Of Travels and Weddings

Hola dear friends, it's been 2 months since my last post! Sooo much has happened since my last post

April has been a month of weddings and travels. There were 2 weddings and 3 trips. I am going to walk you through the last 2 months in pictures as, otherwise this post would probably be my longest one ever 😀

We started the month by a trip to Amritapuri with my aunt. This time I decided to work from Amritapuri and not take leaves. After more than 5 years, we also took the train while going instead of flying. We were pleasantly surprised that there have been a lot of changes in the railway stations. I realised how much I missed an overnight train travel. This was fun and should definitely do this more often

Now here are some pictures

A snap of the backwaters from over the AmritaSetu bridge

Despite the heat, the breeze actually made it very pleasant to enjoy the view from atop the bridge

Next trip was to Kancheepuram, which is about 3 hours from Chennai. It was a day trip, we left early morning and were back by 10pm . The day was quite tiring but was quite a fulfilling day. Last time I went there was before COVID!

This is a picture of the mandapam in Kamakshi temple

Had to recreate this memory 

A view of all the gopurams together

Then we had our LokSabha elections too this month and I am glad that I fulfilled my responsibility as a citizen

Next trip was one to Bangalore to attend my boss's son's wedding. My boss now, is one of my first managers. He was my first project manager since 1998 till 2001. After I moved to a few other teams and rejoined this team, he's now my boss again since 2014!  Here are a few pictures from the wedding and the trip

Taken at the reception 

In front of the bull temple in Bangalore

Look at the beautiful fresh colourful flowers at the market 

Amazing how many dosas he could carry at a time!!

That sums up my April dear friends. Amidst all this, I stitched just a little bit and making some progress on Amma

Here's where She is now! Doesn't she look awesome!

Here's a view of the ORTS from last 2 month's stitching

So, dear friends that's allll that has been happening at my end of the universe. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!! 

Only TUSAL

 Hola dear friends

Dropping by to say hello and to share my monthly new moon progress on Project Amma. Not much has happened at my end since my last post other than work work and more work. People are normally most productive in the first half of the year, after returning from their holidays 😄

Looks like I was mistaken on the progress on Amma. I am 75% done and have only 25%!! Ain't that great :). I have only the last 8 pages left now as against the last 16 pages 

This is the 'moving the QSnap' picture. I have goosebumps every time I see Her 

A closer picture of where I am currently and ORTs from the month's stitching

So, till next time.. take care..be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!! 

Of festivals, sweets & stitching

Hope you all had a great Deepavali dear friends!! Ours was a quiet but a good one this. We had our get-together in the evening and burst some crackers. Crackers have become so expensive now though 

This is me in my new Deepavali saree, which is a hand painted kalamkari in tussar silk

This year I went light on the sweets. Usually I prepare all sweets myself. But this year I ordered sweets and savouries 

The only 'sweet' that I made was this Baklava cheesecake to take to our get-together and everyone just loved it. This was a perfect fusion of baking and ethnic 

Stitching has been slightly slower this month owing to a bout of viral fever 

So, here's the progress from the month of stitching Amma

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

Stitchy Update

Hola dear friends! Amazing how the months just fly by - we are already at the end of April 

So, here is what has happened the past month since my last post. My parents are getting ready to shift into their new home by the end of April. So, most of the month has gone in helping them with their packing and work

Amidst that, very little crafting has happened. As many of you know, I love fridge magnets and sarees

I found this beautiful addition to my collection. This is a magnet that is made after the Madurai Sungudi saree. Look at how beautiful it is, even the folds look real

Some amount of stitching happened the past month on project Amma

So, this is where I am. I have completed page 8 and onto page 9 now. I cannot believe how this is coming up and can't wait to finish 

So, dear friends, that's from me today. Till next month 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!!

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! 

Framed & TUSAL

It's festival season and the air is filled with positive energy and love! I will share pictures of our Navarathri in my next post

V and I had stitched a few projects during the last year. We got them framed this week

This is my favourite and very close to my heart. I had asked the framer to give a beautifully carved teak wood frame, but he was extremely reluctant and would not give me the frame! 

These 2 cute stitches are Vs. The shoe was a gift from our dear friend Meari

I somehow forgot to mention to the framer to add boards. So, am not that happy with the framing. I will probably get these reframed after some time

It's time for the month's ORTS

Not much progress as I would have liked last month. Here are ORTS from the month's progress

This is a view of YTD ORTS

This is my story for the month dear friends. Till next time.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir! 

Nov ORTS & A New Start!

We are almost at the end of the year (with just a month and a half left) And all our festivals are almost done, we just have Karthigai left. This year has been different, but we definitely had fun. We limited the number of in person visits for Navaratri, and 'met' people virtually. We sent the vethala paaku and diwali sweets via swiggy/dunzo (local delivery apps).

All through this year, I have been posting an entry @ of one post per month - mostly for ORT update. This is another ORT post

Diwali 2020

So, this is how we spent diwali

These were my diwali looks - white saree for diwali eve, garden picture on diwali morning and the red saree on diwali evening

V and I went totally crazy with the sweets, as you can see here. We started preparing about a week before diwali and went on till the diwali afternoon!! We had lots of fun preparing and sharing with everyone

Stitchy Update

I started this new project, which is a free coffee pattern from Pinterest. I am stitching this on perforated paper and using anchor thread from my stash

All ORTs are from coffee progress. The jar shows YTD-am quite happy that it's almost full this year😊

So, dear friends, this is the update from me today. Till next time, Take care.. Be Happy.. Keep stitching.. Au Revoir

Deepavali, TUSAL

Belated Deepavali wishes to all. Deepavali is a festival that we all look forward to right from the start of the year. When the annual holiday calendar is announced each year, first thing we look for is Deepavali.
Here's a brief background on the significance of Deepavali. Deepavali is known as the festival of lights. 'Deep' means light. There are many stories associated with Deepavali. One is that this is the day Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile and winning over Ravana.
Another story is that this is the day when Lord Krishna killed the evil demon king Narakasura. Hence this is also called Naraka Chaturdasi
Also, this is the day when Goddess Lakshmi is said to have wed Lord Vishnu

In our region, TamilNadu, we wake up and have the traditional oil bath (known as Ganga snaanam) before the crack of dawn. Then we proceed to burst crackers till about 7 or 8am. This is the day when the entire neighborhood is able to meet and greet each other. We share each other's crackers - there is no sense of 'I, you, me, mine' on this day. There is total sense of joy and peace in the air

In North India, the festivities are normally held in the evening to invite Goddess Lakshmi home. There is a Lakshmi pooja conducted at dusk in almost all households and even shops.

As is the norm, V and I celebrated in our apartment along with friends and neighbors. In the evening our entire family gathered at my aunt's place. It was an evening filled with bursting crackers, fun, food. This year we had a time restriction imposed by the Supreme Court for bursting crackers - only 2 hours!! Despite this we had loads of fun

This year we asked our cook to make the sweets and savories. I only tried my hand at Chocolate Peda which turned out absolutely yummy.

 I am a part of this FB group called OPOS, where the only utensil required for cooking is a pressure cooker. This recipe was shared in that group and it turned out very good:

110 gms Sugar 
60 ml water 
A Tsp ghee 
Cook On high for 5 Whistles 
Mixed in 140 gms Everyday milk powder 
10 gms Hershey's Cocoa powder 
Allowed it to cool for 10 to 15 minutes if it is gooey (resting time depends on the texture you get soon after mixing and needs self assessment; if you feel you can shape it immediately do not rest as it tends to dry on resting ), Shape it.

Beading:

I have promised myself that after each stitchy finish, I will do some beading. This way I get to work on all crafts. I am sticking to this promise as much as possible and here are my most recent beading expeditions

I bought this pendant a few years back from 'Jew Street' in Cochin. I found the perfect beads to go along with it, which I think my brother bought from Michael's 

All the beads are imported - the pink beads are ones that my brother got from Michael's. The pendant and the elongated stone beads are from a site called 'Fire N Mountain Gems'

TUSAL Update:
Wow, the months just seem to whizz by!! It feels like just a few days ago that I posted my ORTs update and it's already a month

What with festival season, stitching has taken a back seat. But I managed to start off on Blue Lotus. All Orts for the month are from finishing off Pink lotus and start of Blue Lotus

Orts in the glass jar are year-to-date and on the right are for the month

That's all from me today folks. Till next time.. Take care.. Be Happy.. Keep Stitching.. Au Revoir

TUSAL - May 2018

A very short and sweet post to show you my ORTS jar as of May - year to date

and a picture of where I stand with Coffee

As promised, this is a very short post friends. More very soon. Till then.. take care.. be happy.. keep stitching.. Au Revoir!!

TUSAL - April & A New Start

After finishing Sweet Summer, my next project is one of my favorites and very close to my heart!! I cannot function without this and cannot live without.. this is what I look forward to first thing in the morning - you must have guessed what it is by now.. of course I am talking about COFFEE!!!

This is a free pattern that I got from Pinterest 

Here's the progress till date on this new project. I initially started out on 30ct linen that was left over from my LHN projects. But this thread did not show prominently and almost merged with the fabric. So I switched to Aida that I had in my stash. My aim this year is to use as much from the stash as possible and not to accumulate any more stash

This is my ORTS jar till date after finish of Sweet Summer and start of Coffee

That's the update from me today dear friends. Till next time.. Take Care.. Be Happy.. Keep Stitching.. Au Revoir!!

Tusal and more

Firstly, thank you dear friends for all your encouraging words. Each time I slow down, all I have to do is login to our blog world and take a look everybody's progress. Lo and behold.. I am all charged up to continue and not to give up

Ok now for my Tusal of the month

All ORTs are from seashells

Over the weekend I tried 2 new recipes. The first one is a dessert - a faux cheese cake.

V wanted something for dessert. I had craving for cheesecake, but no patience to whip up a proper cheesecake. So, I combined whipped cream with cream cheese, used ginger cookies as the base and strawberry oreo for topping

The second is choco-peppermint cookies

I replaced the egg with flaxseed powder. Also, I varied the baking time for each lot - baked one slightly longer for crispy cookies, one lot shorter for chewy center and in the last lot added some caramel in the center.

I don't have any picture to show you on seashells this time. So, that's all from me today dear friends.

Till my next update.. Take care.. Be happy.. Keep stitching.. Au Revoir