about this website

History
Started this website way back in 2001, with a few pages in yahoo gecoities. As I grew up, the website also grew up in time and since 2004 I’ve been hosting independently. Idea behind this website is to use it as a portal for environmental, entertainment & educational purposes.

Content & Copyright
Almost all the content on this website are own original designs, from the graphics, photographs, cartoons to the write-ups and poetry. Even those cormorants you see on the top image were photographed from Kerala! Several utilities have been helpful in creating them, of which I wish to mention a few significant in Other Credits.

Other Credits
This website is basically structured on the weblog software WordPress, which uses php & html. Several themes and hacks have been added to this structure, from various sources. The final theme and templates you see are own designs. The graphics, cartoons etc were mostly edited using Adobe Photoshop, an image editing software. The content in Malayalam and other Indian languages were edited using baraha, a mult-lingual editor. JAlbum, a web photo album software, helped in organizing the nature photographs as a beautiful gallery. The genealogy section is powered by The Next Generation genealogy sitebuilding (TNG) scripts, which is commercially available.

The Photographs
Nikon D80 + Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro Lens + Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical Lens + Tamron SP AF 200-500mm f/5-6.3 Di LD (IF) Zoom Lens.

Olympus C770 UZ + Olympus TCON-17 Zoom Lens + Olympus MCON-40 Macro Lens.

Structure of the website
On the top navigation bar are the links,

  • Activities Social activities and related research based on adoption in India and AIDS.
  • PhotographyIncludes sections on:
    • Nature Photographs of birds, insects, marine life from India, Japan and Italy
    • Other Photographs from India, Japan and Italy
    • Photographic articles on this websites
    • Compilation of some photographs from my old site. mostly people and abstract images.
  • Poems on love, nostalgia and whatever. Poems and write-ups from when I was at school to a grown up young man.
  • Hand Embroidery. Hand Embroidery tutorials by Sarah, with instructions and illustrations.
  • മലയാളം ബൂലോഗം. ബൂലോഗം = ബ്ളോഗ് + ലോകം. boologam = blog + lokam‚ as in the lingo used by malayalam bloggers. Please check https://www.rocksea.org/malayalam-unicode for rendering malayalam characters (including koottaksharangal and chillaksharangal) properly. malayalam
  • Roots. The family tree. Genealogy of a Kerala Christian Family.
  • Misc. About the website, our resumes and the rest of rocksea.org

 

65 Responses

  1. james says:

    is this site maintained ? plz reply

  2. Aditi says:

    Hi, I’ve just come across your bolg and have been browsing through the photographs and poems….lovely work!! 🙂 I’m so glad to be here 🙂

  3. Arjun says:

    Hi,

    I would like to have a Guest blogpost or Article link for my Company Travel site. I would like to have my links to be posted on your site.

    Can you please provide me the pricing plan for the same?

    Thanks
    Arjun

  4. Paula Robinson says:

    Hi Sarah,
    I love your embroidery picture library with examples of how to do all the stitches. I was using this as a reference to teach 12 yr old students. Unfortunately it seems to be unloadable since adding the Pinterest tag. PLEASE HELP! this was an absolute lifeline.
    Paula

  5. Mrs Fox says:

    I just wanted to find somewhere to say “Thank you” for your wonderful embroidery stitch tutorials. I’ve looked at your images (on pinterest) and your site many times to figure out how to do a stitch on my work without looking at the rest of it.

    I don’t mean to gush, but, from the rest of your site you seem an amazingly busy lady and you still have time for all this!

    Wonderful and once again thank you so much Sarah.

  6. Haley Glover says:

    Hello
    I have been reading Sarah’s Stitch guides and they are the best I have seen online. Thankyou and well done.

    Would I be allowed to copy the instructions (for running stitch, blanket stitch and french knots) and photos to include in some Flower Brooch Kits that I am making and planning on selling at local Christmas Fairs in the UK. I would clearly credit Sarah and provide a link to the site. I am not going to be making much money from these so cannot afford to pay you.

    I look forward to hearing from you.
    Thanks
    Haley

    • sarah says:

      Dear Haley,

      Sorry for not being able to reply to you earlier. Travel kept us busy.

      You can certainly use our tutorial pictures for the mentioned stitches. We appreciate you asking us and mentioning how you would be using it. Thank you. Hope you sell many kits at the Christmas Fairs. 🙂

      If you have any finished sample of the kit, please do share it with us by uploading the picture in this website. It will be an inspiration for many embroidery beginners.

  7. Are you from Kerala or Japan?

  8. Noble says:

    Dear Roxy ,
    I would like to get your e-mail id. I have a copy right violation issue with manorama.

    Noble
    noblevmy@yahoo.com

  9. Nisha says:

    Hi Guys,

    Your website is very interesting! Real enjoyed going through it. Also must add…Baby Pratyahara is beautiful…and the name absolutely unique! 🙂

  10. Rueben says:

    When we die we become ‘stories’ in the minds of other people.

  11. feltra says:

    Dear Sarah,

    Thanks for the replies… How’s your baby? Is it a him or her? I am sure you must have made some really nice embroidery work for the little one… Whenever you have time, we (visitors on the site) would love to see those in pics.. Or even pics of other projects over time that you have done. But no, I don’t think you are going to be able to “steal” away time… They seem to know EXACTLY when we are doing something important and choose to bawl at that time! 🙂 Do take your time…

    I did see later in some other page that you had used Adobe and WordPress. Ok, I don’t know both.. I am sure they must be very good, going by your pages.

    It took me three days (in between interruptions), but I have finally downloaded all of your (embroidery tutorials) pages. Sorry to repeat it, but I am still in awe of the entire effort. Just curious to know (if its ok to share) just how much time it has taken to load each page, right from the planning stage, as also how much total time it has taken (in months?). I don’t know how much your husband likes embroidery itself, but one can see he has been very supportive.. Excellent to see such team work.. Keep it up.

    Best Regards,
    -feltra

    • sarah says:

      Hello Feltra,

      We have a baby boy. Read about it here: https://www.rocksea.org/pratyahara

      How long it takes for each page? Well, it depends on a lot many factors…some require a lot of research, some require a lot of stitch photography, some requires a lot of planning, and it might take a couple of days for each stitch. While, there were days when I was able to do 2 or 3 stitches in a single day.

      You can subscribe to the hand embrodeiry pages. This way, you will be informed of any new stitch I post.

  12. feltra says:

    Well, I started it on 14-Feb-2010.. Dont know when i will finish it! 🙂

    Dear Rocksea & Saramme,

    My wife is an avid cross-sticher and I was plumbing the web for good sites, and chanced upon your site. It was the neat photos first that drew me to keep browsing your site. Man, what a site! I myself (though I have never done any stiching except maybe fix some buttons!) want to try out some of the basic designs. Your site makes embroidery look oh so easy…! Incidentally, my wife is yet to see this and I am sure she will start appreciating the finer points of the craft.

    I started to download all your tutorial pages (the links on the right side of the page) on various stitches. As I download each page, my appreciation and awe at the pains you have taken (i am assuming both of you, since its really great to have been done by just one person, though thats possible too). Let me try and go thru the steps that you might have done to load A SINGLE page:
    1. Physically plan out the steps that you want to talk about
    2. Have different cloth pieces and perform the stictch in various stages of completion.
    3. Arrange each piece of cloth with the needle and the thread (over/under) showing correctly.
    4. Take a photo of this and load it into some kind of Paint program.
    5. Number the points A,B,C etc (is it Lucida Console? Also, is it MSPaint or something else?)
    6. Now, looking at the pictures, and your plan (in step 1), write down the text for each pic.
    7. Review the whole set of pics and text, and if necessary write out a summary (like gotchas etc)
    8. Load the whole set of files and make it a single page (I suppose you have some web publisher tool for this..)
    9. Review the whole page, before you decide to publish it to your site.

    Now, just looking at the amount of pages and the attention to detail you have given to each page, I AM SURE that you would have had to redo several pages / stichings / text etc. But still, you seem to have persevered. This can come (IMHO) only from 2 things:
    a) your love of the craft itself
    b) your willingness (inner urging?) to share it with others who want to learn…

    At the end of it all, it looks oh so easy… Kudos!! I doubt if even some of the “professionally” done pages will have this much attention to detail (i mean on any subject)….

    And all this you are giving away free to people to learn and enjoy!

    More power to you both and may God bless you profusely….

    Warm Regards,
    -feltra
    PS: I have yet to go thru the other areas on your main site…

    • sarah says:

      Dear Feltra,

      We are enthralled by your appreciation for us and our efforts. It makes our work all the more worthwhile!:)

      You are right, a lot of work and research has gone into making each page. Embroidery began as an interest for me. I began with just 50 stitches, but as I learnt and researched more, I gathered around 300 stitches till date. I am sure I am yet to fumble upon more. I also realised that only few tutorials gave the right information on the internet. I also found many of them difficult to follow. So, we wanted to give out free tutorials with the right information to the interested masses, especially the beginners.

      My husband, Roxy, encouraged me to begin this tutorial. He always went through each page after it had been done and gave his comments and suggestions when required. 🙂

      Each page has gone through a considerable amount of research, time, energy and effort (not detailing the procedure). Now, of course, with a 6 month old baby, it is difficult to give it so much time. So, it is not possible to post the new stitch pages consistently. Anyway, I can try to steal 10 minutes here and there to do whatever I can, but prefer not to as it will take a toll upon the quality of the pages, which we are particular about. Like you said, some pages had to be redone to maintain the quality of the tutorial.

      We are glad that you found it inspiring to try out some stitches yourself. It is flattering, in fact. Please do let us know if you do and how it came out to be. Hope your wife likes these pages too.

      All best wishes. 🙂

    • sarah says:

      Looks like you have tried to disect each page and its procedure. 😀 Since you are interested, I missed out to answer that I use adobe photoshop to mark and resize the pictures. I mark them with comic sans. It is a more ‘relaxing’ font.

      I don’t use several fabrics with a stitch at different stages of completion. I just do the stitch on a single fabric and take pitcures at different stages of stitching. I draw the plan of the different steps for the tutorial at this juncture.

      And, we use wordpress to publish these pages.

  13. Guria says:

    Damn! You have a NikonD80! I am salivating! 😀
    I am thinking of getting a D50 (I think!)… 😛 🙂

    Hey u r from India right, but travelling the world, huh? 🙂

    • rocksea says:

      Guria, I have been using my work as a reason/bait to travel around and live at different places. Can’t but wait to be back in India. Miss a lot of activity!!

      Nikon D80 has been loyal to me so far 🙂 Bought it while I was at Japan. I guess Nikon D50 should also do for the quality of a DSLR?

  14. Dear Sarah & Rocksea
    (the correct sequence you see)
    If its not too much
    and you like such and such
    Take a minute or two
    there is an award waiting for you

    at

    http://thebutterflydiaries.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/superior-scribbler-awards/

    • rocksea says:

      Thanks for the lovely award, Ashwin! 🙂 😀

      Let us hope the letters and photographs WE splash around make some difference and bring forth the message of love and life with nature.

      You seems to be in a rhyming mood these days 😉

      Sarah & Rocksea

  15. jeevanism says:

    all i wanna say that ..
    this blog just really rocks about it!!!

    wishes
    from Jeevs..

  16. Makri says:

    yes it’s me again!
    That’s a complete revamp of the site, totally changed from what it was earlier or last wat i saw… but as usual you are simply great with the pics, poems, debates 🙂
    hmm… the pics do take a while to load

    • rocksea says:

      🙂
      yes, nowadays i keep the pics large enough as broadband internet is getting popular and since i dont want to trade off the resolution of my photographs…

  17. Donald says:

    Nice Blog~ I like the photos very much:)

  18. Harish Mohan says:

    Nice Site Roksea. I is nice to be a natuaralist. I am working in Delhi, it is getting Home sicknes while reading about our own birds

  19. ബെന്നി says:

    റോക്സിയേ, കുറേ കാലമായല്ലോ കണ്ടിട്ട്? ഇറ്റലിയിലാണല്ലേ ഇപ്പോള്‍?

    • rocksea says:

      ഹലോ ബെന്നി! അതേ, ഇറ്റലിയിലെ ‘ബൊളോണ്യ’യിലാണ് ഇപ്പോള്‍

  20. hi man thanks for the psycology books it was really helpful .please do inform me if you have some more books on the same subject

  21. skdash says:

    Dear Roxy,

    Can you get the picture of snow scuplture of India (Giant Buddha) – 2007.
    If you picture the statue then kindly post it or forward to my email.
    It was a nice event to see.
    by the way how is your research going on ?
    regards
    Dash

  22. rocksea says:

    hey vinaya, long time! hope you’re keeping happy n healthy. yes, i wish to add more content but am in a tight situation as am in the final stages of my phd. let it finish and i’ll surely have some quality time!!

  23. Vinaya says:

    Well I will not write something praising your website bcos its truly one of the best sites I have been to with some amazing photographs. Commendable. Great work Rox, Love to see more pictures and more of poems. What strikingly impresses me is the originality. Keep in touch through mails. Take care.
    Fond regards,
    Vinaya

  24. rocksea says:

    savannah, it is usually in the 1st half of June. i think dates will be announced at least 2 months in advance.

  25. Savannah says:

    You look like you are up with all things Japanese! So please help me if you can to find out when Yosakoi Saran, Sapporo, is on in 2007.

    Is it true that they only announce the dates at the last minute?!

    Savannah from Perth

  26. MANU says:

    Thank u for reminding me how i plucked my son’s teeth… so tirkly.. by telling stories… tieing thread on it and all

  27. Sarah says:

    Ahem! when I saw this site first, I was honestly darn impressed! Well, as much as wished, I could go through it like I wanted, I was not able to. But before being a part of it and still, I would say that this is absolutely wonderful work Roxy chetta. The best part of the site is that everything is ORIGINAL…like saying ‘Purely me!’ 😀 The ideas are great and the subjects, lively. 😀 this comment took pretty long to get onto the site! I did not want to hurry up for a cool site like this! That should say it all.

  28. rocksea says:

    hey nebu, genki desu. nice to see you here. yes, am thinking of getting a new one by the time i leave japan.. thanks for the suggestion. will check the eos20d also. think itz expensive.

    sibish, 🙂

  29. Sibish says:

    Great Work Roxy…
    Photos are really good

  30. Nebu says:

    Roksea san,
    Ogengi das ka..watashi wa nebu das…sorry thats all the little japanese i know..im fro san jose in california.your site is really wonderful..try using canon eos20d instead of the current one.keep up the good work
    arigatho
    Nebu

  31. Kundan Kumar says:

    Hi Dear,
    I have no words to thank you.Really i m feeling very good as i got that treaure.Thx a lot Once again.Thx for the pain you have taken to search it.

  32. rocksea says:

    Kundan, thanks, i have restored the post and some of the comments. You should be able to download now. Phew! it was some work searching through an old database and going after some SQL commands! 🙁

  33. rocksea says:

    Dear Kundan Kumar, am sorry for what happened, it seems yesterday or day before yesterday i accidently deleted that post instead of a comment. Only now when you mentioned this i am aware it is the whole post of ncert books. I will replace it in 2 days or so. Thank you.

  34. Kundan Kumar says:

    Hi Rocks,
    I m a regular visitor of ur site.Basically i visit here for Civil Services related Materials.
    Previously,u had put NCERT books on ur site(https://www.rocksea.org/ncert-text-books) but now that has been removed.We need that urgently.Even the books in chapterwise format was really very helpful specially for people like us who are in Job.
    Kindly make those books available for us.We will be very grateful to u.Looking forward for ur positive response.

  35. rocksea says:

    binu, i was stunned to see your web, so nature friendly and animated! i love the thunnaran at the welcome page.

  36. Binu says:

    I was searching for bird pics in google got your site ..grihathuratvam niranju nilkkunnu….. “this website is a collage made up of your minds screen shots” …

    Binu

    toonbird.com

  37. rocksea says:

    hello!! happy to see you here 🙂
    i had gone thru your website as well and downloaded some pdfs.. but couldnt comment there as the guestbook wasnt working. have a nice time!

  38. Vinu V Namboodiri says:

    Hello,
    Gr8 work. Nice to meet u again in the web…..after a long time !!!.

    Site looks cool !!! Well organized….and no “CHAVAR” !!!!!!!!!

  39. rocksea says:

    Thanks for the comment. You can go back to Kerala whenever you wish 🙂 i.e. it is not so difficult. What abt poor me 🙁 I have to wait one more year to get back to home. so dont make me sick too :p What did you do at cusat? mca? Anyways, have a nice time.

  40. ch says:

    hi am also from cusat nw in bglore. its really a great thing.. a beautiful site it is …
    after seeing ur photographs feel like im at home kerala. nw frm office feeling home sick ..
    good work
    bye

  41. rocksea says:

    renjith, happy to see you. enjoy your life at cusat!

  42. renjith says:

    hi!!, iam here at ur kingdom cusat!!!!!!!!!! as an oceanography student. nice

  43. renjith says:

    hi!!, iam here at ur kingdom cusat!!!!!!!!!! as an oceanography student

  44. renu says:

    roxy
    this couldnt be any better
    good job
    hard work paid well
    congrats

  45. rocksea says:

    $Anoop. The koottaksharangal all shows well, if you use the font AnjaliOldLipi or similar fonts. I have pointed out in each malayalam article a link on how to set it. Thatz what all malayalam bloggers do. We all write out in Unicode malayalam. Putting malayalam in picture format is not encouraged by us.

    Check this link for rendering malayalam properly:
    https://www.rocksea.org/malayalam-unicode

    For a start, you can see the malayalam wikkipedia, totally in malayalam unicode:
    http://ml.wikipedia.org

  46. Anoop says:

    Hi Roxy, it’s a nice site.. but the Malayalam sections r litl bit annoying, u know, becoz there r no ‘koottaksharam’.. all letters r split.. difficult to read also.. just feeling like killing our mother tongue.. if possible convert all Malayalam articles to picture format.. with proper letters..

    Regards,
    anoop

  47. Makri says:

    da the site looks greatttttttt!!! Spectacular…..I loved it…tooo kewl!!!

  48. Kiranz..!! says:

    Rocksea,

    Great to know tat ur a nature’z lover..read ur kavitha,”hostel muriyude jaalakvathilkkal mazha ethi nokkiyappol kuricha kavitha,athu enteyum ivanioz hostel jeevitham ormippikkunnu”

    Keep’up ur great work..

    Best of Luck

    Kiranz..!!
    http://www.malayalamsongslyrics.com

  49. Preethi says:

    Fantastic work, Rock-sea.
    Makes people want to know more about you. you have preserved the sense of intrigue in this website..
    🙂

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