Muscle Joke: Solidified Liquid!

It's been ages since we exercised our muscles!!! :)


Here is a muscle joke from one of our Mastimakerz..!


Q: Tell me something that is liquid when cold and solid when hot?
A: Dosa!!! (Indian Pancakes!)


So, how many of your muscles moved this time?? ;-)

Lamp for Diwali

A Happy Deepavali to Everyone! :)

This is the right time to share the details of my recent craft work... I decorated my lamp-shade using white sateen fabric and it has come out very well...

I saw in pattern in some blog and I forget the name of the blog, else I would have surely had a link to it... Thanks for giving me this idea! :)


I hand-sewed the entire thing. It was tough and time-consuming. But isn't it worth the effort? 


This lightens up our room so beautifully... And V loves it too! :)


Wish your Deepavali fills your life with lights and colours...! :)

Knotty Tidbits: 7

First surprising me with a hot breakfast ... 
What a way to start a Friday!

A yummy tomato gravy curry waiting to be served for lunch..
Tangy and Spicy Pani-puri for snacks...

All prepared by my hubby, just for me... Everything was so perfect today! I couldn't have asked for more!!! :-)
 
Psst... Exactly a month to go for the big day! ;-)

Quilting and Place Mats

This post is dedicated to Donna who has inspired me to start quilting. The first time I stumbled upon her site, I was(still am) all in awe for her designs and quilts. I was new to the idea of quilting and I did not have any knowledge about the techniques used in quilting. I had never seen a rotary cutter!

I keep asking her basic questions about quilting and she always explains me very patiently. Initially I did not know how triangle pieces were joined and she came up with a post for that. I used the same method for making my cushion cover. Then I learnt diagonal weaving technique from her. I am yet to try it out.

Thank you Donna for all your support! :)

I am trying to use quilting techniques in making little little things before I take a plunge into making a full size quilt. 

These placemats have given me a good practice! I took help of this link for putting another quilting technique to use. I joined one long strip(3 inch width) of yellow with another long strip of brown. And then cut them into segments and stitched them up as shown here.

I used a single cloth for the other side of the placemat, with a color that is not related to the colors used on the chessboard side. This way we can use either sides of the placemats.

This has helped me gain confidence for starting my first quilt. Let's see how that turns out to be! :) In Tamil, there is a saying: Naan irukka bhayamenn? which can be loosely translated as 'Why fear/worry when I am with you?". With respect to quilting, I can say 'Donna irukka bhayamenn!' (Why worry, when Donna is with me!) :)

Knotty Tidbits: 6

Title: Apples

During our visit to the Library Book Sale, we bought a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle. It has a single puzzle piece missing. But it does not matter at all. It is nothing when compared to the immense happiness that one gets while piecing the puzzle together!

V had never done a jigsaw puzzle and when he saw me struggling with the part that has the apples, he helped me. In fact he was the one to correctly place all those pieces in a jiffy. I was so much engrossed in solving it that I sat through wee hours of the dawn completing it. I could not just leave it unsolved, could I? :)

By the way, the theme of the puzzle seems apt for Halloween. Don't you agree with me?

The 15km walk

We both started for the library last Saturday and ended up at a Books-Sale. We selected all our books and reached payment counter at the closing time, just to realize that we had to pay by Cash ONLY and that we did not even have a single penny (or cent as in the US) with us. Reluctantly we left the whole bunch of books at the counter and decided to be back the next day(Sunday)

The library is around 3 miles away from home and we generally walk the distance. However that Saturday we stopped by at a grocery store on our way back home and the pedometer reading showed 7.91km. Around 8kms in a day! Oh my! Our poor legs were aching and even though I wanted to buy all those books the next day, I dreaded the walk. Also, we had to go to a super market to buy stuff. 

I thought we could take a bus to the library book sale. However, on Sunday morning, it did not feel right to take the bus. That's because we did not want to miss out on the beautiful walk and also we had to withdraw cash from the ATM.

We talked and walked and were at the book-sale in no time. It was a clearance sale. So, we could fill up a large grocery bag with books and be charged just $3 for the whole thing! Who would want to miss out on that! Happily, we picked up our favourite books and before we knew we had purchased around 45 paperbacks and seven hard cover.. All for just $6! That was a steal!

Later, we sat out on the lawn near the library and glanced through the books we had bought. Though our backs might have ached on our way back due the load of books and also the stuff that we bought at the supermarket, our faces beamed with happiness.. with the eagerness to get back and settle down with a book! What bliss! :)

BTW, the pedometer reading was 6.8kms on Sunday and that adds to around 15kms during one weekend... Never done that before!!! It's a record! :)

My first one...

This is my first attempt at using a quilt pattern. 

Initially I thought it would be very easy... Just stitching straight lines... But no! I was wrong! It requires a lot of calculation and also we need to be very precise with our measurements. I did this by measuring the length using a 12 inch scale on my vegetable chopping board. I am new to the use of rotary cutter. The cuts do not come that straight! Need more practice, I guess!

So, how do you find the new cover for the padding of our chair? :)

Under the spell of Python!

During my childhood days, I considered Python to the best amongst all the snakes. First of all, it is an Indian snake.. too much of patriotism, is it? And second of all, it is a non-poisonous snake unlike cobra.. that makes it a little less scarier..! ;-) And third of all, even if the python swallows a human being, there is a possibility of slitting the snake open and saving the person...! Of course, there is every possibility that the snake would wind itself around a tree right after it swallows me, but still...! Weird thinking!

Now you must be still wondering who is under the spell of Python... It is well known that a snake can come under the spell of the snake charmer but not vice versa.. Here I have a person, who lives in a trance and eats, breathes and sleeps Python! Not the reptile but the language! My hubby has gone so much into this Python programming language that last night he was blabbering about it in his sleep. "main...", "semicolon...","no curly braces...".. blah.. blah.. blah.. Even when I woke him up to ask him what he wanted to have along with Khichdi, he blabbered "blah blah.. curd..blah.. blah" using his Python syntax!

God knows when he will get out of the trance. Wish I could break the spell, but I am no witch!!! :)

Wondering what this picture has to do with Python. Well, nothing at all! This is a photo taken during the recent Fremont Fair. The spiraling things reminded me of snakes and hence it's a part of this post! :)