Jolly July - Ahlan wa sahlan Ramadan Mubarak

My Palestinian dance is finished!

Ahlan wa sahlan - Ramadan mubarak
approximately 35 x 45cm, designed by Oriental Stitching.
DMC glitter gold 14ct with DMC thread

I completed most of it about 10 days ago but then I ran out of brown 355 for the border so I left the top and bottom part until yesterday I forced my husband to take me to a craft and hobby shop and finally today I could complete the whole design :) I added words 'ahlan wa sahlan' (means Welcome), I was fortunate to find suitable alphabet even though it wasn't type of letter that I actually had in mind (I was looking something in Arabic style). The pattern given for the border was different than the finished design pictured on the leaflet so I kind of figured it by myself how to make the same one. I did it manually so a lot of frogging and recalculating involved. On top right side I added Arabic Calligraphy of 'Ramadan Mubarak' (Ramadan the Blessed Month) that I found in the shop yesterday.

thank you again Heather for hosting Theme-a-licious, I love it! I am going to participate again for August:
Altius August

Embrace the Olympic motto--Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger)--by elevating your mind. It's the perfect time to learn something new! Or maybe achieve some goals...

And I will make:

Silvermoon Tea by Mirabilia

This would be something new for me, it will be my first design that covered whole part of the fabric and it will be my first stitching on LİNEN, with lots of beads. Three challenges in one :)
I hope I would be able to make it, not give up and change to aida.  I'd been wondering whether to make it on linen or evenweave and unsure if I could find either of them in Amman or Turkey. I saw one online shop in Turkey stocked up on linen but it seemed I have to buy the whole lot since it priced for almost $100. So I was so happy yesterday I found 28ct light purple linen in the shop, and I bought all threads needed as well.

at first I thought one skein is 70 fills (jordanian cents) so I was going to buy the threads in Turkey (I checked online one skein is 1.25 Turkish Lira) but yesterday I double checked again it is 40 fills (equal to 1 Turkish lira) and the shopkeeper said next week the price would be increased to 50 fills so I decided to buy them all right away. I ordered the beads set from ebay addressed to my sister in law in South Carolina. She is going to go back to Turkey on the 1st of September, we were planning to meet her at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul on our way back to Jordan but unfortunately we couldn't get tickets for the same day. We would leave Turkey one day earlier :( But I am very positive she would visit us in Amman in spring or winter this year so I will add the beads when she comes :)

I am not sure if I would be able to finished the whole thing by the 31st August because I will not start stitching it until 10th August when we are in Turkey, because the next coming days I would be busy with iftaar/diner invitations, tidying the house (the landlord will paint the house while we are away), buying gifts and packing. Since it will be my first 28ct linen I think I need to use qsnap and make a grid, I have bought qsnap and water erasable pen from Indonesia but they were being sent to Turkey and have arrived in my mother in law's house.

So see you next time then, I am very excited about our trip to Turkey, I promise I will still do a lot of stitching there and hopefully I will bring many interesting stories to share in this blog :)

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