Autumn , Festives vibes and some stitching

Hello friends,

It is Autumn in my part of the world. I don't remember if I had seen autumn in India , though it was mentioned as one of the seasons in India in school text books. I have been enjoying the color changes and now the barren trees around my house. Here are pictures of 1st week of October.

Same tree, 29 days apart

October was Diwali month . I have been busy hosting Diwali dinners , prepping for the festival, decorating the house. We hosted two dinners -one for my husband's team members with their partners and then husband's colleagues who moved from India with us.

Both the dinners were success , however I enjoyed the first one more. The first group were non-Indian people, so whatever items I prepared were new to them. I loved talking about recipes, ingredients and similarities between cooking in different cultures. 

We were so busy chatting and eating that we didn't click any pictures.

Diwali outside India is always interesting-trying to source the materials for festivals, finding shops which sell Diwali stuff. We tried making best of what was available locally, however I missed the lights and flower decoration, sweets we have in India.

Some pics of the Diwali decor.

I realised that I just have two cross stitched items for Diwali Decor, so after days of pattern hunting, I bought two cross stitch magazines and plan to stitch these for next year.

On the 18th,I got an oppurtunity to volunteer at Glasgow School of Yarn , an annual event which invite indie yarn suppliers and designers to showcase their products. 

I haven't got time much time for cross stitch between all this , however I managed to finish cross stitching on this piece. I'm finding it difficult to back stitch this one, as the chart is black and white and one has to keep looking at the kit cover to understand which color to use for back stitch.

I have another update which I will share in my next post. 

Happy crafting

Let the People Choose-May Update

Hello Friends,
First Saturday of the month I join Jo for The People's Choice SAL . Jo takes a poll for people to choose a topic for the month and the participants then post about stitchy projects related to that topic.

This month's topic is Fire. Now this is a tricky one- I don't think I have stitched a piece with fire in it. No problem about that, we can interpret the topic of this SAL in our own way. I waited for few people to post about this topic and see what their interpretation is.

Fire is considered holy in Hinduism, religion I follow. Agni, and thus fire, is a symbol used in many Hindu ceremonies that form a rite of passage; births, marriages and funerals.Fire is a source of light and I can't imagine celebrating my favourite festival Diwali without light. Diwali is a festival of lights and we light earthen lamps, candles and these day electric lights to celebrate the festival.I stitched this piece in 2018 :

Free Pattern from Daily Cross Stitch

I have received many hand made Diwali gifts showing Diyas(earthen lamps) over the years.

Gift from Preeti

Gift from Zhraa

Gift from Zhraa

Gift from Tammy

Here are patterns on my wish list showing earthen lamps:

Now,I'm going to check what other have posted for this SAL.

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL October 2019 update and IHSW

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.

Also , it was IHSW this past weekend , so I'm clubbing these two in one post.

I actually stitched this IHSW after missing it for 6 months.

I started a new project on Friday morning and finished it yesterday evening.

Here it is:

Pattern source:Cross Stitch Crazy magazine, Issue 142

This will be sent to my best friend for her birthday in November. This finish gets double GG points as it was a gift in an exchange I did with Kerry (who sadly doesn't blog anymore) . 

The funny thing is Kerry forgot to send me the chart with the kit and then I contacted Kerry and the magazine to see if they can send me the chart. Well, it didn't work but I liked the design so much that I charted it in excel looking at the cover pic.

I still don't know the designer which is the case with all cover kits I have.

Some other crafting, I really enjoyed making these Diwali (Hindu festival of lights) cards and decorating postcards for Diwali wishes. The idea was to revive letter writing/postcard writing as in this digital media no one cares about a handwritten card.

While we are talking about Diwali, can anyone of you help me in locating the source and designer of this design?

There is serious shortage of designs depicting religions other than Christianity(no offence to anyone here) in the cross stitching world. So I was pretty happy to see the following design on The World of Cross Stitching magazine's facebook page.

If you have bought November 2019 issue of he World of Cross Stitching magazine and would like to share the original pattern with me , I would be really appreciate that.

It was nice feeling to stitch after a gap of months, hope I can continue this now.

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL November 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.

Sorry , I have been missing from blog land. I have been busy with work, festivals, holiday planning and musical events.

I missed posting for last month GG as I have not been cross stitching. 

Kuwait has been hit by rains since last week. Though the intensity of rain is nothing compared to what I'm used to in India, it has created quite a havoc. The country is not designed for rains, with an  absent drainage system. 
Government declared holidays on 6th Nov, yesterday and today as a precautionary measure. Personally, I haven't experienced any loss but water has been leaking thru cracks in my house. Last Friday evening it got scary when I saw cars being carried away by water .

Anyways, the unexpected holidays have given me time to pick up my needle. I finished a project last night at 1 am which was supposed to be used for decoration last week.

This project has a lot of firsts: First time stitching a Daily CrossStitch pattern though I have dozens saved in my computer, first time stitching a holiday pattern for my home, first time stitching a pattern celebrating Hindu festival. I added the text in Hindi to complete the design.

The pattern was stitched on gifted fabric and the floss was gifted too.The frame was bought in one of the store closing down sales and I think its perfect.

In case , you are wondering why I picked up a Diwali pattern to stitch. We (and millions of Hindus across the world) celebrated the festival of Lights during 5th - 9th November this year.

Diwali is my favorite festival and decorating the house after a deep cleaning operation is what I enjoy most. I made few savory snacks and traditional sweets this year, decorated the house with flowers, rangoli and diyas.

Sharing some pics :

Most of the items you see in the pictures above are handmade by my craft friends and gifted for the occasion over the years.

I had a very fulfilling experience this year during Diwali, I did what I enjoy most:cooking and decorating.

As its a long weekend here this time, I started crafting for IHSW today and made christmas cards thi morning.

That's it my friends for today, I hope you are safe in your corner of the world.

Gifted Gorgeousness mixed with Diwali celebrations

Hello Friends,

Hope you are enjoying fall or onset of winter in your part of the world.

Sorry I have been missing in action, not much crafting happening here. I think I’m sad from the fact that the year is coming to an end and I don’t have a proper crafty finish except the small projects I stitched for swaps.

Anyways, I’m here to show you the gifts I have been showered upon since my last post.

Remember the owl card for a cross stitch card swap I showed in my last post, my partner stitched this cute Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery design for me, changing the hair color to match mine. Also this was her first attempt at linen, so well done my friend.

  

   

I framed the card using an IKEA frame I had at home. What do you think of it?

We celebrated the Festival of Lights from Oct 17-Oct 21. It’s my favourite Indian Hindu festival and this year I made some extra efforts at decoration which I will show later in this post. I invited my craft friends for evening snacks and we had a good time.

My friend Tammy made this Diwali cross stitch along with lovely crochet doilies.

  

Diwali gifts from Tammy

My friend Z is an amazing crocheter and can make anything using crochet. Look at these beautiful Diya (earthen lamp) holders she made.

  

Diwali Gifts from Z

I finished the sweets they brought before I could click a picture.

I’m so lucky to have friends who take out time to make handmade gifts for festivals they don’t celebrate and know much about. But their inquisitiveness to learn about new culture and traditions inspires me and I hope we have more such acceptive people in this world.

As I told I have been crafting much but I tried FFOing this Friday, a cross stitch I received from Shami in beginning of this year. Then I bought a basket to display all the cross stitch I have received in swaps and as gifts and made a small cross stitch corner in my house.

 

Gift from Shami, now FFOed

  

Small cross stitch corner in the house

Diwali Décor:

Apart from the traditional décor of Rangoli and decoration with flowers and earthen lamps, I set up two small corners in the living room for Diwali this time. 

 

Rangoli

 

Corner 1 by the day

 

Corner 1 by the night, pic courtesy hubby dear

I had some sequins given to me by mom years ago and some beads which are a bit too big to use for projects, they were used for the décor.

Corner 2 by the day

Corner 2 by the night

The décor in the upper pic of corner 2 shows crochet diya gifted on last Diwali by Z, a crocheted tea light and coasters by Tammy, cross stitch words by Shami and coaster by Jo.

  

Crochet Diya, gift from Preeti

We hung two Kandeel (lantern with a wooden framework and covered in coloured matte or glossy papers) in two corners of the house. It is a practice to buy new stuff during Diwali like jewellery, clothes etc. We bought new curtains for the living room in my favorite floral print.  

No pics of the food table as it was same as last year.

I hope you like the pics of Diwali celebration at my home.