Trip to a Chinese village

I just came back from a remote village in southern China where my relatives have a factory. It was more like a visit, but I realised that the local villagers do need jobs, and perhaps it would be to everyone's benefit if I start a workshop there. I'm rather excited by the idea, it would be giving back to the province my Grandfather came from so it's nice. I've started sourcing for fishing thread for threading, and thin needles, and my beads just came in from my source in USA. Yay! Things are moving!

The purple butterfly robe went to a lovely Taiwanese lady in Hong Kong. She wants to wear it for parties! It looks lovely, and I am glad it is going to someone who will love it. This time around, I'm putting up a phoenix collar on eBay that we got through a fellow in Maine! Maine, of course, was a major center of China-USA tea trade back in those days, so it is not surprising to see little gems turn up. But this collar is exquisite and unlike the more common multi tiered collars. I'm attaching a picture of it here :)

I'll post updates here and there once I settle the village workshop project. But I was in Bangkok for my friend's wedding and came across a beautiful mural mosaic taken from the Tree of Life in Luang Prabang. It is luminous. Watch out for it in my future designs, it is so delicious that I love to use it. Hah hah!