As promised...

As promised to Lynn, here is my PIF. If you are interested, please leave your name and email as a comment. You will get something from me within the next 365 days!!! This is my first PIF,so am a bit nervous :)

Sorry for the delay in posting this Lynn :)

Thanks a lot for your encouraging comments about my napkin. This is not a set of napkins. I had bought a few napkins to send to school with Vaishnavi. As this was plain, thought of trying my hand at it :)

Here I am...

With my first finish for 2009 !!! Wish it were the peacock, but no. I tried my hand at a napkin this time. In fact, this is my first finish in over 2 years!!! But something is wrong with this!!!

I am not completely sure what is wrong with this, though. Maybe it needs some backstitching to highlight? Did I chose the wrong shades of thread? I just ran through my stash of threads and mixed 2 shades of rose. I used 2 strands, so 1 strand of a light rose and another of a slightly darker shade. Got this design from the book "Cross stitch silhouettes". Please do give your feedback as comments, as that would definitely help me with future projects.

The peacock is currently sitting pretty where it is :(. Don't feel like touching it right now. So, looking for some 3 dimensional project, something like a scissor fob. But then, can somebody please tell me, what do you use to stuff inside a scissor fob?

My list for hubby dear is almost done ;). Hope to place my orders (on the net) by this weekend. And it definitely does not end there, am sending him personally to some stores to buy some more stuff :d

Life Life...

Is like a running race right now. Work is sooo hectic!!! Have not even touched the peacock :( But frankly, I think I am relishing the break from it. Right now, I am concentrating more on searching sites for fabrics and making a list to give my husband ;) I am trying to get stuff shipped to him directly, so that he does not realize the price attached to it.

Sorry, I do not have any pictures to post at the moment. Thanks a lot Chiloe for all your tips on fabrics :d. I think I now know what I want.

Fabrics Fabrics

AAArrrggghhh!!! That's how I feel like screaming. I am trying to get some fabric shipped to my husband, who is returning shortly to India from Cupertino. The only site I know is yarntree and they have loads of fabric. So, now I have been reduced to a totally confused person, who is clueless about what to order. Can anybody ppllleeease tell me, what is good?
I have lots of 14ct aida with me. And I want to start some work on evenweave or linen. But I see soo many names on that site, Dublin, Diana Pearl, Edinburgh... the list is endless.
Thanks a ton :)

Have you ever felt

Like you need a weekend to get over a weekend? Well, that's how fast the last weekend went/flew!!! Aishwarya, Vaishnavi and I had a good time on saturday . Hope she enjoyed her day off as much as we did .

We made Aloo dum (an Indian dish with baby potatoes in gravy) in the evening. Got the recipe here. It was just yumm. Way to go Aishwarya (as she did the cooking) . We wrapped up the day with a very good tamil movie we had been wanting to watch.

With sooo much activity, could not get too much stitching done. But here are the pictures of my progress all the same.

A closer view of all the gold work.

I did some experimenting again with the features in my handycam. Tried my hand at the Manual mode for capturing pictures, rather than making use of the regular Auto mode. That's why the difference in both the pictures.

Now I am unable to get the settings back in the Auto mode . Gave up after trying a lot!!!

Hope everybody had a great weekend. Thanks a ton again for all your comments

Updates

I have generally been very irritable the last few days, and poor Vaishnavi has been bearing the brunt of my irritability .

Anyways, on a happier note, we had gone to attend my nephew's wedding reception. Highlight of the evening was Vaishnavi's dress, especially the back. Here are some pictures I took that evening after the function.

And here's the back, ahem ahem...

Ain't that sexy . After this, I could not resist taking a picture of Vaishnavi and me together . Here it is

Tried using the timer in our handycam for the first time, not bad at all.

On the peacock front, not too much progress to post a picture. But put in a few stitches last night with the gold thread after some struggle.

Thanks again to everybody for posting your comments and your tips .

My baby...

Is growing up fast !!! Time sure just flies!!! On saturday I put on a paavadai (an Indian term for a long flowy skirt) after her bath. She immediately said "I am going to put on matching bangles"!! And she picked up the exact colors that were in the paavadai.

I did help her in getting the colors properly arranged and there they are. Don't they look cute?? She was not satisfied with just 3 bangles that I picked up for her. Says "less bangles make less noise, I want more bangles so that they make more noise"!!!

On the cooking front, as my entire family is crazy of paneer (cottage cheese), made paneer in mint gravy. Was bored making the usual tomato gravy. Sorry, forgot to take a picture of the paneer. But it sure was yumm (as anything paneer is).

And here is an update on the peacock. I just have to finish some gold color and then the back stitch. Hope to finish it by this month end . Was up till about 1am last night (err today morning), working on the peacock, while I watched back to back episodes of Friends.

This is the first time I am working with metallic thread. Tell me something, is it always difficult to work with metallic threads? I am finding it hard to get the thread behave itself.

Thought I'd take a closer pic of the part where I've done my first gold work. Any tips on how to manage metallic thread?

I tried some experimenting with some lighting last night while I took those pictures, am sure it shows, the pictures are pathetic

Thank you all for stopping by my blog and taking time to comment on them. It really is very encouraging and makes me work faster on the peacock.