Shalini's Sewing Space

Stitching An entire month without any posts. I thank you to visit after such long absences from blogging. So much is going on in my life that I don't feel like spilling all of that here -- except for crafting, ofcourse. I love making craft related posts. Quick update - I am in India currently on the tail end of my trip. It has been fine except missing DH and DS too much. This time I got the time to do all those things I want to do on when I come to India but never have time for - like taking long walks in the parks, going window shopping (and shopping), going to movies, just sitting at home (hotel) and hanging out with family, and so on. But it has been a long 4 weeks without them. It would have been so much better if they were able to come but seeing that we just visited 6 months ago, it didn't make sense. DH wasn't able to get vacation so soon and for me it is work during weekdays anyways. So glad I brought stitching with me on this trip. It was a last minute decision to ...

Chucky The Hamster DH's boss got her kids a hamster. The hamster gave babies the day after. The boss-lady brought the babies to work. DH got Chucky (formerly known as Gluestick) home :) Working out in his exercise ball Sitting in his food tray and eating Drinking water from the bottle Chucky is pretty down to earth guy. He eats, sleeps and poops. Quality pet time. In crafy news, I finished this scarf some time back - Thistle Stop WIP 1/24/2009 We are surveying schools for Mehul. He is not eligible for public school this year because his birthday is 4 days after the cutoff date so our choices are to do Kindergarten in Private school or KG in current Daycare, or let him do Pre-K again in daycare. We want to do private KG. His daycare has a Kindergarten program too and we might just stay with this daycare. The problem with this daycare is that it is not State Accredited for KG and he will have to give a test to get admission in 1st grade in public school next year. The schools we are ...

Proof of stitching I'm so in love with this project. This here is Thistle Stop by Crossed Wing. The fabric is from Silkweaver, it was part of a grab bag (the only grab bag I ever did). I don't have the name for it, sorry. It is sparkly and has clouds. Love it. So far, I've finished the bird and the part of the feeder below the bird and backstitched the bird. I've made some progress on the upper side since the picture was taken. I started this on 24th December. I finished reading the entire Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich last month. There are 14 novels in the series so far, I think I read them in a month and a half. I thoroughly enjoyed it - the beginning novels are just amazingly hilarious but as you get towards the end, it gets repetitive. But I would still recommend the novels for a quick read. As you can imagine, I didn't have much time for anything else - no stitching was done. I am also knitting 2 scarves currently as my car projects. One of them is ...

My Olympic Start The center design and the borders done so far are all from My Aunt's Attic . I had downloaded a bunch of designs from them and decided to make up a sampler for it. I graphed an approximate design outline just to get an idea of the size and then started it while watching the opening ceremony. I cut the fabric to 25"x25" with design area of 18"x18". About midway through the center design, I had the bright idea of adding a set of borders as a 'platform' on which the vase is sitting. Once I stitched a bunch borders, I wanted 'steps' instead of the flat platform. So, as you can see, I'm making it up as I go ;) The leaves border is the bottom stair. I might add another row under it. The design is completely different from the original I had planned but that's the fun part! So far, I've added a smaller vase on the bottom step on left side and will do the same on the right. This picture is from a few days ago. I don't kno...

Rakhi, Independence Day and Teej First off, today is Indian Independence Day - so Happy Independence Day to any Indians out there. Tomorrow is Rakhi. It is the festival of celebrating the bond between brothers and sisters. I have talked about it before so I won't go into details. I just wanted to show a picture of the Rakhis that have arrived for DH and Mehul! So, tomorrow morning before breakfast, I'll be proxy-sister to both of them and tie their rakhis :LOL Next up, Teej is on Tuesday. That is the day when I get to fast until moon-rise, dress up in nice clothes and perform rites for the moon. I will be home this time. It is too stressful trying to work and get back home in time to prepare for the evening. I will be working because there are project deadlines but it's ok as long as I'm home. Now for some stitching. My first Biscornu. I skipped the bead in the center. I like it this way. Sorry for the hurried list - Michael Phelps is on in a few minutes. There is a s...

Peacock Update I posted it over at the Peacock StitchAlong Blog . Thanks to Taneya for directing me to it. It's coming along.

Peacock Tapestry Update As of 4/28/2008 Peacock is being stitched in Eterna Silk. I'm soon going to run out of one of the greens for the tail. I'm waiting to see how many others I'll run out of before placing the order. Meanwhile, here is a picture -

Part 3 completed Free design by Papillon Creations I'm putting this down for a while and going to start stitching on Peacock Tapestry again. I anticipate getting back to this when part 5 has been released.

Back at work After an almost weeklong vacation (minus monday), I'm now back at work. The weather could not have been more gorgeous last week. It was in 70s although one day it did hit 80s. I did a lot of yardwork. Laid down the sod by the steps we've recently had someone build, planted the shrubs, and tidied up the yard. I've planted roses, pink hydrangeas, Clemantis, Jasmine, Butterfly bush, and atleast 2 more shrubs I'm forgetting. I've put a lot of bulbs as well - Gladiolus, gayfeather, and Dahlias. We'll see if all the hard work was worth it in a few months. I need more hydrangeas for the front yard. And I am looking for a nice tree for the front as well. It's been raining since yesterday. It's good for the sod and the grass seed. Stitching - I've completed parts 1 and 2 of the Papillion Creations mystery - How does your garden grow. I forgot to give the design info. in the previous post. It's available if you sign up for their newsletter. I...

How does your garden grow - Part 1 I planted the roses yesterday. The original plan was to put them on the east side of the house but later I thought they might be better in the back, which gets sun the whole day, so that's where they've gone. I am still deciding on where to plant the climbing rose. For the east side, I have gotten some more flowering perennials - spinea, and another one with blue blooms. I also got some clematis. That will go in the back next to the roses. I can't wait for bloom time! I need to get the hydrangeas from the nursery. They'll go on the east as well. I put a few ferns in the front in big planters. I am a fern-lover. If I could, I would have a garden full of ferns. The front of our house gets very little sun (North) so that should be good for them. The wind was blowing so they look a bit weird. So apart from gardening, I've been stitching a lot the past 2 days. Not much else going on. I'll share the garden pictures once it looks reas...

Angel of Love It's finished at last. Copyright - MLI Fabric - Days Gone By Jazlyn by Silkweaver Started - December 2003, Finished - April 2008

Angel of Love Progress Not a whole lot this time. I have only stitched 5-6 nights since the last progress pic.

Angel of Love update There will be a detailed post tomorrow but for today, here is my Angel of Love progress. I picked this up after a 4 month break! This is after about a week's worth of stitching. For comparison purposes, I'm adding the last WIP photo I have (not much was done after that). November 25th WIP and March 25th WIP (exactly 4 months!) Beads Closeup. Holy Moly! There are so many of them. Good thing I like beads. Or if I am Mehul, BEANDS ;) Credits: Design: MLI Angel of Love Fabric: Silkweaver - Days Gone By Jazlyn Floss: DMC Floss and Mill Hill beads. Design Variation: I have started adding beads to the bottom of golden threads in the cape. There weren't enough beads in the design, so I decided to add some more. LOL! Come on, what's a couple more beads?

Oooh Look, Another Stitching Related Post.. They are so few and far inbetween. Here is the promised picture of the Angel of Love WIP. The first picture is from 2 years ago, which I'm only including for comparison purposes. So that you can see I *am* actually stitching. LOL. The 3rd picture is the truest in terms of colors. As of December 4th, 2004 This picture is on webshots and it doesn't let me download the bigger one as JPG. Link takes you there. As of November 19th, 2006 As of November 25th, 2006 Thanks Erin and Sene for the sweet comments. The journaling makes me cry too, everytime I read it :)

This is a stitching related post Finally, current status of my 10 Projects (I have only identified 8 so far..) 1.TW Heart Sampler 2.TW Harvest Sampler 3.Victoria Sampler Gazebo Roses 4 & 5. EMS Frog Baby, Bumble Bee Baby 6.The small Chatelaine Sampler I had started 7.Fanta Cat Desings Gypsy Allure And finally, 8.TW Tradewinds I'm debating if I should add the Angel of Love to this mix, considering that it is the one that I'm actually stitching currently! It's a huge project (and so are all the TWs). Probably not a good idea. If I make considerable progress on it soon(ish) then I'll add it :p Is that cheating?

Nothing Exciting going on It has gotten rather cold this week here. I have to drop our overcoats at the drycleaner's. I also need to wash our other jackets. Every year, I buy atleast one new coat/jacket. This year, I'm thinking of getting one with some sort of embroidery. I saw some on a site when a stitching friend mentioned it. It would be great to wear over my Salwar Kameez or Sari. I normally avoid wearing these dresses in winter, but if I had a pretty jacket, sure. Something like this would work. I could even wear this over jeans or other pants. Stitching. Yes, I have started stitching again. Yay for me. I picked up the 'Angel of Love' to renew my love of stitching. Here is a WIP Picture from ages ago. Not much done after this. I have to also update my webshots album. I have started a bunch of new projects, and completed some. Scrapping. I'm still scrapping. In fact, I am downloading some new goodies by Diamante Designs (Lori) today. Speaking of that, Lori ha...

The 10 Stitching Projects Challenge I am having the itch to start stitching again. I have abandoned it for more than 2 years. Right before DS was born, I was stitching Victoria Sampler's Gazebo Roses . I remember sitting on the Tennis Court, stitching, while DH and his 3 friends played Tennis. I was around 7 months pregnant with Mehul. Ah, all the free time we used to have! August 2004 - We had just moved into our Townhouse - our first house. We had a handle on everything, from jobs to cleaning and organizing the house, to home improvement. We had so much time to plan and do things. We had time for hobbies! Poor DH hasn't played Tennis since Mehul was born. After Mehul turned One, I quit my job and stayed home to take care of him. I was home for about 7-8 months. Very few people know this, but I was offered to work from home, part time, flex hours by my Program Manager. I took it but wasn't sure how it was going to work. Afterall, we were not going to send Mehul to daycare,...

Stitching again I haven't really stitched much in the last couple of months since I've been on extended-vacation ha! It's weird that when I had loads of time at home, I didn't feel like stitching, and now that I'm working again, I've started stitching. What's the correlation there? I had stitched a gift for a friend in April (which they LOVED), but since then I haven't touched stitching. Yesterday, we had planned to go on a picnic with friends but it rained. We had already finished all our regular weekend tasks in anticipation of the picnic, so I found myself some free time! So, I stitched. I was going through my projects and found TW's Harvest Sampler, which I didn't even remember starting. Mommy brain :-) I put in a few lazy daizys and some eyelets. The sampler is full of them but they look so pretty. I haven't taken a picture of it but here is what it will look like when it's completed - TW Harvest Sampler