills.  TQ.  

Birthdays and cakes

This post meant to record down the birthdays of our family members so far.

SIL's birthday and her home made chocolate cake made by herself. 

Niece, Kathleen's birthday and super delicious durian cheese cake

My better half, Clet's birthday 

Niece, Anneliese's Birthday 

BIL, Nick's Birthday 

My precious little girl, Pearl's birthday

and the youngest in the family, Reese celebrated her 1st birthday yesterday.

she have had a very beautifully decorated pink Hello Kitty fondant cake.  Her mum is a fan of Hello Kitty. 

The Last Supper

I was very into cross stitch during my single years.  I have shelved all my unfinished cross stitch stuffs when I got pregnant due to certain pantang larang / taboo from grandmothers' believes.  

After more than 10 years now, upon numerous requests from my eldest daughter to teach her how to stitch, I took out my cross stitch stuff from the cabinet and found this unfinished piece of "Last Supper".  Honestly I do not know when I can complete this master piece;  my eye sight has gone poor and I can't have the spare time I wish to have like before.

Since my girl has have the same interest like me, I hope she will have the passion in cross stitch to finish this piece of sewing work for me, if not I will have to start stitching during my retirement age...:D     

Pork Burgers

Pork burger is quite a new thing here.  There are a number of stalls suddenly emerged in selling pork burgers in areas slightly outside Kota Kinabalu City.  Most of them are small operators started their businesses along the road sides within their kampungs.  Just like one of our nephews who has joined business venture with his friends selling pork burgers.  

With the agreements from our girls, we decided to have pork burgers as dinner one evening.  We tapau 4 sets of pork burger from our nephew's stall, our gestures of support in his business.  

The burgers look ordinary, the patty makes the difference. 

Feeling full after having the whole burger for myself

Singer Serging Machine

After having a new Singer sewing machine in a couple of weeks, I decided to get myself a new Singer serging machine.  Why Singer brand? you may ask...it is because I have known this brand of sewing machine since I was still a little girl..My mum used to sew uniforms for kindergarten to supplement our household income, I had helped (for the fun of it) her to unfold the sawed up strings using a chopstick..>.<.  She still keeps her very old model of Singer manual sewing machine till now. 

Back to my new serging machine...with a serging machine, the sewed clothing will have a more professional look, this is the main purpose for me to buy this machine.  

I was extremely unhappy with the piece of skirt that I sewed with all the edges of clothes running off.  I have tried to use the zig zag mode to sew up the edges/seams but it looks awful.  I want my sewing project works look like store bought, haaaaa..

This is the 3 thread serging machine which I bought.  I have a bit of a struggle to make adjustments on the densities on the threads.  I am still trying to do some trials and errors whenever I use it.  There is a VCD that's come with the purchase unfortunately it is broken, I am yet to go back to the outlet to ask for a change. 

Singer offers instalment scheme for their products..I have opted this option for this purchase.

My home cooking

Everyone in the house seem to be full this evening after they had spaghetti for lunch, pancake and bubur cha cha for tea at SIL's place where they spent the 1st day UPSR exam school break.

Though they are not ready to have dinner, I still need to cook for myself, they can have the left over if they get hungry later in the night...^_-.  I am a skinny bone but a big eater...:) I have to gain more weight now after my recent detox.

With my cooking skills and the time I have after work, this is the best I can cook for dinner tonight.

Time for dinner now!

Dragon Mooncake

It seems we just celebrated Moon Cake Festival not long ago, here comes Moon Cake Festival again. Time really flies for busy people like me. Sometimes I feel a little scary thinking of so much yet to be done with no time to really enjoy life.

Let's come back to the Moon Cake. This is the dragon image double yolks moon cake that my girls asked their Daddy to buy that day. I like the dragon image, while the moon cake is always too sweet for my liking.  We buy, eat moon cakes and celebrate Moon Cake Festival every year to ensure that our girls do not forget they have partial Chinese "root" from me. ^.^

To satisfy my crave

To satisfy my craving for Mee Laksa during my detox period last week, I had promised myself to have it during my lunch time in the office right after the detox is over, which is not advisable actually, because I am loading in not so healthy food, :D

We have a simply cooking facility in the office which allows us to prepare light meal or heat up our food for lunch.  So my lunch for yesterday was Mee Laksa with lots of green vegetable to compensate the not so healthy side of it.

 Now my crave has been satisfied.

Breakfast at Old Town White Coffee

On a Saturday before I started my Detox programme, we had breakfast a the Old Town White Coffee for the first time with our girls.  The menus are pretty children friendly, the choices are suitable for children.

 Pearl's choice of noodle soup, she chose this because of the ham but she got disappointed with it, it taste more like luncheon meat than ham.  

 Clet's nasi lemak, normal portion with sides

I am happy to find this Penang laksa.  I can finish 2 bowls of this.  They served this with canned pineapple, I would prefer the fresh ones, canned pineapple is too sweet.

 Normal serving American breakfast for Crystal

Dinning at Old Town White Coffee is not complete without a cup of it's famous coffee..I shared this with Clet..very tasty and thick coffee.

Annual Detox

Today is the start of my 7 days detox programme.  I chose to do it right after Raya is because I would like to enjoy some good Raya food first and another reason is the school holiday.  Only during school holidays that I have got the time to do the coffee enema in the morning, the programme requires us to do 2 times coffee enemas in a day, one in the morning and one in the evening to achieve best result.

Juicing plays an important part in the detox programme.  Here's the first day of juicing in the office.  Simply refreshing and revitalising.

Trip to Universal Studio Singapore and Legoland Johor

This is a backdated post.  Our trip to Universal Studio Singapore and Legoland Johor was in May 2013.  One of the reasons for delay in posting is because there are too many photos that I wouldn't know which one to post them here.  My girl has been reminding me that I am slacking in updating my blog lately.  She is right.  So I make a point to do some updating.

Our initial plan was to go to the much talked about Legoland in Johor Bahru, never did in our plan to go to Singapore until our nephew, Bryan and family, suggested that Singapore is just across the Strait, why not go to Singapore as well?  As they reside in KL, they had been to Legoland during the last school holiday.  

Singapore is the 2nd overseas trip for our girls. At first they were a bit reluctant to go Universal Studio because their focus is to go to Legoland.  It turned out the our girls enjoyed Universal Studio more than Legoland.  I would sum up that Legoland is more suitable for smaller children. It is much too hot to walk around under the bright sun light, there is just too little shades to hide away from the sun.  Be ready to bring along your hat, umbrella, sun cream and rain coat (in case of rainy day) and wear comfortable shoes if you plan to visit Legoland Malaysia.  

 view of Singapore

 our group photo at Marina Bay Singapore

 Bought some souvenirs before leaving Universal Studio Singapore, it is a nice place to visit

at the entrance of Legoland's ticketing counter. 

My first Sewing Project

To follow up with my previous post on my new sewing machine, my very first project is to turn my girls' yellow taekwondo belts into yellow green belts by adding green casing into their existing yellow belts.

They had their taekwondo upgrading test in May this year and due for another upgrading test in school in September this year.  For curriculum activities, my girls join the taekwondo class in school, it is also a good way for them to do a bit of exercise.   They need to put on their current grade belts during their classes and most importantly on the day on upgrading test.  To buy yellow green belts for only a few month is simply waste of money so I decided to cover the belts up with green casing.  

 Original yellow belt with green clothes

 the sewing begins

 the casings/pockets to cover up both ends of the belt

 the belt is too thick for my sewing machine, I wouldn't want to spoil my new machine so I need to use needle to sew the closing of the casing / pocket up

two yellow green belts.  My first project is done.

Singer Sewing Machine

My mind was thinking of getting a sewing machine a few weeks ago for the convenience of "repairing" the minor wear and tear clothing, and also for sewing up loose threads on the new clothing. 

Without mentioning to each other, Clet also has in mind to get me a sewing machine so that I can help him to  do alterations and repair on his jeans and clothing.  

At first we thought of getting a basic one without knowing the technology has advanced to providing many sewing functions which impress us very much.   After seeing the demonstrations on a couple of machines at the Singer outlet,  we decided on 988 model.  This has become my early birthday and Christmas present for this year.  A present is never come too early and I am very happy with it.  But this is not a heavy duty machine, materials as thick and as hard as jeans are not advisable to be sewed with this machine.  Clet is a bit disappointed on that.  

it comes with a cover

this model has got a digital screen and 156 patterns

these are some of the patterns that this sewing machine can produce including the button holes

these are the accessories which I will have to figure out how to use some of them

the pedal and a casing for the accessories.  

I have attended basic sewing classes years back, now I will have to rely heavily on the internet to guide me should I want to make a skirt and a dress.  Will tell you my first sewing project on my next post.