Hello there!!

Hello dear Friends,

Mid-february and my first post of the year....Have you missed me? In case you are wondering where I was until now, I was on my annual vacation to India. I'm lucky to have spent quality time with my family during the vacation. It was a relaxing vacation ...all I did the whole month was wake up late ,chat, sip tea ,eat and sleep.

My mom spoilt me by cooking my favourite Indian recipes and I'm sure I must have gained a few kilos..who cares anyway. Winter is my favourite season of the year and I love everything associated with it..fog,blankets, winter food , sweaters, coats ,waiting for the sun to shine :)

This vacation was special as I got a chance to visit my maternal family homes which was unplanned. I met my uncles,aunts and cousins and had so much fun talking about the times when I used to live with them during my college education.

There were trips to bazaars for shopping for clothes,spices,accessories and specialty items and I somehow restricted the weight to allowed baggage limit.We even managed to watch a movie based on evacuation of Indian migrants from  Kuwait in 1990(knowing that it will be banned here ..lol).

Ok, back to business ...I didn't do much of cross stitching during the vacation. In fact whenever I picked up my needle my mom would say "Are you here to cross stitch or spend time with us"? Ha Ha. She was surprised how come I love cross stitching so much and have chosen it over other crafts she taught me.

Don't worry I still have few things to show for Gifted Gorgeousness SAL. One of my cross stitch friends on facebook proposed to do a swap in October ,however I wasn't confident about international shipping from Kuwait. So I kept delaying to commit for the swap. I agreed for it in Dec, when our annual vacation dates were finalized knowing that I can safely post from India.
This is what I stitched for the birthday swap,February being birth month for both of us .It was so much fun to gather goodies for the package .

The whole package I sent..can you a crochet coaster in the pic? Its my first !!

 Here is what she sent me for the swap. All the things are handmade in this package including the needle minder and scissor fob. We discussed our likes and wishes before committing for the swap ,so we knew what we can add to each other's stash.

My main target for this vacation was to make arrangements so that gifts I have been making reach the recipients. One of those was to be sent to Singapore. After my first plan failed, I posted the cross stitch piece unframed, half halfheartedly to my friend's family in India. I was so happy when my friend contacted me and told that her father has got the piece framed in one day and she will getting the piece next day as her mother was flying to meet her .My joy knew no bounds when she sent me the picture of the piece displayed in her house.

Just before going on vacation, my ex colleague sent me this picture of the framed piece I stitched for him as retirement gift.

The cushion I made for my niece ,which I showed in my last GG post, was well received too.

Seeing our work being appreciated and displayed is the biggest motivation for any crafter..don't you agree.

The second agenda for the vacation was to get hands on handcrafted beauties, made by my mom and granny, which she does not use any more. Success achieved and my house now displays these heirlooms. I will save the pictures for future posts.

We visited many wonderful historical places during our vacation and I'm so thankful to my family for taking out time to take us around.

My post will be incomplete without mention of my nephew who turns 2 in few days. He is growing to be such a adorable kid. He loves to play with people and smiles at you for no reason. The way he snuggles melts my heart.Oh I miss him so much.

I have been trying to catch up on reading blogs ..if you don't see a comment from me,soon it will be there.Thank you for your lovely comments on my last blog post.

I hope you had a good day with your loved ones on Valentine's day. We celebrated it on 13th at home as Sunday is a working day here. I cooked hubby's favourite recipe and exchanged gifts.

Happy Stitching 

Stitch a Little ,Stash a Lot

This is what I have been doing last month...
I lost my mojo towards end of July, then we were on vacation and as soon as I came back to Kuwait , I was in bed for two days because of severe cold.
I actually managed to stitch 4 days on my 15 days vacation which I think is decent.
So here is my August Check-in for Flower of the Month SAL hosted by Alyssa
Very little progress ,just some border and start of March flower

Its time for some show off some stash

Me and Diya were casually chatting on facebook and then she says "Hey, do you know Rainbow gallery is having a clearance sale?"
"No" said me "but I will have a look"...She is such a enabler..Look what I got:

 Lizzie Kate,Mill hill Kits,Bohin Needles and fat quarter of 28 ct misty blue linen.
God knows when I will start stitching on something other than Aida...I just keep buying different fabrics.

















Of course you must buy some supplies whenever you go to a new country. So off we went to Nifty Needles in Linlithgow ,dragging our big bags from the train station ,bought the stuff and caught another train to Stirling. OH is such a darling he didn't fuss even once though being sleep deprived .


I bought two DMC skeins to complete my floss collection at the outrageous price of 95p with some free Anchor designs.

Charity shops were the next destination:

Great finds form Charity shop in Bridge of Allan

Some magazines from Charity Shop in Tarbert

Justine was selling some stash of hers on her blog and I wished to buy this cute Soda Stitch pattern . She generously sent me this pattern, refusing to take any payment. Thank you Justine

 I'm ashamed to show my monthly pie chart

 Hoping to do some recovery during upcoming public holidays.

Edited: Question for all you experienced bloggers:
If I reply to comments on my blog post to a person who has a email associated with their blog thru the reply option, does that go into their mail box?

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL March update and lots more

This is going to be a long post as I have so much to talk about the last 10 days...

First of all my entry for the month of March for the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL .

Birthday card I made for DH...It was a surprise as I stitched it whenever he was asleep :)


I'm finding it difficult to take time out for stitching these days which explains the bigger portion of red in my stitch pie :( . I decided to keep some area of the card unstitched as I was short of time.

On the cooking front , I tried making pasta in red sauce for the first time and it turned out good. The recipe can be found here:
http://www.tarladalal.com/Pasta-in-Red-Sauce-37563r

It was the festival of colors-Holi on the 6th ,though we didn't play with colors , I invited my friend and his wife for a festive lunch on 7th . I was successfully able to prepare "Ragda pattice" and "masale bhaat" just before the guests arrived. Why successfully, because there was no electricity for  3.5 hours and wasn't able to cook during that duration.

After the lunch, we had a good chat for 5 hours...yes I'm a talker...
My friend's wife brought Holi special food preparations and we were no more missing home ...blink blink.

Here is a picture of goodies which I got as part of International Women's day celebration in office.

I'll be travelling to London for business on 29th and you know what, all I want to do is buy lots of cross stitch supplies from there. I have already made some arrangements for that(picture me with a mischievous smile ).Imagine its my first visit to London and I have little zeal to visit the  tourist spots .

So if you have some recommendation for a good LNS or a thrift store in and around London , please let me know.
Of course the foodie in me still wants to know what are the must eats in London.

I'm hoping to get a lot of stitching time over the easter weekend during my stay in London if I don't go around and visit the London attractions.

I have now added separate pages to my blog for
a) Other crafts which I pursue( in a hope that these pages will keep me motivated.)
b) Pics of my mom's garden.
c) Cross stitch Finishes-Check this out for details of my finished projects.

  

I'm back from short vacation

I'm back from my short vacation to India and am already homesick.

Needless to say that I had a great time with my family ,I also managed to meet few of my friends.
I'm so glad my bestie loved the birthday card I stitched for her.

It was my nephew's first birthday on the 21st and we had a small celebration at my home town. Enjoyed every bit of it.

And then it was my birthday on 27th and celebrated it with my parents after 15 long years.
I travelled to Delhi on the same day and had a nice birthday dinner with my brother and his family.

One of the best birthdays in years...lots of gifts ,wishes and two cakes :)

I think I can be too hard on people sometime...DH had a tough time buying me a birthday present. Anything he wanted to buy me as a birthday present ,I would disqualify that as one of the things I had told him I wanted to buy in the past. My personal opinion is that gifts should be surprises...not things which I want to buy and have talked about.

DH is a such a darling ,he worked so hard to arrange to fulfill one of my wishes ...I will now be able to sponsor education of a under privileged child .What better way to  celebrate your birthday...

My mom is an amazing cook and she loves cooking some of the my favorite dishes whenever I visit her . I'm sure I must have gained around 2 kg. of weight gorging on my mom's food.

I will post my maternal grandmother's own recipe of a spicy rice preparation soon which mom and I love and think you will like it too.

Shopping is one of the major activities whenever me and DH go for a vacation. Strangely, I'm not interested in apparel shopping since last few months which surprises my whole family. Until now, I had a reputation of hoarding clothes in my wardrobe.

Apart from all the gifts I got from family, these are the best buys from this trip.

Yes ,I'm a Jeffrey Archer fan.

On a sad note, my order from 123stitch hasn't arrived. I contacted them and got the reply that I can expect the order by 14th.

I'm not sure when I will be able to pick up stitching now as the house is a wreck after the sand storm which hit Kuwait when I was  away .Also ,me n DH are a bit sick...the flight was bumpy.


How have things been with you guys?