Gifted Gorgeousness SAL February 2020 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 an easy SAL where you have a choice to stitch any designer, color or pattern, just that it should be a gift for someone or gift from someone.

Happy to report that I have something to show this month:

I started a Lizzie Kate pattern on 19th of last month . Here is the progress till now:

The chart was giveaway prize I won on Tiffany's blog and the fabric was received in an exchange with Diya.

I have changed the fabric and colors from the ones suggested in the pattern. I'n using Anchor variegated floss for stitching the design.

I wanted to complete this before posting for GG , however as you can see that's not what happened.
I would like to pass this chart to one of my active blog followers , so if you are interested, leave a comment and spread the word. If you plan to follow me for participating in the giveaway, I accept that you interact thru comments in future.

I will draw a name on my birthday-27th feb and declare the winner in next GG post.I plan to finish stitching the pattern before that :)

An update I would like to share is that I have started working again after a planned break . I now work as a consultant so lesser working hours give me flexibility to manage the house and work properly.

The funny thing is while I was on a break and had so much time on my hands, I couldn't find inspiration to stitch. Now , I try to stitch everyday before going to work-duration varies from 5 mins to 1 hour.

My husband gifted me this cross stitch theme cup for my new office .

Another little handmade gift I got was this coin purse made using a sewing machine by husband's 85 year old aunt . She really inspires me with her zeal to create things at her age.

Not a proper gift but I made this quick card, using a lace heart I won thru a cross stitch giveaway on Instagram, for a secret Valentine's day exchange on Ravelry.

That's it for the GG update.
Its getting hotter here day by day and feels like summer ..not the good kind of summer which people in UK enjoy. 😂
Hope you have a good month with lots of stitching time.

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL July 2019 update

Hello Friends,

I know I'm late ....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.

First is the giveaway prize I received from Rosey .

I don't have much to show you this month, I think my stitching bug is dead 😭.I'm worried and sad that I'm unable to pick my needle with all the time on my hands.I decided to not take a full time job when I moved to India so as to focus more on my hobbies but nothing of this sort is happening. Ladies, what should I do, I feel so lost.

Anyways I started this project to use leftover yarn given by my mom, the pattern is called Memory blanket.

Nothing else to share ...I'm sad that I'm not crafting .
No crafting during IHSW as I’m traveling to visit my husband’s college friend in neighboring state.
I will try to visit your blogs once I’m back.
Have a good weekend.

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL July 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.

Not much to show this time , also I'm really short of time as I'm flying out for a business trip tomorrow and I have to start packing..oops

First is a Giveaway win - I won this Lizzie Kate chart  thru Tiff's blog giveaway in March. Thank you Tiffany for the chart.

While we are talking about giveaway, let me announce winners of my first blog giveaway:

Winner is Khristine from http://cross-stitching-mama.blogspot.com/ 

Winner is Sherry from https://countrycrossstitchersmusings.wordpress.com/

Please send me your address at my email address :minizinbox@yahoo.com or if you are connected to me thru facebook or Instagram, send me personal message.

I stitched a small design on this pre-sewn pouch in December for keeping some tit bits for babies. This will now be gifted to grandson of one of my colleagues. The design is from a magazine gifted by my friend Tammy. I will add details of the design later, if anyone is interested.

That's it my friends for this month, I will be back with a post on another exchange I'm participating in.

Year 2016 review and Crafty plans for 2017

Hello Friends,

Another year has come to an end and it is time to reflect on the year gone by.

2016 was a good year to say the least...I think I grew as a human being and have found ways to be happy(read avoid circumstances/people which/who make me unhappy).

The year has been good one with vacations, visits to meet family and some surprise meet ups with friends...something I always wish for.

As you all know, 2015 was a major breakthrough year cross stitching wise, 2016 may not have been so exciting however there are some new things I did in this year.

1. Participated in a cross stitch mystery SAL.

2. Started to write a daily and a craft journal.

3. Participated in postcard exchanges.

4. Won a cross stitch giveaway on Instagram.

5. Bought a cross stitch magazine in Kuwait.

6. Joined a book club and have managed to finish listening to one audio book.

7. Participated in a cross stitch blog hop.

8. First independent knitting finish.

9. Participated in a cross stitch ATC swap on Instagram.

10. First charity stitching.
11.Participated in monthly handwriting challenge on Instagram.

I managed to finish 15 cross stitch projects this year, 7 of which have not been gifted so can't show you yet.

I also made 1 knitted scarf, 1 crochet coaster, 1 quilling card , 1 washi tape card and a embroidery hoop this year.

Here is a pie chart showing my year round crafting,less stitching days compared to 2015

At the start of the year, I set up some crafting goals .Let’s see how well I managed to achieve them

1. Try blackwork - ❌

2. Learn 2 new ways of finishing cross stitch - ❌

3. Stitch on evenweave fabric-Yes stitched on 25 ct vintage lugana ✔

4. Stitch a medium/big size kit - Yes stitching a kit bought in 2014, however have swapped the fabric✔

5. Use stash the maximum -I only bought one cross stitch kit this year and my spending on needlework stash was half of what I spent in 2015.😅✔

6. Pick fabric painting again - ❌

7. Try embroidery other than cross stitching :) - Yes did some free hand embroidery ✔

8. Keep trying to crochet- I have now finished making a single crochet coaster 😁 ✔

9. Learn quilling. This has been pending since 2010- Yes made a birthday card for DH✔

The score is 6/9, not bad haa!!!

I enter the New Year with only one cross stitch WIP and have made some plans for year 2017.

Candamar Designs kit-My only WIP from 2016

Monthly SALs I will be participating in

1. New Year New Start with Stitch Maynia (FB group)- I will start Dimension kit "Indian peacock" on 1st Jan 2017.

New Year New Start 

2. Tour de Designers 2017 - SODA stitch with Stitch Maynia (FB group) - I will start "The Love Rain" on 1st April. This was a gift from Justine.

3. Tour de Designers 2017 - Lizzie Kate with Stitch Maynia (FB group)- I will start "I Cannot Count"  on 1st July. The Kit was bought in 2015, however the patterns calls for specialty threads which I don't have.

Blog SALs/Activities 

1. I will continue to participate in Gifted Gorgeousness SAL .I recently found out that my bestie is pregnant ,so that means I have 2 birth samplers to stitch now.
2. I joined Kaye's Friday Frolicking somewhere near April but shamefully posted only once. Will try to post more often.
3. The Alphabet Club . Haven't posted about this since April. Need to catch up

For goals, I would like to work on goals 1,2, 6, 8 of 2016 which I wasn't able to achieve. My resolution for 2017 is to dedicate more time for crafting specially on holidays/vacation.

The goals I have set are not stringent , however I'm sure I will need encouragement from time to time from you my friends.

Wishing you a healthy and a crafty 2017. 

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.

July wrap up

Hello Friends,
Another month has come to an end and it's time for a monthly report.

I participated in Just one July SAL organised by Justine this month. As you know ,I have been stitching my EMS Flower of the Month project for this SAL.Here are some progress shots:

Left shows my progress before the start of  SAL.
Completed September flower on 7-Jul-16

Worked on some borders

Finished October flower on 23-Jul-16

Progress on November flower as on 30-Jul-16

I have now decided to stitch this piece until its completed.

Remember I told you I will show you some stash in my next post.My friend K is back from States and has bought me goodies.
First is my win from Mii Stitch's fourth blog anniversary giveaway.Thanks Mii, I love it!

Did I tell you that I have been tempted to buy Dimensions Kits since long? I love the designs they have to offer . However, I had read about how the aida in kits is rough and stiff and people run out of floss.To avoid these problems, I was looking to buy only a chart . Didn't get much success in that.So, I went ahead and bought a design which has been on my wish list

Isn't these beautiful? Do you know Peacock is National Bird of India? This is my first time buying cross stitch item from Ebay and I was a bit skeptical based on the feedback on various forums. Thank God , the seller sent me an original kit.

Here is my monthly stitching pie or should I say crafting pie

I have often mentioned that I'm part of a wonderful craft group here in Kuwait and we have regular meetups .We usually meet in coffee shops like Starbucks however it has been my intention to meet at new places so that we can explore Kuwait along with crafting.
Mid of July we met at a coffee shop called Lobelia Cafe. Its a small coffee shop with a vintage chic theme and the colors used are white and pink.The cafe has a sea view and we enjoyed our time there.

Yesterday we met at THE One, which is a cafe and Furniture store , isn't that a quirky combination

You can see a price tag hanging from one of the chairs here.

Thank you for your feedback on the blogger issues. Trust me I'm not as worried about the number of comments on my blog as about my posts showing up on the dashboard of  my followers.Turns out one of my followers wasn't able to see them .
Blogger issues still continue as I saw some weird feed on other blogger accounts. Hope the blogger team works on this soon.

It's time for our annual vacation and me and DH are busy planning . Any guesses what our destination country is this time?

Have a happy Sunday .

FOTM September Update and other ramblings

Hello Friends,
Another month has come to an end ,which makes me look back and realize how little I have achieved in terms of goals I made when I first posted for GG SAL. Three medium sized stitched gifts for my college buddies.. ha what was I thinking.
September by far has been one of the most productive stitchy month. I finished stitching January and February flowers ,they were missing two colors. Made some progress on the March flower...

I'm now targeting to finish my biggest piece ever and that has been the focus since 23rd.I hope I will be able to post a finish picture soon.

I won Rosey's blog giveaway in July and this is what I received ...You must be wondering what took it long to reach me ..well the same postal woes. I didn't wanted to lost my prize in post ,so I asked Rosey to post it to Tammy ,who was in USA then.

Gifts from Tammy

Thank you Rosey and Tammy !!

The best thing that happened with my rediscovery of love of cross stitch (which happened in June last year, see my post here) was introduction to so many cross stitch blogs and bloggers. I have learnt so much thru these blogs- various stitching techniques, fabrics, storage, shopping places ,giveaways and exchanges.
The cherry on the cake are the letters / postcards/greeting cards I receive from my stitchy friends . I had almost forgotten the happiness one gets when you open a letter and read somebody's handwriting ..as if the person is talking to you in real.

As I am writing this post I ponder how the few letters, which my dad and mom wrote me when I was in college, are my life long treasures. My mother in law used to write us letters occasionally whenever she used to send us her home made spices and sweets .
My favourite activity of childhood was to write postcards to my grandmother. This is how a blank postcard issued by Indian postal offices looked like..I wonder is it still available.

Until I shifted to Kuwait , I wrote letters to my brothers for Raksha bandhan and they used to make fun of me.

I think art of letter writing is dying a slow death with the emergence of all this fast communication methods of phone and internet.
May be I am old school who enjoys the warmth of a hand written letter.

Do you like writing and receiving letters?

Here's my monthly stitch pie chart