Creative Chaos

Creative Chaos

Monday 25 January 2016

sewing pouches/ Dottie Angel dress

Two kids walk in after school and told me not to go outside! Never. (well five minutes to hang laundry out and it seems to be dry minute later or a bit longer ;0 ). They have sat in air con at school and were stunned walking home from the train station.
I made them a chocolate cake for surviving the first day of school. Pity at 6.09 pm I have no idea what is for dinner - i'm not going back into the kitchen in this heat. Luckily the husband will sort something out!

My last day off school today, so I've been sewing some pouches (trying to use up scraps) - I use these for my knitting projects. Took a bit of figuring out how to sew a zip in again and to do a lined pouch. Easy peasy after the first one.

The at 4.45pm I decided bugger this, jumped in the car and whipped up the road to the fabric shop to buy the Dottie Angel dress pattern I had seen on a few blogs. I adore it! I already had this fabric...
A lovely Cloud 9 organic cotton (now on clothes line drying) and then also bought this fabric to make two of them... (plain linen will be the pockets) -

I think I'll even start on them tonight. Not getting much sleep in this heat....



Sunday 24 January 2016

Mad About Bags Christmas Cracker Swap






I was just going through some photos before Christmas and realised I had not blogged about Tracy's Christmas Cracker swap. The gorgeous items were sent to me from Glenda who lives here in New Zealand but who does not have a blog. Stationery is one of my favourite things, so Glenda filled my tube with lots of neat stationery items and preserving items. I can not find photos of what I sent - I am pretty sure I had taken some too. Thanks Glenda for an awesome swap and to Tracy for once again hosting it!

Memory sticks and photos have all been sorted a lot these holidays - I'm coming to the end of a lot of my scrapbooking items too, so might put a bunch of stuff on-line to sell, before I switch over to project life.

Saturday 23 January 2016

over the heat

it is an absolute scorcher today and I'm over the heat. We do have an air-con unit in the lounge, but I've all the windows and doors open as I love fresh air, so I suffer. It takes about 5 minutes to get sunburnt here, which is long enough to hang washing outside. I've done so much laundry over the past few days, but there is nothing better than lined dry laundry all year round. Even if it is 8 degrees in winter, out it goes either on the clothesline or a clothes horse on the deck. I hate using the clothes drier or hanging it all through the house to take days to dry...
The poor rabbit gets moved around in the shade.








I went to the smallish IKEA in Hong Kong - did not find out there was an IKEA till months after booking and hee hee - we could easily walk there from the hotel. Fate I reckon!  The rest of the family were good and humoured me, but I think I used my luck up trying to find a new duvet cover, so did not come home with one of those. Just kitchen linen and a new mug for me this time.



Right off to see Neil Finn and the Topp Twins in the city at a free summer concert. Whoop.

Friday 22 January 2016

local Hong Kong








These photos were the of the view from our hotel room. It was fascinating.We stayed in a really amazing location right opposite the Happy Valley Racecourse. Betting on a horse is the only type of gambling one is allowed to do in Hong Kong, so the races on a Wednesday night are huge! We were unable to go, as children under the age of 18 are not allowed entry.
Every morning we were woken by a carphony of horns - we knew then there was trouble on the motorways coming out or going in the tunnel. Traffic was quite a sight to behold. Total kamikaze drivers whether in a taxi or a bus. They fly in and out of traffic and have little patience - horns seem to rule! The boys were totally enthralled by all the flash cars everywhere (Maseratis, mclarens, rolls royces, beemers, mercs etc). You certainly watched how you crossed the road. I was amazed at the cars right in the city, right by the thousands of people walking across the road. Public transport, whether a bus, taxi, train or ding ding (tram) was either right outside our hotel or within walking distance. The size of the underground tunnels was incredible. The London underground is small in comparison. We could be walking 10-15 minutes (or being shuffled along in a group as the youngest says!) and still be underground in the same station, trying to get from one platform to another etc.
When a train came along, everyone lined up very orderly in lines (imagine that in London!) and waited patiently for the passengers to disembark, then got on. If the train was too packed for you, you waited another 15-30 seconds for the next one to arrive. We timed it. It rather became a game some days - the boys thought the frequency was hilarious and brilliant!










 Photos above show the "village" or suburb we were in. I went walking the first morning as we needed breakfast (we never ever use hotel food!). It was a fab neighbourhood - we ended up either at the local bakery where we could buy pastries for 4 of us for $NZ6 (!) or at the local German bakery, which was a bit more expensive but amazing (you put your food on a tray, then take it to the counter) or occassionally Pret a Manger for muesli/yoghurt pottles. We stocked up on fruit at a local market (photos another day - that was incredible!). There was a Marks and Spencers food place, but I didn't even enter once (a bit too tempting I figured!). There was a Muji shop (3 little visits with oohs every visit and a little brown paper bag on my wrist everytime I left :) ); local bookshop; chemist (handcreams, lipbalms, shampoo, toothpaste - all that jazz crazy cheap prices compared to NZ and cool stuff which was new); a proper old fashioned stationery shop. It was just cool watching the day unfold, seeing students walk to school at 10-11am in the morning, little kids with nannies, people buying breakfast, at markets choosing their fish for dinner, walking past the expat pub, seeing people hang their laundry out their window, car horn after car horn etc etc. Laughed at the NZ vegetable shop - I'd pick the local market food anytime! (quarter of the price!). I became a frequent visitor of the post office too - man was postage cheap! Very cheap!
We threw the two oldest teenagers in a hotel room of their own (it was cheaper to get two rooms than one two bedroom room!) - they had a city view, rather than our Muslim cemetery view. They just told me one night - late - they ordered McDonalds (!!!) in, as you could get it delivered and that rather appealed to them! I cracked up at that! Teh 7-elevens for junk food was a bit of a magnet too as - again - it was cheap. :)

The first photo shows the Happy Valley racecourse - it was big! Every night (like at 10-11pm!) we could watch teenagers play soccer games in the middle of the racecourse - I suppose space is at a premium, so every bit of space was used well!

I loved all the bamboo scaffolding everywhere - a good renewable resource! Even the local hood was fascinating!


Thursday 21 January 2016

contentment

Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.      -Lao Tzu


i love this quote. I have no idea actually where I found it. We are very content with our grass, yard, hanging washing out and few people around! Driving to the supermarket the other night we were in a totally different parellel to Hong Kong! Visiting Hong Kong and coming home made me see the appeal of New Zealand to foreigners!

I've been content just sitting at home. I must have done about 10 loads of laundry. It has been stinking HUMID. At 9am I am over it! But I love throwing all the doors and windows open.

Two kids went back to school today. One needs a good chat with school/university - we are flipping here and there again today about which one.... One is in mufti for the first time in his life. He is thrilled at no longer having to wear  uniform. His school was never into image though, which I like and they could always wear whatever shoes they wanted. This pic was as good as I was going to get this morning and I totally forgot a decent photo after school - typical for his possibly last year of school!

And in other news - I've finished the gloves! Somewhere at 2-3am in the morning on the plane between Hong Kong and Brisbane, Australia. I love how they have turned out! I mastered a few new techniques here too (hemming and provisional cast on. Not a fan at all of either!)


Wednesday 20 January 2016

Hong Kong neighbourhood

We ventured north in Kowloon to go to some massive techie place. Think of a building multiple stories high, a rabbit warren, a meter wide corridor and booth after booth after booth after booth of tech stuff. Not my scene at all. All I could think of was what the heck would you do in a fire in a place like this. There is no point even walking in the door and attempting to find a family member in there! So I left them to it and wandered the local streets. That was after I had taken a photo of each of the four corners of the intersection I was on. Maps and I have trouble together. Well I can read a map - maybe it is my total lack of a sense of direction that gives me trouble! (I was also cell phone free during the day). We were actually too far north, that we were also off the maps. Knowing I was supposed to go back directly opposite the train station entrance did not help, as there were entrances for the same train station blocks away. (picture walking underground for 10-15 minutes in the same train station. Then add billions of people to the equation).


Somehow I managed to get back to the correct spot at the correct time - seeing a McDonalds sign saved me. I was close to panicking/tears at one stage as though I was well and truly lost. All the streets look the same to me. Billions of people. Street markets for streets. Many, many high rise buildings. But I had fun wandering and seeing a real neighbourhood. Spot the packed stationery shop that I had fun in. Chinese New Year stuff is everywhere.