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.

  

RIP Neil !!

I'm at loss of words today...When I logged on to facebook today morning  ,the horrible news  was there...my cross stitch friend Neil Bray passed away yesterday.

I cannot believe this has happened ...its only few months back when I met Neil on one of the cross stitch group on facebook.

There were many things which attracted me to talk to Neil.
He was the first male cross stitcher I came across in my life, he had left his job to follow his passion of cross stitch and had an eclectic taste of designs and avid supporter of copyright laws to protect interests of designers.

I was quite surprised at first to know that Neil has left his job to start a Cross stitch company. It requires a lot of courage to take risk of leaving a regular income job  and follow your passion.

While I write about him, I realize everything happened so soon. His company Eclectic bloke designs was started in July 2014 ,I first contacted him in Aug 2014 ,he was detected cancer in Sep 2014 and today he is not with us physically.

I'm thankful to Neil for entertaining my request to convert few of personal pictures to cross stitch designs so that I could present Indian architecture to the world.

During this interaction , I learnt he was very diligent and left no stone unturned to get the best design out of a photograph.

Also, I feel very proud to be associated with Neil's company ,which has presented designs to support gay rights.

In the last few days ,a particular design Shades of Strength (design by Paul Richmond) became symbol of Neil's fight with cancer.

I would also like to say that I was surprised to see how gracefully Neil and his family members talked about his struggle with cancer on facebook. I come from a society where talking about illness is a big no-no and death is something to cry about.

Neil, you will be always with us with your fabulous designs !!

I would like my cross stitch friends to visit Neil's company website once(http://eclecticblokedesigns.co.uk)/ blog (http://eclecticbloke.blogspot.com/)/ facebook group and appreciate his efforts for making the world of cross stitching richer.


 

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?





 

Feb entry for TUSAL 2015(and I'm still waiting for my 123stitch order to arrive)

Here is my entry for TUSAL 2015 for the month of February .

I have started filling my ORT jar since January however the most of  threads in it are from my first finish of 2014.

It will take years to fill this with the rate I stitch :(
I have now added a Stitch Pie(chart) to record how many days do I actually stitch .The portion in red is non stitch time.
Not a good record so far....


I haven't stitched since I completed the birthday card on 13th and won't be able to stitch as I'm going on vacation(picture Me doing the happy dance.)

I'm so excited to see my family specially my adorable nephew ....

And yes the long yearning for my order from 123stitch.com hasn't ended. Its almost a month now since I placed the order. The USPS site isn't showing any update after 30th :(

I'm a bit scared that my gamble to get things shipped/posted in Kuwait may fail...I hope this doesn't happen and my packet is here once I come back from vacation.


Before I say bye bye ...let me tell you yesterday I discovered about a wonderful company called PurplePatchDesign which has absolutely gorgeous designs specially because the designs are to my taste...colorful, vibrant ,geometric and some of the designs are so Indian. I'm sure gonna spend some fortune buying their designs.

Is it weird that  I don't appreciate much, the designs which rely on fabric (like dyed etc), beads ,specialty threads for their beauty? Of course this is my personal opinion and I have due respect for all the designers who use these stuff for their designs.


Its time to say good bye now...till then take care and keep stitching

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL Feb Update

A foreword before I show you my entry for the SAL.

I discovered about Stich ALongs (SAL) in the month of July 2014 when I joined a wonderful cross stitch group on facebook.

I instantly liked the concept and was more pleased to know that in this age of internet ,its possible to have virtual SALs sitting at your home with cross stitchers all over the world...Isn't that fantastic?

I'm hosting a HAED SAL on my FB group now for first timers like me and big HAED fans...

So I came across Jo's stitching blog and learnt about this SAL on the last day of January(Link available on the right hand side bar of my blog) ..and loved the idea. It suits me a lot because I'm going to stitch for my friends and family for next few years.


As I have told you that I have repicked cross stitching after a gap of 10years..i have a lot to catch up.

My personal stitching goals for 2015 is to stitch at least 3 medium/big size pieces gifts for my besties.

The Gifted Gorgeousness SAL will help me achieve my goals and inspire me to be more generous ...wink wink.
Thank you Jo for hosting the SAL and allowing me to join.


So here is my entry for the month of February.

I have stitched this birthday card for my gorgeous talented friend who is also about to start her own craft business.

I will be giving this card to her when I meet on 20th after 5 long years...I missed you love.


Hope she likes it (and hope she doesn't visit my blog before I give this to her...let it be a surprise, please GOD)

Started on : 6-Feb-2015
Finished on: 13-Feb-2015
Stitched on:14 count white Aida
Floss used :Anchor
Designer: Emma Congdon
Pattern source: Cross Stitch Collection, Sept 2014
Number of colors: 9
Stitch count:50H*50W
Type of stitches: Full cross stitch, back stitch
Number of strands used :2 for Full cross stitches,2 for back stitch

I had to substitute few colors as I didn't have all the colors listed in the original design.

P.S. This is the first time ever I have stitched a card.

Happy day

I had a great day today....

I woke up a bit early for a weekend and then decided to go to office instead of Saturday. Office has been crazy busy since January leaving no time for my personal stuff.

I tried a new recipe for lunch -Moong dal stuffed capsicum. DH rated it to 6.I lost a few marks due to poor presentation ;),the capsicums were too big to stay upright in the tray.

The recipe can be found here:
http://sanjeevkapoor.com/Recipe/Moong-Stuffed-Capsicum-Sanjeev-Kapoor-Kitchen-FoodFood.html

After  fruitful 4 hours in office ,when I came back home, I wanted to have some snacks in evening.
So I thought of making dhokla from scratch. In the past , I have made dhokla using instant mix available in stores.

Why is that whenever you want to try a new recipe, you run out of the main ingredient...DH had to run to the nearest store to get gram flour.

The dhokla turned out good..it was fluffy...which is a main feature of a good dhokla. However I felt that taste of  gramflour dominated the whole flavor.

I got the recipe from:

http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/khaman-dhokla-microwave-recipe/

DH's rating of Dhokla :7.5

And the day ended with an assurance from my friend that he will take care of my noisy budgies while we are on vacation in India. Thank you friend..im so relieved to hear that.

Oh how can I forget to tell you that I finished a cross stitch piece today....my first finish of 2015. I'll post the pics of the piece soon.

What a wonderful day...two new recipes, first cross stitch finish of 2015 and caretakers for my budgies arranged....

I'm going to have a good night sleep today.


Hugs
Mini





 

Reading autobiography of my Idol

Did i ever tell you that enjoy reading books,novels,magazines too?

Yes i do enjoy reading most of the normal stuff...by normal i mean non-political ,non -economical ...ha ha

So,i started reading Sachin Tendulkar's autobiography "Playing it my way " yesterday...i haven't read a book since I shifted to Kuwait.And it didn't help that Kuwait doesn't have a public library ...can you believe that?
There are few bookstores in Kuwait which i haven't explored yet...

If you ask an Indian why are you reading Sachin Tendulkar's autobiography,this may be taken as offence.
Sachin Tendulkar is called "God of Cricket" in India and is the most talented batsman the world has ever seen.

I'm a die hard fan of Sachin..well who isn't. I remember being scolded for not studying to watch a match in which Sachin was playing.

I blame my brother for introducing me to cricket ;) ...oh i miss those matches we played with my father.

One of the pleasant memories i have of being a Sachin fan is getting a lot of Sachin merchandise for my 18th bday .

And yes i share my love for the little genius with one of my besties...

Moving on to the book...the book is written in simple English for obvious reasons of targeting the masses of India for whom Sachin is an idol.

I already know what to expect from the book...a tale of a human being with virtues of hard work,modesty and honesty.

Looking at the pictures brought me to tears...this happens whenever i read or watch something related to Sachin's life.

I'm not going to write a book review after i finish reading the book ,rather continue doing what i like...Reading and worshiping "God of cricket"



Last but not the least I would like to thank my DH's friend for gifting me the book....


P.S. I got the chance to taste one of the sweets from Philippine cuisine today. A colleague who came back from his home country ,brought us some sweets. The sweet I tasted is called Pinipig Polvoron.