Etsy discoveries...

See THIS beauty and make sure you browse all others... yes, they are crocheted!

Sunday smiles...

Per general request LOL!, I found this bit of info in English on Chocolateandzucchini. Not that I didn't want to describe the taste of the coussin to you, but well, English is my third language and sometimes word fail. Here is a nice description of it. Mind you, there is a very old history tradition and story behind the coussin, but once more, I can't venture into it in English, pout, pout...

Invented in 1960 and solely produced by the chocolate maker Voisin, this sweet confection is shaped like a plump little pillow, in reference to the historical silk manufactures of Lyon. When you bite into it your teeth first meet the slight resistance of a crusty marzipan casing, twinkling with tiny grains of candi sugar (sugar that's been melted into a syrup then slowly crystallized), before they delve into a tender heart of moussy chocolate ganache, subtly flavored with curaçao. I am normally adamantly opposed to liquor in my chocolate, but this one is not at all boozy, and the faint hint of alcohol brings aromatic depth to the overall sweetness.

All I'll add is that it tastes HEAVENLY!! I visited Voisin's webpage this week... oh my, he makes more specialties... Dare I ever mention to Ela the quenelle? I daren't! :) One day, I'd love to try it though. But then I could spend my life, day and night, in a French pâtisserie as well.

I am a food lover and a huge part of the fun when traveling is to discover local goodies. On that topic, local and original sometimes means very good. When I "met" H., he ate no cheese apart the regular yellow hard cheese found in Norway, not that I think it's not tasty, but... I was brought up in a French speaking country and bathed in the French culture since being 4 years old. I was used to the extensive range of cheese you find in francophone countries. During our first period together, H. used to ask "do we have to?..." each time I placed a piece of cheese in the shopping basket. The range of vegetables he ate was also limited... so was alcohol. Soon, he came to visit my family here in Poland and my brother in Switzerland. And stay after stay, he started loving good cheese. I still remember the first after-dinners at my brother's, when H. was sitting at the table with an uneasy look, his eyes begging me to help him avoid the cheese. Now, he surprises me with buying fancy cheese once in a while in Norway :) And then I'll mention a year ago, when I flew back from Geneva after a week's visit at my brother. I asked H. what he'd like me to bring, and he mentioned cheese and wine. So I prepared a little surprise.... I borrowed an extra suitcase from my brother and brought 14 kgs of different Swiss and French cheese. Yup, fourteen kilograms that was. I was only hoping for the best so the customs doesn't ask me to open the suitcase, because if you know these cheeses, you know they can smell outrageously, even though they taste sooooo good. Making H. eat vegetables more is a different story, because in Norway, they are so very expensive and often not of the best quality if you don't know where to buy them, plus he doesn't like a lot of what I like... but I have my victories here as well :)

Have I ever shown this pre-summer finish? I can't remember, but I found it yesterday and thought this should go to the framer in priority. I replaced the Mildred Larson word with H.'s abbreviated address. When I received this Blackbird Designs kit, I wasn't sure I like the color of the fabric, too mustard, I thought. But as it is the case with most BD charts, the thread colors play in an unusual way on the fabric... I love this finish.

As I intend to do more sorting in my stash and a lot of nothing still (Monday might bring its usuall toll of work), I'll leave you with this picture I like revisiting a lot. It is a spot at the end of a frequent doggie walk in Norway. I first walk till the train station, then a side path to a small lake, then a shadowed path in the woods... which ten ends where this picture shows, very close to the train line. Not sure why, but I love 'meeting' the train, which doesn't happen to often, since they circulate about twice an hour during daytime (the local tog, the fast one to Sweden, I am unsure of its timetable). It is also a spot where light plays beautifully on the nature around. Ah, I so miss Norway. Does it miss me?

Birthday gifties from Ela

I believe I never got to post the wonderful goodies I received from Ela before the summer...

As usual, everything was packed with virtuosity...

The little packages contained this pinkeep, which I later copied...

This super cute little box handmade after a Japanese pattern, covered with lovely fabrics...

It contained French threads...

There was also a package of coussins, a specialty from Lyon, which I am now addicted to and Ela knows it so well! :) I'll let you "visualize" the taste!

Then there was this lovely pinkeep...

.... and a piece of gorgeous fabric, and I'm sure something else... Ah, that lady knows how to spoil me rotten!!

Friday nothings...

I have to confess to you that I did nothing today. After delivering a short job, I fell asleep... and lost contact with the world for most of the afternoon. Ah, I can't even blame myself for that... I noticed that with the days getting so short, the darkness falling so early, I had a tendency to hibernate this week - need to fight it!
I hope my HOE PS exchange partner receives her package very soon now... I know she reads my blog ;-) so all I can show till then is a photo of the stitched piece and of the handmade XXX:

I'm hooked to etsy. Addicted. There's such a wealth of talent to discover, so many great ideas to drool over... I've been treating myself to a little (or bigger, hmmm...) something over the last months and I would love to share some of these goodies with you. If you have some favorite sellers, let me know, I love to discover new crafters :) It find amazing the ideas people have, the techniques they use... Can you resist a smile seeing THIS or THIS? Or THIS?
Here is a package I received last week from Siska, it is a customized stationary set with my blog's address. Next time I'll ask for the address to be put horizontally in the bottom of the page but I like this version a lot too. The color can be described as pink grapefruit. How could I resist it? A tree, a bird, that's what I love in all craft styles, cross-stitch samplers or other beauties.

Don't you love the little birdie and the shadow on the branch?


Time to head to bed.... Have a nice week-end, everyone!

Meet Anna's Bird!

I am finally settling into my Warsaw routine... work and crafts... no more painting, renovation works, no more pipes, walls and tiles to destroy... till next summer, probably! :) Today my regular Internet connection was finally fixed, turned out it was a part that burned and needed to be replaced in the big cable TV box (which also provides my phone and internet connections) several floors down. After a half hour of testing and sweating, the repair man left me all in smiles :). Ah the joys of a fast connection, ah the joy of limitless browsing... :)

But I digress: today I have the honor of presenting Anna's Bird to you, made by the wonderful Barbara! It's been more than a week since I received it and I'm still feeling the same love as when I opened the package from Barbara... It was a custom order (which means that if you're really, really nice, she might accept to make one for you! LOL, she's one busy mom, wife, crafter and writer so you might have to make your smile very broad! ;-)) and I am just delighted with it.

Don't you just love it?? The colors? The work? The fabrics? Here is how Barbara described it, I couldn't write it better:

Anna's Bird is stitched on a sumptious chocolate brown R&R Reproductions linen using overdyed cotton flosses in colors so deep and so rich you can almost feel them. The double-sided wing is fashioned from Moda's Garden Baskets series and is finished with tiny x stitches to give her a slightly primitive appeal. The floral designs stitched on the linen are inspired by Art Nouveau floral designs and compliment the flowing floral pattern of the wing. The balance of light and dark creates a bit of mystery, while the richness of the colors creates a sense of harmony and home-coming. Anna's Bird celebrates the shift from summer into autumn.

I'm borrowing these photos from Barbara with her authorization... I invite you to browse her sold and available items in her etsy shop, to see the other birds she made before... Mine is the nicest though, I swear I love it to death, see for yourself below!




I am sure Barbara would love to read your comments on Her wonderful work... Me, I couldn't say enough how much I appreciate her talent...

HOE Prairie Schooler exchange

Just look at what I received from Ina! What do you do when you open a big box and you see this? I can tell you - you are breathless!

Ina sent me a big wooden box with the PS stitched piece so nicely incorporated in the lid... Oh I love all sorts of boxes and tins and... Ina, you couldn't make me smile more. I was so surprised that I actually was breathless opening the package, I couldn't believe my eyes! Thank you so much!!
Of course, Ina didn't sent this beautiful box empty, it contained the printed text for "Mary had a little lamb..." (thank you for that, I was not familiar with it and though I knew it must come from something well known to English speakers, I never took the time to investigate), a card from the place she lives (what a great idea!), a memo pad, a pen and a super fun pair of scissors!

THANK YOU so much, Ina!! The box will be put to very good use and will always remind me of you :)

Happy days

My regular Internet connection is down since Friday so I have a few late updates to post. I've been complaining to H. recently about that mobile connection I have that I don't use (and pay a lot for monthly) but here it comes extremely useful. It made it possible for me to send and receive work and to keep touch with... blogging and all :) Otherwise, it is pretty slow and the amount of data I can send/receive is limited, so I can't use it a lot. The uncompetent repair men (sorry, I have experience with them! LOL) will only come on Wednesday and who knows if they will be able to repair on the spot. There is always a reason they can't ;-)

H. was here a few days and it's been a very lovely time, only that I had a big job coming in and we decided I should take it so I spent most of the time typing and H. relaxing, which means spending time with his laptop on his lap. Ah, men. I didn't even feel to bad about letting him spend time on himself, because he is into a crazy period at work and at home (still lots of painting work outside left to do) so he *really* enjoyed being able to sleep long, have relaxed a breakfast and do a lot of nothing generally. Me, I got up at 4-5 am each day to work and continued throughout the day. But it had good sides, we ate out at out fav' Chinese spot just round the corner every day and managed a longer evening at our favorite Mexican restaurant as well. Oh, happy hours... :)

H. brought both Happy and Toska back to Warsaw. I won't ask them if they are happy about the change after 5 months in pet wonderland (garden, big house, nature...), I know the answer. While Happy accomodated to the change as great as usual, Toska behaved as usual, she immediately returned to her difficult angry self. She soon reminded me of her teeth and claws, but what, I love her anyway and in a little over half a year, she'll return to Norway for the nice season. She's spending time on her own, bangs her paws at me whenever she can and the moments when she's sweet and cuddly are rare but they sweeten the whole experience. You can say I have one model of a characterial cat! :)

H. laughed but said "no pictures, please! i'm relaxing!" :)

I spoiled him as much as I could... (notice the heart, a fav' tea set I once bought in a small gallery in Lillehammer)

Toska relaxed... She's such a traveler! I was amazed when I saw them all at the airport. She didn't seem to care about all the fuss around... It was a busy environment despite the late hour and she was just rolled inside her carrier, both paws rolled under her head. But I know her. She was highly annoyed at all the noise and all and was just waiting for it all to stop, so she could get out. On a different topic, the ^$%^$#%$# luggage handling people delivered her... on the baggage belt!! She was turning with all the bags before a man put her down. H. was waiting for her at the special luggage place, where she should have been handed to him along with Happy. Normally a special man comes with them both. Where do they have their head??? She is a super easy cat to travel with but I can imagine cats who'd get sick and crazy right on! Other Norwegians told H. what happened. I already called the company in charge of handling luggage at our airport and (great thing for them! otherwise I'd have followed on this) the boss was very apologetic, asked for all the details (day, hour, flight etc.) and I believed she would react on that. She seemed very upset with her people.

Happy slept for a couple of days. Can't be an easy thing for a little dog, this plane-thing. I and H. laughed - our two tailed friends don't have a clue about country borders, customs, airspace, pilots, Norway or Poland... We believe they must think that a plane is just a big bus (how can they know it goes up in the air? LOL) that makes a lot of noise and moves in strange ways. I am sure the smells are different in either country and they must know it - Happy gets nuts as soon as we let him do his "things" somewhere in the nature before joining the highway leading to Oslo :)

More updates coming, watch this place :) and in the meantime, have a nice evening!

By the way, I sent my HOE PS exchange late but all I can say to one person reading this is that if you're waiting for this exchange to arrive, it might be from me but it's *on its way*!! Sorry for the delay... really, but I was soooo happy with the result, you will like it, I am sure :) Okay, almost sure!

HOE Needle roll exchange for Shelley

Here is a photo of the needle roll I made for Shelley who I hear hasn't been feeling fine lately, so I am writing this with warm thoughts for her... Hope things improve fast!


This all started with a freebie from the blog My aunt's attic HERE. I always looked at this pattern and wanted to stitch it, so this was a perfect opportunity. And because I made it at the end of my stay in Norway, I tried to give it a Scandinavian flair, just like with the Santa for Joke :). I choose white and red, which are omnipresent colors in Norway.

It is stitched on R&R fabric with WDW threads. The red is Turkish red, a favorite color of mine for Christmas stitching.

I sewed red and white beads on both extremities and wrapped Kreinik's gold filament around the endings.

I forgot to take pictures of the goodies for Shelley, or I can't find them, but these are really not important :)

HOE Needle roll exchange

A week ago, I received this gorgeous needle roll from Deanne in Canada:


... which Deanne tells me is from a kit by Silkweavers, and stitched on their Heritage linen with Stranded by the Sea Beach Paradise Floss. It is very soft, a real pleasure to keep in my happy hands :) The needleroll contains many different stitches which English names I won't be able to tell. Doesn't it bring thoughts of chocolate or coffee? So perfect to decorate the table when guests ask for a warm drink.

Deanne joined many lovely goodies: organic chocolate which I had never tried before, a super cute agenda already for 2009, a lemon-scented hand-cream (I keep smelling my hands!), a beautiful postcard from Newfoundland and Labrador, a roll of cute ribbon, a magnet... what a great package, thank you so much again, Deanne!

Addendum: H. and I enjoyed the chocolate! It had a very distinct taste I haven't tasted before. Deanne found it funny that I consider her living place exotic but well, some Canadian names of places automatically make me thing of Anne of Green Gables, a favorite childhood book for most little (and grown-up) girls in Poland and elsewhere as well, I think!

White, everything is white!

Thank you all for your nice comments on the previous post, and thank you to all the new visitors whose blogs I like to discover! :)

Answering to Jennifer/OH: I still haven't unpacked all the stash I had with me in Norway - because of the dirt around. But it was a piece of R&R fabrics, so I would guess it was 30ct; the difficulty about working over one on it was the dark color and the bad lighting....

I'm sitting here in a cloud of white dust that elevates from I don't know where. I've just finished washing the floors, but the dust settles again. Who created dust, heh?

Okay, so I'm home since last Sunday but everything around me evolves at high speed these times, so I don't have time to update much... Things should settle down in a couple of weeks :)

Visiting my family was a real treat, I so enjoyed being with them. You can't make everyone happy at all times, so my father wasn't happy I didn't visit him, and I have bad conscience, so I've promised myself that once again, I'll spend Christmas with him and his wife, and not choose the two other more pleasant options. Again that will mean that I and H. won't spend this special time together, because his mother is over 76 years old and neither I or him want her to be alone at Christmas... I'm a big girl, I will be a bit sad, but I'll cope. That's not a *big* problem.

While visiting my family, I also spent some nice time with both my cousins, their wives and kids. Now... One of the wives has had melanoma detected in April. She was operated and hopefully, she will be fine, though it was detected a bit late. She's just turned 39.
Two days after I returned home, my other cousin called me... his wife has a possibly bad tumor and will be operated next week. She's 36. Hey, what's the world becoming these days? For my delightful aunt, that means that both her DILs are in a dangerous situation simultaneously, at an early age... We worry.
Please, friends, think of yourselves.... do that check you've been postponing... a long wait is a big risk.

The works in my apartment are underway... The dust is overwhelming, the noise unbearable, but in some days it will all have been a bad dream. Till next year... another wave of works is planned... and the year after, another one. Noone has mercy on us, poor tenants :)

So here's where I'm writing from... mind you, this is after the workers leave in the evening. Till then, I'm sitting half crawled on my couch with the laptop. It wouldn't survive there ;-)


And here was my kitchen (note the past tense, LOL!):

Stitching? Yup, I am... one of this year's Blackbird Designs... I should be working on my HOE PS exchange, but inspiration has left me today.... needed something easy :)

H. arrives on Wednesday with cat and dog, I already feel sorry for them, the change from big house plus garden to tiny apartment in a big polluted town is nothing funny, especially for a cat. But H. tells me on the phone that with his long working hours and other obligations, days seem long for both of them... they're normally used to having me all day with them, since I work from home.

Thank you all for visiting, and have a relaxing week-end!

Prairie Schooler Small Santa exchange

Joke in Holland received my *small* Prairie Schooler Santa exchange... it wasn't bigger than a finger. I've had fun making it but with bad lighting in H's living-room, it was hard to work over one on high count R&R 18th Century Blackbird linen (was that the name? anyway, something like that, I don't have it here with me). The finishing is very unorthodox for a Prairie Schooler piece, too. I chose this Santa because it had reindeers on its robe and I wanted to give my exchange a Scandinavian flair. It is stitched with WDW and GAST - the red is Turkish red, a shade I like a lot. I'm so glad you like it, Joke!

You can see a few more picture on Joke's blog HERE.

Family time...

It was so warm outside yesterday, with a gorgeous sun. I I decided against returning to Warsaw (well, my cousin making an error getting me a ticket for one day later helped too... LOL!) so I'm sitting on my aunt's terrace, sipping a glass of ice-cold water and enjoying life... Real life (read: hell with the pipe works) will start on Monday then. I will survive :)
Both my cousins with respective wives and kids live nearby and have been visiting regularly, we're having a super good time together. After another summer in Norway in the big house with garden, I'm having a hard time adapting to the idea of living again some months in my (very, very) tiny apartment in downtown Warsaw, so it is nice to be able to postpone the return a bit.

One of my cousins loves picking mushroom and here's just a tiny part of what they brought today (exhibited by one of my cousins' wife):
The mushrooms, of course, were taken care of by the wonderful hands of my aunt...


During my stay here, I made 764 (see, I can be precise!) pierogis - with white cheese and potatoes (which are called ruskie), with cabbage and mushrooms, with meat and cabbage. When I chatted with Ela on Skype earlier this week, she asked whether we're aiming at the Asian market... major ROTFL!
I also made some Norwegian boller yesterday, yummy, yummy!


Cats and dogs are loved here... here's just a couple of them... (with my other cousin's wife)...

Oh, by the way, have you seen the new designs by Kathy Barrick? Click HERE if you haven't.

Back home...

... unfortunately :(

Right from the plane, I drove home, unpacked, packed and took the train to visit my family... I need to return to Warsaw as early as Friday to have my made-to-size kitchen unmounted (mind you, the only person I can ask to do, that was... seriously drunk!... this week-end so I really hope he is fit enough by the end of the week to do the work or else I'll be in trouble, because that has to be done before the destroying troops enter the apartment to do the pipe works lol!) and to pack half of my apartment in boxes, because the central heating pipes are in all the rooms... aaaaah, I seriously panicked seeing the size of the place and visualized all the furniture that need to be taken down, all the stuff that needs to be packed... and the dust that will cover all... Anyway... The works will take place from Sept 12th to 16th and H. will arrive for just a few days on the 17th, so I'll have *one* day to clean... I don't think the kitchen will be mounted again so we might have to camp indoors :) I didn't like the boss in charge of the works either, not a very polite person, to say the least, but what, I need to survive that and there are many neighbors in my house who are older and probably even less happy about it all. Hopefully the building administration won't plan any more works, it's just been 8 months since they did the water pipes. Cross your fingers for me!
Work is slow, so I'm enjoying time with my family... My grandma will (?) be 100 in January, but the closest neighbors decided to celebrate early... can't blame them for that! ;-) They brought 100 roses, champagne, cakes... a good time was had. I took the picture a few days after the event so the roses had faded a bit.
I'm feeling sorry for myself to be back home... won't extend on that. I terribly miss H. and I know that after his visit in two weeks we might have to wait 2 months or so before we see each other [...]. His autumn will be very busy with work and I have to earn some too :).
My 3,5 summer months in Norway were absolutely great, we got a lot done at home (I knew I could work hard, but I learned a lot more about my capacities, LOL!), traveled, saw friends, had a good time... even though the weather was just plain awful. Of course, when I was leaving Norway, it was so gorgeous... We biked several times in the woods with Happy... ooooh I'll miss my home there. H.'s mother was sorry to see me go as well... Hopefully she'll stay in good health for long, she's 76,5.

Here's a short update about our cross-stitch too...

I received the most lovely Prairie Schooler Small Santa exchange from Mylene... it's so soft and so beautifully finished... Mylene does splendid work and I knew I would receive something cute but this just fell so much in my tastes.... Thank you so much, Mylene!! (so sorry I forgot to take a picture of the bookmark from Texel... I love it! I didn't know you have seals there!)


See for yourself: (sorry for the bad quality of all pictures I post nowadays, my camera just won't cooperate)

My HOE Needleroll exchange is on its way as well....

My HOE Prairie Schooler exchange is being worked on... :)

My Prairie Schooler Small Santa exchange should reach Joke in Holland today or tomorrow... hopefully.

Oh, I was about to forget...! See the beautiful card Ela made for my namesday... using Tilda supplies... My favorite chocolate goodies from Lyon (the famous "coussin") *were* enclosed... they fast disappeared and, I'm ashamed to say, H. didn't even get *one* this time... Shame, shame on me! :)