Back in Chinatown

Yesterday I was invited to come and help in Chinatown with the "Aunties" (and 1 uncle) from Granny Quilts (see older posts 2008-9).  They were making art pieces for the Singapore International Foundation.

The finished product

They were given black canvas's and embroidered them with thread and beads. 

It was lovely catching up with them again (I got to practice some of my mandarin)  and after we had finished working we were treated to a "high tea".  (my first high tea).  These aunties are so much fun to work with.

A big thank you to Terence, Richard, the Singapore International Foundation and all those that support these elderly in Chinatown.

Today I am off to the ANZA Quilt group and we are meeting at our new venue at the Hollandse club.  What a great place to meet and the food is great!

Hopefully tomorrow I will get back into the sewing room......

A Busy Christmas

The last few days have been very busy.....

Last Wednesday we had a Christmas lunch with the elderly from Chinatown.  We had a yummy lunch of turkey and ham and salads.  My kids came along to help serve and hand out presents.  There were games as well...a form of pass the balloon and when the music stopped whoever was holding the balloon had to come and dance for us.  Boy do these ladies know how to boogey and to Rihanna no less!

Everyone had a wonderful time!  Thank you to Terence and his sponsors for hosting this.

Christmas day was spent at home with our friends Jan and Hilly Boer and my mum in law (she arrived that morning from Holland).  We had a lovely lunch where everyone ate far too much.  My hubby and I had made a pavlova (a traditional NZ Dessert) and it was REALLY Yummy!  Sorry we ate it before I got a chance to take a photo of it!  The kids  opened all the presents after arriving back from the airport and were preoccupied for the rest of the day.  Of course DAD had to help (play) with some of them too.

Today it was time for more work in Chinatown and the ladies were busy finishing up some of the baby quilts that they had been working on. Our quilts seem to be getting brighter and more colourful as we go.

Its great to see how proud they are of their work.  We have a couple of art quilts in progress too so watch this space!  One of the aunties has bought her own sewing  machine now and two of them have been busy making their own bags at home.  They are such a wonderful group of ladies to work with!

Happy new year to everyone and Happy quilting!

Granny Quilts Website

Our Granny Quilts (Silver Co-operative) website is now up and running......

Check it out!

www.silvercooperative.sg

Singapore International Foundation Dinner

On Tuesday night  the team from Granny Quilts were invited to go a dinner being held by the Singapore International Foundation.  The "Aunties" from Granny quilts have been busy while I was in Houston making art quilts for SIF that were being presented to partners and supporters of SIF.  The guest of Honour was the President of Singapore - President S R Nathan.  He was also presented with a quilt made by us (left photo)- his second one to date.

We bought along Auntie Rose (2nd from Right, back row) as she has made both this quilt for the president and the one we presented to him at the Mid Autumn Festival in Chinatown.

It was a lovely evening, the food was fantastic and we even got to meet the president and get a photo with Him. (I am the tall one on the right!  LOL)

We got a lot of lovely comments from people who saw the quilts and hopefully we will be able to more corporate gifts in the future.

Temasek Polytechnic - Entrepreneurship Seminar

Last night we were  invited to Temasek Polytechnic to share a little about Granny Quilts.  It was great to see Terence,Yvonne, Mary and three of the "aunties" from Chinatown again after being away in Houston.  Terence spoke about Silver Co-operative and engaging the elderly  as an untapped workforce in Singapore.

 He had also asked me to speak about my experiences  working in Chinatown.  I am not an overly confident speaker but I think it went ok.  Yvonne also shared about the digital imaging solution that they are doing (RxP)  Then one of the aunties came up to speak  and she was fantastic! She is such a natural speaker and her enthusiasm was great!

After the lecture we had a lot of people come up and  to see the baby quilts and the art quilts that the ladies had made.  We even sold one of the quilts on the spot and may get orders for some more! 

It was a great evening to share what we are doing in Chinatown and am looking forward to seeing some of our other art quilts being given away at a presentation tonight.

To be continued......