:: Textile ::

Finally, after months of doing sewing, it's the last lesson for textile. Shown below is the picture with all the 5 assignments that we did.

1. Draw string bag
2. Weaved bag
3. Table runner
4. Welcome board
5. Towel embroidery

Looking back, it has been a fun journey. Of course, it was not easy at the start! Sewing, for someone like me who hardly use needle and thread to do sewing, what's more using a sewing machine, was a daunting task for me. After the first few lessons of trying out, playing with the machine (threading & unthreading), complaining, "collaborative learning" with the girls, things got better =)

I have never thought that I will be able to do all this! No doubt, you just need to learn and ta daa~ you will be proficient in it. I will not say i am proficient in sewing but have definitely improved (;

:: Random ::

Less is more,
More is less,

Teach less learn more =)

Simple words....but makes so much sense isn't it?

Sometimes it seems hard to strike a balance between the 2. For instance, there's an outline for every subject or what we call Scheme of work (SOW), where we have a timeline to stick to when teaching.

We hope that our students will be able to learn and think rather than just regurgitating information. It's a dilemma, at times, i wish i could give my students more time to explore other stuffs yet i have to stick to schedule to finish up the syllabus which in a way makes the learning more rigid? I guess thats the situation where many beginning teachers will face. No doubt many of us would complain that our education system placed too much emphasis on rote memorisation. But i cant deny, some things we just have to memorise. In my own personal experience, i find myself discovering new meaning or understanding when i was trying to memorise certain things =) Of course, it does not happens all the time....

Guess we have to slowly "experiment" it.....

Just some random thoughts =)

:: Textile ::

Remember I mentioned that we have to do embroidery on the table runner? On top of that, we are supposed to do embroidery on hand towel too. We were allowed to choose the color of the hand towel. Initially i took cream color but later decided that i want grey instead. Shown below is the embroidery i did =)

I wanted to choose yellow thread for the name as it makes a good contrast to the grey background. But i decided to use blue instead, for fear that he might find yellow too "loud" haha. If you look carefully, there are some parts of the words which looked reflective. That is because, before doing the embroidery, you are supposed to line a plastic sheet. This is to prevent the embroidery from "sinking" into the towel which makes it hard to see.

Embroidery on hand towel

Those of you who have sewing machine at home, you can buy towels and embroider your friend's name. That serves as an excellent gift for him/her! I bet the person who receives it will like it alot.

:: Textile ::

Today i am going to share a new and interesting stuff we have been doing for the past 1 week! Its a hanging wooden board that allows us to write whatever we want. Some words like "Welcome" "Kitchen" "My home / room".

Never have i thought that i will do this "signboard" personally before! Shown below is the idea that i have. You can get this type of wooden blocks from spotlight or even daiso. It's so cool isn't it? Imagine you can personalized everything you can find in your house =D

The ladybug and flowers pictures shown in the previous photo were not paint or anything. You might not be able to guess where it came from! It was pictures found on napkin. Yes, you heard me right! Napkin! Those that we use to clean our mouth after eating. But of course, it's the more expensive and good quality (nice prints as well!) type. You can get those nice printed napkins from ikea, departmental stores like takashimaya and perhaps robinsons.

So after deciding that i wanted ladybug (thanks to irene for sharing with me =] ), i cut out the pictures and ready to stick onto my board. But before doing that, I have painted the board into a more cream white colour as dark background will mask away the pictures of the napkin.

Shown below is the "magic glue" we used to stick the napkin pictures onto the board. There are other types as well, for instance porcelain potch that allows us to paste pictures onto tiles or ceramic surface. You can get this from spotlight or artfriend.

After sticking on my pictures, i gave the border a brown color to add on a tinge of rustic feel. In addition, i also blotched the board with gold paint. Now left is filling in the word(s) and giving it a final finish.

This is so fun! I will strongly encourage everyone to try this one =) You can do it as birthday present, christmas present or as a nice gesture to brighten someone's day.

:: Food n Nutrition ::

Time flies! It was group 6's microteaching last week! With that, it marks the end of all F&N microteaching and cooking sessions. Looking back, it seems as though it was last week when my group was rushing for microteaching.

Their theme was on legumes and pulses and as it was the last session, think Miss Chin asked group 6 to include cake making in the recipe as well. So we prepared 3 dishes with 1 whole cake =) Shown here was a sponge cake we baked. It does look nice, isnt it? Thanks to the "teachers" who went around checking and helping us =D

Sponge cake

 After layering with cream and crushed peanuts, we diced mango and placed it in the middle. Ta daa~ Our whole mango cake, looking delicious right?

Completed Mango Cake

 We make the "dou sa" ang ku kueh instead of peanuts as dou sa is made from mung beans. I like both peanuts as well as dou sa ang ku kueh but i don't really eat it frequently. I find the process of making the ang ku kueh abit tedious as there was alot of preparation on the mung beans. You have to soak the mung beans for hours then pound and fry it..... When frying, it is also important to make sure that it does not dry out too. So, i am right in saying the process is tedious right?

Chinese Ang Ku Kueh

 Next up, we have malay lontong. We used "dou gan" and also tempeh in the lontong. I am not a fan of lontong but i thought it tasted yummy =)

Malay Lontong

 Last but not least, an indian snack. I don't like the taste as I dislike coriander haha. While i was chopping the coriander, i really cannot stand the smell. What's more the taste! But it was good when i eat with the prepared sauce.

Indian Vadai and Coriander Chutney

 Yet again, i forgot to take picture. This time round is the whole presentation argh....

With this, I would like to say "GOOD JOB EVERYONE!" I believe everyone of us have put in his/her full effort and it was enjoyable. It has definitely helped to polish my cooking skill and also friendship with classmates =) Cheers!

:: Random ::

Just to share something i like to eat with all of you. I bet everyone should be familiar with Pastamania =) Noticed that they have revamped their menu and i think they added new dishes as well.

Pastamania menu

They had a new branch at Paya Lebar singpost so i popped by to have a meal. The shop was decorated with glass display by the dining table. As shown below are the display next to my table. It reminds me of my F & N microteaching where we used different types of cereals and pastas for decoration =)

I think i first tried Turkey bacon aglio when i was in Poly year 2/3. We had a module where we were supposed to go to a shop and evaluate their products or services. My friend and i went to pastamania and he recommended this to me. Guess what? Since then, whenever i go to pastamania, i only order Turkey bacon aglio. The dish is rather simple, with diced tomatoes and turkey bacon tossed in olive oil! But it's yummy and it feels slighly healthier as it is cooked in olive oil =x

I am not a fan of cream based pasta as i will get sick of the sauce before i even finish it. Tomato based sauce is acceptable for me =) but since i have taken a liking for this dish, i have not ordered any other type of pastas haha..

Turkey bacon aglio

Went to pastamania yesterday and we ordered calamari, turkey bacon aglio and i think chicken sauage in cream sauce. Surprising the cream sauce tasted abit different. It comes with a slight tinge of cheesy taste with it (I like cheese!!) and it was yummy since it was not too overwhelming.

It is still personal preference but just want to share with you people. So next time, if you have no idea what to eat, why not pop by pastamania and try their turkey bacon aglio (;

:: Textile ::

I have showed this before where i did not reveal what i was going to make. Today i shall reveal the answer =) I am going to make a table runner. Some of you could be wondering what is a table runner, it is something similar to table cloth. Table cloth covers the whole surface of a table whereas table runner usually covers only the middle section of the table.

I have sewn the 3 pieces of cloth in the following sequence - brown beige brown, using normal straight line sewing. In addition, we will be adding pictures and even embroidery on the beige cloth. Over here, i was contemplating to put the 2 pictures, teapot and tea cup on the left or right side of  the table runner.

And i decided to put it on the left side of the table runner =) The teapot and teacup were actually prints on a fabric. We cut out the fabric and iron it on an interface that has a sticky side. After that, we can peel off the back and paste it onto the beige cloth. One more thing to do was to sew on the pictures to secure it tightly. Dr Mok suggested blanket stitch or running stitch but I decided to do the blanket stitch =) Initially i did the wrong orientation for the teacup and i had to unpick all the threads out haha...

Shown below, is my teapot with blanket stitch. Hope it doesnt look too bad =) Blanket stitch is often found on the edges as it is used to reinforce the edge of thick materials. It also acts as a decorative stitch.

Blanket stitch

We will be adding embroidery, still thinking what are some words to put on the table runner..."Tea Time" "Tea Break" ? Have to brainstorm a little more ....

:: Food n Nutrition ::

It has been a hectic week... I had ICT due on tues, bio presentation on wed, Communication speech on thurs and bio microteaching practice on fri! Hence the lack of update so sry to my readers.... I am back with massive updates =D

Shown here are the pictures from F & N microteaching 2 weeks back which was session 5. The topic was seafood. We have here sambal fish in banana leaf from indonesia. Mr Jay cleaned the two fishes for us so we did not clean the fishes. It was yummy with all the spices used =) and it's a healthy cooking method - grilling.

Grilled sambal fish

 Up next, we have Tempura prawns from Japan! If you notice, there's a lump of cream and it is actually wasabi mayonnaise we made from scratch. It was not a choking type of wasabi, in fact it has a mild taste of wasabi which definitely suits everyone =)

Tempura prawns

 Last but not least, the dish that set everyone drooling yet screaming too =X Here's sweet and sour crab from Thailand! We used small flower crabs to cook this dish...and why did i say it caused screaming from us? It was because all of us assumed the crabs are dead...so when we wanted to pull out the shell, it was still moving!! Many of us could not have the heart to kill it =( Mine was alive and i let Mr Jay to have the honour to kill the crab. To my amazement, after Jay cut the crab into halves, it was still moving "-_- But it was a new and cool experience for many of us.

Sweet and sour crabs

 Ta daa~ the final presentation of all the dishes. Please pardon the finger on the left side of the picture...

Group 5 microteaching

Looking forward to the last microteaching where we will get to bake 1 whole cake. Stay tuned!

:: Textile ::

Here comes my 3rd assignment! I shan't reveal what i will be doing yet. So i will let you have a preview of the materials and you will ponder about it! =D

3rd assignment

Just realised I did not take pictures of my 1st product which was a draw string bag =( Just a picture on the materials again. We have a blue and polka dot cloth and if you realise, i have zig-zag stitches sewed on the polka dot cloth. We even did quilting for the polka dot cloth! Interesting isn't it? I have submitted to my tutor and have not gotten back thus no snapshot.

1st assignment

I will take picture and upload it once i get back my bag! =)

:: Random ::

Went to Toa Pa Yoh on last weekend to settle some issues, happened to pass by this bubble milk tea shop at the interchange, opposite Burger king. And this shop was located a few shop spaces from the famous "KOI".

Needless to introduce, I guess everyone should be familiar with the term "KOI". KOI is probably the latest drink that many people covet. It allows you to choose the level of sweetness in your milk tea ! So you can choose 50% or 25% sweetness content. Yes, I have to admit that it tastes good and with the novelty of having to choose level of sweetness, i guess it really swept many of us off our feet. However, it is always in long queue! No branch can fight the branch located at ILUMA bugis! Oh my god! You should have seen the queue! As I am not those kind of people who is willing to queue too long for food, i cannot comprehand why some people can queue 30 mins or more for a cup of bubble milk tea.

Back to the shop I saw, it was also selling milk tea with pearls. So I decided to give it a try =) In case, it become another hit like KOI and I will need to queue for it haha.


New milk tea stall

It was having a promotion, think it cost $2. Well, was kind of disappointed after drinking it. Have pinned high hope for it as on the signboard, it shows the various countries that they have branches in. So it prompted me to have high expectation. Of course it tasted better than some other milk tea but just thought it paled in comparison to KOI (personal preference!) It did not have the strong taste you have in milk tea and the pearls were not cooked properly. However, it could be that the standard were not maintained on that day. Those of you who are interested to try and make comparison, do head down to TPY central and get yourself a cup!