New Beginnings

Although my blog focuses on my quilting, I wanted to share a recent work-related development that will also give you a taste of Macau life. I work for a non-profit, non-governmental organization (The Badi Foundation) that promotes human resource development for social and economic development in China. One of our projects is a formal school called the School of the Nations in Macau. Yesterday we had the ground breaking ceremony for the new school facilities, which will also house my office. This is a very long awaited development, achieved through a government grant of land and other much valued support from various government departments, as well as ceaseless work by the Director of the School and other staff.

We had a formal ground breaking ceremony in the Macau style. After some songs from students and speeches, there was the actual ground breaking. Luckily they caught me (I am on the far right) before the hat slipped over my eyes.

Then there is the ceremonial cutting of the suckling pig, with incense surrounding

Finally, there are firecrackers set off to scare bad spirits from the construction site and as celebration. I don't have pictures of that, but they were the long red trails of firecrackers, and they were hung from a construction crane. For those who are interested, the picture below shows what the new school will look like (I am in the picture at the bottom of the article helping to cut the roast pig).

Happy Chinese New Year!

It is a big time for celebrations here. Last night we had fireworks, and there will be more fireworks and firecrackers for the next 3 days. Here are some pictures from last night.

Olympics 2008

Before I went on my last trip, I was downtown and found an exhibit of sculptures with the theme of the Beijing Olympics. China will host the Olympics in 2008, and it is a major source of pride and excitement. The sculptures were from a variety of artists from many different countries, but many were Chinese and had themes integrating traditional Chinese arts and images with the modern theme of the Olympics. I only have a few photos -- sorry for the quality, but I only had my phone camera and the time of day was not great. Still I hope it is interesting!

Quilting Designs

This week I was in an older part of Macau that I don't often visit, and I came across what I think would make wonderful quilting designs. What do you think?

It arrived! This time it really did.

My Kona Snow order arrived! I wasn't able to do much with it during the week because of work, but today I have been able to work on my Blue Marquee quilt. I now have a finished top, after only a little work last night and most of the day today. DS and DH were both out, so I had no distractions from quilting. There was a bit of a delay and a near disaster on this quilt. As I was putting on the borders, our helper (one of the benefits of living in this part of the world is being able to have help for cleaning and ironing) offered to iron the border I had just put on. That allowed me to work on the next border, which still required some piecing. But she burned it! She felt really bad, and so did I. I am glad I still had plenty of fabric left, though. I took off the border and cut off the burned part. There is still a smaller burn on one of the plain blocks, but we used bleach on the cut off piece of border and it turned out fine, so I will bleach the spot on the block as well.

This has got to be one of the best scrap-busting quilts around. It goes together so quickly, and you don't really have to worry much about accuracy. I found a white and green stripped flannel fabric here for the backing. It is not a fabric I would normally have chosen, but it fits the spring feeling I want for the quilt and it is soo soft! I think this will turn out to be one of the family's favorite quilts to snuggle under. I don't have a picture of the top yet, but I do have a few pictures of life in Macau.

The picture at the top of the post is of tiling on the one of the sidewalks downtown. Wouldn't it make a great quilt block? Perhaps because of the Portuguese influence in Macau, there are a lot of tiled areas. Buildings use a lot of marble and granite for flooring, and they can be a great source for ideas for quilt blocks, too.

The two other pictures are of shops. See the birds hanging in the one on the left? People still take their birds out for walks and keep them at the store with them, then take them home at night. You can hear the birds singing as you shop.

Then there is this shop. What can I say? Would you buy anything from this shop?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all! I hope everyone has had good holidays. Today we had Chinese Dim Sum for the Christmas brunch. Not too traditional for most parts of the world, I would think, but quite enjoyable. After brunch with friends, we went downtown for a bit. Here is a view of the neighborhood.



I got a bit of time for quilting in. It looks like I now have two very slow projects going! I worked on my single wedding ring quilt first. Each block has 16 half-square triangles, so I will need 320 in all. After getting all, or almost all the regular squares cut out and pieced, I started working on half-square triangles. I only did one strip's worth, but I am already getting very tired of half-square triangles! This is a time that I wish I had Thangles to try out. After making one strip's worth of half square triangles, I started piecing, but I only ended up with enough HST to make about 2 full blocks. Unfortunately, the way I put things together, I ended up with 1 full block and 2 that are about 2/3's done. I wasn't up for any more half square triangles.

I then went to work on my second WIP -- a Rattlesnake quilt based on Karen K. Stone's pattern. It is my first attempt at paper piecing. I love how sharp the points turn out and how flat everything lays. I do find that it requires a lot of concentration to get everything right, so I can't do too many blocks at once. After piecing one curved and pointy section, I think I am done for the night!