Some finishing supplies...

At the end of my stay in Norway, I bought and ordered lots of finishing supplies. Here's part of what I got directly at the shop:

And once packed into a brand new box...

I guess everyone knows what my favorite colors are now! LOL

More when I have time... or when I need to procrastinate again! :)

Cats :)

Not mine, just love that picture. Was she yawning or what? :) Click HERE.

Young love...

My nephew and his fiancée as they call themselves... at 5 1/2! :)

Photo taken at the English school. They went to kindergarten together but this year, they started school, each went to a different one. So, they wanted to start learning English together. And they go to the movies, with one mum or another... How long will this last, we'll see :)

Women!

Back for good

From the day of my return to Warsaw I've been extremely busy. Here's a shortcut of what happened since my last post here. I was in Switzerland to visit my brother/nephew++, great food, great wines, great trips, great moments with everyone. Then back to Norway. Then flight back to Warsaw with part of my luggage and The Queen (cat). Busy, busy week. After which H. flew in with rest of my luggage and Happy (dog) for two days. Great time again but very busy. Trip to visit my family. After which work, work and more work. It doesn't stop coming in. I am booked till end of October and spent time working on the computer sometimes 20 hours per day. Won't complain, after several empty months this will fill in huge gaps in the budget.
Will be very very very busy this month but will try to post a lot of late pictures here. Also, in some days the works in the building will start : changing all water pipes - which means my kitchen will be demolished. I don't mind the bathroom works that much, it was planned to be reworked or at least repainted soon, but my kitchen was all made per individual measurements, and I fear they will simply ruin it all. And I still don't know how to cope with that and the Himalayas of work I need to deliver end of month... I still haven't heard when they will attack ;-) my flat, but I will try to talk them into doing mine after the end of the month. Will I be able to delay it? Not sure... so this month is far from being easy. The only thing I do except typing very, very fast many hours per day is stitching - sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few hours when I manage to organize a whole evening free of work. Little crosses can be sooo relaxing after many hours of work! :)

PS. Thanks Michelle for kicking my b-tt and to Mylene!

In the French Alps...

Here are a few pictures from a Sunday mountain walk in the Haute-Savoie (Sixt Fer à Cheval, a 1-1,5 h drive from Geneva). A great time was had :)

You might want to click to enlarge the picture below and the 5th one... maybe you'll feel the beauty of the place, the magic of that afternoon...





(above: big brother, nephew and a person from the family)

Bad encounter

(much delayed)

On Thursday (10 days ago) H. drove a bit later to work so we could exchange a gift I bought for my nephew (and which my brother told me he already has) when the shop opened, in the big commercial center in the town nearby. Happy waited in the car. Then H. left for work and I walked home. I wanted to 'explore' this way too :) From the town to our village it is only 5 km + 1 km till our home. The sun was strong, the day gorgeous. Yeah right...

On of the farms on the way... The system is the following in Norway: the white building is always the house where people live, the red one is the barn or other farm building.

The cycling/walkers path goes along the road all the time, so it was totally safe, nothing special about it. There were not that many cars passing at 11 am. At one point, there was a forest path leading deep in the woods. And when I arrived there, there was a man standing. I immediately noticed that there was no car behind him on the path, and thought that was weird. I was right. The man came closer and asked in English - without knowing I was not Norwegian, so he was obviously British or English-speaking anyway - if I can help him. I answered I hope so, but I kept my reserve. Well, he asked if I can do a little thing, actually just a little thing ... Can I show you my p.-----s? I thanked him with my special smile number 12,5 and tried to leave, but he followed me and said it would just take a few minutes. I was totally alone with a weirdo on a secluded path, not funny. I smiled again but with a firm thank you and went. I did not want to behave like if I was scared, I was not. But this man had something in his eyes that was scary. This path is used by many young girls - and I had just met several. The man did not look like one that just wants to 'show'. As soon as I was out of sight, I called H. at work, he called the police, I waited for them to arrive, talked to them, gave a detailed description of the guy and well, they were quite fast and decided in the way they reacted. Four more cars arrived with lights and all sounds on at full speed, with dogs and they went in the wood to find him. I don't know if they did, H. always forgets to call. But I was asked if I could recognize him, even from a picture and the police have all my data.

I was a bit stressed for a day or two, kept thinking about the guy. I've met numerous such types in the park near where I live in Warsaw, but this one was disturbing. I hope he'll get caught.

But I don't feel that much for walking around in a forest alone now... Not being hysterical by nature though, I hope I'll stop seeing perverts behind each tree very soon :)

Now to be serious, we had marvelous walks with H. over the next days, but I 'm always short of time so I'll post pictures later, much later.

A nice week

I wrote this last Tuesday but with what happened later this week, my initial euphoria about lonely expeditions has a bit diminished :(. I am posting this anyway.

We at last have gorgeous weather and yesterday I had a long walk with Happy before H. returned (late) from work. These we call my 'expeditions' when I choose to explore a new direction - and there are really endless possibilities for short to very long walks around our place here. H. lives in a large residential area, there are only a few taller buildings around the "center" which includes the church, one supermarket, pharmacy, a newly opened vet clinic, a small pizza place, a minuscule pub and maybe two-three little business more, all grouped together. Otherwise this is a *very* large area of individual houses spread on hills, forests and fields (the older farms). H. always stressed out to me how lucky he is that his house is so close to the train station. Actually the house was built in the 20-ties (I think) by his grand-parents. An old photograph in the hall shows an isolated house in the fields and far away, the old local farm. Well, things sure have changed here. H. walked 1,5 km one way to school each day. Now there are more kindergartens around than I can count. Local kids are lucky. If I had kids, I would love to have them go to a kindergaten in a semi-wooded environment like the one close to us. In the eighties, the field in front of the house was colonized with houses as well. I am sure this urban development can't be nice to people who once lived in a totally green place, but I guess that's how the world is nowadays. And also in the eighties, another train stop was built very close to our house. It only takes 2-3 minutes to get there and we can see the train (the local train stops every 1/2 h) but we do not hear it. And we are just about 15-20 minutes from the center of Oslo. There are 13000 inhabitants in our area which Wikipedia calls a village and adds that it has only developed like this in the 80ties, which I already wrote :).

Here are some photos from my today's walk with Happy. This is a very old path close to home, not much used. I crossed the railway a couple of times, under or on a bridge.

A creek in the forest where I also found ruins of an old mill (this is a historical path) from the 18th century in the water.

Then I reached the lake (one of the two closest to home, this one is maybe a 10 minutes walk from the door). You can see in the picture a small white infrastructure to go down to the water. Contrary to Poland, Norway does not have sand beaches, so even to go bathing in fjords, they put some "stairs" for people.
The full lake, not very big:

I haven't seen many black sheep in my life:

I absolutely adored this house. Later H. told me he went to school with a girl who lived there and that it's now owned by her brother. There was a person inside looking at me so I shyed out and hid behind the barn to just make a photo of the upper part.

In the evening I made one of my favorite 'diet' salads:

- 100 ml of tomato juice,
- 1/2 tsp of olive oil,
- 1 tsp of red wine vinegar,
- hot pepper sauce to taste,
- a pinch of paprika,
- 60 g of pasta (uncooked weight),
- half a tablespoon of pumpkin seeds
- 60 g of sweetcorn
- 1/2 a green pepper and 1/2 a red pepper,
- 90 g of roast/grilled chicken
- 1 spring onion,
- a tablespoon of chopped fresh coriander

Combine the tomato juice, olive oil, vinegar, pepper sauce and paprika and put aside. Prepare the pasta without fat or salt. Mix with the tomato juice mix. Put in the fridge for around 2 hours. Mix the other ingredients with the pasta and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Happy was just.... HAPPY!

And later on he slept in a somehow weird position, but we are used to it :)

The Sampler Lady is finished

It look me a little over a week because I chose to do her with one thread over two on 40 ct. She surely will be one of my very favorite pieces once framed!


Design: The Sampler Lady by Little House Needleworks

Threads: Crescent Colours and DMC

Fabric: 40ct Lakeside Linens

Stiched with 1 thread over 2.

Finally a finish!

And I'm so glad with the way it looks! Here it is, at last, a 2007 summer finish!

Design/-er: Awake the Dawning Day by Blackbird Designs

Fabric: 30ct Iced Cappucino (R&R Reproductions)

Threads: WDW and GAST

I am a late BD fan. "Their Song" was the first chart I stitched and I really got hooked! I know some people are not so fond of this leaflet and especially of the new one issued (which I am not sure fits my style so I haven't got it yet - I love the colors but not so much the general theme) so I'd really like to say that Awake the Dawning Day is gorgeous. Very beautiful combination of colors on an ideally chosen fabric. The weird thing is that with the previous project, I hated working on R&R fabric (this was also a first time) and I remember telling myself that well, the next time I have to pick something else. This time I just loved it, maybe because of the way the colors played on the shade of the fabric. So if you're not sure if, hesitate, etc., do not, it is really a beautiful piece!

One could also stitch the upper part only and put initials or other lettering in the bottom. This would then look this way:

Saturday update

Most of the days this summer - and I'm talking of the period since June 2nd till August 18th, that is now, here is what I saw out of my bedroom window here:

Rain, rain, rain and more rain. I remember telling H. by the end of July that it just can't rain more than 2 full months, that August would be lovely... yeah right! ;-)

The good side of the bad weather is that I cooked and baked a lot, almost every day. Today I've baked a 4-corns bread and I'm preparing a delicious spicy pasta with chicken, tomato sauce, different types of seeds and more. Looks yummy! :) This week H.'s mother made some "rolls" (that's how my totally cuisine-challenged darling called them and there was no way to get more information out of him LOL!) and don't be put off by the look, they were de-li-cious!! So soft and tasty, I just have to ask her for the recipe and make them myself. I don't think I've ever eathen such type of "rolls" before, they're too sweet to be eaten as bread for breakfast but delicious eaten alone of with something on them...

Shop models for sale

Some are quite cute actually. Stitchesnthings have put some of their shop models for sale, and I really can't understand why this Prairie Schooler gorgeous one still hasn't found a buyer http://www.stitchesnthings.com/detail.cfm?ID=19394
There is also a PS Santa made in specialty floss, one with blackbirds.
Oh, I just love these two pieces of work. But I can't justify the purchase at the moment :)

Norwegian 'souvenirs'

If you really have nothing better, I mean nothing better to do, you can see what are the Top 10 most selling Norwegian souvenirs here. Pure horror but what? This must reflect tourists' tastes, right? There's been a discussion on the media last week based on the general reflection that something has to be done to improve the style, the quality, the nature of what's been sold as "typical of Norway. Not to mention that the same "viking" items are sold as Swedish or Danish across both borders, just that the wording is changed. And that all this is manufactured in China.

I must say, though, that I love Barbie's dress on picture #4. Guess why? :)

Thank you, Mary Kathryn and Cheryl! :)
Nath - Je m'en vais passer tour chez les Helvetes histoire de visiter mon p'tit Suisse de neveu fin aout, mais je serai de retour sur Varsovie tard le 9 septembre ! Je me languis un petit peu de revoir mon minuscule chez moi, va savoir pourquoi ! :)


Indeed not being able to stitch was part of the initial desastrous mood I had LOL! I remember the first evening, I sat down, looked sadly and said to H.: "Heh? What am I going to do? I can't work, I can't stitch, I can't type, I can't help at home, so WHAT am I going to do all these weeks? Heh?" But you know how it is, we humans learn to cope with everything if we have to. A few days later I was typing with 2 fingers of the right hand and the left one, just that work took me three times longer, was much uncomfortable and involved shoulder pain, but so what. I learned how to do most things with the left hand and I swear that if it had to last longer, I'd have learned to work and stitch with the left hand. I even tried once :) but it went too slow to my taste. Once in a while I picked the needle in the right hand and put in a few slow stitches by making lots of weird large movements with the cast in the air. H. looked desperated and asked: - do you reeeeally have to? - yes I do! - was my happy answer. I guess I as a stitcher needed my cross stitch (drug) fix because after a few stitches I went on to house chores with a broad smile! :) But I swear that after seing me stitching with my cast, H. lost the last hope he had that I am normal. You should have seen his face and his rolling eyes! LOL

Now... Now that I can stitch, I intend to do a lot of that :)

Norwegian (the airlines) had a nice 2-day promotion this week for a few destinations which included Oslo, Geneva and Warsaw and we jumped on the occasion. It was a tough job to coordinate all that but within 2 hours I communicated with my brother in Switzerland at his office, H. checked his work obligations in September, and we played fast with the dates which had promotional prices (19 usd! all costs included). We weren't able to get all the segments for that price, of course but all in all, it was a real bargain. So here's how it goes. On August 28th I fly to Geneva for a week and back to Oslo on Sept. 4th, H. stays here to take care of the furry part of the family, then I return to Warsaw on Sept. 9th with The Queen, and H. will do a fast 2 days trip to Warsaw with the rest of my luggage and Happy. I will only be flying with minimum luggage to protect the hand. That'll be a lot of travelling very soon, because as soon as I am back home, I should travel to see my aunt and father, in two different towns, as well. Busy, busy!


Okay, now to stitching. I am almost done with Awake the Dawning Day, just that I received one wrong color of WDW with the kitted chart, so I'm currently waiting just for that skein to finish the two birds. I decided against posting a picture because it will look much nicer once the birds are there :)

I have one Bent Creek project waiting for the finishing part to be done since June, I'm working on it and I'll post details later. Plus several WIPs which I should put the last stitches on but somehow don't feel inspired to right now.

Today I started LHN's "The Sampler Lady". I chose a lovely piece of dusty pink Lakeside Linens in 40ct and I'm so happy with the choice. The original on the cover page was done on Light Examplar but I put the threads on several pieces of fabric and really loved the way they looked on this old' pink. It should take me a week, I think. I'm doing it with one thread over two. Lovely, lovely, lovely this chart! I had to order it as soon as I saw it :) I often wondered why I don't see it being done on many blogs.

Here is the start as of today:

The colors are distorted in artificial light but the general idea is shown :)

Oh, not that that's the news of the millenium, but I forgot to mention I'm in a cooking/baking period of mine and fresh bread is served regularly for breakfast. Here's two I baked yesterday, the left beeing a darker flour variation of the right one. They are soo good! :) Nothing beats a homebaked bread, I tell you!

Yesterday we had coffee after dinner with a Norwegian specialty, lefse and Namdalsgomme, a sort of sugary spread with cinammon which you can also see on the photo.

From Wikipedia: Lefse is a traditional soft Norwegian flatbread made out of potato, milk or cream and flour, and cooked on a griddle. Special tools are available for lefse baking, including long wooden turning sticks and special rolling pins with deep grooves. There are significant regional variations in the way lefse is made and eaten, but it generally resembles a flatbread, although in many parts of Norway, especially Valdres, it is far thinner.

If you want to read more, click here.

And here's what Happy meant to say about it:

And today I baked a yummy banana bread per Mary Kathryn's recipe. H. is not so fond of cakes in general and when your man swallows one slice after another like he did today, it sure makes you smile, doesn't it? :) Anyway, one hour later over half of it was gone! My version looked different from MaryK's photo, it was brownish in color but what do I care? It was YUMMY and that's all that counts. I had to work a bit on the cup to metric conversions but it worked. The main problem was when I asked H. to get me a pack of baking soda one day after work with the daily shopping. A pack of what? Baking soda. Whazzat? (sigh) You don't know what baking soda is? No. I think I heard about it but I am not sure. Okay, right. Baking soda is baking soda, right? :) Multiple dictionaries later I was able to tell him that baking soda is 'natron' according to the wise authors and success! The next day I found 'natronpulver' in the shopping bag, proudly brought in by a very smiling H.. He deserved his treat today, me says! :)

Back to blogging

Your favorite Polish stitcher is back to blogging! :) Mylene sent me an email last week to kick my b-tt out and it worked, thank you Mylene!

The cast is off. It was indeed unexpectedly a real, first-time-in-my-life fracture. I broke the trapezium bone in the wrist/hand, it is located sort of at the base of the thumb, so what hurt was the thumb and not the hand or wrist as such. I was lucky - what broke was not the bone itself, in which case the cast would have had to be on for a double period (iiiiick!) but a sort of tubercule this bone has in its upper part - so I had the cast for about a month, I think. After the MRI, the blue version was replaced by a red version of my choice (there were 6 colors to choose from :)) which freed my thumb ans was thus a little lighter. I had a lot of work during this period and my work involves typing all day so I certainly appreciated a little less weight to carry, my shoulder was really hurting at times. With this version I could type with 4 fingers of the right hand, which was neat but of course I had to be careful, so I only typed what was related to work or otherwise urgent. Don't ask me why the thumb was freed, the orthopedist said that the lenght of the cast provided enough support for the wrist and indeed it did. It felt weird however and I had to be much more careful in not hurting it.

Now, what more. As of now I'm back to stitching, though not as much as I use to, also due to lack of time. H. had two weeks off work but we didn't have a summer vacation as such. In a way, it was a good thing, because anything we would have planned would have been a loss of money this year. It rained in Norway for eight full weeks - morning till evening and evening till morning, and now the sun is back but it also rains daily. We managed to do some trips in the region and boat trips on the Oslofjord though. I hear that the rest of Europe didn't have a good summer either this year.

I walk a lot with Happy in the surrounding forests, and we so enjoy these moments. Sometimes it is one hour daily, sometimes I make longer 3 h expeditions when clients don't keep me busy. I've walked in all directions around here and "explored" new tracks and walking possibilities. Norway is all up and down bigger and smaller hills, so I'm really tired and happy to return to the base - home :)

I'm about to buy my flight ticket back tonight. I plan to return to Warsaw late on Sept. 3, which just the hand luggage (laptop/cables/work necessities), Toska-the-cat and one smaller luggage. Hakon will fly in a little later for a week-end with Happy and the other biiiig piece of luggage. He suggested so because of my right hand.

I'll be updating the blog regularly now and should post a lot in the next days, however due to the limited stitching I did in the last time the posts won't be much related to that. Only usual rubbish and pictures from the region/Oslo.

I've rewared myself and ordered a couple of kitted charts, among which Barrick's new Fraktur Flower and the rest I just can't remember at this moment :)

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer (uuuuuh, more than I did mine!! LOL)

Biscornu frebies

You biscornu lovers, you just have to see this one:
http://kissycross.twoday.net/20070712/

Isn'it is just amazingly beautiful? I have yet to make a biscornu myself and I only own one (thank you Mylene!!) ... they sort of intimidate me. I know, I should try my hands on one. However, inspiration is lacking for the moment. But if I ever try to make biscornus, I will surely remember this one. Oh you know, you see a cross-stitched piece and you just know you have to... :) I am just stunned by the beauty of this one!


There's a simple blue one here too and lots more:
http://misst.canalblog.com/

Norwegian hytter

"Norwegians love to escape to their holiday homes and cabins known as hytter. Not to be confused with "huts," the holiday getaways have grown increasingly comfortable and spacious over the years"...

Read more and see pictures here for an insight on Norway:
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/bildeserier/article1884655.ece?start=1

Also, Norway's westernmost 'hytte':
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/bildeserier/article1884520.ece

We've spent holidays at a large number of hytter over the years and most were very memorable days. We so enjoy being in the nature.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Waiting to know more

(edited with note to myself: shouldn't blog when having a "down" moment!)

Hi everyone,

Thank you so very much for your words of support here and in private. They mean so much to me!
[deleted]
The magnetic resonance check is scheduled for next Wedneday in 3 days and then I should see the doctor on the same day or the next. [deleted] That's when I'll know how long a regular white cast is needed, if I have to return to Poland to have the hand operated etc.
In that context stitching is something I miss a lot BUT... so many more serious things are more important currently.
I'm already planning which projects I will reward myself with once I CAN stitch! though! LOL I swear I'm going to be good to myself!!

On another note, it hasn't stopped raining day and night since 5 weeks, can you believe? I follow the Norwegian style of life and don't care :) I'm having (almost) daily long walks with Happy. Nature is all around here, just a 5 mn walk to the nearest small lake, forests etc. I just love it here.
On my daily walk:



H. is almost finished with the new sitting place outside. The wooden terrace is ready since a month or so but he's doing works around it and I've been planting flowers (via his hands) :)

Hand in cast!

(you will excuse the uglybackground, it's a room we haven't renovated yet and the house belonged, well, to a lovely but older person, H's mother)

Just a quick hello to explain my disappearance. I made a bad fall 8 days ago in the garden and well, I finally made xrays today at the emergency in Oslo. The xray didn't show any fracture but the doctor suspects that the scaphoid bone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphoid) might be broken, in which case I will have a cast for 8 (EIGHT) weeks. I have to undergo a magnetic resonance check this week, it can only be seen there. Otherwise the hand is just twisted. Anyway, for the first time in my life, I have something put in a cast, from the fingers up to the elbow, and it's the right hand. Not, not, not funny! They decided to immobilize it while I do the MR, maximum 2 weeks. That's be two LONG weeks, if you ask me. I can't even lace my shoes so H. does it for me in the morning before leaving for work - just so I can walk the dog etc. It's too cold for open shoes.
So, silence from me it will be till I can type faster and better. I am able to type very slowly but it is SLOW with the left hand and some fingers on the right hand, painful (strains the right hand that has to carry the cast) and NOT funny because my work involves typing all day etc.
Plus I have to cover all costs myself but that's a whole different story.

So I just have to say sorry! to anyone I should have written to. I'll be back when things are better.
Oh what a bad summer.

Need I say more? No stitching for me till who knows when. Bleeeeeh.

Hmppffff!

Please scroll down to Sunday posts below or click here to see my gifts from Irene and Mylene (this time in alphabetical order) - I had created a draft post on Sunday and though I edited it now, instead of posting it with today's date, it is mixed with older ones. Bleeeeeh Blogger.