Quilt Raffle

Our Bingo quilt was raffled today at the Shanghai Expat Association coffee morning. I drew the short straw and won the honor of MC-ing the presentation of the quilt. The raffle was very successful....we raised over 10,000 rmb that will be given to Bao Bai. Bao Bai an organization that pays for surgeries for children that have been abandon by their parents because they can not afford the services that the children require. Our quilt group has a personal attachment to this charity organization because they helped Baby Bing. I have talked about Baby Bing before because one of the ladies in our quilt group cared for her for over a year. The little girl is now very healthy and has been adopted by a family. They live two building away from our apartment.

Presenting the raffle items

Showing the quilt label that was signed by our quilt group and telling the Bingo block story.

The lucky winners
They were each from a different country...... Finland, Denmark, Malaysia, and America

Karaoke Night.....Really?

Kathy Miller made us do it. Her family will be leaving Shanghai in Febuary and she has a 'bucket list" of things to do before leaving the country. And...Karaoke was on her list. She planned it for a few weeks ago and all of us came up with excuses as to why we could not go. So....she cancelled that night and reschuduled it for Saturday night. Then...she guilted us into going with her....of course all in a fun way. Well guess what? It was a blast! We were all plesantly surprised and fun was had by all.

I had lots of preconceived ideas about Karaoke.

1. You have to stand up in front of the entire place and sing and pretty much look like fool.

2. All the songs would be in Chinese.

3. I would pretty much hate the whole experience.

4. The place would be creepy and smokey.

All of those ideas proved to be false. Karaoke in Shanghai is basically renting private room with a large TVscreen and microphones. Our space was very nice and looked like a living room> The rental fee included a buffet dinner> All this for just about $12 per person.

Rick and Brian

Part of the Gang....Angie, Mike, Mike, Kathy K., Kathy M, and Shelly

Kathy K, Kathy M (the one that made us go to Karaoke), and "the tambourine man". That is Tim's new nickname. He really enjoyed getting back to his "drummer days" with that tambourine!

The guys singing "I wish they all could be California Girls"

So....we all had to eat our words and thank Kathy for "making us " go to Karaoke.

Skype

I finally connected to Skype. Our IP phone line has become a real pain. It has a lot of static and it hangs up for no reason. Well...no reason except that our internet is very "unstable" here. Anyway.....I talked to Abi through Skype yesterday and it was so fun! She and I both have web cams on our computers so I COULD SEE HER while we talked. Tucker called me this afternoon and I got to see him for about 10 seconds......then my computer died.....yup...out of battery. I am looking forward to trying it again tomorrow. Ah...love technology....hate technology.

My Skype address is deb.spofford. Call me...it's free if you call computer to computer! You don't have to have a web cam to call.

And more quilting!

Thursday was also a quilting day. Thursdays are our "official" quilting day each week. This week we met at "The Palace". We call it this because our friend Jane lives in a complex called Buckingham Palace. Not kidding! This was our last meeting at "The Palace" because Jane is moving too! I find that there a lot of Hellos and Good byes in this city.

So you think Buckingham Palace is bad...there is also a compound called....drum roll please.....Beverly Hills. I did not make this up!

Today was week number 5 for my Improv Block Construction class. This is a very high achieving group. They are a full week ahead of our planned progress. Their blocks are finished or just about finished and we used the first part of our class auditioning background fabrics for their quilts. Kathy said her fabrics were nervous about the "audition".

Class projects

The Factory AKA Having Some Fun

Wednesday I went to my graphic design class. I love this class! I bought a new toy so I could be like "the cool kids". I am the proud owner of a Wacom pad. This is a black flat thingy that is like a drawing pad but all the lines show up on your computer. There...that is my best explanation of how it works. Tim went to "electronic hell" for me on Sunday while I was still recovering from my cold/flu bug. He went to the electronics mall and found a vendor that had "the real deal". I have been playing with it every day. It is a little tricky getting the hang of drawing on a "pretend" paper and seeing it on the computer screen. Tucker told me to practice using it as a mouse so I played about a 100 games of spider solitaire on Monday night so I would be ready for class on Wednesday.

After class I came home and worked with Xiao Zhang to sew luggage tags. Our goal is to have 200 tags ready to sell at the Concordia Christmas sale on the 21st. After tomorrow I think we will have 135 complete. We ordered cute little fabric tags to put on the back of each luggage tag. They say handmade by Having Some Fun! One of the perks of living in China....we can have custom things made for a tiny price. So.....now we have 1200 little tags that say Having Some Fun! on them. Not sure what we will do with 1200 little tags but Hey...it was the same price for 1200 as for 250 so what the heck! Xiao Zhang came home after she picked up our little tags and said she told the them that we were a "very large company" and if they did a good job we might order more tags from them. We had a good laugh about that! Then she said I was the CEO and she was the president and our apartment was the factory. Mr. Zheng took her in the car to pick up the tags so we decided that he was the director of transportation. Our living room looked like a factory for the past two weeks...fabric, ironing boards, and sewing machines everywhere. Last night I moved "the factory" to Abi's bedroom. Sorry Abi...I promise to close the factory while you are home for Christmas vacation.

Quilt Marathon

Tuesday was a marathon quilting day. One of my students organized the marathon. She wanted to make a silk wall hanging and she wanted to do it as a group. She will be moving back to the States in a few weeks and thought it would be a nice memory to carry home with her. So.....12 of us spent the entire day, which means 11 hours, cutting and sewing and ironing. We had 78 meters of Thai silk and all of it needed to be backed with interfacing before we cut it.

Here is the group ironing and cutting.

Jeanette and Deb (the other Deb) playing with the fabric

More ironing....


Ah....finally the sewing begins! We sewed and we sewed and we sewed...thank goodness I got to sew and cut....I forgot how to iron since I have been in Shanghai!




The Marathoners.
It was a really fun day and a great memory of Shanghai. Five of these ladies will be moving in the next few weeks. Everyone went home with the pieces for a beautiful silk wall hanging.Stay tuned for a photo of our final project.

I know.....I know...it has been a week since I blogged. This week was a bit out of control. So I will catch you up....

Monday was free motion quilting class. Here are my students busy concentration on their work. We practiced thread painting this week on flower printed fabric.

This is Jenny, Hellen, Connie, and Jane.

Up close with Jane....notice the white gloves....we just finished having high tea....kidding....the gloves have little rubber things on them that make it easier to grip the fabric. The gloves are about $15 in the US....in Shanghai only about .50 cents.

See all that stitching on the flowers....I am telling you this is really fun stuff.....it's like drawing with your sewing machine!

My computer is acting up now so I will have to continue later.....