IHSW March 2019 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."

Joysze hasn't been posting regularly so our blog SAL savior Jo provides a blog link up and also runs facebook group for the SAL. 
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.

Well its well past Sunday , but late post is better than no post, right? 

I talked about my Thursday evening activities and my Friday finish here . 

After I finished the birthday card , I picked up my knitting needles to make something quick. I had saved a dishcloth  pattern of  since I saw it on Rosey's blog .  

Picture from Designer

Well after making four rows, something didn't feel right ..so I unraveled and put the pattern in excel to get a better idea. I realised I hadn't read the pattern properly ,blame it on the designer for not using * for repeated stitches (Knitters know what I mean). 

Second time I knitted the way correct pattern should be done and still the stars couldn't be seen...so I unraveled it again 😢 Rosey I don't know how you made yours but I failed...

I looked for some easy patterns and couldn't find anything I like ..so ended up making these garter stitches coaster.

I love the color of the yarn...
That's it for IHSW.

Today I received birthday cards from my snail mail friends..Aren't they lovely?

Have a good week everyone.

IHSW February 2019 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."

Joysze hasn't been posting regularly so our blog SAL savior Jo provides a blog link up and also runs facebook group for the SAL. 
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.

Well its well past Sunday , but late post is better than no post, right?

Here is what I stitched...A new start:February Owl from Lesley Teare's monthly SAL . The SAL is free and you can join anytime.

Start on Thursday night

Start on Saturday morning, I put in 15 stitches after this :)

Well everyone knows how much I love stitching owls for my husband. The moment I saw the SAL announcement, I had to join.

But I will be honest that I'm a bit overwhelmed about the number of colors in these small designs.The February one has 17 colors. All the color changes are killing my stitching bug . I know many of you are clever enough to change colors and adapt designs to suit your stitching style but I like to follow patterns (even recipes) to the T. 
I may not stitch any more pattern from this SAL ..will have to see...

Apart from stitching , the weekend was good. Its been raining here in Kuwait regularly. In fact the amount of rain I have seen since November is 10 times more than what Kuwait must have seen in last 20 years. Is this a sign of global warming?

We didn't have any celebration for Valentine's day as we both were sick. However we did go for brunch for our engagement anniversary on 16th.This is what we ate at The Breakfast Club.

Toffee and Pecan Pancakes

Avo Sandwich

February is month of celebration of National day and Liberation day in Kuwait, called Hala Feb. We will have a long weekend off from Friday to Tuesday except Sunday. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the decorations, though I have never dared to attend the main celebrations in the city because of the crowd and bad things I have heard.
I will try to share pictures if I click some decent ones..if interested you can see pictures from past year here.

Have a good week everyone.

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL February 2019 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.

The gifts I worked on this month are these wedding cards for a snail mail friend and husband's cousin , both got married in December. The plan was to stitch these before the weddings but you know how some plans never get executed . Better late than never ..ha !

Both designs are from Cross stitch Crazy Magazine,Issue 202, patterns by Durene Jones.
Last month I forgot to show you what I got in my Instagram cross stitch swap with my one of snail mail buddy.She stitched a wee little penguin for me ..she knows me well.

A tiny crochet heart , a gift from my craft group friend Z for Valentine's day.

Thank you for the comments on the "Let People Choose SAL-Hearts" post. I asked you which one of my heart finishes is your favorite. Here are the results :

Roses in Heart -4

Gazette94 -5

Floral Sachet -2

Heart Biscornu -1

Knitted one -2

Now to a part which may interest you..a giveaway.As its my birthday month and month of love, I would like to thank you all my blog friends for their love by offering this pattern.This pattern is up for grabs ...the pattern was bought second hand but has never been used by me.

Here are the rules:

1. Be a follower. I'm pretty confused how the following things works but I can only see people who follow me thru Dashboard or google accounts.

2. Don't become a follower just to win this pattern and disappear on me (I have had this happened to me in past)

3. Let me know in comments if you are interested.

4.Winner will be randomly picked on my birthday,27th February.

5. I would appreciate if you would share this on your blog.

6. The pattern will be sent to you thru registered mail but still it can take minimum of 40-50 days to reach depending on where you are.

7. Send me your address thru email by clicking info in side bar, I will not follow up with you to ask for your address.

This weekend is IHSW and I will try to get some stitching done. Join me and other stitchers virtually for hermitting and stitching .

Have a good weekend everyone.

IHSW November 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."

As I shared in my last post, Kuwait experienced rains in last two weeks. Schools,colleges and offices were closed down for precautionary reasons. I got a extra half day off on Wednesday and full day holiday on Thursday. Well , who doesn't enjoy a long weekend even if its for safety reasons.

On Wednesday, I finished my Diwali piece. Thursday morning was spent in making some Christmas cards, decorating envelopes and organizing my paper crafts stash.

I started a small project for an upcoming exchange in night. Well I could have finished it during the long weekend, but...

Anyways here is how it looked like after the last day of weekend

Here's how it looks after putting in some time yesterday

Not much left to stitch, hopefully a finish today?

I'm sure you can guess what it it.

I had my regular craft meeting on Saturday. The weather is finally good here, we are able to sit outside and enjoy coffee on balconies.

Thank you all for the comments showing your concern about my well being during the rains. We haven't experienced any rains since past Wednesday, the roads are open now and life is back to normal.

Thursday is again a holiday , so another long weekend . Let's see what I stitch -a WIP or a new start.

That's it for IHSW...keep smiling my friends.

IHSW August 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.

I had a busy weekend this time: hosting a dinner for a cultural group my husband is part of and attending my bi weekly crafty meetup. Well I enjoy hosting people and seeing my craft friends, so nothing to complaint about.

I think my crafty bug is back with full spirit. I'm enjoying stitching again and stitching for longer than 15 mins. in one go :)

I added few colors to the pansies and grape hydrangeas, stitched the water at the bottom of vases while working on WIP "Fabulous Florals" and I feel I can finish this project by month end if everything goes well.

Here is a before and after picture :

Fabulous Florals 

Designed by : Claire Comerford

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

And now another good news, we have public holidays from tomorrow, 20th Aug to Saturday, 25th Aug.
Do you think I can complete this project in 6 day holidays?
Will I start something new - another cover kit?

Keep those guesses coming..
Have a good Sunday everyone.

IHSW June 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.

We had a extra long weekend due to Eid holidays from Friday to Monday  . I was a true hermit this time , stepping out of the house only once in 4 days to visit family friends who live 500 m away from our house 😁.
If you think this would have given me a lot of stitching time , oh well this isn't the case. 
Thursday : I sat down on Thursday evening to finish  Eid gift  called "Eidee" to be given next day. After few hours I could clearly see that I wouldn't be able to finish it during the night. 
Friday: It is weekly cleaning day which meant very less stitching time in the day. I decided to visit our family members for Eid on Friday evening without the gift and told them I'm late and will finish it soon. Friday night I sat till midnight to finish the stitching . 
Saturday : Morning I FFOed it with help from Dana's tutorial .  The gift was delivered and appreciated by the recipient.The rest of the day was spent cooking for a pot luck dinner at my place. 
So what is this gift which took me so long... ha ha another small project  .

Dimensions kit : Flower Mason Jar

This is my first cross stitch finish in a hoop and I quite like the result.This Dimension kit was a recent gift from my penpal in USA . I really liked stitching it , the floss was nice and in excess of required quantity .  However, I made many mistakes while stitching it. I had to frog thrice and decided to continue with the two mistakes I made as I was short of time. I guess stitching when you are going thru emotional problems is not such a good idea.

Now about the pot luck dinner ..the dinner was a success , everyone liked the food and there were leftovers which were shared and eaten next day. We played UNO and Tambola with kids which was lot of fun.

You see my cat, Twitch is not used to having kids in the house and associated sounds . She was hiding under the bed the whole time while we had guests. After the guests left, we went to bed at midnight and Twitch came to our bed after a while. She was scared and disturbed and didn't wanted to sleep alone. We have trained her in a way that she never sleeps in our bed. But this time she didn't wanted to leave the bed and wanted to sleep with mommy. It took us two more hours to put her to sleep and sleep ourselves. 
Sunday was a hangover of sleep deprivation .. ha ha which meant no crafting. 
Yesterday we were busy packing for vacation , so I put 10 stitches in my WIP. 😄 

Well I have no regrets of lesser stitching time as I enjoyed spending time for my other hobbies :cooking and travelling.

That my friends is an account of my long IHSW . I fly tomorrow for our vacation in Georgia. There will be no Smalls SAL post this month, I'm shoe horning the finish as my Small SALs entry too.

If you have any tips on how to calm down an elderly cat for a new cat momma, pls leave a comment.

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.

IHSW April 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.

I extended my IHSW to Sunday this time as my current WIP fitted the theme for Earth Day SAL on Stitch Maynia . I don't have a before picture , here are the progress pics on Friday and Sunday. Rosey here is a picture of  Twitch in the background.

I guess you can very well tell now that these are vases. I know it looked like a blue penguin(is that possible?) when I last showed you the pic for my GG post. Jo correctly guessed that it was a vase, I don't know how.

Not much progress because we went for 2 roof top movie screenings over the weekend. We are trying to make the most before we are hit by summer. For the uninitiated , while the western world waits for summer , we in Middle east run and hide from the summer heat. 
I downloaded few memes to help you understand whats summer like here 

Summer in Middle east

While in the UK or USA

Is this how your Summer looks like?

Its going to be 50 deg C (122 F ) soon and we will be stuck indoors. Even getting out in night will be tough. Don't worry everything here is air conditioned :houses, shops, offices but it can be as depressing to be indoors all the time due to heat as it can be due to snow.

So while enjoy last days of sitting outside , I hope you guys enjoy the spring or end of snow in your part of the world.

IHSW March 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.

My stitching bug has been MIA , nothing unusual, happens to me every time I come back from a vacation.As I wasn't stitching sitting at home, I decided to go out of the house and socialise instead on Friday. Saturday was my craft meetup and I'm very excited to share that a new cross stitcher has joined the group. She is an avid cross stitcher who stitches Mirablias , uses scroll rods and hand dyed fabrics ! It was so much fun to talk in cross stitch lingo..parking, HAEDs,start from the centre or side , linen. As I went out twice during the  weekend, I extended IHSW to Sunday to accompany you ladies.

I worked on two projects, something I don't do normally.
I stitched on Mill Hill Kit- Emma Owlet. This was a new start during my vacation and was supposed to be a  birthday gift for hubby. Well that didn't happen, blame it on my mom , she kept me busy in other things 😁. I don't have a before picture to show, just the latest progress. This is my first time stitching on perforated paper and beading. As much I hated stitching with three strands, I'm enjoying beading to my surprise.

Next I stitched on Indian Peacock by Dimensions.Before and after pics

Though I didn't stitch much during the weekend, I did select a new project to start and kit it.So overall a good IHSW.

I would like to thank you all for the lovely comments on my last post about my husband's stitching. All I can say is :I'm blessed.