Earlier that day, my friends at work surprised me with greetings and presents that I really loved. Some of them were really sweet in their messages in the mail. And one of my co-workers texted me because he was on site (client’s office) that day. Gosh, such awesome messages that warmed the heart. Rjene even made me cry that morning because she gave me a teru teru bozu! And her message in the card made me cry too.

The big white and pink teru teru bozu from Rjene, the white shell charm from Ence (way back when she went on a trip) and Martin’s gift to me was a Haruhi charm. Hehe.

My fellow PM/BAs and friends at work also gave me a lovely gift: a tea tumbler from Starbucks. I know my hint was blatant because I posted it on Plurk but I am just so thankful for this gift because it does keep my tea warm. Now that I have a tea ball, looks like that tumbler and tea ball plus the darjeeling tea that Dai gave me last November will all be my friends if and when I get deployed on site.

Carl was thoughtful too. I saw a package wrapped in old forms haha. But guess what’s inside? It was a DVD copy of Infernal Affairs! OMG. The Andy Lau fangirl in me just squeed so much

It was the gestures of these people that made the day extra special because of the talks I’ve had with my friends, the moments I got to spend with them. Thanks to everyone who had dinner with me before I ran off to meet JM for the musical. It was so hilarious, the things that happened over dinner in Giligan’s in Greenbelt 1. We even practically filled up one section of the place.

The following day was Eda’s birthday and I visited her at home. Some of our co-workers were there too and there was just so much food! I envy Eda that she could eat so much yet not gain weight ~_~ In any case, I am touched that she invited me over as well. I hardly have friends in the area. And we also played Zombie Fluxx that day. Hahaha. And when I went home, my sister surprised me by bringing sans rival. She told me to get sylvanas so we could stuff it in the sans rival. It was awesome! Hahaha.

See? Isn’t so glorious? Sans rival with sylvanas!!!!! *NOM!*

Then last week, it turns out one of my friends from Asia Source 3 is in the country. Mifan Careem (Sahana Project). It was a pleasant surprise. Too bad I wasn’t able to join them during the first week he was here. JM and I met up with Mifan and Bobby. It was great catching up with them and sharing stories of how we have all been doing these days. It made me miss camp a whole lot more and just last night, I ended up brainstorming with Shane about what we could do this summer.

My 30th birthday was mainly spent with my colleagues and friends this year. It feels like I am approaching something like my teen age years again in terms of certain changes in the way I think and feel about things. Career-wise, I am looking for other challenges to come. I know it’s a dangerous thing to ask for but I’d like to grow so it’s a risk I have to take. Sacha asked me what I am looking forward to this year. I guess it’s more of changes in different aspects of my life. Like I should be taking better care of my health and then there is also that desire to grow more as a crafter and also that desire to be more active in the free and open source community. But we’ll see how things will go, shall we?

]]> http://clair.craftyneko.com/2010/03/09/belated-happy-birthday-to-me/feed/ 4 http://clair.craftyneko.com/2009/08/17/green-skirt-for-chibitalia-cosplay/ http://clair.craftyneko.com/2009/08/17/green-skirt-for-chibitalia-cosplay/#comments Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:46:58 +0000 clair http://clair.craftyneko.com/2009/08/17/green-skirt-for-chibitalia-cosplay/
What my skirt looks like in front.

The back view of the green skirt.

This is my first time to make a skirt with a curved hemline. It’s more difficult to sew because I had to stop at certain points to make sure the stitches curve. There was also a whole of cloth involved in the process because I followed the guide I saw on the EGL community on how to make a flared skirt.

New things I learned:

• Iron settings. My cloth had to be ironed with a setting of at least ‘4′ on it. I think that’s quite hot, literally. If it’s not hot enough, the fold won’t stay at all. I tried it with the hem and failed. I think it was because I used the wrong setting. It was too cool so it kept unfolding. When I sewed the waistaband it wasn’t too bad anymore.
• How to put the zipper foot. I think what we got on our Brother XL 2230 is a general zipper foot. I will take pictures of it next time. The zipper foot we have at home didn’t look like any of those on the videos I found online. So I had to read the manual. I had to put the zipper foot on while reading the manual because I couldn’t understand it. My imagination wasn’t enough. Anyhow, it works!
• How to use the zipper foot. Because it looked different from the online tutorials I saw, I had to figure it out with the help of the manual. Again, I must take pictures so people will understand what I want to say about the zipper foot.
• Cutting makes an entire difference. There was one piece which I cut smaller than the rest. So it affected how I was going to make them all fit at the waist. Also I should’ve cut the waistband piece first because it was a rectangular piece compared to the rest.
• I learned that I have yet to learn how to determine which is the wrong side and the right side of the cloth. And that I should mark them accordingly. Plain cloth such as this and tetoron make me confused as to which side is right and which side is wrong.

Because of this list of things I learned, I now have a better idea of what kinds of projects I want to make so I could improve. I know I still have my apron, blouse, petticoat and bloomers to make but I’d spend Friday and Saturday for most of them. I might outsource the blouse though. It’s just too difficult for me.

I want to make another skirt. Maybe out of a certain pair of old jeans or something. Also, a skort is tempting. Really. I used to have skirt/skort. Its zipper in front made it into a skirt. That skirt/skort was something I had when I was 10 or 11 years old. Should be interesting to make one this time around.

I haven’t been here for a while. Real life happened and so I was too preoccupied and lazy to blog. I also didn’t want to be part of the blogosphere’s discussion on PG bloggers and elite bloggers.

I actually blog for a living, aside from my regular job. But it doesn’t make me an elite blogger automatically, I think. At least that’s the way I feel. Also, I’ve decided that this blog is my blog anyway so I don’t think that what others think about blogging and bloggers should matter to me as long as I mainly do this for myself.

Because it’s been a while and I’ve seriously neglected this blog, I should get some things in order. Including showing feeds from my other blogs on the sidebar and stuff like that.

If you’ve been dropping by, sorry I’ve been busy but I think that I am back now, for real.

Though I don’t think they come in cycles similar to the ‘typical’ seasons we have like chilly, spring, summer and monsoon. (We don’t really have winter and autumn here, I think.) I think that the seasons come and go in varying durations and cycles.

These days I can’t help but think that I am in the season to just explore other creative stuff I haven’t really been exposed to or wanted to try before but didn’t have the resources. That or I didn’t have the courage to try them out. Maybe it’s because I think I ‘missed out’ on some other things because I focused on particular interests I had/have.

Some things I am interested in right now didn’t appear to be this interesting before. While other interests I have, I still like them but I don’t feel like spending so much time on them, if you know what I mean. Like technology, I am still interested in technology but it’s not the same as before. I don’t think it has died down. It’s probably just taking a bit of a backseat for now. Maybe I’ve tried too hard to keep with it more than what was enough for me. Maybe right now, I might be saturated with the technology because I work in the IT industry and I just feel the need to keep work and play as different things.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s because I don’t feel that there’s a tangible thing to work with when it comes to analysis. I mean, the situations are there, the people are there but I can’t hold it physically and I can’t mold it physically. I noticed that I’ve been fascinated with personal projects that give me something tangible or at least immediately visible and the ‘high’ I get from that is something I missed a lot.

Like poi. I have the poi in my hands and I could spin them in directions and learn new things to do with them and it’s nice. I could see the results of learning and practicing poi.

Blogging. I could easily see if my blog’s layout sucks, or if my writing is terrible or too verbose.

Now I am getting fascinated with PinkySt dolls and the thought of modding some. That’s something really tangible. But I have yet to research on materials.

My creative side is itching to do something different, something I could say is my work and physically see it. I want myself to be reflected in the things I do. Maybe I spent so much time on working with other people’s template documents and submitting analysis of other organizations’ systems that I am now wanting to just express things in a different manner than before. I don’t really know yet because I don’t understand what’s really going on with me either.

I am just letting all this be part of the season I am in right now. It might pass quickly or it might not. But I am sure that I’d learn a thing or two, somehow.