Wanderlust 2016

I have an extreme case of wanderlust at the moment, I need another travel adventure NOW. I do have one planned though, but it feels like a LONG way away. I am counting the weeks (and sometimes days) before I can jump on a plane again and see some new things.

Next year our trip includes a visit to somewhere we have visited before and somewhere brand new to us. First of all is the more familiar territory, we are going back to HONG KONG! Its a LONG time since we have been and I am so excited about heading back over there.

Here's a few photos we took last time we visited, I didn't buy that cake, but I REALLY wanted to!

I'm very excited for the second stop on our holiday - we are going to Manila in the Philippines! We are still planning out the Philippines part of our adventure, but here's a few things I'm looking forward to.

Eating Halo-Halo

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I've traveled to a few countries in South East Asia, and each one seems to have their own version of what I refer to as an "icy monstrosity" and I can't wait to try the Filipino version known as halo-halo.

Riding a jeepney

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Once I watched a travel show that included a segment about jeepneys, I remember the origin of the jeepney being a pimped out military jeep left by the US troops after World War II. I just thought they were incredible and hoped to ride one at some point, looks like its going to happen next year.

Intramuros

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New Zealand is a really young country, we freak out when something is from the mid 1800s because its "so old". So whenever I have a chance to visit an "old town" I take it and then usually lose my mind about how old everything is! From what I understand Intramuros was old Manila that was founded in 1571. I'm so excited to see this place, I'm just crossing my fingers that there won't be too many "unofficial guides" trying to help us out. 

A few other things I'm really looking forward to seeing are the Chinese Cemetery, Corregidor Island 
and Art in Island in Quezon City looks incredible! 

Do you have any travel plans for 2016 or sooner? 

Rich's Birthday Robe

If you've been following my blog for a while, you will know I've been sewing for about four years. That's quite a long time and I've made a lot of things for myself and also for nieces, nephews, my friends kids and also a bunch of aprons for friends. I've even made stuff for craft swaps - but I didn't get around to making a single thing for Rich!

I don't know why,  but for some reason I have a kind of fear of sewing for Rich, I  think its a general fear of sewing for men. I think if my nephew was  16 instead of 8 and he asked me to sew him a hoodie I would also be filled with fear. I don't know what it is about sewing for men that freaks me out, maybe its just a fear of the unknown - more likely its a fear of buttonhole and sewing a fly zipper.

This year I decided I would make Rich's birthday present and due to my fear of sewing for men, I decided to start simply and make a robe. It's a thing that he needed anyway and really it seems that all the ready to wear men's robes are totally boring.

I asked my friend Shell to take me out to Spotlight as there doesn't seem to be anywhere in the city to buy fleece since Arthur Toye closed down. When she found out I didn't have a pattern for a dressing gown either she loaned me hers - its good to have sweet sewing friends!

This is the fabric I chose for Rich, they had quite a few fun fleece prints at Spotlight, but this was the fabric I thought he'd like the most. It's space, but also kind of like something a wizard would wear.

Here's the final robe, being modeled by the fence in our courtyard - not Rich, but he does really like it I promise.

I really liked how it turned out and I'm happy that I managed to make Rich something he loves. I kind of love it too as it looks so snuggly, so last time I went to Spotlight I picked up some fabric for my own robe.

I love this fabric so much! In case you can't tell from the picture these are unicorns with rainbows.

This is Halloween - 2015!

It seems like a REALLY LONG time since Halloween (I'm way behind as always). What did  I do for Halloween? I hung out with some cool ladies in cute outfits obviously!

We had lunch at Southern Cross Bar and they gave us some lollies, because it was Halloween and we dressed up. It's quite a child friendly place and I assume the lollies were generally for kids who had dressed up.

I had a pretty basic meal - tomato and avocado on toast, made spookier by this little ghost pal I bought along with me. That's not to say all the food at Southern Cross is basis or boring, they always have fabulous cabinet food which is even more awesome during Halloween!

There weren't only treat available from Southern Cross - Joy bought us all these cute little bags of Halloween treats!

She also made some cute fimo creatures for us - she made me this little ghost. He even glows in the dark.

She made Jo this adorable little kitten - so freaking cute!

I had originally planned on going all out for Halloween and making a voodoo doll costume, that didn't happen. I did however get to wear this cute dress from Hell Bunny, it's really Wednesday Adams inspired!

However, the best thing of all was getting to spend time with all of these ghouls!

Halloween Swap - Days Five & Six

I've decided to blog about days five and six of the swap package, as one of these days included stuff I bought rather than made.

First up is day five, which consisted of more patchwork, it seems to be a bit of a theme this year. I  decided to make two oven mitts - one is creepy themed and the other is not. First the non-creepy one.

Once Vany told me she really liked glasses, so this glasses fabric was the starting point. The polka dot fabric was given to me by Emi before she went overseas and the other fabric was  left over from a skirt I made my niece Sophiia a couple of years ago.

The oven mitts are pretty simple, cut our nine squares of fabric, sew them together and then add some batting and a backing.

The second oven mitt I made was more creepy with fabric scraps from my Meg dress and Monster Mash Dress. The other skull fabric I recieved in a swap a while back, but I only got a half a metre and as the sewing I do is mostly dress-making I didn't have a chance to use it.

Here's the final product, hopefully Vany will get some use out of these, even if the sewing isn't perfect. I'm still struggling a bit with the precision required for quilting projects - I'm not the most precise sewist.

Next is day six - which is a day of bought supplies, rather than handmade items.  This package included this sewing themed fabric, so patches (they are little bat devils), a skull notebook, some bia binding and a pencil with a "mace" eraser.

Well that's ALMOST it, only one more Halloween swap package to go!

Labour Weekend Sunshine

So Labour weekend is the last long weekend we have here in New Zealand before the Christmas break *cries* I'm not too sad thought as I have a few days off work for annual leave before the end of the year for various things.

We were extrodinarily lucky with the weather on Labour weekend though - we had pretty much three sunny days in a row (IN OCTOBER? WHAT?). Anyways here is some of what I got up to during the long weekend.

Rich and I went for a walk in Central Park, along the way we met a man who looked like a guru who told us to "love each other from the inside out and never fight".

I also went for a walk along the waterfront an Oriental Parade with my friend Shell - it was even warm enough to get ice cream!

Rich and I went to the Tennyson Street Fair, the highlight of the fair was the petting zoo - complete with bunnies!

I had the chance to catch up with Ria and we went to the Contraception exhibition at Te Papa - which made us pretty happy its now 2015.

These amazing costumes were on display that belonged to Carmen - perhaps there is going to be a display of Carmen's costumes in the future? I hope so because it would be the best.

We also decided to check out the gardens outside Te Papa seen as it was a beautiful day - even though it was windy. Obviously.

Then we finished up the day with Dwali celebrations that were happening in the city, there were a lot of kids doing traditional dances which was pretty adorable. Also there were people selling all kinds of treasures, but we were both very restrained and didn't buy anything!

So I feel like my blog is WAY behind these days, I have a bunch of other posts in the work. But I think for now I have a date with my sewing machine xo