the works of my mother’s hands

ok, CNY mood so no serious post. something to share instead for today.

don’t you just love these cute dolls? they are made by my mother from beads. well, not the doll itself of course – the dolls was bought. i mean the dresses of the dolls.

my mum made a a lot of things from beads. below, here you see, from left to right – keychain in shape of mouse, er… maybe a little bird? and a swan. there are also keychains in the shape of other small cute animals. she also made purse with beads, and i’m using one to hold my 3 sets of keys. you can see the purse at the post where i show the contents of my handbag.

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here are some beads-made stuffs again. top picture – round tissue holder and rectangle tissue holder while the next picture is a beads flower basket. the flowers were made from straws.

next picture, you see 2 lovely swans, with different tails though. are you able to tell what materials were used?

my mum is very good at handwork, and thanks be to god that at her age (over 70), her eyesight is still good for doing handwork, some require good eyesight, especially with small beads to make slippers. yes! she had made 2 beads slippers for my sister and i.

my mum actually started doing crotchet and embroidery. at one time she was so busy crotcheting shawls and baby suits as presents for friends (using wool). then she started to get busy with crotchetiing blouse (using thread) for my sister and me and for friends. she even crotchet a blouse and skirt suit for me and a dress for my sister.

how my mother started to get interest in crotcheting blouse was in a strange way… because of me. you see, i was the one who started to be interested in crotchet and did some crotchet of miscellaneous stuffs, including blouse for myself. one day, my friend asked me to crotchet a blouse for her in which she will pay me. well i did it… or try to… i was halfway through it when i got lazy and stopped doing it. my mum scolded me for not finishing it… so guess what? i asked my mum to do it istead! i taught her how to crotchet and she finished the blouse for me! haha. and now it seems she is more interested than me.

my mum once made an embroidery of the last supper poster, which was quite big in size… er… something like the A3 size paper i think. she gave it away as a gift to a relative, think. and she also did poster embroidery of donald duck and mickey mouse for my nephews and nieces. this kind of embroidery is using the big needle with a thread that goes through the whole needle and you push the needle up and down.

well long ago, during my school days, and a few years after my school days, i was interested in handwork, and as i mentioned i did lots of crotchet and embroidery too. i never like knitting though i did try my hands at knitting at times. once i learned how to knit a blouse for myself from the shop where i purchased the knitting materials – that was my first and last time knitting a blouse for myself! i used to like doing cross-stitch, especially designs of a scenery or a picture of someone, because in doing a scene, i will be very curious to see the finished work to get to see the whole scene. contrast that to crotchet the same pattern on a blouse, it is so boring, because as i progress, i will still see the same pattern whereas for cross-stitch, the more i progress, the more i will get to see something new. i had made 2 cross-stitch pieces that i was very proud of (received praises from them!) – one, tissue box cover with a house on it and the words ‘home sweet home’ – good as present for people’s house-warming. the other was a poster size picture of the mother mary carrying her child jesus. i gave that away to my ex parish priest and it is still hanging in the church office.

anyway, nowadays… actually about 10 years ago, i had lost interest in handwork completely, especially of course during the advent of internet, more interested to get glue to the PC surfing or chatting, where got time to do handwork?

coming back to my mum. it’s good that she likes doing handwork as this will keep her occupied. also good for me as i will ‘curi’ her handwork stuffs to give friends as gifts. haha! i gave one of those cute bead keychains to my friends sharon and lynnee when i was in KL recently. well, chinese new year (CNY) is coming, and you can bet my mum will be busy with handwork again – making CNY tree out of angpow packets or CNY cards, making the plum blossom tree, chinese fan or lantern and so on.

i’m proud of my mum’s works and each time i wear/use any of her handwork’s work, i will make sure i exclaim to my friends “this is made by my mum.” here are some the pics i posted earlier arranged in our living room.