Gifted Gorgeousness SAL August Update

Hello Friends...
Here is my late post for the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL ...late for good reasons.
I'm on vacation these days..right now as i write this post sitting in bed, i can see a lighthouse from my window. .pure bliss.
I am so delighted to show you what Jo , the hostess of Gifted gorgeousness sal herself , has sent me as part of our exchange.Jo carefully selected so many things which match my taste , however my favorite is the coaster.She has stitched flowers for my birth month and my intial ..i love it.

The picture above doesn't do justice to the beautifully stitched coaster..hop onto Jo's blog to get a better look.  The packet includes a mystery novel, charms, madeira threads, iron on transfer patterns, design booklet, cards and tin to keep needles and threads, perfect to carry on a vacation.
Here's what i stitched for Jo..Autumn is her favourite season.

As i wasn't able to get an appropriate magnet i tried making one..

Both the patterns above are freebies , link to which i will add in my finishes page.

I also want to show you my latest stash acquisition but may be in my next post.

Till then happy stitching.

The Alphabet Club - A is for Aarambh & Asha...

Its the first Saturday of the Month and time to post first entry for the Alphabet Club hosted by Chiara at the Grey Tail.

In June, when Chiara and Jo came up with this idea, I literally jumped on the wagon. I thought this can be a great opportunity to introduce my fellow bloggers to the rich culture of India , my home land; and Kuwait, the country I now call home. Also I can talk about my hobbies such as cross stitch, travel and food using the Alphabets of languages I know (except English): Hindi, Punjabi and Marathi. Hindi is the main language of India and is written in Devanagiri script.

So here is my choice of words :

Aarambh (आरंभ , aa-rum-bh) is a Hindi word for beginning. I chose this word as I feel life is series of beginnings. Birth, first day at school, first day of college, marriage ,moving to a new location... aren't these all small beginnings. Beginnings bring "Asha" .
Asha (आशा , aa-sha) is a Hindi word for Hope. Hope of learning new things at school and College. Hope of a beautiful/life long/secure relationship through marriage.Don't you agree Aarambh and Asha go hand in hand ?

Amritsar ( pronunciation (help·info); Punjabi: ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤਸਰ; Punjabi pronunciation: [əmːɾɪt̪səɾ]) : One of my favourite cities in India, it is home to the Harmandir Sahib (commonly known as the Golden Temple), the spiritual and cultural center for the Sikh religion.

Image source:Wikipedia

I like being at Golden temple not because of religious reasons but the calm and peace which surrounds me whenever I'm there. The temple domes may be covered with gold sheets but its the place where people act most selflessly- cleaning shoes of visitors, mopping the floor, cooking food for strangers. The Langar (community kitchen) at the temple serves free food to millions of people from every race, religion, creed everyday.


A traditional local market for buying cloth in Amritsar. Image source:Internet

Not to forget the yummylicious street food available in Amritsar- kulche (naturally fermented flat bread), pinni (a sweet made of roasted lentils), bun tikki (Indian version of burger) and Aabu Challi (corn on the cob roasted in sand).Oh taking about these reminds me of wonderful time spent I had there during childhood.
It's also the best place to buy ethnic Indian attire Salwar kameez.


Oh yes I can also show you a cross stitch related item, I thinks this entry should qualify as the text starts with an "A" ;)

I hope I have not bored you with a long post ....I'm off to check out what other members of the club are up to

FOTM SAL July Check in

Hello Friends,
Here is my progress for the Flower of the Month SAL hosted by Alyssa at Brownie's Chair. This piece was my main focus for the month of July. I completed stitching 2 more flowers and the gaps you see in the flowers are due to floss shortage.

I think I have lost my stitching mojo. All I do the whole day is keep thinking of stitching and when I actually sit to stitch, I can't put more than 15 stitches in the piece. I don't know what's wrong , the project I'm working on doesn't have many color changes or confetti, still I ended up making two mistakes .

 

I really hope I find my stitching mojo back soon, as I will be on vacation on the later part of August, giving me lesser time to stitch.

Here's how my Monthly Stitchy pie chart looks like:

Have a great weekend .

Exploring Kuwait

I just realized that its been almost one and half years that I moved to Kuwait for better career opportunities and never have written a post dedicated to my experiences here about the food/travel and other interests of mine .

To tell you the truth when I was shifting here I never made any queries about the country :its culture, food, society . I was more than happy to know that I will be able to work here and wear the type of clothes I want to ...which not many middle eastern countries allow for.

Kuwait being a desert doesn't have bountiful nature, which leaves Shopping Malls as the main places of attraction. I am not a  brand shopper so that kept me away from the big Shopping malls here. However, I never stopped looking for places of my interest and now that I have found some, thanks to internet and social network, I have started liking this place more than I used to like it last year :)

While roaming around in one of the sea side malls, I stumbled upon on this café called "Color me Mine". The café has a collection of plain ceramic/POP figurines/vases/bowls etc. The idea is to select a piece and paint it there with poster colors. Once the piece is painted, it is baked to add shine and then the person can take it home. The Café mainly attracts kids, who paint the pieces with help of lady instructor of the café, while having muffins or cakes. Isn't that cute? The Café  also displayed few pieces to be sold for charity and I was able to pick some lovely stuff .

One of the walls of the Café



Below paintings were displayed in the covered bridge connecting the mall and the marina.



Medium scale model of Dhow

Last Thursday I attended Eid celebration at TIES center and visited the Second chance charity and handmade shop there. I can now guess what charity shops and thrift stores in the UK & USA would be like. I was able to find some nice stuff there-small table ware items , stationery and beautiful crochet doilies which some of the local ladies had donated for charity. Sorry I didn't take any pictures.

Now about my second passion food

Me & DH were treated in a contemporary Indian restaurant Asha's few days back.This is a chain of restaurant at multiple locations around the world run by famous Bollywood Singer Asha Bhonsale.



Ordered Mai's favourite.Image courtesy:Internet

The food quality was up to my expectations, a bit spicy though, however I feel they should offer more vegetarian options being an Indian restaurant.

On Sunday , B&B had a sudden urge to eat Thai food and search for Thai restaurants in Kuwait began. We were so surprised to find a branch of famous Thai chain Sabaidee  near our house..




Som Tum



Pad Thai & Pad Wood Sen

The food was delicious and great value for money. They won my heart by making a vegetarian version of Pad Thai. 

The idea of this post is not to review any food or shopping joint. Its my way of sharing my life here in Kuwait and also to help new expats . I am thankful to many local bloggers about providing useful information about the country on their blogs from which I have benefited.

Do you guys like exploring new places? Do you search for online reviews of restaurants/cities/tourist places before you visit them?

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL July update and my first ever Stitchy exchange

Hello Friends,
Its been a month I haven't posted on my blog...I have been busy with stitching and socializing.
I didn't post for TUSAL as I wasn't feeling inspired to continue with this SAL and have bowed out of it now.
Before I write any further, I would like to welcome my new followers and thank them and other blog visitors for commenting. I really appreciate that.

Well, this is going to be a picture heavy post as I have lot to show.

First of all, I would like to show you how my stitchy friend Diya pampered with me her gifts. I have known Diya for a few months now, we met on facebook in a cross stitch group. Since then, as we interacted we discovered, we had similar interests and some of her family/friends visit Kuwait for work or personal reasons.

Last month, I asked Diya would she be interested in a Stitchy Exchange, the answer of course was Yes! This is what she sent me

See how the packets are numbered as each of them had a gift related to one of my hobbies.

Look at the Cute Penguin she stitched for me, isn't it adorable. She has been so generous to include gifts from her trip to Thailand ...painting, hand cream, soap, cross stitch kits. Also she added a book for baby gifts with some linen and Aida...Oh Diya, I can't express how I feel about these...Thank you Sweetie.

Here is what I sent her

 

Yes, that's an ornament..my first one and I'm tiny meeny proud how it turned out. Herez a side look

Another gift which I stitched for first anniversary of my friend couple is a cover kit that came with Cross Stitch crazy 202.

This is my first time stitching a cover kit and I was really surprised by the stiffness of aida that came in it. Initially I thought I will break the needle and was stitching at snail speed. Then I realized its because I use the sewing method rather than stab method for stitching .The lengths of threads were too short to use loop start, so I switched to stab method and used knots to get comfortable. However, I'm really happy how the finished piece looks like and the recipients liked it too.

Did you notice so many firsts in these post- first exchange, first cover kit, first ornament :)

Other than stitching, I haven't really tried any new recipes in cooking. However, I did explore few new cafes and restaurants and will post about my experience later. I also have few other crafty things to share ...so watch this space.

As promised about sharing a picture of my life in Kuwait in each blog post, here's a pic of view of water front from one of the sea side malls in Kuwait.

Hope you are having a good stitching time

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL June Update and Lovely WWKIP Day

I was so excited to write this post that I prepared a draft on Saturday evening hoping to post first thing on Sunday, only to realize that it isn't 15 on Sunday ...

This time for the GG SAL, I have two finishes to show

I finally put last stitch on the Sunflower bouquet on Friday evening and it turned out more beautiful than I expected. This is a retirement gift for a very generous colleague.

After the initial hick ups of bad chart quality and not having required floss, the second innings went smooth. I  skipped backstitching the flowers (You all know my fear of backstitching, don't you !) .This may be my best attempt at backstitching ...lol
Here is a close up of the stitches.

Notice how in the second pic , stitches are in all directions. This is my first project where I tried having all my \\\\ and //// in same direction. It took me 36 days to finish this piece. Other details can be found here

The second partial finish is the EMS April flower of the month, except the inner borders. I have decided that I will stitch the borders during my crafty meet ups as it requires less counting. The fabric was a gift from a friend ,hence I can include this in GG SAL.

13th June was World Wide Knit in Public day and I decide to take the initiative for organizing it here in Kuwait. This was first time for Kuwait and we had an attendance of 8 wonderful ladies.

Image courtesy :Tammy



The café where we met was situated by the Sea

We had such a gala time chatting and crafting that I'm sure everyone made new friends.
I even tried my hands at crochet and failed terribly. Tammy was patient enough to teach me the basics. Look what wonderful gifts Tammy gave me :

My knitty friend L from ravelry group will be leaving Kuwait soon and this is what she gifted me.

                                           

Thank you Ladies for such a great time and gifts.

I will now have more stitching time from Thursday because of lesser working hours in the month of Ramadan. I hope to finish my pending projects and start a new one.

I'm off to see what other stitchers have to show in their GG posts.

New recipes and An Upcoming Meetup

The cooking fairy is here (that's my equivalent of stitching bug) and I have been trying a lot of new recipes in the past few days.

DH & Me are again in that mode where we refuse to eat the common daily food and everyday we want to have "something new" for dinner.

I'm going to add a new feature to my blogging about cooking. I'm now going to  rate the recipes I try for ease of cooking, time required for cooking,ease of availability of ingredients and DH's rating for taste.
I'm not a big chef or food connoisseur that my ratings or review will matter much . However , there are reasons why a person would decide to try a new recipe. Ingredients and time required to cook are the main factors which let me decide whether I will cook that recipe or not. With my work schedule. I'm prefer less time consuming recipes.

1. Oven roasted Zucchini

Zucchini in one of the new ingredients I have added to my food plate now. Zucchini is not native to India and is only available in special stores there. Since I have moved to Kuwait, I wanted to use it in my cooking so I bought a big box of Zucchini last week.

DH loves roasted food and this what I cooked ...
Recipe source:http://www.cookingclassy.com/2014/05/garlic-lemon-parmesan-oven-roasted-zucchini/
Ease of cooking : 9/10 if you have a oven at home(Higher rating -easier to cook)
Time required : 30 mins , Rating 8/10 (Higher rating -less time to cook)
Availability of ingredients :8/10
DH's rating : 8.2
Changes made to recipe: I used a table spoon of cheese spread instead of parmesan cheese .

2. Zucchini With Corn and Cilantro

Of course one more zucchini recipe.. remember I bought a box. Sorry no picture

Recipe source:http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20509747_8,00.html
Ease of cooking : 10/10
Time required : 15 mins , Rating 9/10
Availability of ingredients :8/10
DH's rating : 6.6
Changes made to recipe: I used coriander instead of cilantro .

3. Spinach with Eggs (Yumurtalı Ispanak)

Recipe source:http://almostturkish.blogspot.com/2009/04/spinach-with-eggs-yumurtal-ispanak.html

Ease of cooking : 9/10
Time required : 30 mins , Rating 8/10
Availability of ingredients :10/10
DH's rating : 6.2

Spinach is not one of my favourite greens and DH absolutely loves it. Turkish cuisine has many spinach recipes and I chose Yumurtalı Ispanak this time.
Please do not hesitate to try this recipe as the DH rating is based on the bitter taste of spinach. Turns out that he had bought a local green leaves(don't know the name) thinking that it was spinach.
I'm sure if cooked with spinach the rating will go up to 8 :)

4. 3 B Stir fry

Recipe source:http://www.tarladalal.com/3-B-Stir-fry-(-Healthy-Diabetic-Recipe-)-33690r

Ease of cooking : 9/10
Time required : 30 mins , Rating 8/10
Availability of ingredients :7/10, May have to buy bean sprouts from a super market
DH's rating : 8.75
Changes made to recipe(not intentional): I read baby corn as sweet corn ;)

The recipe turned out to be delicious...I wasn't expecting that.
Next time I'm thinking of serving it with plain rice.

That's all on cooking front, let me know if you try any of these recipes.

Remember how I told you that I'm desperate to meet crafters locally. I think my prayers may have been answered...I read about World Wide Knit in Public day somewhere on the internet, and thought why not. I'm a part of knitters group and I know the basics.
So I'm now hosting World Wide Knit in Public day in Kuwait (I'm teeny meeny proud of this).
More prayers answered--I found Tammy through one of fellow bloggers post.
Tammy is an active blogger, crocheter, crafter and a lady with most infectious positive attitude. I haven't met her yet ,all this is what I gather from her blog and few email interactions. So I contacted Tammy and told her about my idea WWKIP in Kuwait. She encouraged me and have been actively spreading the word about the event. Thank you Tammy.

Well when I say I'm hosting the event, there is not much I need to do apart from some internet posts and registering the event.
I know I shouldn't expect a big turn around for the event but I'm sure I will meet new knitters/stitchers/crocheters there.

Inspired by Tammy's blog I will now try to include one picture of my life in Kuwait.
This is a picture of the first flower which bloomed at my house in Kuwait.
We just loved it and couldn't help clicking a picture ...

On stitching front ,I have finished stitching the Sunflower bouqet with only the dreaded back stitching left to do. There are 5 shades of back stitching and the chart is in black and white . So I will use my imagination ....

See you soon for the GG post.