Day One Working with Felt

The word 'felt' often conjures up images of mass-produced multicolored squares, or perhaps the green stuff found under piano keys or on pool tables. - Gillian Harris (Complete Feltmaking) 

My friend Shumaila suggested I look for felt material to hand-sew cute little things. I was excited when I finally found felt after much searching. It's kind of woolly and easy to work with. My first day working with my six colors of felt was wonderful. Since I'm a beginner, I look for easy tutorials around the internet. The first thing I tried was making Alice Merlino's tutorial of a simple felt daisy. I didn't have yellow felt so I replaced the center yellow with blue. Once I was done with it, Ammi suggested attaching a magnet to it's back. The flower is now on our fridge. :)

Let's make Twart! 

The next thing I made was this twitter bird using Melissa Crowe's tutorial for valentine's from here. Since I don't have hard felt I added a little cotton so that it's not as flat. I replaced the word, 'be mine' with 'tweet' making it a form of Twitter+Art= Twart!

Mobi2weet

Last year, when I got active on twitter, I was looking for an sms service that would help me update twitter. The official twitter service costs 6 rupees per update or in other words, as much as an sms to UK.

Why didn't I use gprs? After losing 3 cell phones on the streets of Karachi, I know better than to carry an expensive one here.

And then, I discovered mobi2weet. I registered my number and it was so great to know that the charges were of a local sms. I told my friend Sundus (@dunuss) about it and we used (or abused =P) it day and night to update our status. Got updates from people as well on the phone.

It was somewhere in Ramadan last year. There was a family plan for an iftar outing at KFC. It had rained so bad that the KFC branch near our home was closed. The workers hadn't shown up! So we tried going to another branch. And in the middle of all this, when water was seeping in from the car door, I got a notification that @mobi2weet just announced their first brand ambassador. Winner of the ipod shuffle. And for some reason, my twitter name was there. Got an sms from Sundus immediately, " Sheza did you just win?" And then it dawned upon me slowly.

The branch of KFC we went to wasn't very clean and we got food so late. But I was SO happy!

Then I mentioned to mobi2weet that my birthday is coming up and I'd like a pink ipod. (which was kind of not right to say)

But they were so kind, they sent me a pink one! And they tried to sync the ipod with my birthday.

The service has expanded and improved since I first started using it.

My twitter name is still on their website www.mobi2weet.com

Joanna visits Karachi

When I told my mom in January about a sweet lady from England I made friends with on the internet, I did not expect I’d get a chance to meet her. That too, so soon. It’s only been a few months since I’ve known Joanna Vroom and I owe it to twitter.

Luckily I’m in Karachi when it’s her first visit to Pakistan and I got a chance to go meet her.

Then my mom arrived on Friday and she got to meet Jo Aunty as well the same day. Mr Arshad was kind enough to bring her here to see all the cats we have upstairs.

She met my grandparents, my mom, my sister, my mamu, my mamis, my khala, my cousin and even my mami’s granddaughter. And of course, all the cats. Jo Aunty greeted everyone with “Assalam alaikum” =)

My nani was so excited especially since she had an excuse not to go for her blood test as Jo Aunt would be coming over. Nani kept saying, “kitni gori hain” and giggling. We translated the conversation between both the ladies.

Jo Aunty looked really nice in shalwar qameez though she couldn’t really handle the dupatta. And she brought gifts which was so thoughtful. She asked me if I had tweeted that she’s here and so I did. I conveyed Nimra’s (@hubristic) message to her and we talked about why Sara (@sarakhalili) doesn’t like cats. (She’s scared of them =P)I wish she could have stayed longer, it was so much fun. I really hope I get to meet her again, if she visits us in KSA or we go to UK or she comes again to Pakistan.