June IHSW: WIP Baby Hello Kitty

It's my first IHSW, I am so excited about it!

This weekend I worked on Baby Hello Kitty, I started this project about 3 weeks ago, but after two days I put it away because I didn't enjoy it much. Too many small items (in very soft colours) with a lot of back stitches to frame them. But my daughter keeps begging me 'mummy mummy when will you make my Hello Kitty? will you finish the heart for me?' so I decided to continue stitching it.

This was how the project looks when I started on Friday morning (as I mentioned on my last post, weekend in Jordan is on Friday and Saturday):

Sorry for bad quality of the pictures, all of our cameras (3 of them!) are not working properly at the same time (thanks to the busy hands of my son). We desperately need one, but I think 2 of them can be fixed (we want to do that in Turkey when we go there for summer holiday this July-Aug) and my husband wants to buy a DSLR one but its quite pricey here in Jordan so he is going to ask his friend to buy from Canada when he is going there also this summer :) So I have to be patient and I hope everybody would be happy enough with my snaps from Blackberry.

I worked for about 2 hours in the morning and another 2 hours in the evening, and at the end of the day this was how it looks:

I hope you can see a difference. I have added three more kitties (top left, middle left, and mid on heart) and three small bits. I felt I spent a lot of time stitching but when I looked at the result it seemed not so much... maybe I have to admit and accept that I AM a SLOW stitcher? Or shall I put a blame on my kids who always interrupted when I stitch?

Before I jump to Saturday photo, I want to share some photos from my shopping spree on Friday.

A couple days a go when we were in a mall, as usual I took a glance at the window display of an abaya shop. This time, I convinced my husband to enter, I told him Eid is coming I want to have a look so I know which one that I want to buy before we go to Turkey. There is a traditional abaya of Jordan that I fell in love, its hand stitched in traditional pattern of Palestine.
For more information about Palestinian Cross stitch you can go to this link, and for more modern fashion and posh style you can check facebook page of Palestyle.
I couldn't decide which one that I wanted, kids were running around crazily inside the boutique so I rushed off (before my husband hit the roof :-p) and decided to come back alone in another time. However I managed to snatch a cute abaya for my daughter:

Isn't she gorgeous? watch  out, Queen Rania! :)

When my friend saw this picture on my BBM profile she offered to take me to Balat, Amman's down town. So off we went on Friday afternoon, its a good opportunity for me to go out while my husband is at home looking after the kids (HOOORAY!)
It was my first time in downtown, the place was sooo different than typical Amman that I know. To me Amman is bland, modern (just enough modern, not over the top like Dubai), far from exotic. But Balat is quite opposite, it reminded me of Syria, particularly the old city of Aleppo (minus the huge citadel and its world longest souq). Old buildings, street sellers, old mosque, the bustling of traditional market. I was amazed. And the shops are good too! When I was in Syria I couldn't find good abaya shops (I wonder where they were hiding because Syria abaya is quite famous!) but in here they are everywhere! I almost gone crazy and I did shop over my intended budget (used some of my daughter's swimming course fee hahaha)... they are so cheap, less then half of the price in the mall! Some of them just the same quality but some of them you can see that they are so cheap because of the quality of the fabric and the the degree of the finery of the hand stitches. I bought one gorgeous hand embroidery abaya for my mum (I will not be able to hand it to her until next year... lol... have I told you I went crazy there? :p), and one cross stitch princess style abaya for my husband's best friend's wife in turkey (but once I tried it at home I wanted it for myself... and later in the end of the day I think it would suit my best friend in Indonesia best... really can't decide hahaha... Didn't I tell you I went crazy? :-p). I also bought two more little girls abayas for my Indonesian friends who live in Turkey. But of course I bought one more clothes for my own girl, this time is a set of tunic and pants, more like Pakistani style. The blue cross stitch on black is gorgeous:

Of course I bought men abaya for my son as well, last time he was so upset we didn't buy anything for him at the mall :) He only want to wear them for photo only, though... while it was hard to ask my daughter to take them away :)

I will share my own clothes once I chose and bought them :) I think I will go back to the shop in the mall because they have the top only with bat wing style and cross stitched belt so I can wear it with my jeans or legging underneath. I don't think I can wear abaya in Turkey without drawing any attention from neighbours and in laws :) If  its Indonesia I would go for abaya, that's for sure, because there we wear abaya (we call it 'gamis') on special occasion particularly religious one like Eid.

Now let us go back to my IHSW project: this is how it looks now:

I did some stitching for couple of hours on Saturday morning, and then noff to the mall to buy some presents for my daughter (she did a great job last week, she passed her yellow belt taekwondo test and didn't cry a single tear when her tooth was being pulled by the dentist... she deserves a barbie and she chose a disney Snow White Doll) and for her bestfriend swimming pool birthday party next wednesday (another barbie), and went to dentist again for her another tooth (ouch), and when we're back I spent a lot of time stitching again (aren't I a committed IHSW?)... but when I looked at the result it seemed not much progress (Am I really that slow?). I added couple small letters on the right side, did all the capital letters and 2.5 more kitties. My aim is to finish it this week so I can finally get over it (really don't enjoy it at all!) and start on another project. Finger crossed I would keep cross stitching it :)

Thank you for stopping by and reading my post... I really apreciate it, I hope you enjoy my story and pictures :)

***** many thanks, terima kasih, sağol, شُكْرًا