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 February 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.

Very happy to be showing you a new WIP for this post, I'm sure everyone was bored to see the same project -my nemesis project for 2 years now.

I picked up my new year new start for 2017 on Tuesday after stitching some smalls . This was also my project for Work That WIP 2018 - February SAL on Stitch Maynia. Here is how the project looked like on Wednesday 

Progress over the weekend

After working on 25 count evenweave for last few months, it feels different to work on Aida, the squares on fabric look so big , working with two threads is clumsy as the threads keep twisting and have to railroad for the stitches to lie flat. But then there is progress which is visible.I'm trying to do one color at a time, which I find very satisfying.

If you are wondering why the progress is less for a full weekend of stitching , its because Murphy's law came into play. You see I rarely go out on weekends or have any social life apart from my bi monthly craft gatherings. But I have observed that for IHSW , I will have social visits or will have to go out.This Friday we had a distant family member come over for dinner , on Saturday I met a bunch of expat ladies for breakfast whom I met thru Instagram.
Here a few pictures of the arabic food we had at Ayyame, all delicious.

Cheese & herbed Tabliya

Falafel with arabic bread

Gerse Ogaily

Though I must confess I'm not complaining about lack of stitching time , I love cooking , meeting new people and trying new food ☺.

I would like to thank you all for the comments on my last post, it felt like we all were celebrating my finish together. 

Exploring Kuwait

I just realized that its been almost one and half years that I moved to Kuwait for better career opportunities and never have written a post dedicated to my experiences here about the food/travel and other interests of mine .

To tell you the truth when I was shifting here I never made any queries about the country :its culture, food, society . I was more than happy to know that I will be able to work here and wear the type of clothes I want to ...which not many middle eastern countries allow for.

Kuwait being a desert doesn't have bountiful nature, which leaves Shopping Malls as the main places of attraction. I am not a  brand shopper so that kept me away from the big Shopping malls here. However, I never stopped looking for places of my interest and now that I have found some, thanks to internet and social network, I have started liking this place more than I used to like it last year :)

While roaming around in one of the sea side malls, I stumbled upon on this café called "Color me Mine". The café has a collection of plain ceramic/POP figurines/vases/bowls etc. The idea is to select a piece and paint it there with poster colors. Once the piece is painted, it is baked to add shine and then the person can take it home. The Café mainly attracts kids, who paint the pieces with help of lady instructor of the café, while having muffins or cakes. Isn't that cute? The Café  also displayed few pieces to be sold for charity and I was able to pick some lovely stuff .

One of the walls of the Café



Below paintings were displayed in the covered bridge connecting the mall and the marina.



Medium scale model of Dhow

Last Thursday I attended Eid celebration at TIES center and visited the Second chance charity and handmade shop there. I can now guess what charity shops and thrift stores in the UK & USA would be like. I was able to find some nice stuff there-small table ware items , stationery and beautiful crochet doilies which some of the local ladies had donated for charity. Sorry I didn't take any pictures.

Now about my second passion food

Me & DH were treated in a contemporary Indian restaurant Asha's few days back.This is a chain of restaurant at multiple locations around the world run by famous Bollywood Singer Asha Bhonsale.



Ordered Mai's favourite.Image courtesy:Internet

The food quality was up to my expectations, a bit spicy though, however I feel they should offer more vegetarian options being an Indian restaurant.

On Sunday , B&B had a sudden urge to eat Thai food and search for Thai restaurants in Kuwait began. We were so surprised to find a branch of famous Thai chain Sabaidee  near our house..




Som Tum



Pad Thai & Pad Wood Sen

The food was delicious and great value for money. They won my heart by making a vegetarian version of Pad Thai. 

The idea of this post is not to review any food or shopping joint. Its my way of sharing my life here in Kuwait and also to help new expats . I am thankful to many local bloggers about providing useful information about the country on their blogs from which I have benefited.

Do you guys like exploring new places? Do you search for online reviews of restaurants/cities/tourist places before you visit them?