Its been a year- a year of exploring, stitching and being at peace!

Hello friends, 

Can you believe its been a year I moved to Scotland ? They say time flies when one is having a good time...clearly that is the case here. 

What a year it has been ...settling into a new country, new weather , new culture and new routine . Some of my family members were curious how I was happy being at home and wasn't taking up a job after working for 20 years . I guess its easier when someone is a home body like me. I love being at home- waking up at my own time, just sitting with my cats, gazing at the rain , reconnecting with my hobbies .

Summer is has been lot kinder to us here in Scotland than rest of UK . We had maximum temp of 26deg C twice and currently we are at 15-19 deg C range . We have explored nearby places on day trips and went away to Aberdeenshire for our 19th wedding anniversary. 

Marischal Collage, Aberdeen

Fyvie Castle

Aberdeen beach front to the North Sea

Dunnottar Castle near Stonehaven, Scotland

Everything is so beautiful in the summer and I observed the transition from spring to summer thru new flowers I would see on my walks every week.

Rhododendron

Peonies

Tulips at Greenbank gardens

 

I have been stitching , though I got exhausted once and once the mojo was thrown out of the window. I will share which projects did that to me.

I had the pleasure of hosting one of my penpals at my house in May. We first connected thru Instagram and have been exchanging mails since few years. He surprised me when he said he would visit Scotland from France to meet me. I wanted to stitch  a gift for him either on the theme of letters(snailmailing) or something related to Scottish Culture .

I'n very happy to show this is what I stitched for my friend, nothing speaks more about scottish culture than Fish & Chips.

I was on a tight deadline for this project so I burnt the midnight oil few days before his arrival. At first my eyes took time to 25 ct evenweave as I have been stitching on 14ct aida in last few years. I skipped the border on the vertical sides .

Another project I have completed is for my maternal aunt , this will be finished into a small pillow for decoration.

I love daffodils , I had such a lovely time stitching this. However , I did get frustrated by the end , why would a designer use 18 colors for  a pattern of  47*47 stitches! This pattern was one of the two smaller patterns from a big design, so may be the designer didn't optimise the colors. 

I have finished another gift, which I will put in a frame today. I have few more Christmas finishes , however I'm saving them for Christmas time .

I'm travelling to India to visit my family next Sunday ...so excited to meet them after a year. I will carrying some finishes to be fully finished using my mother's sewing machine.

Hope to write more regularly on the blog in future. 

Have a relaxing Sunday my friends.

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.

Let's try this again!!

Hi Blog Friends,

Exactly 1 year ago I posted on this blog trying to explain why I have been absent for years...

I was expecting little more engagement and may be got discouraged by the absence of comments on that post.

Though I have not been blogging this last year, I have been reading blogs on my reading list and leaving comments here and there.

Today I observed that some bloggers continue to blog even if there is no engagement from readers. This got me to thinking that may be I should also start blogging again...it may not serve the purpose of connecting with other cross stitchers , at least it will serve as a diary for my projects .

You see when I started blogging in 2014, it was to connect with other cross stitchers around the world . Instagram was still new and not used for cross stitch by many people . Blog and Facebook groups were common media for cross stitch related interactions back then. 

Things have certainly changed in last 10 years, people are moving to more easier to use platform -Instagram . So many bloggers stopped blogging ...Hats off to the ones who still blog regularly .

I don't want to give up on blogging yet , so here I am ...

Sharing a project which I finished in Mar 2021. This was custom order from my close friend for her nephew. I gave here the design options and she picked this one.

The recipient lived close by to my then house, so I hand delivered it .

              Pattern name :Ten Tiny Toes Sampler
              Designer: DMC
               Pattern source: DMC

I still enjoy this finish ..hope you do too.

Be Well and Stitch

Hello Friends,
I hope you are safe and keeping busy in this worrisome time. It is indeed scary whats happening in the world. My country is under lock down till 14th April , husband and I are following the instructions given by the Govt. to keep safe unlike many stupid people in my country who just don't care.
Anyways , I wanted to cheer you (and myself) up by sharing my latest finish.

Bee Well By Autumn Lane Stitchery

I'm sure you are all aware of the freebies designers in cross stitch community have been offering under the hashtag #bewellandstitch. It is so generous of them to take time out to design something for helping the community in this tough time.

I have always wanted to join and stitch something for such wonderful causes like the stitches for Australia , unfortunately I wasn't able to do it either due to bad postal system(when living in Kuwait), laziness and/or finding out about the the cause a little too late.
However, I'm happy this time I could join. I have saved all the designs being offered under the hashtag on Instagram.
Sharing links for few I like in the caption:

Picture credit :Silver Creek Samplers

Picture Credit: JBW designs 

Picture credit : SewMuch2Luv

Bee Well by The Blackberry Rabbit

You can follow the hashtag  #bewellandstitch on Instagram and Facebook to find more designs.

I hope these links help you a bit to take your mind off .

Take care friends.

IHSW May 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.

Can you believe its third weekend of May already?This year is flying by so quickly, it needs to stop.
I had a very productive weekend. I stitched to my hearts desire and very happy with the progress I made .
Here is a before, after pic and picture of what the finished piece looks like.

Fabulous Florals 

Designed by : Claire Comerford

Pattern source : The World Of Cross Stitching Magazine, Issue 245

On Thursday I was chatting with a fellow cross stitcher and she asked what I was stitching these days . I replied to her "Flowers again" . I don't know why I have started to believe that there is no variety in my projects. I mostly stitch flowers and I think it is kind of boring. Well I have reasons why I stitch flowers which I have talked about before on my blog. I mainly stitch gifts and the recipients are not big fans of fantasy, Star wars, GOT and they don't have a clue what a sampler is ! So my safest bet is Flowers.

With these thoughts in mind, on Friday I was discussing with my husband can I start a new project which is not flowery ? He said, well you can but didn't you say in your last post that you want to  finish current WIP in a month? Reality check is what was needed 😏😥and I was back to stitching what you see above.

I know many of you have a eclectic taste and stitch wide variety of projects so I ask do you find it boring to see same themed projects in my posts. I wish there were more Indian themed designs other than the peacock, tiger and the elephants 😞.

Do you discuss cross stitch with your partners? What projects to start, how much money to spend on hobbies?

Let me know in comments, interested to read what you ladies think.

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL May Update

Hello Friends,

It's that time of the month when we show what gifts we have been working on or/and what crafty gifts we have received. If you don't know what I'm talking about , check Jo's blog for more info. This is a easy SAL where you have choice to stitch any designer, color or pattern, just that it should be a gift for someone or gift from someone.

My stitchy bug is back and I'm enjoying adding stitches to my main WIP which I'm making for my mother's 60th birthday. I'm trying to keep up with my personal challenge of "Stitch every Day in May". Life is getting busy with changes at work and some days I'm too tired to stitch.

Here is how my WIP "Fabulous Florals" looks like now:

 Fabulous Florals 

Designed by : Claire Comerford

Pattern source : The World Of Cross Stitching Magazine, Issue 245

I have managed to reach the top and left most point of the piece. I have stitched all the stitches of DMC 164 and Anchor 243 , so 2 out of 35 colors are done. I must confess the number of colors and fractionals in this piece scared me in the beginning. The designer seems to be fond of fractionals and the pattern has single stitches of one color spread throughout the design. Some pics to show you progress thru the days:

I will be working for shorter hours for a month starting tomorrow . I work 48 hrs in a week, for the next month it will be 36hrs a week. I have set a target to complete this piece in the month, lets see how it goes.

That's all I have to show for GG post.
I would like to thank you all for the sweet comments on my blog and specially to friends who liked the idea of "Stitch every Day in May" and agreed to participate with me in this challenge.

Happy stitching !

Take a bow!!

Hello Friends,

I just can't stop smiling and dancing in my head...the reason you ask...

Well I have finally completed all stitching on my biggest project ever. Here I present to you Flower of the month series designed by Ellen Maurer Stroh in its full glory. It took me so long to stitch this project that I can't believe that I finished it .

Some details:

Started on : 27-Apr-2015

Finished on: 18-Oct-2016
Number of days: 116

Stitched on: 14 count  Aida

Floss used : DMC,Anchor

Designer: Ellen Maurer Stroh

Stitch count each flower  : 63H*63W

The last time I showed you this project was in August ,very little was left to stitch. I was wondering why did it take me so long to finish after the last update? I realized these last two months have been pretty busy.Vacation in Greece which required a lot of planning , participating in exchanges, knitting , house hunting and some sick time.

We will be moving to a new house this weekend. We have been wanting to shift to a new house since start of the year, but weren't able to do because of unfavorable circumstances.

The move isn't going to take much time as we currently live in a furnished apartment. 

We just need to pack our clothes,kitchen utensils,toiletries and of course my huge craft stash and we are ready to move. However, this means we need to buy all the furniture and home electronics before we move in to our new house. That's what we have been doing since last week.

Not that I'm complaining about the move, I'm excited to be living in a new place and decorate the house as per my taste. Also very happy that we are able to move before Diwali, which is the biggest Indian(Hindu) festival.It's time to decorate the house with earthen lamps,flowers,colors after days of cleaning, make sweets and enjoy family time.

Oops I forgot to mention that this is a collective post for Gifted Gorgeousness SAL & IHSW hosted by Jo and Joyce respectively.

I hope you all are having a nice fall/autumn in your corner of the world.

And Then There Were Twelve

What is she talking about? Is it 12 days of Christmas ?

Nope my dear friends, I'm talking about the twelfth flower of Ellen Maurer-Stroh Flower of the month project I completed stitching yesterday.

This post is a joint check-in for Gifted Gorgeousness SAL hosted by Jo & IHSW hosted by Joysze.

I didn't forget to post for GG SAL on 15th , I was deliberately holding the post so as to show you some substantial stitching. Hermitting over the weekend helped me achieve this.

So without any further delay here is the last flower :December "Poinsettia" in its glory.

I had to move the q snap so I can work on borders of other flowers and I clicked a picture of the whole project so far. I need to add borders to 5 flowers, fill in some white and add backstitch to the butterfly, bees and daffodils.I think it will take a week to finish this.

This piece is a gift for my aunt's 25th wedding anniversary and the aida was a gift from a fellow stitcher.

Yesterday while I was stitching the borders, I realised that I may run out of floss. Intrigued that I have already used 2.5 skeins of floss for borders so far, I calculated  how long is the border. The 2 stitches wide border around all the flowers has a straight length of 10.7 metre. 120 metre of floss has been used and I'm guessing I need 100 metre more...

What is the maximum number of skeins of a single color you have used for a project?

In June I won a giveaway on Instagram...my first.It took a total of 61 days to get the parcel in my hand from Hungary . Out of these 61 days , Kuwait postal service took 51 days to deliver it to my PO box. It beats me why would a basic public service like postal system be so slow in a small city country like Kuwait. Anyways, I'm happy that I got the package as I had lost hope of getting it after I visited the post office sixth time.Rant over..Let's move onto gifts received.

The package contains 28 ct evenweave ,lace ,lots of ribbons, chocolates,postcard ,cross stitch pattern book and a needle case.Thank you Dóra for the goodies , I love these.


Hopefully in my next post, I will be able to show you the FOTM piece finished.

2015 Crafty Achievements & 2016 goals

Hello Friends,

Welcome to the last post of the year. Blogging has been so much fun this year and I have met some wonderful friends thru this.

I started my blog in 2011 to record my experiences of travelling and then I went MIA.
2014 was the year I started writing about my cooking experiments .
I have been part of cross stitch groups on facebook since July 2014 and I also follow various cross stitch magazine pages there.
One day (end of Jan I think) while browsing thru one of these pages, I saw Jo's comment. She was complaining that how she hadn't received her prize from one of the competitions run by that magazine which she can include in her Gifted Gorgeousness SAL. The term "Gifted Gorgeousness " caught my attention and I searched for it on Google and found Jo's blog. Rest is history as they say...ha ha
I asked Jo if I can participate in the SAL, posted about my cross stitching on the blog, back dated the posts to show the work I did in 2014.

2015 has been year of so many firsts cross stitching wise :

1. Participated in a blog SAL
2. Made a cross stitch card
3. Made a cross stitch ornament
4. Participated in a cross stitch exchange
5. Made a cross stitch cushion including the sewing
6. Stitched a cover kit
7. Bought a cross stitch magazine
8. Stitched on linen
9. Stitched a 20+ color pattern
10. Used  DMC floss (I know your jaw will drop after reading this)

I managed to finish 15 projects this year, however I can't show the 15th as the receiver hasn't got it yet. All were/are gifts.

My favourite finishes of the year

Cards I made during the year

Smalls stitched for exchanges and gifts

Here is a pie chart showing my year round stitching ,quite better than 2014.

Here are my crafting goals for 2016

1. Try blackwork
2. Learn 2 new ways of finishing cross stitch
3. Stitch on evenweave fabric
4. Stitch a medium/big size kit
5. Use stash the maximum
6. Pick fabric painting again
7. Try embroidery other than cross stitching :)
8. Keep trying to crochet. I have now finished making a single crochet coaster :)
9. Learn quilling . This has been pending since 2010.

I will be participating in GG SAL 2016 and EMS Flower of the month SAL on facebook .

I have been blessed to receive so many beautiful handmade gifts/cross stitch supplies from my blogging/crafty friends from all over the world all thru the year. I would also like to thank you all for your comments and appreciation of my work.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

A Big Happy Dance - Gifted Gorgeousness SAL November update

I have no zeal to blog these days though I have so much to tell you...

November has been a busy month with festivals, exploring around and my MIL visiting us here in Kuwait.

However I think I need to share with you the finish I'm so proud of... Fractal Bookmark FB-312 from Cross Stitch Collectibles. I loved stitching this piece so much...my first full coverage project and my first time handling 20+ colors.I tried cross country stitching and parking method at times for this project and I think I'm ready for big projects now.

This will be a gift for a friend , I hope she likes it.

Start Date    11/27/2014

End Date     10/23/2015

Stitch count  70H*200W

I'm trying to focus on my only WIP(as declared in my last post), EMS flower piece, not that I have a target in mind to finish it. May be I will start a new project in new year. I think joining a few SALs would be a good idea to get some motivation and I'm hoping Jo continues GG SAL in 2016 or I would be lost.What SALs are you joining?

Don't have any more words...will see you next month for the final GG check in.

Happy Stitching

P.S. I will be kitting a small project today night to carry to office.Things have changed since I drafted this post at 9 am ....lol 

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?