Hello from Kansas City!!!

Hello and almost bye from Kansas City !!! 4 hrs until I leave for airport to start my 30 hour journey for home.

This is my second time visiting Kansas city , both times for work.

Interesting fact about Kansas city is it lies between two states -Missouri and Kansas. I go to work and stay in different cities :)

I couldn't have asked for a better weather to visit...my cold weather loving body enjoyed it so much.

I got to see a blizzard with snow, super hot sunny days, winds upto 50mph and rain..all in 12 days. And its snowing as I write the blog.

This time I got to do one of my most favourite things - attend a craft meetup at a local craft cafe when travelling to a new country. I have done that before twice in past, I just realised may be I didn't share about it.

Last time I visited Kansas city , I came with colleagues so didn't think of doing my hobby stuff...however this time I started looking up yarn /craft stores, meetups a month in advance.

I asked my one and only local friend if she would like to attend a meetup, she agreed. So last Saturday we drove to this quaint yarn store who hosts social hours regularly. The day I went there, there was a trunk show. 

My knitting

Yarns by Yarniculture

To my surprise , it was a big turn out. We almost ran out of space to sit. 20 + people sat in this beautiful cafe knitting, crocheting , chatting for 2 hours. Oh I loved it!!!

I have talked about attending meetups during my travels, and people have told me its a novel idea.. most people don't even think of that. My friend  was surprised to know how many craft stores I knew her city. 

After the meetup , we went for lunch...I will cover that in my next post..

Wish me luck for a long journey home.

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 .

Stitch every 'Day' in 'May'

Hello Friends,

The title of my post is what my target for the month is. You see I was quite surprised to see  that I haven't been stitching much this year, when I made the Pies for my last post.
I know some of you stitch everyday and that's inspirational. I sat thinking why can't I do that: I have a normal 10 hr job (no overtime), don't have to cook for a big family or neither do I have pets who need much care (I have budgies ,but they hardly take any time). So I realized I'm being a lazy bum ...
I have set up a target to stitch every day this month even if it's a single length of thread. It's been a success so far, Thursday being an exception.

Enough of my rant about my time organization .So here is my check-in for Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness SAL, IHSW hosted by Joysze and Friday Frolicking.
I have been working on EMS Flower of the month series which will be a gift for my aunt. I have completed July and August Flowers . Except the back stitching and some stitches with white. I prefer to stitch white at the end to keep the stitches clean.

Yesterday morning was my craft meetup and it was so good to see my friends after 2 months. We had a wonderful time discussing crafts, current affairs and stash addictions.
I got wonderful gifts from Tammy, which she bought all the way from Jerusalem.

I tried my hands at sewing again to make a laptop sleeve. It's not pretty or neat however it sure is very useful with the season of dust soon approaching.

That's it my friends for today. I will be stitching the EMS piece today and then pick my HOM Mystery SAL piece tomorrow for rotation.

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL June Update and Lovely WWKIP Day

I was so excited to write this post that I prepared a draft on Saturday evening hoping to post first thing on Sunday, only to realize that it isn't 15 on Sunday ...

This time for the GG SAL, I have two finishes to show

I finally put last stitch on the Sunflower bouquet on Friday evening and it turned out more beautiful than I expected. This is a retirement gift for a very generous colleague.

After the initial hick ups of bad chart quality and not having required floss, the second innings went smooth. I  skipped backstitching the flowers (You all know my fear of backstitching, don't you !) .This may be my best attempt at backstitching ...lol
Here is a close up of the stitches.

Notice how in the second pic , stitches are in all directions. This is my first project where I tried having all my \\\\ and //// in same direction. It took me 36 days to finish this piece. Other details can be found here

The second partial finish is the EMS April flower of the month, except the inner borders. I have decided that I will stitch the borders during my crafty meet ups as it requires less counting. The fabric was a gift from a friend ,hence I can include this in GG SAL.

13th June was World Wide Knit in Public day and I decide to take the initiative for organizing it here in Kuwait. This was first time for Kuwait and we had an attendance of 8 wonderful ladies.

Image courtesy :Tammy



The café where we met was situated by the Sea

We had such a gala time chatting and crafting that I'm sure everyone made new friends.
I even tried my hands at crochet and failed terribly. Tammy was patient enough to teach me the basics. Look what wonderful gifts Tammy gave me :

My knitty friend L from ravelry group will be leaving Kuwait soon and this is what she gifted me.

                                           

Thank you Ladies for such a great time and gifts.

I will now have more stitching time from Thursday because of lesser working hours in the month of Ramadan. I hope to finish my pending projects and start a new one.

I'm off to see what other stitchers have to show in their GG posts.

New recipes and An Upcoming Meetup

The cooking fairy is here (that's my equivalent of stitching bug) and I have been trying a lot of new recipes in the past few days.

DH & Me are again in that mode where we refuse to eat the common daily food and everyday we want to have "something new" for dinner.

I'm going to add a new feature to my blogging about cooking. I'm now going to  rate the recipes I try for ease of cooking, time required for cooking,ease of availability of ingredients and DH's rating for taste.
I'm not a big chef or food connoisseur that my ratings or review will matter much . However , there are reasons why a person would decide to try a new recipe. Ingredients and time required to cook are the main factors which let me decide whether I will cook that recipe or not. With my work schedule. I'm prefer less time consuming recipes.

1. Oven roasted Zucchini

Zucchini in one of the new ingredients I have added to my food plate now. Zucchini is not native to India and is only available in special stores there. Since I have moved to Kuwait, I wanted to use it in my cooking so I bought a big box of Zucchini last week.

DH loves roasted food and this what I cooked ...
Recipe source:http://www.cookingclassy.com/2014/05/garlic-lemon-parmesan-oven-roasted-zucchini/
Ease of cooking : 9/10 if you have a oven at home(Higher rating -easier to cook)
Time required : 30 mins , Rating 8/10 (Higher rating -less time to cook)
Availability of ingredients :8/10
DH's rating : 8.2
Changes made to recipe: I used a table spoon of cheese spread instead of parmesan cheese .

2. Zucchini With Corn and Cilantro

Of course one more zucchini recipe.. remember I bought a box. Sorry no picture

Recipe source:http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20509747_8,00.html
Ease of cooking : 10/10
Time required : 15 mins , Rating 9/10
Availability of ingredients :8/10
DH's rating : 6.6
Changes made to recipe: I used coriander instead of cilantro .

3. Spinach with Eggs (Yumurtalı Ispanak)

Recipe source:http://almostturkish.blogspot.com/2009/04/spinach-with-eggs-yumurtal-ispanak.html

Ease of cooking : 9/10
Time required : 30 mins , Rating 8/10
Availability of ingredients :10/10
DH's rating : 6.2

Spinach is not one of my favourite greens and DH absolutely loves it. Turkish cuisine has many spinach recipes and I chose Yumurtalı Ispanak this time.
Please do not hesitate to try this recipe as the DH rating is based on the bitter taste of spinach. Turns out that he had bought a local green leaves(don't know the name) thinking that it was spinach.
I'm sure if cooked with spinach the rating will go up to 8 :)

4. 3 B Stir fry

Recipe source:http://www.tarladalal.com/3-B-Stir-fry-(-Healthy-Diabetic-Recipe-)-33690r

Ease of cooking : 9/10
Time required : 30 mins , Rating 8/10
Availability of ingredients :7/10, May have to buy bean sprouts from a super market
DH's rating : 8.75
Changes made to recipe(not intentional): I read baby corn as sweet corn ;)

The recipe turned out to be delicious...I wasn't expecting that.
Next time I'm thinking of serving it with plain rice.

That's all on cooking front, let me know if you try any of these recipes.

Remember how I told you that I'm desperate to meet crafters locally. I think my prayers may have been answered...I read about World Wide Knit in Public day somewhere on the internet, and thought why not. I'm a part of knitters group and I know the basics.
So I'm now hosting World Wide Knit in Public day in Kuwait (I'm teeny meeny proud of this).
More prayers answered--I found Tammy through one of fellow bloggers post.
Tammy is an active blogger, crocheter, crafter and a lady with most infectious positive attitude. I haven't met her yet ,all this is what I gather from her blog and few email interactions. So I contacted Tammy and told her about my idea WWKIP in Kuwait. She encouraged me and have been actively spreading the word about the event. Thank you Tammy.

Well when I say I'm hosting the event, there is not much I need to do apart from some internet posts and registering the event.
I know I shouldn't expect a big turn around for the event but I'm sure I will meet new knitters/stitchers/crocheters there.

Inspired by Tammy's blog I will now try to include one picture of my life in Kuwait.
This is a picture of the first flower which bloomed at my house in Kuwait.
We just loved it and couldn't help clicking a picture ...

On stitching front ,I have finished stitching the Sunflower bouqet with only the dreaded back stitching left to do. There are 5 shades of back stitching and the chart is in black and white . So I will use my imagination ....

See you soon for the GG post.


 

FOTM SAL May update and some cooking

Here is my entry for Flower of the Month SAL hosted by Alyssa .

I have not been able to stitch much of this as my current target is to finish Sunflower bouquet for my colleague who is going to retire soon. As advised by my stitchy friends, I am now using two strands for stitching for the flower series. But I didn't have the courage to frog what I had already stitched using 3...do you think the difference is too obvious or looks ugly?

In other news, I'm happy to tell that I have attended two meet ups of a group of knitters in past 2 weeks.
Don't be surprised...I don't knit but this is result of my desperate attempts to a have a group of cross stitchers. I have been trying really hard since last 1 year to gather or meet people interested in any type of needle work here in Kuwait. Sadly, nothing worked ..so I  signed up on Raverly and joined the local ravelry group.
The ladies in the group have been kind enough to absorb me and we had fun in the last two meetings. While the ladies chit chat and knit, I stitch (at the pace of a tortoise) counting everything thrice. I must say that cross stitch is not a easy craft to take along...I am finding it difficult to stitch sitting in a chair with chart in hand and I'm already thinking of learning crochet specially for the meet ups ;). At home, I stitch sitting on a sofa with my legs stretched and the chart pinned to one of the cushions.

The weather here is at its worst now with the temperature nearing 50 degree Celsius. This Friday, DH & I ,dared to step out of the house in the noon and we repented it so much. The sun was blazing and our feet started burning...Well its just the start of summer.

On the cooking front, I have lost my cooking bug...however guilt took me over and I tried my hands at making my mom's recipe of a lentil cake last Tuesday. The result wasn't upto my expectations so I'm not going to blog about it until I get it right.

Today I made Menemen (Turkish-Style Scrambled Eggs With Tomatoes)  for dinner.

This dish is very similar to Indian version of Scrambled eggs-Anda bhurji.
I like tomatoes in my Anda Bhurji but DH doesn't like tomatoes much...
So when he asked me to make something eggy today, I proposed making Menemen instead of Anda Bhurji .
I'm a conservative and usually don't make changes in recipes. The only reason I divert from the original recipe is unavailability of ingredients.

I followed the recipe by Burcu and used capsicum instead of green peppers.

The other reason I like Menemen is because I like eggs to be slightly undercooked and this a perfect recipe for that.


Its end of another month and good time to think how productive the month was craft wise...