Hello from Kansas City , Part 2 !

Hi everyone,

It's hard to believe 1/4th of 2025 has gone by ...

Here I am sharing what else I did during my visit to Kansas City .

After the meetup ,my friend took me to a middle eastern restaurant for lunch. I was very conscious this time about ordering food in the USA- the portion size is huge, you are always asked about sides and drinks. 

There are so many cultural differences between dining out in India and USA. Major ones being- portion size, sharing of food and tipping culture. Not going to talk about these here, if you are interested to know about Indian dining culture , leave me a comment.

After much contemplation I ordered falafel sandwich with grilled veggies , side of lentil soup. Both were delicious.

If you have been following crafty news , you may be aware that Joann's , which is chain of big craft stores in USA is closing down. I came to know about it in January thru a office portal and I planned to visit it during my visit. My colleague was so kind to drive me to the nearest Joann's , her sister joined us and we scavenged thru the aisles. I picked up one skein of each DMC floss available. So happy I was able to add new colors to my stock.

Next day, my colleagues took me to Kansas city Zoo and Aquarium. I usually skip zoos but it was such a nice day to be outside that I took the chance.

Got to see some new to me animals.

On the second day of my trip, my team and I volunteered at a thrift store. Now, thrift stores don't exist in India and volunteering and community service isn't part of school /college system and doesn't earn you credits. My colleagues in the USA have to complete certain amount of volunteering hours as part of employment. I love thrift store concept and volunteering at one of them was such an enriching experience. Here is what I picked up from the thrift store.

I had an extra day before I flew back to India- my team took me to Kauffman Centre for the Performing arts and we were able to get a tour of the facility.

One of the visual and auditory highlights of Helzberg Hall is the Julia Irene Dennie-Kauffman Casavant Organ, Opus 3875. This custom-built instrument was commissioned to showcase incredible sound, elegant beauty, and perfect harmony complementing the acoustical and visual design of Helzberg Hall.

I close this post with the picture of these cross stitch leaflets/booklets my teammate gave me. She was talking to her mother about how I do cross stitch , her mother who is down sizing very generously sent these for me. How often do you meet people who gift stuff to strangers? 

I'm humbled by the love and affection my team showered me during my short trip.

IHSW February Check-in

Hello dear friends,

It's time to show what I stitched for International Hermit & Stitch weekend . If you don't know what  IHSW is, its a SAL which was started by Joysze at Random Ramblings .Here is how she describes it "International Hermit and Stitch Weekend takes place every 3rd full weekend of each month, from Friday till Sunday. In our very busy and hectic lives, IHSW is a chance for us to squirrel some time away for ourselves and "Hermit and Stitch." It is a time set aside to take care of us and our love for stitching."

Weekend in my part of the world is on Friday & Saturday, so I will be stitching from Thursday to Saturday and post on Sundays whenever I participate in IHSW.

Very happy to be showing you a new WIP for this post, I'm sure everyone was bored to see the same project -my nemesis project for 2 years now.

I picked up my new year new start for 2017 on Tuesday after stitching some smalls . This was also my project for Work That WIP 2018 - February SAL on Stitch Maynia. Here is how the project looked like on Wednesday 

Progress over the weekend

After working on 25 count evenweave for last few months, it feels different to work on Aida, the squares on fabric look so big , working with two threads is clumsy as the threads keep twisting and have to railroad for the stitches to lie flat. But then there is progress which is visible.I'm trying to do one color at a time, which I find very satisfying.

If you are wondering why the progress is less for a full weekend of stitching , its because Murphy's law came into play. You see I rarely go out on weekends or have any social life apart from my bi monthly craft gatherings. But I have observed that for IHSW , I will have social visits or will have to go out.This Friday we had a distant family member come over for dinner , on Saturday I met a bunch of expat ladies for breakfast whom I met thru Instagram.
Here a few pictures of the arabic food we had at Ayyame, all delicious.

Cheese & herbed Tabliya

Falafel with arabic bread

Gerse Ogaily

Though I must confess I'm not complaining about lack of stitching time , I love cooking , meeting new people and trying new food ☺.

I would like to thank you all for the comments on my last post, it felt like we all were celebrating my finish together. 

The Alphabet Club Catch up post : Letter M

Hello Friends,
Here I am with a very late entry for the Alphabet Club Letter M. This is going to be a long post, as so many interesting words that start with letter M.

M is for Maa , Hindi word for mother ( Pronunciation similar to how its said in English). I'm sure not many can deny the importance of a mother in a living being's existence. Personally I can't even imagine where I would be without my mother: from loving selflessly, to fighting with society to let me choose what I wanted to be, to accepting who I am , to teach me how to take care of family and last but not the least, passing down the love of crafts like embroidery, home decor and cooking .I always thought I was a papa's gal , but as I grow old I can't help but see how similar I am to my mother.
One day ,after a break of few years from cross stitching , I was looking for information on DMC on the Internet. My mother would often mention how DMC thread was available in India in her young age and how good the quality was. I was amazed to find so many beautiful designs on Internet . I started searching for a pattern to make for my mother's 60th birthday which was "then" in 10 years. This is the pattern I selected .

Design by Katherine Martin Tripp

Though my taste has changed ,since I have found the new world of cross stitch designers , I still may stitch this for my mother.

M for Mushakal- a vegetarian Fatayer. Its a turnover pastry/ sandwich made of pizza base type dough and baked in oven. As you know, I am a big foodie and when we shifted to Kuwait, I was looking for new Arabic vegetarian dishes to try . An acquaintance suggested why don't I try Mushakal. Since then its one of my favourite Arabic food,nothing beats the taste of oven baked closed sandwich stuffed with potato fries, fried egg plant and falafel served with pickled vegetables.

Cheese fatayer

M for Mujaddara is a Lebanese dish made of lentils and rice served with fried onions. You know how we Indians love lentils and rice , so any new way this combination is served excites me.

M for Ma'amoul is a middle eastern sweet delicacy. These are stuffed cookies made from semolina with ground date, pistachio or walnut filling. Shaped in a wooden mould called a tabi.

Ma'amoul

M is for Mor or Mayur( Mor has the same pronunciation as English word More), Hindi word for peacock. Peacock is national bird of India , found in dry areas like Rajasthan ,Gujarat. It is believed that a peacock dances during rain or to invite rain . There are many folk and movie songs about rainy season and peacock in India . 
I currently have one peacock WIP , I'm having so much fun stitching with blended threads, half stitches , still long way to go though.

Indian Peacock by Dimensions

Another peacock design I have my in stash

Stunning Peacock by Amanda Gregory, Published in The World of Cross Stitching, Issue 245

One of my favourite designer is Maria Demina who designs under the name Little Room in the attic. Though I have only stitched one design of hers, her water color designs are drool worthy.

Paisley freebie from Maria Demina, stitched in Aug 2015

Aren't these lovely?

That's it my friends for letter M, I will be back for next alphabet entry.