World famous in Singapore!

Here is a photo of my quilting ladies from Chinatown proudly showing of their baby quilts and our first art quilt with the Prime Minister of Singapore (centre) and the Mayor (right).

How exciting is that!!!! And to top it all off....we sold the fish quilt as well.

Don't the ladies look lovely all dressed up.

Im so proud of them!

visit to the Great Wall of China

This last week my hubby and I were in Beijing for a couple of days for his work conference. This was my first time to China so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. We arrived late Sunday evening to a very busy but hot Beijing. The next morning was very grey and you could hardly see the buildings two blocks away. After lunch we made our way to "The Commune" which was about an hours drive out of Beijing. We could see the great wall of china and it seemed to be never ending.

The Commune is in a rural area set on quite a steep hillside. They are all achitecturally designed houses in various shapes. At the bottom of the hill was a walkway up to the Great Wall. It was steep and muddy and I wasnt sure if I was going to make it. Well we did, and it was well worth the climb!
This part of the wall has not been restored and was very overgrown which really made the feeling of standing on top of it with no-one else around.... Exhilarating! On Monday night they held a chinese banquet with entertainment.....Chinese opera singers (Not hubby's favourite thing!) guys in tutus (very funny) and lots of speeches in Chinese. During the day, I worked on my digital scrapbook while my hubby was at the conference. On Tuesday afternoon we went back to Beijing.

On Wednesday we spent the day sightseeing. We went to the Forbidden City. It was HOT and VERY BUSY! There was lots to see and it was HUGE!

On Wednesday evening, Wim had arranged some tickets to the Chinese Opera (which I had been researching). Here we got to see the actors putting on their very colourful makeup before the show. Chinese opera is very different to our opera particularly when the ladies are singing! (very high pitched!) It wasn't a full opera but small samples of two operas. I really enjoyed the costumes, makeup and the skill involved in chinese opera. In the second part of the show it included the "Monkey King". This was very acrobatic and the fighting skills of these actors was amazing!

It was an amazing week and it was lovely to spend some quality time with Wim.

Till next time

Quilting in Chinatown

Its been a couple of busy weeks with the kids home for the summer holidays!

Last Friday we finally took the kids to the Night safari which was great. We had a really nice time and there was plenty to see. It was Lukes' birthday on saturday so we tried to go out for dinner at the Hogs Breath cafe at Vivo only to find that it was closed for renovation. But never fear because there is another one at Holland Village. So after a 15 minute wait for a taxi we went to Holland Village but found that it had closed down. By then it was getting late and we were all hungry so we settled for Burger King instead. We finally found a Hogs breath cafe at Chijmes and Luke got his birthday wish on Sunday instead. Luke got the Lego Kings castle that he had so desperately been wanting. The kids were very quietly building for a couple of hours - fabulous!



Yesterday we took them swimming at Jurong Swimming pool. What a great complex that is and not very expensive either... $5.40 for the whole family!

Today I have been quilting again with the ladies from Chinatown. We started doing applique using fusible web for two baby quilts. A pink one with colourful flowers and a blue one with trains. The ladies are quick learners and we got lots done. The two previous quilts were also hung on the wall. (see the pink one in the background) . Tomorrow I think the two quilts will be finished or pretty close to it. These will be our sample quilts.Thank you especially to Mary who translates everything and is a real blessing to have in the class. What a great bunch of ladies!

Tomorrow my mother in law arrives for a two month visit. Yeah! We are all excited about her coming. I know that she is looking forward to it too.
Happy quilting
Marianne