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.

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.

4 Years Today

Four years ago today , I started my journey to a land unknown...Kuwait. I landed here at the airport at night, the drive to the temporary accommodation seemed long. I was so excited for the new adventure.Would you believe that I only asked two questions before moving to Kuwait:will I be able to work in my field of education? Will I have to wear a burqa?(no offense to anyone here).

I see expats ready to move here and they have 100s of questions, using every forum available to ask . Sometimes I think may be I should have inquired more about moving a country about which me,my family and friends knew nothing.But then I think that as I came here without presumptions ,the journey has been more about learning new culture, news ways of living and mostly about rediscovering myself rather than being full of fear about middle east.

Thank you to all those people who I have met in these 4 years for making the journey a memorable one.

P.S. Kuwait towers is the first image I get in my mind whenever I want to post a picture about Kuwait.

This is what I posted on my Instagram account today(with slight changes made) and thought of sharing this post/milestone with my blogging friends who have been important part of life in these years.

Sharing some of the interesting pictures of my life in Kuwait, these are the recent ones I had in my phone.

 Picture of one the panels of exhibited in Weaving stories - a contemporary interactive exhibition and outreach initiative honoring the textile arts of Kuwait , Dated Nov 10,2016

First visit to  Al Shaheed park,Dated Nov 10,2016

Picture of Souq Mubarakiya decorated for Hala feb celebrations,Dated Feb 17,2017

  

Picture taken during our visit to Bayan Botanical garden when my brother was visiting us, Dated Feb 23,2017

Pictures of Kuwait towers decorated for Hala feb celebrations, when my brother was visiting us, Dated Feb 23,2017

  

                             Me, my brother and my husband having some fun on the beach

A picture of Secret Garden, a community project where everything right from the wooden gate to desk to plants have been donated by public.Dated March 4,2017

A replica of Dhow as exhibited at Failaka Island,Dated March 10,2017

Antiquities of Failaka Island,Dated March 10,2017

 Food is an important part of our life here, Kuwait offers cuisines of dozens of countries due to a large expat population. Dated March 14,2017

  This is the picture of the second bloom of Mums since I bought it.Dated March 31,2017

Grand Mosque,Dated April 15,2017

               That's me helping the kids in a cross stitch workshop, Dated Dec 16,2017

                   An abandoned hanger in the Shumaymah Desert,Dated Dec 31,2017

                           Abandoned building projects at Shumaymah Desert,Dated Dec 31,2017

If you notice, most of the pictures here are from Dec-March . This is because these months have temperatures pleasant enough for us to roam around , other months life is limited to house and office.

If you are interested in details of any picture or my life in kuwait in general, leave a comment and I will try to post about my experience of living in Kuwait.