Happy Father's Day

My father was a man of few words. He loved his food, a good game of golf, bag pipe music and his food. Did I say that twice? He would spend time at home cooking my favourite dishes when I was home. Beef tripe soup which takes hours to clean and cook; Barbequed lamb or a good steak; Teppanyaki sherried prawns with garlic; He would always make sure we ate well. Happy Father's Day, Pa!

3rd giveaway

Congrats Annie!! The variegated purple flower motif is yours. Do send me your details so that I can send it off to you. I would love to see your cloth doll when it's done. Thank you to all who participated. It was interesting to hear what you would use the flower motif for. Do look out for the next giveaway.

Tatted variegated purple flower motif giveaway

I tatted this for the tussie mussie I made for Freda. That one was in blue, this is a sweet purple. You could use this your crazy quilting or anything else. This is my third giveaway. Just leave a comment and tell me how you would use this before 11 June 2008 and I will do a draw on 12 June 2008.

Tatted Celtic Love Knot

This Celtic Love Knot (Josephine Knot) pattern is from Rozella Linden. I could not find the link to the pattern which I printed. I have not done Celtic tatting before and it was quite fun to do this one. Doesn't it look like a butterfly?

Blissful block kit from Pat

Pat so kindly sent me one of her blissful block kit to try out. I have never done crazy quilting and thought that it would be easier to use Pat's kit. I followed Pat's instructions which came with the block. I used backstitch but I could not sew straight so you see a lot of white space on the left and right of the girl's image. I did not have much experience of placing the pieces surrounding the image and ended up with pieces overlapping with edges hanging. I suppose I could cover it up using the ribbons or embellishments from Pat's kit or make the block smaller. Any advice from experienced crazy quilters?

Tatted black and red hummingbird

My sunbird chicks have flown off and the nest is empty. I wish I was home to see them make their first flight. Instead I came home and found the nest so light and empty. I hope they will follow their parents and come by to feed on my plants this weekend.

Olive-backed sunbird chicks

Look at the colour of the feathers. I think one chick is bigger. Survival of the fittest. Is the stronger one getting all the nourishment from mom.

Umi gets all worked up when mom comes to feed the chicks. I caught Tsuru trying to peep into the nest when I was watering the plants yesterday. They are curious to see what is in the nest.

In honour of my sunbird babies

The nest is getting heavier and so is my heart. The little chicks are getting heavier and soon they will be flying off. I hope to get some photos before they do that. I did not manage to get a video clip of mom feeding the chicks, the zoom on my camera is not good enough. If I stand too near she won't fly in to feed. At night, mom keeps the chicks warm and the bamboo bends even lower with mom in the nest.

A birthday present

I made this for AY, a very early birthday present. It's a pretty heavy necklace. I like how the colour combination turned out. She wanted something bright to dress up a simple dress. I hope it does the trick. I sent it to her last week and she received it yesterday. I hope she liked it.

Episcia in my garden

This is a red leaf Episcia. It flowers regularly especially when I give it a foliar fertiliser spray. It is an easy plant to grow and to propagate. The red leaves are a nice change from all the other greens. I have another Episcia which has green leaves and another with copper leaves.