Its been a year- a year of exploring, stitching and being at peace!

Hello friends, 

Can you believe its been a year I moved to Scotland ? They say time flies when one is having a good time...clearly that is the case here. 

What a year it has been ...settling into a new country, new weather , new culture and new routine . Some of my family members were curious how I was happy being at home and wasn't taking up a job after working for 20 years . I guess its easier when someone is a home body like me. I love being at home- waking up at my own time, just sitting with my cats, gazing at the rain , reconnecting with my hobbies .

Summer is has been lot kinder to us here in Scotland than rest of UK . We had maximum temp of 26deg C twice and currently we are at 15-19 deg C range . We have explored nearby places on day trips and went away to Aberdeenshire for our 19th wedding anniversary. 

Marischal Collage, Aberdeen

Fyvie Castle

Aberdeen beach front to the North Sea

Dunnottar Castle near Stonehaven, Scotland

Everything is so beautiful in the summer and I observed the transition from spring to summer thru new flowers I would see on my walks every week.

Rhododendron

Peonies

Tulips at Greenbank gardens

 

I have been stitching , though I got exhausted once and once the mojo was thrown out of the window. I will share which projects did that to me.

I had the pleasure of hosting one of my penpals at my house in May. We first connected thru Instagram and have been exchanging mails since few years. He surprised me when he said he would visit Scotland from France to meet me. I wanted to stitch  a gift for him either on the theme of letters(snailmailing) or something related to Scottish Culture .

I'n very happy to show this is what I stitched for my friend, nothing speaks more about scottish culture than Fish & Chips.

I was on a tight deadline for this project so I burnt the midnight oil few days before his arrival. At first my eyes took time to 25 ct evenweave as I have been stitching on 14ct aida in last few years. I skipped the border on the vertical sides .

Another project I have completed is for my maternal aunt , this will be finished into a small pillow for decoration.

I love daffodils , I had such a lovely time stitching this. However , I did get frustrated by the end , why would a designer use 18 colors for  a pattern of  47*47 stitches! This pattern was one of the two smaller patterns from a big design, so may be the designer didn't optimise the colors. 

I have finished another gift, which I will put in a frame today. I have few more Christmas finishes , however I'm saving them for Christmas time .

I'm travelling to India to visit my family next Sunday ...so excited to meet them after a year. I will carrying some finishes to be fully finished using my mother's sewing machine.

Hope to write more regularly on the blog in future. 

Have a relaxing Sunday my friends.

Spring is here ...some stitching and updates

Hello Friends,

Hope its getting warmer in your part of the world..

I have been meaning to write a post since long ...I wanted to share all the pics have been clicking of spring signs here in Scotland. I'm currently addicted to spotting new to me flowers that are popping up here.

First Daffodils spotted on 23rd Feb during my walk

Glory of the Snow at Kellie's castle garden

Daffodils at Kellie's castle garden

I wanted to write about Spring on Easter day , funny it snowed here in Glasgow on Easter. We have been told its not common to see snow in Glasgow even in winters ...so this was exciting. I really enjoyed the experience.

I have been stitching regularly apart from some days when we are out exploring places around Glasgow. We visited Kellie's castle and spotted many samplers there:

Dated 1791

Dated 1812

Dated 1929

The days are longer now and we have sunshine for few hours most days.

I participated in Spring Exchange at Needlecraft Haven hosted by Clare . I was a bit nervous about fully finishing the ornament , however Clare was very encouraging .This is what I stitched for her

I also included an ornament for her church tree, pattern is from Ruth 

I'll be honest I'm not very happy with the finishing of ornaments, its hand sewn. I miss using my sewing machine , I'm clearly not good at hand sewing.

I received a lovely parcel from my partner Christine, such neatly finished ornaments and goodies.Thank you Christine, the chocolates have been exclusively claimed by me.

I have finished few more small pieces, which need fully finishing.

I think I missed sharing this finish from January- a gift for my penpal's daughter who was born few days after I moved to Glasgow...I feel lucky to be able to send such gifts thru mail now that I have moved to a country with a reliable postal system.

Hope you like the spring blooms , and get to enjoy them in your region.

2025 :Year of big changes and a loss

Year 2025 was a year full of changes ...some changes which I have been working for quite some time and some which took me by surprise.

To start , 2025 was the year I finally made a come back to crafting and blogging. With the long gap of 4+ years, I always felt guilty of abandoning my hobbies and blog. 

The year started with a professional change when I moved to a Management Role after working in Engineering for 19 years. The new role involved something I love-interacting with people, understanding their challenges and help them find a solution.

January was busy with a wedding , hosting a hobby friend at home and attending Stamp exhibition in Mumbai.

February being birthday month meant mandatory Starbucks Frappuccino and birthday dinner with hubby and brother.

For my new role, I traveled to USA and was able to meet my lovely colleagues and find some crafty stuff at Joann's and thrift shops. I wrote it about here .

Knitting at Dubai airport in transit to Kansas city, USA

By the time I came back from my work trip in mid March, my husband had started conversations around moving out of India for work. It was a happy surprise as I have got bored of living in the same city for 6 years and have been asking him to move. We had some opportunities in the past however some didn't work out due to professional reasons and some due to laws regarding pet import.

Things started to shape up in May when we got Scotland as the country we would probably move. I have always loved Scotland- from the pictures husband's cousin would share and our trip in 2015. So it was a dream come true...

I'm grateful that our move went smooth as the challenges we had were how do I resign from a job I started few months back, that I loved so much and how will my 22 year old cat Twitch travel.

With months of planning, packing, selling stuff, sealing the house, we finally moved in the last week of July.

My babies started exploring the house the moment they got out of the carrier, Gabru on left, Twitch on right

My major concern during these months was will Twitch survive the long journey in cargo. Sometimes it felt selfish to make such an elderly cat travel but then leaving her behind was unimaginable.

When I moved here, I took a conscious decision of taking a break from my job to settle in, set up the house, learn about the new place and culture, dedicate time to my hobbies.

5 months flew by - during these we took some short trips around the city, I attended events related to my hobbies, celebrated our first Diwali in Glasgow.

An old phone booth converted to a library in Dunkeld

Postbox topper at Isle of Cumbrae

In December, we travelled to Morocco and that's when the saddest thing happened.

The Sahara

Golden sunset at the Sahara

While we were away, my most beautiful, resilient and intelligent Twitch got sick. She had age related issues but she was a fighter so I never thought this time would come.

Always the Queen of the house

On 14th of December we had to take the hardest decision of our life-to let her go over a phone call. Its been very difficult for me to accept that my bubba is not with us anymore- she blessed us with her love for 8.5 years, travelled two countries with us and lived in 5 houses in 3 countries.

Twitch the explorer, at in-law's house

My husband has been telling me that she was very old, lived a beautiful life and I should accept that she is not with us physically but the fact that we were not with her in her last time makes it very difficult.

My baby Twitch
1-Jun-2003 to 14-Dec-2025

I have been trying to keep myself busy in hobbies but the grief hits now and then.

During the holidays , we went to the city centre to see the Christmas decorations , our first Christmas in Glasgow. 

It was a nice distraction and I'm thankful to the guest who visited us and helped us get out of the house.

Its been a long post, I think I need a separate post for my crafty finishes.

Hope my friends had good time during the holidays.

Happy New Year.

Autumn , Festives vibes and some stitching

Hello friends,

It is Autumn in my part of the world. I don't remember if I had seen autumn in India , though it was mentioned as one of the seasons in India in school text books. I have been enjoying the color changes and now the barren trees around my house. Here are pictures of 1st week of October.

Same tree, 29 days apart

October was Diwali month . I have been busy hosting Diwali dinners , prepping for the festival, decorating the house. We hosted two dinners -one for my husband's team members with their partners and then husband's colleagues who moved from India with us.

Both the dinners were success , however I enjoyed the first one more. The first group were non-Indian people, so whatever items I prepared were new to them. I loved talking about recipes, ingredients and similarities between cooking in different cultures. 

We were so busy chatting and eating that we didn't click any pictures.

Diwali outside India is always interesting-trying to source the materials for festivals, finding shops which sell Diwali stuff. We tried making best of what was available locally, however I missed the lights and flower decoration, sweets we have in India.

Some pics of the Diwali decor.

I realised that I just have two cross stitched items for Diwali Decor, so after days of pattern hunting, I bought two cross stitch magazines and plan to stitch these for next year.

On the 18th,I got an oppurtunity to volunteer at Glasgow School of Yarn , an annual event which invite indie yarn suppliers and designers to showcase their products. 

I haven't got time much time for cross stitch between all this , however I managed to finish cross stitching on this piece. I'm finding it difficult to back stitch this one, as the chart is black and white and one has to keep looking at the kit cover to understand which color to use for back stitch.

I have another update which I will share in my next post. 

Happy crafting