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.....

I have been in bed most of the day.....I have a sthuffy nosth and a cough and a sthore throat. I feel mistherable. Xiao Zhang made chicken noodle soup and chocolate pudding for me. Ah...yes...comfort foods. I feel spoiled..cough cough...sniff. I hate colds.

Halloween in Shanghai

We celebrated Halloween at the Miller's last night. It is now a tradition. They were married on Oct 30 so every year they host a party for their anniversary. The first year we were in Shanghai Tim and I went as 'Volleyball parents" because Abi had a tournament that weekend. Last year I was in the Phillipines with Abi for another Volleyball tournament. This year...no volley ball....so we had not excuse not to dress up.

Here we are......the Ganster and the Flapper.

And for Abi.....We have not taken up smoking......they are just props!

What happened today?

Alarm rang....hit snooze....rang again....hit snooze....rang again....turned it off....got out of bed

Shower, makeup, got dressed, ate breakfast, worked on quilting a quilt, went with a friend to the fabric market, fabric shop was not open, walked around the underground market, visited the pearl market, introduced my friend to my favorite jewelry vendor, went back the the fabric shop, still closed, call the shop owner, she arrived 10 minutes later, helped friend pick out fabric for her very first quilt, go home, go out to lunch with Tim (he was working at home today), continued sewing the quilt, picked out some stitching, sewed some more, picked out some more stitches, went back to the underground market to help my favorite jewelry vendor choose colors for some new designs, showed her some fun ways to display her inventory, talked about the upcoming Christmas sale at Abi's old school, (she will have a table there for the first time), came home, sewed some more on the quilt, did some homework for my computer class, ate dinner (ribs, green beans, fried rice, apples), did some more homework, checked my email, loaded some pictures to my blog......oh...I guess that is where I am now. Ah....a day in the life

Loaded

This guy was just outside our apartment building on Sunday.

Where is the driver?

Oh...there he is...

Teppanyaki Dinner

I went back to Chinese school on Saturday. The teacher was sooooooo much better. She has lots of energy and seems to have a plan for us. I have a few more days to decided if I will continue with the program. The "all day" class was not as tough as I thought it was going to be. I think I need a daisy to make this decision.... continue...don't continue...continue...don't continue...continue...etc...

After class we met some friends for dinner at a "new to us" restaurant. We discovered about two weeks ago and couldn't wait to go back.

Thomas, Hanni, and Tim

The Shanghai Gang


Notice the huge block of butter looking substance that was totally consumed in the cooking of our food...

All the Kiddos

Tim is in ChongQing tonight.

I had my Illustrator class today....it was soooooo much fun! I spent all afternoon and evening playing with the new tools that I learned today. Most of it is trial and error....in my case mostly error. But...I did manage to draw two pumpkins and a ghost. And...I gave them eyes AND I made them look like they were glowing. BooRah!

We continued Xiao Zhang's sewing lesson today. I went out for dinner and when I came home she had just left because the iron was still hot....oops...I think she was late getting home tonight...maybe a little too much sewing. It can be addicting...but then I wouldn't know anything about that....ha ha