My friend Nathalie in France received her two end-of-summer gifties, so I can show them now. First, an Atalie little piece, it was my first time to try my hand on spider roses and I must say they are both very easy to do and very decorative. I played with colors so this is not the original version Atalie designed.

Atalie - Cassandre

stitched with my choice of silk threads

Then, one of my first medium-sized tatted pieces, which I sewed onto a hand-made red little pillow.

Summer came to an end so fast, but I still try to enjoy the nature around here in Norway, already thinking of my return to Warsaw at the end of the month.

One walk we did was just a few minutes from home, close to Stallerud, a local farm, but we used a path I haven't yet been to and Hakon hasn't walked since many, many years. As it turns out, it is very much used by locals, we met peoples walking, biking, jogging, bathing... Funny, because it's a pretty much secluded place out in the forests.

I picked this season's last raspberries - there are plenty of them growing wild on the sides of the streets, old abandoned gardens and lots in the forests around. They are smaller, sometimes much, much smaller than the ones you buy, but quite good nonetheless! :)

The funny part of the walk was to discover this bathing spot floating on water, with a large area with bonfire places, benches... quite lovely!

Happy made sure to explore the shallow waters this time. He is terrified of water usually, never goes in unless he is very very thirsty during a long walk, but even then he is so scared and behaves like water is attacking him at the smallest move. We usually have good fun of it :)

 Nature is preparing for the winter sleep. Norwegian woods are filled with big rocks, something I am not used to at all in Poland.

Dear H. will be at hospital for a couple of days to remove a lump on his ankle. The operation will take place tomorrow at the Radiumhospitalet, the largest cancer center in Northern Europe, as Wikipedia affirms. They chose to do it there because of where and how it is located, but there is no fear of finding cancer cells in it. They have to do a big and deep cutting and take care of nerves and muscles, from what I understood. Otherwise there were lots of preparations to make his blood thicker, he hasn't been taking his blood thinners (which he's taking after his major heart surgery in 2005) and it's been controlled many times the last three days. So the scare, if there is a small scare, is not really the lump on the leg, but more his heart/blood issues but I feel the staff at the hospital has been taking it very serious and all has been prepared well :)

In August, H. was at a normal hospital to operate an aggravated bursitis, but only under local anesthesia. He showed me that picture later:

and I commented - how could you sleep with your leg that high up? To which he replied - I told you I didn't sleep for three nights, didn't I? I can well imagine! LOL

He's been very busy the past days to finish lots of garden works in preparation of the days he won't be able to walk too much.
As for me, I am making plans for the fall and winter, thinking about packing my flat in Warsaw for the big move to Poznan, booking plane tickets in between several cities, summer is over, it is going to be a very busy few months for me.
I will be reducing my stash greatly so I will offer some charts here as well. I think I have enough lovely stitching and tatting projects to keep me occupied for a long time so it's no sense I keep dozens of charts I won't stitch. The only thing I wish I had more of is silks, overdyes and Lakeside linens! I am positively addicted to them! LOL But a big part of my charts collection has to go. What do I do with the old ones noone would buy and which I would hate to trash? What do YOU do with them?

By the way, someone had the good idea of repainting the main building of the Polytechnical School in Warsaw, I live across the street from it. Take a look HERE for a photo - they carefully analyzed samples of the old yellowish paint that was used 34 years ago but it turned out pink! Light pink, okay, but pink! The result is so awful that they stopped halfway and from what I understood, it's being repainted using a different color. I am anxious to see the result when I'm back! LOL

An evening walk...

Through the fields...

and through the woods...

A little giftie I sent to someone I often think about... someone whose life hasn't been the easiest or the funniest, and I meant this as a little talisman for the future :)
It hasn't arrived yet and I hope this person will enjoy the little surprise.

The soft fabric it lays on is the same I used for the backing.

Midsummer Night Designs - Angel in my pocket

stitched on Lakeside Linens (misplaced the color tag), 36 ct.,

with variegated hand-dyed thread

I'm just about to stuff them with whipped cream... :)

We're just back from a delightful Indian dinner at Flavours of India, a new place that just opened this month in the nearest town. Yummy, yummy! Fantastic nan bread and ginger/pistachio ice-cream, among others. I'll be back tomorrow with a longer post, as I am still catching up on emails to lots of people who've been patient enough to wait through my longer absence, but I'm closer to the surface now :)

Here is a pillow I sent to Ela earlier this year. It was my first time sewing ric-rac in between the front and the back pieces and you can't imagine how much time it took me to eventually visualize it how to do it! LOL It is a nice piece of soft green velour rickrack. Ela loves pink and green just like me, so I was happy to adapt this monochromatic piece to use these colours. I sewed decorative half stitches all around.
I almost miss this pillow but I know it is in wonderful hands! :)

M1 - Monorammes série 1

Marjorie Massey (Passé Composé)

Meet our new little cutie :)

Those of you who have me in their Facebook contacts have seen the little princess, but here she is officially!

Remember my last sad message? Life is much more cheerful now :)
A couple of days after I wrote my last post, the house was hard to be in. Everything reminded us on Felinek, but the worst was how Lucky was changing - and changing fast. I think we were heading into having a very depressed cat. He started to avoid me even more, then started to hide under the darkest corner of the largest bed, just so I could not find him and stayed there for hours, till H. came home. His attitude was making us even more sad...

That day I was able to convince H. to drive to Oslo's local shelter to see if we could find a little cat that would be joyful, playful, but at the same time cuddly, social and liking human presence. With one cat that is not exactly easy (Toska) and one shy one (Lucky), this was important. We were actually thinking of a little boy and this one caught our attention:

This was Saga's brother - Solan. But I and H. believe in the theory that when you choose a pet (if you're in a situation where you are choosing which is not often here since we seem to rescue little needing creatures), it needs to "click" between you and him/her. It didn't "click" with Solan. He was not as sweet as he looked on the picture and not very interested in us. Two other little females weren't either. Then out of a sudden, and mind you - this was after 2,5 hours in a little non ventilated room so we were getting exhausted - one of the ladies brought this little cutie, and love happened, both ways :)

Her official registered name is Saga but we might change it, as we don't use it. I call her Szpulka (Schpoolka), which means a little bobbin of thread in Polish, but it's a bit (cough, cough...) difficult for Norwegians. So we'll see!

Szpulka is very different physically from her brother. She is partly a Norwegian Forest Cat (click HERE to learn more) and some distinctive marks of it, among others her fantastic tail. The were found on July 12th walking on the streets in the district Sagene in Oslo, hence her name. When you think that she was even smaller at that time! How could anyone, I ask myself one time more? They spent two days in a voluntaree's home, then two weeks at the shelter, and here she is!

She is about 3,5 months old, but really mini-mini-mini! She looks much bigger on the photos than she really is. Just a little thing the size of a squirrel, smaller than a ferret! H. says her little body feels like an eggshell when he takes her up so he has to be careful :) She doesn't know how to meow yet, she issues little peeeps and squeeks like a little mouse so it's pretty funny.


And she must be the most friendly little thing I know. She spends most of her time on my shoulder or around my neck or on my chest or... when I type, presses her little wet button nose on mine, licks my face, puts her little paws on my cheeks and usually falls asleep while holding my nose with one paw. Basic need! LOL

It works fantastically fine with the other three tails. Toska ignores her, Happy would like to play but she's a bit afraid of his size, and Lucky - well, we're hoping for friendship or more :) I'm working a lot on socializing them in the sense that we would like them to be very good friends and here is where we are today:

 They're currently snoring together in Lucky's bed on H's desk. Life is good!

And now, I promise the next post with be about crafts. Serious.

Felinek - a sad post

It is with a heavy heart that I am writing this.

Back in July, we "celebrated" the cat boys first anniversary in our home, with the special menu you can see above. It was exactly one year since we found them left to die in a deep forest on the border between Norway and Sweden. First, it was a hard fight to have them stay with us. H. rightly believed one cat and one dog was enough to love and spoil. But within a couple of months, the cat brothers managed to occupy an ever-growing part of H's heart. A few months after, he told me he now actually prefers cats to dogs. And his mother who didn't like cats _at all_ fell in love with the two lovely brothers.

They remained so attached, so important to each other. Still sleeping together from time to time, still washing each other, so dependent on one another. We knew we would never let them be separated. Felinek sort of took care of Lucky, who is a very calm, quiet, careful cat who prefers the company of my H. to any other. He's not very fond of me.

But Felinek, our lovely black and white little cat, had grown to a wonderfully positive, happy cat whose presence brightened everybody's life. Every person who met him loved him so much. Always curious, always ready to play, to cuddle, extremely social, you'd think his role was to make everyone smile.

Felinek, our little ray of sunshine was killed by a car a few days ago.

When he didn't come home one morning, we feared something might have happened, but it rained heavily and we hoped someone had taken him home. That night, I heard a woman's terrible scream at 2 am and wondered for hours what it could be about in this peaceful neighbourhood. That same night, H. had been admitted urgently to hospital and his leg operated the next day, nothing too serious. When he was leaving home, I felt that everything was going to go wrong. A weird feeling I can't explain. And Felinek didn't come back in the morning. Over the week-end, we put posters everywhere around here and we started getting calls from many, many people - so touching really - but the cats weren't the one we were looking for. Just as exhausted after a many hours' search yesterday, we were on the way home, we got a call. It happened that night, just meters away from our house. The nice man was keeping the little body as he had decided to ask around if someone's cat was missing. We took him home.

Felinek will be burried in a nice spot in the garden. We cried all night and today is only a little better. We just ordered take-away food as the little things of life seemed to hard to handle today. We are just devastated. Lucky is constantly looking for his brother and it just breaks our hearts to pieces to see him walk around, smell place after place, not finding comfort. Our vet told us to let him smell Felinek and he did it, licked him on the face (which brought even more tears on our side), but I don't think he understood. It is just heartbreaking.

We grow so attached to our little friends, don't we... I think it is harder for people who like us don't have children, I don't know...

Felinek was such an exceptional, unique little being and life without him will never be the same. Never ever. In the meantime, we try to double efforts to surround Lucky with love and care. For him, it's even worse.

This is the last short movie I took of them both in "their" room. We called it the cat room as we use it less so we just placed old armchairs for them to enjoy.

I'll be back with happier, crafty news, but at the moment, I'm having a hard time trying to cope...

I am back!

Yup, I think I can say so! It's been a long time!
Some of you know I've been very ill for long but I've now fully recovered and I'm enjoying my summer in Norway! I've missed birthdays and many weeks were just a fog, I've spent May terribly sick and the whole family mobilized to help, but now I can finally say it - I'm back :) I just have to answer many more emails and I'll be up to date!

I've just sent out my last job for this week and I've been to pick fresh raspberries from the garden (sadly, so many are eaten by snails (slugs? they're without the hard 'house') so now I'll rest a moment and I'll write more later with lots and lots of pictures, stay tuned! And thank you for visiting :)

Here is one of my recent finishes. That one stays home. It's been such a pleasure to stitch it!

TGOSM's Creative Challenge # 7

stitched on BOAF's Barn Owl linen

with Caron Soie Cristale (a favorite!) in color 2013

and some Svarovski ring beads

Till later!

Equally sad Sunday

I'll be back with crafting news tomorrow... A heartfelt thank you to everyone who wrote words of support... The whole country is in a state of shock. What makes it even more painful for Poles is that the persons aboard the plane were to attend a memorial to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. Katyn, an extremely tragic name in our history, wil now forever be linked also with yesterday's  horrible event. The irony of history?
As I'm typing, all Warsaw seems to be out in the streets with flowers and candles in their hands. The plane with the President's body has landed over an hour ago and after the official ceremony at the airport, it is now being transported to the Presidential Palace near the Old Town and people are lined up to bid a final farewell.
It is unsure if Maria Kaczynska's body has been identified yet. Only 22 bodies have been identified so far.
What a sorrow, Poland has lost so many valuable people. It is just unbelievable.

Here is what the streets look at this moment - click HERE.

And here's how Warsaw looked all night - click HERE
.
Thank you to everyone who has a thought for my country in these tragic days.

Sad, sad Saturday

I woke up today relaxed and smiling, reached for the TV remote and my smile was soon replaced with disbelief and astonishment. I had to call my father to ask if all this was true.
This morning the presidential plane crashed with literally dozens of important, well-known people. The president of Poland and his wife, the head of the National Security Office, the head of the National Bank of Poland, the civil rights commissioner, the army chaplain, heads of the army, heads of different churches and confessions, famous deputies and senators... I wasn't exactly a fan of our president, to say the least but his wife was a lovely, warm and kind person and the number of killed is so huge that I can't stop wondering if I should pinch myself... Such a distress for Poland, for the families and for any Pole - among the long list of well-known persons, there are names that deeply hurt each of us...
What a disaster.

Check your local news or HERE..

Peaceful Easter...

Hope you all had a great time during Easter!

I'm back in Warsaw (4h in train from my hometown), Happy and Toska are delighted to be back home from the pets' pension, it's been a lovely, peaceful stay at my father's filled with many lovely moments... My blood pressure is acceptable, except for the evenings, but I don't tolerate the treatment well (I seem to be a unique case as I'm being told noone has such nasty symptoms), just need to accept it has to be that way for quite some time.
My brother with family are visiting India so it's really been very quiet and I loved that a lot! I needed rest and family attention! :)
Good food was had...

Yellow flowers (hey, I got SIXTY narcissus from a neighbor teenager!) were so cheerful...

We did the traditional egg-sharing...

Actually my father and his wife celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary yesterday so my aunt also visited for one day to celebrate with us, champagne, laughter, good time and all! Here above they're sharing the egg before the traditional Easter breakfast.

My father always plays the fool when I try to make a serious picture!

I've decided to reopen my blog, sorry for the mess. Blogger doesn't update readers and it only generated havoc. I guess I'll just have to restrict private content to what I am comfortable with to share with the unknown anyone from anywhere! ;-)


To finish this post, here is the lovely Easter exchange I received from Karin from South Africa. Karin included little extras that were so well matched to my likings... tea, chocolate (wonder why it's gone on the picture? LOL), a lovely notepad, a super funny sponge... such a lovely exchange, thank you Karin!

Pre-Easter reality check.

I've disappeared again and again, I am late in replying, in commenting, I promise I'll find time this week-end. 

Life has its ways to make you slow down. Actually it all started on the plane from Oslo two weeks ago. I felt unwell, not to the point where I should call a flight attendant, but very unwell anyway, wondering whether I'll see any landing at all anymore... I sort of decided to disregard it once the plane hit the ground but the following days, I often felt dizzy, my head was turning... Okay, I knew I was going to spend Easter at my father's so I thought I'd wait and consult his doctor wife once there. The fourth day I decided to check my blood pressure and it was 195/145. Yup... Took pills for three days then on Sunday, H. called me at a moment when my head was turning so much that after spending half an hour on the bed, I still couldn't get up and work... He literally forced me to call my father's wife and her reaction was quick - "If you can, go to the ER or call them ASAP! Now!". I quickly analyzed the situation, called the lovely owners of the pets' hotel, who arrived within half an hour to take them, I packed a bag and took the taxi to the one hospital I trust and know. They sent me to doctor who examined me immediately wrote a paper so I could be admitted to the hospital, my pressure was sky high. I got a pill under the tongue and he told me to walk *slowly* again to the ER. There I sat a nice 8 hours on a chair, I had my pressure controlled every now and then, they took blood tests and some time after 2 am, I was released. The results were good, no nasty heart symptoms and nothing else of that sort so the only thing to do is to take measures to have that b---dy pressure lower fast. 

Needless to say, that kind of night is a reality check. You see people dying, people suffering, the ER is a fast-moving microcosm and when you sit there and wait for a verdict regarding yourself, you have a lot of time to think. And when you feel so dizzy and you don't know what they are going to do to you, where they are going to send you... I was reminded of H's similar experience where within hours the decision was made to operate his heart and how that changed his, our life.

I foolishly played with not losing weight, not following the right hypertension treatment, but you can only play with your life so much. If I don't want to ever experience this blood pulsating heavily in the head, this dizziness, the fear of being alone in my flat and what would happen IF... well, I need to react asap.

On Monday I was feeling okay enough to take the train to my father's and since then his wife is trying doses, testing medicines, trying to see what and how I should take it to be out of danger. A life threat it was. My blood is lower during the day but still very high in the evenings so we're trying to control it. She says I have sad eyes and wants to know what happened that triggered it all, what sort of event... Well, I am sad deep inside, noone wants do die, right? Several sleepless nights listening to the bump-bump-bump in my head stole my smile but I'm working on it :)

As to what triggered it, who knows... I simply think I took too much on my shoulders the past months. Some of you know I decided to sell my flat and move to another town, where my family lives. All that thinking about renewing the old flat, finding a new one, administrative issued about my firm, sorting out stuff at home, traveling between two countries and four towns, lots and lots of work, not enough sleep, I think it all accumulated to a level where this had to happen to slow me down, or else...

Needless to say, I scared H. and my family, I scared myself, so I'll postpone all the moving out/renewing works plans till after the summer at least and in the meantime, I'll be in Norway as usual between middle of May and end of August. If I'm allowed to fly in 5-6 weeks, that is. 

We always think that bad things only happen to others but that's very proud thinking... And we only have one life. And I feel so deeply uneasy seeing how my closest ones worry for me. My father is soon 76 and I hate that he is so moved by all this.

Okay, so here you know - BUT I am fine. In some days I'll smile again, it feels good to be under great care among people who care, and as for the future, I need to rework it a bit to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. And lose weight. And take my pills. And worry less. And stitch a lot :)

Now that I've shared the not so good news, we can pass on to funnier stuff. 

Here's a tiny pillow I stitched over one for a recent LHN exchange, with overdyes of my choice. My partner hasn't opened it yet because she hasn't sent hers yet. Hopefully she'll like it!

 LHN - fragment taken from Nature's Beauty

Take care and enjoy Easter! Isn't it wonderful how nature wakes up to life? It's been a loooong winter in my part of the world this year.

Easter bunnies

Hope these bunnies cheer you up! I've sewn four before I got bored (in pure Gemini style) and now that they've been received, I can show them. For once my Easter envoys will not be late! Due to lack of time, I wasn't able to send to all the persons I would have liked to but I've sent so many packages out for Christmas that I'm choosing to forgive myself :)

I was in Oslo/Norway for a few days last week. Mainly to bring 30 (thirty) frozen dinners to H. who had a major health problem and one of its effects was an internal bleeding in one leg, hence not being able to walk without pain. Now the only thing he has to do in the evening is to warm the oven :)

But also, it was a delight to see again the cat-boys after 6 weeks. Those little devils are just unique!

My flight from Warsaw was at 6 am... that meant leaving home at 4 am! Thank you Wizzair!! I couldn't sleep on the plane and when I looked out at one moment, we were already flying over Sweden's south-western coast. For fun, I took this picture because I was curious if H. would be able to find out where exactly that was and yup! We found out by comparing the picture with Google Earth and the funny thing is that of all the places I could photograph, this is the one spot where we spent a week-end with fellow translators from many countries, staying at one of them's house by the fjord not far from the little village of Lysekil. Isn't technology amazing nowadays?

On Saturday, H. could walk a little bit so we drove to see the new jumping tower on the Holmenkollen hill. Just a 5 minutes drive from the center and the view from up there rarely disappoints, in every season it has its charm. Splendid in the summer sun, but equally interesting with a thick winter mist...

We were not allowed to stop though. The World Biathlon Cup (or whatever it's really called) was held since a few days so the organizers put fences to block cars from stopping. You want to see, you have to pay. Norwegians start to find it outrageous that they have to pay outrageous prices (55 usd, if I remember well) just to see events which once were part of their life. What makes them angry is having to pay even for standing in the woods to see the skiers! Ah but, your favorite Polish reporter managed to take a picture of a biathlonist with its riffle on the back...

... and a picture of the new jumping tower, big deal for the Norwegians. It was inaugurated in early March, replacing the old wooden tower, one of Oslo's landmarks. It is seen from faaaaar away. I am not sure, but I have the feeling the old one was more easy to see.
The new one has funny sides aimed to protect the jumpers from the wind, I think...

Then we drove down again to Akerbrygge, a central spot in Oslo. I was surprised to see new modern ferries which connect the town with nearby places around the fjord, mainly used by people commuting to work and sometimes by tourists.

Once industrial, these buildings were transformed into a modern place with many shops, offices, a cinema, and lots and lots of places to eat. All that extremely expensive, of course. I love the place though! Lovely modern architecture and very peaceful even when it's very crowded.

Lots of very, very expensive apartments, too... Probably the most expensive in town.

On the other hand, Oslo's Town Hall (where the Nobel Peace Prize is delivered) looked sad... it's much nicer in the warmer season with flower banks around!

Almost Easter

Homespun Elegance - Spring Patches

stitched on 36ct hand-dyed linen with overdyes of my choice

with some funny knots for the tails and green rafia with green beads for the bows in the corners

 
Here is the little pillow I sent to Christina (no blog) for the Easter exchange (http://holidayexchanges.blogspot.com). It was pure fun to stitch!


I know I surprised some with my decision to make my blog private... I'll try to explain the reasons in a free moment but really, if I were to sum it up in one word, it would be difficult. A general frustration about handcrafts at the moment (I'll explain later this week) combined with not wanting to share private stuff with the whole world...

I'll see how that works for me but in the meantime, I was trying to send invites to those I think followed my blog... what makes blogging great is making new friends around the world, sharing, learning, inspiring and getting inspired... BUT as this moment in my life, I am _not_ coping with all the little elements that are composing my life. Preparing my flat for sale, preparing to buy a new flat in a different town, plane commuting every few weeks between Poland and Norway, worrying about H. whose health was seriously in danger recently (almost fine now!) and work - a loooot of work, because after several thin years, my branch of activity seems to finally pick up... I just needed I felt the need to make my blog a bit more private... and focus on what I see I can focus on for the coming months. I wish there was a way to invite all interested stitchers without closing the blog completely. There should be an option where a person could send an e-mail to get an invite but Blogger didn't think of that !
I think I was feeling so overwhelmed with everything happening lately  that I closed in my shell and didn't update my blog... hope this move will make it change! :)

Thanks for reading! :)

Preparing to leave...

Days have been just *so* busy. I am sorry I don't have time to leave comments on your blogs, but I read them (a lot of them!) while sipping morning coffee and later during the day!
This stay was supposed to recharge my internal batteries... but I'm leaving very tired. I usually have zero work till the end of January, so my plan was to stitch a lot, read, have walks, enjoy life, enjoy nature... Turned out quite the opposite. I worked insanely much, slept little... We're taking the plane on Saturday and I will only have Thursday to pack and clean the house, so we can possibly have half a day out somewhere on Friday. I'd love to do some shopping too... not sure how much I'll be able to squeeze it till then.
So, big changes will start in Warsaw on Sunday. Some of you already know what and why... others will have to wait for the news a few days more, too pooped to write this evening! :)
On Sunday, I got up with an unhappy face and while I munched on my breakfast, I commented to H. that I simply don't seem to have the brain resources to work - and I have dozens of pages to produce! Dear H. looked at me and said: 'Why don't you have a walk with Happy?'. Hm. I looked outside and the day was grey and uninteresting, but I'd have done anything to kick my brain into gear. It was snowing lightly, just -12 Celsius, I decided to go. H. had to drive somewhere so he left me halfway to the nearest village and I walked back home. Turns out the idea was perfect, it cleared my brain completely!


Just so you don't think I don't stitch ;-), here is a WIP I didn't finish in time for Christmas. This is a Mary Garry pattern I decided to stitch as individual pieces meant as ornaments for a Christmas tree or branch. That said, I'm showing the idea for the finishing, but I will add beads and some other decorations where the ribbon is sewed.

I thought you might like to see why Happy got the name he got :) (and a new collar!)

Just in case you're more interested in cats ;-), here is an older short movie of our cat-boys!