Sticthes & Beads

 Hola dear friends! This time it has been a long long time and sooooo much has happened during this period.

Let me start by showing you my finish in 3 years!!! 

                                               

Amma is finally done and I just love how She has turned out! I can't believe that I took only (that's right.. only) 3 years to finish Her! 

Now I am taking a short break from stitching and took out my beads from hibernation. Here are some necklaces that I made in the last few months. Some of them went out as gifts to my nieces

After a huuuge project, I want to stitch something quick and fun

Selected 2 small cute designs from this book, which was a gift from a dear friend. I am going to use perforated paper for one of them as I want to make it into a magnet. Once this is done, I will chose the medium for the other one

That's quite a lot of updates in one post 😀. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!!!

2023 - A ReCap

Is it already time to bid goodbye to 2023??!!  This year has been a mixed bag - slow sometimes and fast sometimes. Overall it has been an average year in all aspects

So, let's see the highlights from 2023

First and foremost, I completed 15 years of blogging!! That's right, isn't that amazing. When I started the blog, I had no clue that I will keep this going for so long. I have made many friends through the blog and learnt so much from this platform. So, here's to more blogging and more crafting

Travels:

We were blessed with 3 trips to Amritapuri this year! 

We had our annual get2gether with the cousins at Pollachi this year. It was a great one, though only for 2 days, as cousins from all over the world were able to come. Some of us were meeting after almost 5 years

Hobbies:

Beading

Some of the necklaces I mad this year. Hope to bead some more jewellery this upcoming year

Bakes

Snapshot of some of the bakes this year. Our favourite are the poornam muffin and the baklava cheesecake

Reading

..aaannd these are the books I read. My favourite was the entire Ponniyin Selvan series, absolutely brilliant

Cross Stitch

This is where I was in the beginning of 2023. I was 5 pages down

..this is where I am now currently. I have completed 11 pages and moving onto the 12th page now. I have about 40% more left. Hoping to finish this the upcoming year

So friends, that is the roundup of 2023 from my end. How has your year been? 

Wishing you and your family a very happy, very joyous and a brilliant year ahead. Wishing that the year brings the best of everything for all of us

Here's signing off for the year.. till next time.. Have a great rest of your holidays.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!!!

Crafty May.. ORTs

Hola dear friends, how's everyone doing

My crafting mojo has been on an all time high last month. 

Beading: It all started with making a birthday gift for one of Vs friends. Seeing all the beauties triggered something and there was no stopping me

 

This is a pretty baby pink crystal necklace for which V called dibs even before it was finished. I bought the center portion from Michael's when I went to the US in 2016

 

Another multi color crystal one, for which V called dibs again

This is a turquoise beads necklace. Bought the turquoise beads from Michael's 

Tried a new pattern with this one and love the way this turned out

A multicolor crystal necklace. This is a gift for one of Vs friends

A maroon crystal bracelet and earring set. This also was a gift for Vs friend. Whoaa am impressed with myself 😊

Project Amma

The complete view taken before changing the QSnap

Here's the progress since changing. ORTS from last month's progress on the right

I started using my floor stand actively now. I am much more comfortable using this now than I used to be earlier. Except for the fact that I have to keep taking out the QSnap from the stand each time I start or finish a line, this is much easier. Also, big relief for my wrist and neck

That's the update from me today dear friends. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. Keep Stitching.. Au Revoir

A sweet post

Hola dear friends. It's time for our monthly catch-up. The month started off with a much-awaited visit to see my Guru, my most beloved Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi)

Re-discovering one of my favorite sweets - Churuttu!! This is a sweet from Kottayam, Kerala. Our family friend, who's home town is Kottayam, used to get this for us every time she visited her hometown. Ever since we moved to Chennai (in 1996), I have not been able to have this. We do not get this, even in any other part of Kerala. 

Have you ever heard/realised that if we crave for something with all our heart, we somehow get it. Well, this is exactly that. 

A few weeks back, there was a small news snippet in the paper about a store called Little Kerala. And guess what - they actually had Churuttu!!

I ordered right away - and here it is. It has sweet filling made of Sooji, wrapped in rice pastry, deep fried and soaked in sugar syrup. Sounds sinful right - it totally is

There happened a G20 meet in Chennai on 25 & 26 March at ITC. Yesterday when I went to ITC to meet my cousin, I saw this beautiful display for the event

Over the weekend, I got to do some beading after a long time. Made one necklace for myself (the one in the picture) and one for my friend's sister (could not take a picture unfortunately), who recently celebrated her 50th birthday

And here's where I am with my mystery project. As you can see, the face is clear now - I am stitching a portrait of my beloved Guru - Mata Amritanandamayi. As it takes shape, I cannot wait for it to finish - am that excited. Am loving it every moment. 

You can see all ORTS from all the stitching last month

So, dear friends, that has been quite an active month!! With this I finish the post and we also say bye to March '23 and get ready to welcome April '23!! Till next time friends - take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. 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!!! 

TUSAL & some Beading

Dear friends, we continue working from home.. online school continues.. we continue to order our groceries online.. and so life goes on

 I have been making some necklaces and my stash, which was quite huge I should admit, has reduced considerably

Here's a picture of some of  the necklaces that I made recently

During the last month, I have been able to stitch for about an hour atleast 2-3 days a week on my mandala lotus

Here's the progress. I love the colours and can't wait for it to finish. ORTS from the progress are on the right

So, dear friends, that's my story tonight. Till next time.. stay safe.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir

Crafting Away

Hope everybody is safe and healthy, staying at home. We are using this time to catch up on many long pending tasks

I had taken a 3 weeks' break from work for V's board exams. She loved studying in the drawing room, so I used to sit beside her doing my thing. There was a kind of peace in doing our own thing sitting side by side :)

I used this time well, catching up with my crafting. The beads came out of hibernation and saw the light of the day

Beading

I have been wanting to re-do this necklace as it had become very tight. I got it strung during my pre-beading days, and it did not fit any more. The left pic is the how it was earlier and the right is how I re-did it - added some red crystals and pearls to go with the pendant

The big orange beads in the center have been in the stash for quite a few years. These were part of the first bead stash that I bought, at least 8 years ago!! Added black crystals and orange seed beads

This was another necklace that I wanted to re-do. The left pic is how I had done it earlier, but was not happy even then. My friend had bought these beads for me from Singapore. The pic on the right  is how I re-did this now. Added black onyx and rose gold shaded metal findings 

This one is for V. She loved the pendant and wanted me to string something for her. So, used these green wooden beads with silver metal findings

I had bought these beads from South Africa in 2016. The middle part of all these are a set - pre-strung. 

Stitchy Update

 I also made a start and good progress on Rose

This is the progress in a week

Here is the ORTS for March

This is the update from me today friends. Stay healthy.. Stay Safe.. Stay home.. Stay Positive and keep crafting!! Till next time dear friends, Au Revoir

2018.. the year that was

Time to say Goodbye to yet another year!! WOW.. time sure does fly

Here's a quick recap of the year in pictures

I got my nose pierced this year! This has been something I have been wanting to do for a very long time but never got to, as the total idea just freaked me out. So, happy to have ticked something off my bucket list

Baking

All the new recipes that we tried between V and me. I have stashed so many recipes in the form of newspaper cuttings, magazines, recipe books and saved in FB and emails. So, this year I wanted to try as much of them as possible, here's some of them ticked off. Hope to achieve more the coming year

Beading

I also have accumulated so many beads and beading accents in my stash. So, I decided that after every stitchy finish I will do some beading. Here's all that we have accomplished this year between V and me. Now my beads bag is significantly lighter!! 

Reading

Complete list of books I have read this year. Out of the whole lot my most favorites or the ones that impacted me the most have been - Immortals of Meluha, Northanger Abbey (re-reading after many years), Flawless and Goodbye Jimmy Choo

Cross Stitching

Wow, quite a stitchy year - feel good that I was able to accomplish . I wanted to use up as much from my stash this year and I feel very happy to say that I stuck to that resolve!! Lesson learnt - set smaller achievable goals

Last but not the least at all - I completed a DECADE of Blogging!!! Can you believe that it's actually been 10 whole years since I stepped into this world and how much I have grown. I have come a long way with all your encouragement, motivation and inspiration

As I sign off for the day, here's wishing all my dear blogger friends a very very happy, stitchy, peaceful year ahead

See you next year dear friends. Till then.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir