Snow Globes

Hola dear friends! We just wrapped up our festive season with Karthigai deepam. 

A small light up near our Swami mandapam

And lighting lamps outside our house

And now it's time to deck up for the holiday season. I just love snow globes and isn't this the perfect time to bring them all out

That's from Singapore

I bought this cute little girlie snow globe during our trip to Pondy this sumer

This is from my 2011 trip to London

And this during our trip last May. I know for sure that this collection is going to grow :)

A cute little snow man from Miniso

And my December ornaments are out too. I have to also complete the gingerbread family

I saw this beautiful hand embroidered mirror frame at a shop last week and had to share the picture here. How intricate and beautifully done it is

Here's a picture of progress on Mystery project dear friends. I am getting totally excited as it shapes up

So, that's the update from this end of the world dear friends. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!!

A sweet, a cookie and some stitching

Hola, dear friends! Being Thanksgiving weekend, I want to start this post by saying a huge thank you to all my virtual friends here, who have kept me going and motivated me to keep posting! 

Recently my cousin had come from Australia and had bought an insta pot for her sister. Her sister did not want it and asked me if I wished to buy it at a lesser price. Of course, I grabbed it with both hands! Now, the insta pot was sitting pretty like a dinosaur in the room, both of us staring at each other. I would google easy desserts and then say 'ok, I will make this soon'

Finally, last week I took the leap and made moong dal halwa/Ashoka. It turned out absolutely divine and even the method was quite simple. Recipe source - https://myheartbeets.com/instant-pot-moong-dal-halwa/#wprm-recipe-video-container-15021

It's the season of cookies and baking

My first bake for the season is a very chewy eggless oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. I had saved this recipe several years ago in one of my FB baking groups

I have been able to make some progress on Mystery project too, amidst all the other activities 

Here's a pic of where I am at currently at page #6. On the side are all ORTS from last month's stitching

 So, dear friends, that's the update for today. Till next time.. Take care.. Be happy.. Keep sticthing.. Au Revoir!

Crafty Weekend

I am breaking my trend of only posting ORTS every new moon for once. Lots of crafting has happened since my last post and I do not want to miss updating on my progress

V and I have been alternating between web series, new movies and old movies. This started, like for most of us, since the lockdown

In that way, we watched pretty woman this weekend. Just love her clothes in the movie - such classics. My favorite of them all is the brown polka dot one

Had a tryst with my beautiful beads yesterday. Getting the right idea is what takes more time than the actual making of the jewelry right

I realized that I never made anything in green for myself so far. So, here goes - a green crystal and pearl necklace with earrings

It took a while for this to take shape. When it finally did, I think it shaped up much better than how I visualized it

On the stitchy side, I reached a logical point - finished the first 5 pages, woohoo!!

Am so loving it. I just printed out the next 5 pages and assembled them and getting ready for the next part. Am totally excited to see this taking shape

 So, dear friends, this is alllll the progress today. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!!! 

Active October Updates

This year is turning out to be an action packed one! We attended a totally wild concert last weekend by Anirudh, who is the latest sensation in South India. I had attended a Vidhyasagar concert many years ago. But this one was a totally rockstar performance

Here's a small glimpse when he came on to the stage that was setup near where we were seated

..and managed to click a selfie at the end of the concert, with the stage in the background

We just finished Deepavali and getting over the festivities, gearing up for regular days. Here's a glimpse of how our Deepavali went. First for the sweets & savouries 

This time I tried my hand at making Jeera poli, which my mom makes really well. Turned out quite decently for first try

Manoharams, which has been a childhood favourite and another of Amma's specialty. She used to make these every time any of us went out of town. Last year we made this together, this year I tried to make this on my own and quite happy with how it turned out

..and cornflakes mixture, mohanthal, thenkuzhal & deepavali lehiyam

And on the stitchy front, I have been able to make decent progress

Here's a picture when the QSnap moved

Here's where I am now. The lose threads are ORTS from the month's progress and the glass bowl is ORTS from YTD

 So, that's the progress today friends. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!! 

A birthday and some stitching

Hello dear friends. It is the festival season and also season of birthdays in the family. It was dad's 75th birthday on the 18th and we threw a surprise party with a few very close relatives. Dad was totally overwhelmed and extremely happy

We ordered a blackcurrant cake which was absolutely delicious

V started college last month. She's now doing her undergrad in BSc psychology and she's loving it so far

After quite a long gap, V baked these delicious snickerdoodles - the recipe from my William Sonoma's Baking

I was able to catch up on some stitching this month

..and here's the Orts from the month's progress

..a closer look at the progress. I am almost done with the 4th page now. With the holiday season coming up, hope to get some more stitching done

That's the update from me tonight dear friends. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!

All About Vacations and some Stitching

It has been a very happening July and August in my side of the world. Being vacation time in all places but India, this is the time when cousins and family living in Dubai, USA etc come here for vacations. 

This year we went to Pondicherry for a week. While my niece attended an eye camp, it was a workation for me and vacation for the daughter and cousin

Our guest house was exactly opposite to the beach and we spent every evening there

some of the very different unique shells that we collected at the beach

We witnessed an absolutely brilliant sunrise

Being a sunset person, and being so close to the beach, how could I miss this wonderful scene

Some baking happened too. One new flavors that we discovered in London is Elderflower. We found this quaint little home run store at Borough market, where we got some Elderflower syrup

V baked this Elderflowe lemon bundt 

.. a slice of the cake and the extracts in the background

The daughter celebrated her milestone birthday last week and I baked her a lotus biscoff this year for her birthday

With so much happening, progress on my Mystery project has been quite minimal

This is the moving the QSnap picture

..and the current progress picture with the ORTS

So, dear friends, this is my story for today. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!!

A wedding and a holiday

After over 2 years, we finally went on an international trip to attend my niece's wedding in London

If weddings in India are full of fun, music and dance then this wedding was that and all class

where we all had reserved seats and printed menus

We all planned to stay a few more days to do some site seeing. I had visited London officially in 2011 and was able to recreate some memories 

Open bus tour - then and now

Outside Windsor castle - then and now. Last time I did not have time to go inside the castle, this time we took time to visit the castle. The doll house was my favorite part of the castle. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside 

Our visit coincided with the platinum jubilee and the whole city was decked up with flags

Hand knit ornaments outside Windsor gift shop to commemorate the platinum jubilee

My next favorite of the visit was the borough food market - so many stalls selling just cheese, olive oils, extracts...

This was a stall selling home made sauces and syrups. Look at all the yummy little bottles there. I was left spoilt for choice there

Fell in love with the variety of blooms. This was outside an apartment. Reminded me of the rhyme where it says 'chubby cheeks.. dimple chin..'

Now for some stitchy update

A fair amount of progress on mystery project

And orts - year to date

More from our trip and more in my next post. Till then.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir

May ORTS

Greetings and a very warm welcome dear friends. The year seems to be rolling by real fast, doesn't it. Here we are in May already!

Well, the daughter's board exams are all set to start from the 6th of May and they go on till 15th June!! 5 weeks for 5 subjects.. feel terribly sorry for the kids. 

There's a terrible heat wave all over the country and there are videos of people making rotis on car hoods in Orissa!! The only good thing about summer is mangoes. Can't wait to make several desserts/cakes etc for the season

Thanks to our monthly ORTS, I catch up with all you blogging friends and what's going on in your side of the World

On the stitchy front, I've made decent progress on Mystery project

I have completed about 1 and a half page of stitching. It's quite a lot of different shades of pink there :) 

That's the ORTS from the month's stitching. The lose thread from the month and year to date in the jar 

That's about it from me now dear friends. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir! 

Mystery Project Update

Guess what - I have 50 followers now! Thank you so much, dear friends for your kindness

So, let me give some more details about my Mystery project. This is going to be my biggest project ever. The pattern is a self generated one using StitchingJoy.com. The pattern is 24 pages.. yes you read that right - 24 pages!! And it's a full coverage project too

You can see how big the material is. Of course, there's enougghhh spare linen, which I will cut off after I finish. I just am too scared to cut the fabric for fear of falling short

Here's a closer look at my progress. Considering the amount of time I am getting to stitch, I wonder how long this project is going to take me to complete. I am very excited and nervous about this project. Also, extremely eager and restless to finish it, to see the outcome

So, here's my ORTs for the month. All ORTs are from progress on mystery project

That's it from me today dear friends. Till next time.. Take Care.. Be Happy.. Keep stitching.. Au Revoir

Tusal & A New Start

I am going to call my next project 'Mystery project'. This is going to be my biggest ever project and am quite nervous about this one!

I have put in the first few stitches, stitching @ few stitches each day. 

ORTs for the month are all from Mandala lotus finish and some from my mystery project

That's from me today dear friends. Till next time.. Be happy.. Keep stitching.. Au Revoir