Snow Mountain

Seeing a friend's beautiful paintings, I think I should try my hands on it too. So I am thinking what do I paint? - don't have any particular ideas. Then all of a sudden I wonder how would one paint a snow mountain? So my curious self logs on to you tube and the first tutorial that i come across is of painting a snow mountain... Fate!! I had to try it. Its not much compared to the one in the tutorial ... nonetheless  its My First Oil Painting!

Cellphone covers

Just made a collage of all the cellphone covers I made. Most of these were gifts for friends and family

Doilies Galore!!

Here are some doilies that i created based on patterns i got from different websites.

Pineapple Doily

Pansy doily

Pansy doily with border

Irish Crochet Doily

Colourful Flowers

Flowers are a beautiful way to decorate your house. I found this very easy patterns to make Carnations from this website. I made a bunch of them in cotton thread earlier and now with wool. Both look equally great. Hope you like them too!

My oldest crochet work

I started learning crochet when I was studying diploma with another friend of mine. I learnt the basics and then used my own imagination to make a cute multicolored sling purse, a nice college purse, a pouch to keep my stationery and this cover to keep my scientific calculator. I don't know where the rest of the things are but I do have this one and we use it to keep hard disk these days.

It's a simple pattern. I made it length wise (2 rows of single crochet with one color then switch to another color and have 2 rows of single crochet with another color) and then folded it and stitched it on the side. Since i needed width I ended up doing a double crochet while stitching the side.

Hiya!

Hiya!
This is my first post on my new blog site.
I enjoy making a lot of crochet stuff and i try other arts too. I have a lot of pics of all the interesting things I've made so I thought it was high time I created a page to showcase my creations!!


I hope you enjoy them!
Cheers

Mint pesto + spinach stuffed ravioli in tomato sauce

Wow this is my first recipe blog. Thanks to all those who asked me the recipe :)

Ok this is not a an 100% original recipe. While browsing for some interesting recipes I had come across this one. I had made the ravioli sheets myself have listed the recipe below.

After all the travel around the world I have put on a good amount of weight so i made this one without any cheese or cream.

Without further ado here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

Ravioli Sheets:

1 cup Whole wheat flour / refined flour (I had used a mix of both)

salt to taste

water for kneading soft dough

egg eaters can add 1 egg (I havent tried)

Stuffing

1 bunch of spinach

1/2 cup mint leaves

7-8 garlic cloves (adjust as per your taste)

olive oil

salt & pepper for seasoning

Sauce

7-8 tomatoes pureed

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1-2 tsp sugar as per taste

salt

pepper

olive oil

1 onions finely chopped

cheese for garnishing

Method:

Stuffing:

1. Blanch the spinach with some salt and then chop it.

2. In a mixer add the mint leaves, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil (be generous with this) and make a paste.

3. Mix the spinach and mint pesto. Add seasoning as needed. If you dont want extra minty flavor keep 2 portions of spinach and 1 portion of mint pesto.

You can also add cheese if you like.

Ravioli sheets:

1. Mix the flour, salt and water and knead the dough. Keep in fridge for half an hour.

2. Make around 4 medium sized balls.

3. Roll each of them and then using a round cutter (cookie cutter / steel glass) cut around 5-6 sheets.

4. Reuse the remaining edges and make more sheets.

5. Now take one ravioli sheet and place one spoon of stuffing on it. Then place another sheet on top of it and seal the edges by pinching it. You can apply some water if required (I had pinched and folded the pinch like gujiya)

6. Make all the raviolis as per step 5.

7. Take water in a pan and bring it to boil. Slowly add the raviolis and let them cook in the boiling water. Once the ravioli rises to the top turn it and then remove after a minute.

8. Raviolis are ready.

Sauce:

1. In a pan add some olive oil and put it on heat. Once hot add some cumin seeds. Then add onion and saute till soft.

2. Add the pureed tomatoes, salt, pepper and sugar and bring to boil.

Place the raviolis in a bowl and pour the sauce on top. Garnish with some cheese. Serve hot with a side of bread.

So much said .... now some pics

Atte ka Halwa!

Taking a break!!

Yeah that's what I am doing right now ... taking a break!
A break from work only to keep myself busy with other more interesting activities.

Since I moved countries after I quit my job, the first week of my break went in setting up my new house ... buying stuff for the house. It was a lot of roaming around the town centre of Ipswich. Thankfully its a known place .. I've lived in this town before and believe me nothing has changed in the past 4 years.... coincidentally I am living in the same apartments as before (different flat though)

Somewhere around my second week I started missing work so badly that I downloaded java & eclipse and started doing some mock projects. Suddenly I remembered the words of one of my colleague at work who had told me "Everyone wants a break ... you are lucky to get a chance so enjoy it".
Well so here I am trying to do stuff that I would not get a chance to do with a hectic work life.
I'm crocheting ( I know I know this I did even when I was working ... but more of it now) , cooking, baking (most of you who know me know that I dint enjoy cooking but guess what now I do :) ) , and yes of course blogging!

Here's to some old & new passions and enjoying the break!!

Take Care

Renamed!

Marriage is a beautiful experience ..lots of love, care, affection, attachment, new family, a new family name .. I can't possibly list everything all I can say it's a beautiful progression. After two years I realized that I need to change the name of this blog site as well so here it is .. Hoping to write more frequently

Happiness by oneself?

Some days back I had this thought -
Ones happiness lies within oneself.
It depends on the thoughts one chooses to brood upon.
If you choose to think about happy memories, you can lift your spirits and keep yourself happy.

This said is it really easy to control ones thoughts?
I guess not but it really is the determination to keep oneself happy that will help.

!! Emotions !!

This is something I had written sometime back … it’s a little crude I guess …

Emotions are such beautiful feelings, one goes through …

they make you smile, laugh, cry, talk let you pour your heart out.

The emotions one is going through easily get painted on your face.

They bring so many different colors to life.

Anger, scare, jealously, happiness, excitement, boredom, sadness, dull …

each emotion can be seen as a different color.

Thus making our life colorful & eventful at the same time!

Sometimes these feelings are so complicated to understand,

however if we pay a little attention to our self when we are filled with a particular shade

we can possibly better understand our self &

thus express our emotions in a better and controlled manner.

A tribute to Mummy!!

Today while coming to work a kid and her mother got into the same auto as me. They were accompanied by another lady.
She kept asking the girl to hold onto something or sit on her lap, the little girl wanted to stand. The lady looked at the mother worried… the mother gave a don’t bother expression.
One would think how uncaring the mother is. But no one knows their child better than a mother.
As soon as the rick started, the girl cried and asked her mother to take her in her lap. In a moments time she was as happy.

The relationship each child bears with his/her mother is so special.
We fight with her, we laugh with her, we cry with her but all in all we love her & she loves us like no one does!!

The umbical chord gets cut when we take birth but the bonding can never be cut!!

Hapiness doesnt happen to us, it happens by us.

I just read an article on Times titled - Hapiness doesnt happen to us, it happens by us.

This is so true ... if u dont desire to be happy it will be so difficult for anyone to make you laugh.
But y should you not be happy ... y should there be so much gloom ...dont you want to live a Happy life? dont you have a strong Patronus?
Think about it ... which are the moments that make you smile, laugh and inturn help produce the 'happy hormones' and boom disappears the gloom. :)
Continue building such moments to increase the power of your Patronus, such that no event or sadness can hit as bad to break you up!!
Say Cheers to life!! And Enjoy!!

A special paragraph i'd like to paste from the article-
For example, you can choose to be frazzled and furious with the demands and pressures of a hectic day,
feeling miserable about bad luck, colleagues, weather or bad whatever.
Or you can call upon the grace of the moment – reminding yourself to stop and breathe calmly for just a few moments,
finding some beauty to focus on, something to be grateful for in all this.
You can choose between forever brooding on an unhappy childhood, or focusing on healing and moving on.

PS: For all those how don’t know what a Patronus is, it’s a term used in Harry Potter Series.
"A Patronus is a kind of positive force, and for the wizard who can conjure one, it works something like a shield, with the Dementor feeding on it, rather than him.
In order for it to work, you need to think of a memory. Not just any memory, a very happy memory, a very powerful memory… Allow it to fill you up…lose yourself in it…then speak the incantation ‘Expecto Patronum’."

Here the Dementor is your gloom, sadness, fear or anything that is not allowing you to be happy.

Leisure thoughts

Once when some leisure time I had,

Remembering the old trips I sat,

With color pencils in my hands,

This is what i drew

And here's what my friend wrote when she saw this piece of art:

As the blue skies darken,the clear waters beckon,
Miles have I to go, days before I alight on the shore.

A hope that the distant land,has promises galore.
the hope that has led me leave my homely shores.

Leaving aside all despairs of the past,
Have I sailed to make memories that last.

The world here was nice to be,
But mebbe the world out there will make a better me.

Miles have I to go, days before I alight on the shore,
Dreams, n promises n wishes all my future for me shall store.

Thanks Joe!

A good start

The sunrays trying to penerate thru the winter winds
To brighten my face
A nice song playing in the background
Then a chat with a closest pal
What a way
to start the day!

n!

Each and every facet of life is dependent on so many factors. Each of which in turn depends on so many other. Only if you can believe in the identification of some of these and live with them happily can you survive the changes of the unknown.

Joys of the heart

Sometimes we meet
Sometimes we don’t
Sometimes we talk
Sometimes we don’t
Then after ages we meet
And nothing changes with time
The same eagerness to share
The same eagerness to care
Is what makes the heart smile!

Almost lost it!!

Can't belive i did something like this! I forgot the password to my entrance to the world of writing ... yeah I forgot my blogger password. But how could I give up like that ... i had just started it ... so i searched n searched finally found the link to forgot username and password page n yippie m back :)

Shubh Aarambh

Finally, I create one, yippie!! Thanks to my friend whose been coaxing me into writing every time we talk. Hope I enjoy and so do you :)