More fabric in the jungle!?! Is it possible?

We are still in Loei, Isan and having a marvelous time.  Today we went to the village of Tai Dam people.  You can read about them in Wikipedia here.

On the second line on the board is Tai Dam written language.

 

Everyone including children all dressed in traditional clothing.

A lovely lady selling snacks and herbal tea

They make their own fabric with 100% cotton threads, mainly in black and some blue.  There wasn't many selections of fabric that day, but I couldn't resist these two pieces so they'll come home with me.  The top piece has smaller threads and softer.  It measured at 4 meters which is about 4.37 yards.  The bottom piece has thicker threads and tighter weave so it's a little stiffer.   The measurement is 3.5 meters which is about 3.83 yards.  The width of the fabric, from salvage to salvage, is one meter or 39.37 inches which is the width of their loom.

May the fabric fairy watch over you!!!

More Travel and wild orchids

One Friday evening, my college girl friend, our math. professor and I went to visit Loei province in Isan.  Our friend who lives there came to pick us up at the airport and took us to Chiang Khan, treated us dinner and took us on a night walk along the street near Mekong river for souvenirs.  After walking till our legs hurt, he put us up in a small but very nice place.  

 
This was what we woke up to:

 

My breakfast.  The food here has Vietnamese and Lao influence

My Friend knows half of the town, or better yet, half of the town knows him.  Well, I may exaggerate a little, but only a little.  It was fun to see how people greeted him while we walked on the street.

After breakfast, he drove us to Phu Luang Wildlife Sanctuary to see beautiful wild orchids and may be, may be elephants and some other wild lives.  We got there a little after 10 am.  Lo and behold, it started to rain a little.  Then it rained a little harder, and harder.  We decided to have early lunch to wait for the rain to die down.  Lucky for us, the rain stopped a little after lunch so we decided to go for a hike.  Since we are not allowed to wonder off on our own, we have to wait for an available ranger to accompany us.  We took off around 12 pm. and here are some of the pictures.  There are much more but I can't show them all, so sorry.

Our ranger and his pink umbrella that he just borrowed from someone.  He graduated from Chiang Mai University and has been working as a ranger for 17 years.

White Millipede orchid

Lady Slipper orchid

Rock formation in the shape of a bird.  How cool is that!!

Another beautiful orchid

We had a great time even though it rained again after 2 hours of hiking.  The ranger said we were only half way through but had to cut the hike short and took us back out to the parking lot which was another hour of walking. We were soaking wet but it's so worth it.  All the places that we went has a link to Wikipedia so that you can read more about them.  These are non-affiliate links.

Hope you all do some fun things today.  

Cheers!!

 

New Year starts right

Hi Everyone.......

The month of December came and went in the flash for me.  There were so much to do before and during that month.   No matter how hard I tried, I was never ready for it.   It was especially hard for the last December, because I didn’t feel like doing anything.  Have you ever had such a time that you just didn’t want to do anything?  I had that quite a bit after my brain surgery in 2016.  My doctor said my body went through an experience equivalent to PTSD, and would take 2-3 years to get back to my old self.  I’ve tried to be positive and keep on doing the things that I love, such as sewing and volunteering, and that has helped me tremendously.  Volunteering and doing service for others, have helped to keep my perspectives.  I’m so blessed to have many wonderful people around me to help me get back to the right direction.

I have done quite a few projects in the past year but the project that I’m most proud of is this quilt top.

Our members in Valley MQG had made wonky log cabin blocks for our wonderful president Scott Griffin and I had the honor to put them together into this quilt top.  I loved every single block in this quilt.  They are from the heart of our members.  Now it's in the hand of my good friend, Lois, to be quilted.  We appreciate our outgoing president so much.  He has helped lead and guide our brand new guild to its current stage today.  And he has done a marvelous job.  Thanks a bunch, Scott.

I’m taking my sister-in-law and my two children to visit Bangkok, Thailand to start off the New Year.  They will be with me for 9 days but I will stay behind longer and will keep you updated with as many pictures as I can.  It’s too bad that my dear husband can’t come with us.  I won’t be doing much sewing but there are many things that I’ll be taking care of.   

Here is our first day lunch at the world famous JJ Market.

 

I'm with wonderful companies and having a great lunch.  Can't ask for anything more, really!!  The only thing that's missing is my dear husband.  Wish he was here with us.

Now that my New Year has gotten a good start, I'll be doing a lot of quilting this year.  I set a goal to learn free motion quilting and I can't wait to get started when we get back.  Bye for now.......

Embrace life and have fun!!