Stitching Blog: Labour of Love

All these years, I've been doing cross stich and crochet for on my own cocoon. No one shares my passion except for my family members. However, since joining Needle And Craft Yahoo Group there are so many nice and sweet ladies who share the same passion of crafting. They are the Starting Point to my Stiching Blog called Labour of Love.

A Starting Point

Receiving an invitation from Nik to join Needle And Craft aka NNC is a Starting Point of my Labour of Love blog. Emily, thanks for your proposal that leads to the invitation.

The following are my previous posts on needlecraft, posted in my Zest For Life blog.

1. Needlecraft

2. Stitching Class

3. Sticthing Blog: Labour of Love

Failure of Wild Release

After reading article of The Savvy Bookworm in The Star on Malaysian reading habits, I started to track and analysed journey of my books that I had left in the Wild*.

I was upset with my Wild Release* result. I released in Labuan, Kota Kinabalu, Miri, Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Brunei. None was journaled and I wonder of the fate of those poor books. *Sigh*. At least I'm not the only unfortunate Malaysian Bookcrosser. That's a relief. LOL!

Taty* and Ariel*, If you are reading this, I agree with your statements.


* Bookcrossing related terms and members

The Dash

This poem was in given in a talk I attended yesterday. Something to ponder...


The Dash
by Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates of her tombstone
From the beginning to the end

He noted that first come her date of birth
And spoke the following date with tears
But he said what mattered most of you all
Was the dash between those years (1934 - 1998)

For the dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth
And now only those who loved her
Know what thaht little line is worth

For it matters not, how much we own:
The cars, the house, the cash
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash

So think about this long and hard
Are there things u like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
That can still be rearranged

If we could just slow down enough
To consider what is true and real
And always try to understand
That way other people feel

And be less quick to anger
And show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we've never loved before

IF we treat each other with respect
And more often wear a smile
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while

So when your eulogy's being read
With your life's actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?

Stitching Class

Last Friday, a cousin of mine come to my house and greeted me cheerfully:
"Hi kakak, buat apa tu?" (Hi sis, what are you doing?)
I, who struggling between stitching and "playing tug of war with my cats" simply replied... "as you see". The next minute, crochet class starts....

Needlecraft

I have mentioned that I like to read. Or should I say "Love" to read. But, it doesn't make me a nerd :P. Apart from reading I am also into needlecraft. I'm used to do cross-stitch, not anymore. It become an expensive hobby.... Price of thread hike from RM0.40 to RM1.60 each!! Because of that, now, I play with yarn and hook. Crochet!!

These are some of the crochet projects that I've done:

My Cats

Kucingkiut?? In English (for the benefit to those who are poor in "Malay" hehe..) it means Cute Cat. My family used to have 16 of them. Some people might think its not a big number, for certain people its "wow". Presently, I only have Cicak (adopted cat, I wonder why my friend named her this... again for those who are poor in "Malay" Cicak is Lizard), Persi, Daisy and 3 yet to be named kittens. These are some of their photos:

1 month old
2 months old









4 months old









The brown cat is Daisy and the gray guy is Persi. Can you guess which is Cicak?

Running Book

Cute little guy huh? At a glance, he is just a book. Erk... with hands and legs? Maybe I need to have my eyes checked.. Somebody told me that this guy like 3R : Read, Register, Release. He also likes Booking, Bookray and RABCK. Arrr.... now starts rambling. Book running? 3R? RABCK? (scratching my head). He... he... he...

I am an avid reader. I read almost every genre: memoirs, romance, thriller, business, motivation, but I could not chew on science fiction. I would like to express my heartiest warm appreciation to mstrawberry19 for introducing Bookcrossing to me. That cute little running guy is an icon to a "Bookcrosser" like me. Conceptually, its a free online book club, trying to make the whole world a library.

For those who loves to read (and who don't), Im inviting you to have a peek at my bookshelf at

http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/kucingkiut

To be honest, some of my collections are not registered. Also, my bookshelf in Bookcrossing does not accurately shows my reading preferences. Aahhh.... it reminds me that its been ages since I've updated my bookshelf. I received more than 7 books (i think he.. he..) for the past few months. Worst, I have not even say thanks to the "last" book owner.... Not a good sign...


Last but not least,Lets READ!!