Sunday Snapshot

Greetings from a sweet little bird outside my window this morning.

I put water for them in a bowl on my balcony but imagine it's not very refreshing because of the heat.  It certainly doesn't take long for the water to completely evaporate when it's 120  degrees outside.

We currently have a family friend and business associate visiting from Madrid, so took him to lunch at Radisson Blu for Chinese food.   

The Al Hashemi sits right outside the hotel and is registered with the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest wooden dhow ever built.

As you can see from the hazy look of this picture, we've had humidity the past couple of days.  As soon as we step outside, everything fogs up.  

Back at home, I did a quick watercolor for today's ICAD prompt of dessert or desert.

An obvious choice since I live in a desert country.

There's also some crochet happening that I'll tell you about soon.

Happy Sunday!

Handmade/Homemade July

Last month, I joined a 61 day ICAD (index card a day) challenge with Tammy of the blog Yellow Daisy (@gypsy999 on Instagram).

Daily prompts are sent out weekly so that gives me plenty of time to think about what I'm going to do.  Of course, some days are easier than others depending on whether the creative juices are flowing or not.

These are the first 31 which includes today's prompt of "faux wallpaper".  So far I've managed to keep up; the icad challenge continues through the end of the month.

Just today I joined @postcardfromgibraltar for a daily summer creative challenge.  While trying to do some organizing of my craft supplies lately (not an easy task), I came across these little yarn balls so started a double crochet scrappy piece (not quite sure what it will be yet).

Since I'm not traveling to the States this summer, and it's super hot outside, I've got to find ways to stay inspired and creative, so am hoping these challenges will help.

I'm also using this new month as a jump start to more consistency in my blogging.

Happy July!

Hello and Happy Eid

Hope you are all well.  It's been nearly 2 weeks since my last post and the only reason for that is pure laziness.

For the past 30 days we have been in the midst of the Holy Month of Ramadan.  That means from sunup 'til sundown there is no eating or drinking in public so all restaurants and coffee shops are closed until just before sunset.

On Thursday, we were invited to fatoor (the breaking of the fast) at Movenpick.

It was lovely to see all the lights and decorations for Ramadan.

Today marks the first day of Eid celebrations.  Although my husband has off the next couple of days and we could go out, we are instead having a quiet day at home.  (Perhaps we'll venture out tomorrow.)

While he enjoys traditional maamoul, butter cookies stuffed with dates, walnuts or pistachios, I made myself some vegan pumpkin pecan polvorones (recipe from Cookie and Kate).

Eid blessings to all.

My First C2C

One of the activities planned for this past Saturday's Worldwide Knit-in-Public Day was a yarn swap.

I received the Happy Baby yarn above, along with many other little crafty items.  Sweet handwritten notes were attached to each gift giving tips on how it could be used.

(I've wanted a spool knitter for awhile so look forward to trying that out soon.)

In the meantime, I've started my first corner-to-corner baby blanket.  I've watched friends working on them for a couple of years now and always thought it looked a bit difficult, especially the graphghans (changing colors within a project is not my forte). But it turns out a c2c blanket is made only using chains and double crochet, which happens to be my favorite stitch.

So far so good.  Since I'm using the yarn I received, I will be doing a color change at the end of the row.  And hope the decrease is just as easy as the increase has been.

Happy Tuesday!

3rd Annual WWKIP Day

Thanks to Mini of Miniz Diary, Kuwait has now participated in its third Worldwide Knit-in-Public Day.

Since 2005, knitters (and now all sorts of crafters) have been gathering on the second Saturday in June with the idea of "Better living through stitching together,"

At our first event, we had 8 in attendance, and this time, I totally lost count.

So much amazing talent and creativity from knitters, crocheters and stitchers.  

In fact, I was so busy talking, that I barely did any crocheting at all.  I was distracted by so much inspiration all around.

Thanks again Mini for all your hard work in organizing a very successful event.

Happy crafting,

Five Flowers on Friday

Today I'm joining Carly and Tricky at Fast Blog for Five on Friday.

On May 22nd I posted about this child's board book of flowers that I recently got.  I love all the colorful illustrations so thought it would be fun to find real flowers to match.

Flower Number 1

Flower number 2:

I deadheaded my daisies and a few days later found two tiny little surprise blooms.

Flower number 3:

Buds and blooms on my balcony.

It's amazing how these two blooms are on the same plant and yet look so different.

Flower number 4:

Last year I had a red hibiscus that succumbed to the summer heat, so this winter we bought another one, in a different color.

It had an aphid problem several weeks ago but that's under control now.  One beautiful flower opened up this morning and many more buds are just waiting to bloom.

And finally, flower number 5:

I don't think there's anything on this planet that more trumpets life than the sunflower. For me that's because of the reason behind its name. Not because it looks like the sun but because it follows the sun. During the course of the day, the head tracks the journey of the sun across the sky. A satellite dish for sunshine. Wherever light is, no matter how weak, these flowers will find it. And that's such an admirable thing. And such a lesson in life.

Helen Mirren

Happy Friday!

Crochet Lessons

The joy of crochet is its simplicity: there is only ever one stitch in work and just a few variations of the basic stitches to master, but the possibilities of using and combining those stitches together are endless.

Erika Knight

A week and a half ago, my 11 year old neighbor, Malak, asked if I could teach her to crochet.

Lesson number one:  the chain stitch.  Once she felt she understood how to do it, she would go home to practice.

And the next day, she would bring me her sample.

Lesson two:  single crochet.

I was so pleased with how quickly she was able to pick it up even though she felt her work was messy.  I told her that she can't expect to be perfect when she just started and besides that, I've tried to teach adults who never got past making chain stitches, so I think she's doing great!

On Tuesday, she announced she wanted to make a scarf but I told her we needed to take it one step at a time.  I figured a much simpler project would be more satisfying.

So lesson number three was crocheting a circle that was transformed into a flower by using the stitches she had already learned.  At the rate she's going, she'll be crocheting that scarf in no time.

Happy Thursday,