Waist coat or bag?

What do you think I should do with the top half of the dress? Turn it into a waist coat or a Japanese style knot bag (see photo, courtesy of Craftzine)?

On the subject of waistcoats, I saw this DIY tutorial in the Guardian (see above photo).

Tadaaah!

Managed to squeeze in the time to finish off the trousers:

Step 1: http://greenissuessingapore.blogspot.com/2009/03/making-pair-of-trousers.html

Step 2: http://greenissuessingapore.blogspot.com/2009/03/making-pair-of-trousers-part-2.html

Now, step 3!

a) I used my sewing machine to sew up the seams

b) Turned the top in by about 5cm to create a tube at the top and inserted an elastic band. The elastic band is about 10-15cm shorter than my son's waist.

Linking to:

Watch the noise!

Most people would associate noise with planes, trains, road traffic, construction sites or even a factory. Rarely do we think about noise levels from recreational activities. Actually, I think we spend so much effort mitigating the former, that we forget that recreational activities can also cause hearing damage. In fact, may people inadvertantly expose themselves to high levels of noise during recreational activities. So you might be protected at work, but your activities might effect you.....

What type of activities are we talking about?

a) Music in clubs and concerts - I couldn't agree more on this point. I go to a charismatic church and they have a band and all. It's more like a rock concert! I have to stuff tissue (though, probably not effective) in my ears.

b) Sound in cinemas - According to IOA, films which rely on special effects are more liekly to have higher noise levels with average levels of 78dB(A) over a 3 hour period. That's like having a tractor in your house for 3 hours.

c) Personal music systems - Well, I get really annoyed by people who have their mp3s on full blast to drown out the background noise on the train. Not only is it annoying for everyone else to listen to their music, but they're getting ear damage. According to an Australian study in Sydney, sound levels from their mp3s was on average 79.8dB. 25% of listeners exceeded the Australian work exposure criterion of 85dB!

d) Motor sports - I'm thinking F1 here, and with the next Singapore F1 in Sep, a lot of Singaporeans (well, those who can afford the tickets!) will be exposed to noise from the vroom vroom. Those who can afford seats with the best views will definitely be exposed to noise from the revving, racing, and amplified music. Hamilton and co will be protected by their state of the art hearing protection, but I don't think ear plugs for the patrons will be as effective. According to IOA, a spectator could be exposed to around 90dB(A)!!

e) Car stereo systems - You know who you are! Those of you who like to drive round with the window down and have your stereo on full blast, as if we didn't know you were there. On full blast, it can go up to 104dB(A)!!

Professor Daniel Esty was in Singapore

Apparently, the Professor I blogged about was in Singapore. Did anyone go to his seminar at NUS? He was speaking about his book, Green to Gold.

Making a pair of trousers

I have decided to make a pair of trousers from an old work dress (some of you may recall me wearing it to the office!) for my son.

Here's stage 1 of the process ('I'll be updating all as I make progress). I just lay a pair of my son's trousers onto the dress and traced around them. I then cut them out. Make sure you cut through both layers of fabric and you cut out 2 (ie 2 legs).

I have updated this with a pictorial! Hope everyone understands what is going on :-)

Making a pair of trousers part 2

Continuing in the spirit of DIY, reconstruction and refashioning, here's part 2 of the trousers (formerly a dress) story.
Here are the trousers in my refashion project so far.....

Pic 1: The trouser legs opened up

Pic 2: The trouser legs sewn together rights sides facing each other! Very important, or else you will end up with trousers with the seams on the outside :-)

Earth Hour

I suppose all of you have heard about Earth Hour, so I won't go into the details. I think it's a lot more than switching off lights. It does raise a lot of awareness, but awareness needs to be translated into actions. Anyway, they have an Earth Hour social feed where you can twitter away about it. Well, I hope during that one hour, people will switch off their computers as well :-)

Sign the Whaleshark Petition

Will they or won't they? I hope that Singapore Resorts at Sentosa won't.
Sign the petition at www.whalesharkpetition.com

Baby products and melamine ware.

I read this article yesterday about toxic substances in baby products. Actually, it's not new news, but what I find interesting is that some governments (e.g. HK and Taiwan) are taking the products off shelves. Haven't read anything from the Singapore government.

Then there's this other article about not putting melamine ware into microwaves for reheating food. I know I don't put melamine ware into microwaves, but there are many who don't know. Apparently, some contain excessive formaldehyde content. Here's a recall in HK. What about Singapore?

what proof do they need?

I can't believe that there is actually a whole group of people who get together to deny Climate Change!

The top 10 climate change deniers can be found here. Well, we know for sure that Sarah Palin is a denier (see top, photo courtesy of Guardian UK). And guess who I found? David Bellamy, who is an environmentalist!!! I saw him on documentaries in the league of Sir David Attenborough. What's happening?

Trading for what you need

The operative word is "need" and not "want". I had someone telling me about teaching his kids about "needs" and "wants". I think a lot of people will be thinking about this considering what's happening worldwide.

Naussica sent me an article that was in the NYTimes about trading what you have for what you need.

It reminds me of a few "places" where you can do this in Singapore, although some are not exactly swopping:

a) YouSwop - you can exchange your stuff for free
b) The Singapore Freecycle Network
c) Pass It On - you can donate your stuff here (has to be in good condition) and it will be sent to voluntary welfare groups.

Foodwaste

Food waste recycling is catching on in Singapore. There's a company that takes your food waste and then converts it into energy and compost. There are also a few small businesses that take soya bean waste and spent grains from food factories such as the beer industry, and convert it into fertiliser or directly sell it to the farms as feed. Sounds good, but I wonder whether we should actually be cutting down on the waste instead...

In Japan, there is an NGO, Second Harvest Japan (2HJ), which promotes the concept of a food bank to make effective use of food. A Japanese food bank operates to collect food products that are discarded due to high quality standards of food manufacturers and provide the food to orphanages, single mother shelters and other facilities in need. According to the Japan for Sustainability , it distributed 300 tons of food (worth about US$1.2 million) in 2007.

2HJ estimates that more than 650,000 people currently have difficulty affording food in Japan, while public data show that approximately 20 million tons of food products are disposed of annually - that's a lot of food!!! In Singapore, 558,900 tonnes of food waste was generated in 2007.

Anyway, 2HJ asks food-related companies to donate food products which are safe to eat but have lost market value due to packaging defects, proximity of expiration dates or other reasons, for distribution to people in need.Companies also have a large incentive to take part in this charity program that provides an alternative to dumping food products that are still safe to eat, as it allows them to lower the cost for discarding food. The total cost reduction of the participating companies amounted to about US$390,000 in 2007.

Vintage top (I think)

Have been thinking about my next reconstruction project. I was in Hong Kong and went to the lanes in Central to get some reasonably priced lace after being inspired by Casey (see her pics at top) and her very neat reconstruction.

When I returned to Singapore I looked for my stripey top and got into action. I even managed to use my DIY dummy :-)

I couldn't find the round necked lace but I think it's good enough for me :-) Here's the final look!

Soft loo roll

During my uni days, the loo roll offered in the dormitory was hard enough to be sandpaper! An enterprising dorm mate on my floor saw the business opportunity of selling soft loo roll to students who couldn't bear getting their bottoms scratched! Anyway, according to this article, soft loo roll is not environmentally friendly, and apparently the Americans use lots of it!