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Chinese New Year Decorations

Red cloth or ang chye

Chinese New Year 2018 falls on February 16, 2018.

As a curtain maker, I have been asked to make “ang chye” or red cloth. This is mainly a Chinese culture where house owners or business owners will usher in the Chinese New Year with a red cloth over the front door.

I have never ventured into making this type of curtain decoration because I do not know how to do it. But I have 2 customers who are new house owners and I am really pressed to get it done. In desperation, I asked my daughter if she had any idea how to do it.  She looked at YouTube and after a while, she said it is like making the gathers for a woman’s skirt.

The width of the door is 45 inches and height is 100 inches. We cut the red cloth 12 feet long because it will cover half the door frame. Left and right side of the frame is 4 feet and centre is 4 feet making 12 feet in all.

The red cloth is first divided into 2 to get the centre. Then for the left side, we would take half of 45 inches and 22.5 inches on the right side. She stitched the centre. We didn’t know how long the drop should be and we went for 15 inches. For the left side, my daughter said to leave 6 inches allowance at the bottom. This would help the cloth to have a curve at the bottom. She repeated the allowance for the right side.

When we hung it up, it looked too big. After seeing how she did the gathers, I knew what to do. I unpicked the stitches and then stitched the drop to 7 inches. I repeated the same for the right and left sides. And after hanging it up, it looked fine!

This is how we calculated the dimensions based on the door frame.

Red cloth dimensions
Chinese New Year red cloth for door frame

 

Flower ribbons for the left, middle, and right side.

Flower ribbons
Flowers made from cloth
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Curtain Making

shades of pink

I started curtain making in 2016.

My original business was in making neck straps or tube holders. My sole customer discontinued their product and my accessory item, the tube holders, were no longer required. It is always a risk in any business.

I moved to curtain making when my friend told me to try it. Her husband owns a business as a curtain supplier. I started with clearance stock material and this was a good stepping stone as my curtains were affordable compared to the others. I operated from my home and I still do.

In the beginning, I didn’t do much sewing because I wasn’t confident. I subcontract to other tailors. I learned to differentiate between curtain hooks and when to use which type of hooks. I also learned to install curtain railings and rods.

A customer contacted me online from my ad in mudah.my. He had 2 houses which needed curtains. It was there I learned to do blinds as well. Off and on, Joshua Fung, would give me a call to help him install collapsible clothes hangers and other fixtures in his homes. It is through contacts like him that I became better at curtain making and installing fixtures.

My brother, Jimmy, helped with the first few installations. He was working full-time but he took time out to come and do the drilling work. I learned from him and after a time, I bought my own tools and worked with two freelance installers, Jack and Abraham. Later, I was able to measure and mark the points for the brackets. I asked my son Adam, and my daughter, Prudence, to tag along when I had projects. Soon, they learned to do the drilling and installing work.

I thank God for His divine providence.

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Comet C2017 E1

This is my first article on “The Singing Heavens.”

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Job 38:7 (KJV)

The stars sang. I think it is literal. A physical sound that one will hear if he or she travels in space. Henry Gruver said he heard the stars sing when he died and traveled through space. He did come back to life at the place of the accident and shared his testimony.

Comet
Comet Lovejoy seen from orbit (on public domain)

 

 

How a comet looks like. It has a long tail and if it is big or near our Earth, we can see it.

 

 

 

 

 

I had the opportunity to hear about this Comet C2017 E1 Borisov or “Conception” comet because it is the only one we will see this side of heaven. I mean this phenomena will not be repeated based on the account of the person who shared this video. It was an extraordinary event. The comet was spotted in space in 2017.

http://www.unsealed.org/2017/07/youtuber-stumbles-upon-major.html

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Zipper Change

I was asked to repair a zipper for a laptop bag / briefcase. I managed to sew the new zipper but I had difficulty doing the corners as well as the sides of the bag. A flat-bed sewing machine cannot do the corners. Using black thread, I hand-stitched the new zipper at the bag corners and the sides.

The bag had two zippers; one at the top and the other for increasing the depth of the bag. The new zipper has two handles while the other one, has only one handle. You can see that the printed names on the handles are different. The original zipper name is “Hebe.”

Zipper change
New zipper and existing zipper

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Publisher registered with Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia

Hi readers,

I’m glad to inform you that I am registered with Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia (PNM) as a publisher. I can obtain an ISBN number for you if you are looking to publish ebooks or paperback books here in Malaysia.

Latest update (21 Jan 2018):

  1. Based on PNM requirements, any item that is printed on paper, you have to submit 5 copies to PNM.
  2. ISBN number is different for printed version and online version. This means you will have different ISBN numbers for the same title.

The requirements to apply for ISBN is to submit the following:

  1. a front cover of your book in JPG or pdf at least A4 size,
  2. the copyright page showing that the book is printed in Malaysia or if it is an ebook, the text “Published by Easyire Services in Malaysia for <Smashwords.com / Amazon.com>”