The Accident

On this past Sunday, AFTER we got home from Bulgaria, this happened. It was in the middle of Decan, as we were on the way to Decani Monastery and following another US vehicle to get there. Some Kosovar decided to turn left without brake lights or turn signal and slammed his brakes. Four cars back, well, we plowed into the SUV in front of us. This is the front of our car. Nice damage ... he's selling it for scrap.

This is a picture of the back of the SUV we ran into. Did I mention it was armored? All the damage it got was the license plate falling off and a very small crack in the bumper. No one was hurt in the crash (not even the puppy!), and we did get to the monastery after about an hour and a half with the police and paperwork. Had to go back to the main station in Peje to complete the paperwork after visiting the monastery, but we were all home by dark. I'll have pictures of the monastery up in the next couple of weeks, but I want to finish the Bulgarian series first.

On the Plane...

Sitting in first class means you have room to break out the stitching, which I did. I stitched on the Vienna-Paris flight and again on the Paris-Newark one. Lots of positive comments from the people who saw me doing it. Anyway, part of what I stitched was this - I worked on the compass rose. The outer lines are now all the way down to the east and west markers, so I made quite a bit of progress.

The Worst Road EVAR

These pictures are of the -good- part of the trip from Varna to Plovdiv. We did all the prudent things - we had a map. We printed off directions from google. Everything should have gone smoothly, right? Nope. We got lost. Actually, we took the right road ... it was just a goat track. So. Here's the good part: we stopped for lunch just north of Shumen at this place. The owner didn't speak a word of English and we didn't speak any Bulgarian. From deciphering the menu written totally in Cyrillic, I was able to order us chicken soup and shop salad for lunch, along with diet coke and bread. It was excellent!

Here's a picture of the soup. It was obviously homemade and very full of bits of chicken.

This is a typical shop salad plus a few extras - the local feta-type cheese, cucumbers, and tomatoes. There were olives and onions in this one too. We ate the whole thing. This salad is normally served without dressing.

As you can see, the owner keeps this restaurant in the middle of no where in immaculate shape. The local shepherd was enjoying a midafternoon beer, his flock across the road, while we were eating. Anyway, we'd gone too far on this road and we were on the way to Romania instead of Bulgaria when we passed here. We turned around just after and got onto the "right" road. BIG mistake. I was driving, my first time driving in the Balkans (another story there), and we ended up on a road that was washed out in one direction and full of potholes in the other. Lucky for us, we were supposed to take the pothole direction - over a several thousand foot mountain behind a logging truck on basically a one lane, two way dirt track. I drove it all, though, and my companion didn't complain about my driving once. It was still scary! No photos of the road - we were so busy driving and trying to stay un-wrecked that pictures just didn't cross our minds.

What was supposed to be a six hour drive took almost double that. I'm just glad that we got a good lunch and a warm welcome at the hotel in Plovdiv when we got there. Never, ever take Route 7 in Bulgaria. It's a nightmare.

Last Kosovo Finish

I finished this round robin block just before I left Kosovo. I'm back in the States now, having landed yesterday. This is Rebecca's Novice block. It's very small, and she says she's making it into a bible cover. This top picture is before the work I did on it.

This photo shows my work added. I did three small motifs and one seam. The trim on the pink I found in Varna. I had seen the block before I saw the trim, and I bought it specifically for the block. I think it's really for making bridal garters and such. The meandering line on purple is to represent a meditation maze. This block was a challenge for me because it's totally a different style than my usual.

The Other Finished Temari

This is the other temari I finished. It's a bit more elaborate and I also used Valdani perle 8 on it, this time a brown variegated.

It's also got the polyester thread base, which was still slippery. Both of these will be given in June, just before my friend leaves Kosovo for good. I just had to finish them before I left so I didn't have to mail them.

Bulgaria's Stone Forest

About ten miles west of Varna, just off the highway back to Sofia, there's a natural geological formation. We visited it, and here are some pictures. It's the Stone Forest, and it's a national heritage spot in Bulgaria.

Even though there's sand underfoot in these pictures, the surrounding area is tree-dotted meadow. The "forest" runs about three kilometers by half a kilometer and a road straddles it. They say these rock formations were made just like stalactites and stalagmites and then the cave just fell in and eroded around them while they stayed in place.

The guide/money collector (entrance was less than two euros each) gave us a New Age spiel about the energy of the rocks and their spiritual healing power. Needless to say, we didn't fall for that. We did, however, take lots of pictures of lizards and flowers. Those aren't on flickr yet, though. Anyway, if you get to the Varna area, do visit. It's impressive.

An Actual Finish

My host is leaving Kosovo in July, and he needs to give gifts to his local employees. I offered to make temaris. This past week, I finished two! Here's the first. I made large interlaced kikus at the poles.

The ball is shiny because I used polyester thread to wind it. I -don't- recommend this unless you have a lot of patience for slippage. The stitching is with a Valdani perle 8 and Petite Treasure Braid. Considering, I think it came out pretty well. The locals don't have any kind of tradition like this, so we're hoping they'll like it more due to the novelty factor.

Yarn from Sofia

My first yarn shop in Bulgaria introduced me to a brand I've never heard of before - Alize. I bought its mohair blend, which I'm turning into an afghan. It's got great loft and a very luxurious feel. What's better is the price was about $4 a skein ... for mohair ...

The smaller balls are all perle cotton. They were about a euro each. I really like the colors, but haven't used them yet.

Working on the Second Half

The second half is begun. Now I get to do strips the other way, in green and ivories. At least it'll be done soon.

So Close!

I made progress on the measles/wild cherries project this week. The top is done but for the outer line of simple stitches. Still, though, I've been so busy with other things I haven't been able to stitch much. I'd hoped to finish this before I left, but it looks like I'll finish it back in the States, since I leave on Wednesday.

Trims from Plovdiv

I found a needlework shop in Plovdiv! It had cross stitch supplies and a whole bunch of trims, walls of them. The prices were mismarked, so I didn't buy as much as I should have. This is what I did buy, though. A meter of each - and the total cost under ten euros!

Part Six Finally

Yay, I finally finished part six this week. I've already got part seven, but won't be starting it until I finish the heart. This only has three more pieces to go and it's done. The next part isn't nearly as dense with blackwork, so it should go more quickly.

Stash from Plovdiv, Part 2

I bought a -lot- of fabric in Plovdiv. This set of pictures is the result of my second shop's raiding. Most of the laces are beaded.

This shop had a lot of really nice lace at a very reasonable price, so I stocked up.

I thought the white was interesting with the lace inserts.

The gold is heavily beaded and the flowers are beautiful.

This black didn't turn out well in the photo, but it's taffeta with gold-edged taffeta ribbon roses on it. Looks really nice.

Had to put this lace on black so you can see it. It's gorgeous.

The Last of Varna

Here are my last pictures of Varna. This top picture was taken from a hilltop just outside Golden Sands, north of Varna on the coast. Golden Sands is a very crowded all inclusive place. The sea looks better in this picture than on previous days, though.

Here's the Cathedral of the Assumption. Our hotel in Varna was just behind it. It's very pretty inside, but I like the way it looks lit up outside at night better.

And this interesting building houses the Bulgarian Navy Band. It's a light blue in the day, but they really make a show of it at night.

Halfway There

While in Bulgaria, I managed to get the top half of this heart done. I hope to have the rest finished just after I get back to the US. The bottom half is cream and green stripes, horizontal.

Very Small Progress

I managed to work on this a little bit in Sofia. It's something, at least. I'm feeling stitching pressure because I've gotten so little done this month. At least I got the major crazy quilting block done that I needed to, but still... I guess next month at home I can catch up some.

Want a Puppy?

So - Monday we had to go to the grocery store after getting home from Bulgaria on Sunday. As we were driving down the road where the store is, something small came running toward us. We stopped, and it kept coming closer. I got out of the car and ... this cute little puppy bounded to my feet. I couldn't resist picking her up.

She's between three and four weeks old and we're transitioning her to solid food. Never touched by a human until Monday most likely, she's decided she loves people. Very sweet disposition and she'll grow to about the size of my Mattie the Magnificent. That's why I can't take her home. I already have three dogs, including one Sharr. I've been forbidden! She's with us until someone wants her or we go to Decani on Sunday. The monks there are looking for more Sharrs to act as guard dogs. Anyone want her?

More Stash - Magazines

We passed a news stand in Plovdiv and the lady running it had three! magazines out with needle crafts. Needless to say, I bought all three. Two are cross stitch magazines and the other is crochet. Everything's in Bulgarian, of course, but the cross stitch magazines have Anchor, DMC and Adria ( a brand from Poland) colors. One of the magazines even has color charts! I'll have to stitch some of these things.

Still Working on It

While in Bulgaria, for some reason I did a lot less stitching. Even though I'm back in Kosovo, my stitching time hasn't increased much. We rescued a puppy on Monday and I've been dealing with her. She'll be a separate blog post tomorrow. Anyway... I have been working on my spring mystery and am finally almost done with part six. I'm sooo behind on all these.

Ready to Mail

This is Melisa's block from one of my crazy quilt round robins before I did anything. It was hard for me to figure out what to do, since this block and its embellishment so far is just not my style.

I finally decided to do two motifs. Both have been done in my time in Kosovo and Bulgaria. I also did the silver bead seam between them. This is the overall block after my work.

I spent about eight hours stitching this paisley. It's got two huge stem stitch roses, lots of bugle beads, and six rows of chain stitch. I think it came out pretty well.

And here is the tree I made below it. The trunk and branches are outline stitch and the leaves and flowers are French knots. It took me a few hours to do this, too, but I like the effect on the print. It almost looks like dawn behind it.

Stash From Plovdiv, Part 1

Okay, so I went a little bit crazy with fabric buying in Plovdiv. But we found LOTS of fabric stores! This is the set of fabric I bought from the first fabric store - and it was very reasonably priced. Most of the fabrics were under 3 euros/meter.

These next pictures are all close ups of the fabrics. The blue and peach florals are going to be great for motifs; some of the flowers are three dimensional.

Three stretch laces are also here - all of them under 2 euros/meter. I also liked the overall lace floral in the upper left here. I think it'll make a great store of motifs.

More of Varna

When you first drive in to any Bulgarian city, you see row upon row of high rise apartment blocks. Sofia has them. Plovdiv has them, but not nearly as many. And Varna has several miles of them.

They were built during the communist era, and you can see from these pictures taken with my camera phone from the car how dilapidated they look. For large numbers of Bulgarians, this is a step up from the rural huts of the villages. All of the cities are in the process of building new, better housing. It's needed. I thought it was important to show these and not just the pretty places.

We drove home to Pristina yesterday. I'll be here just over another week before returning to the States.

Scotching It

This past week, I worked on Camelot some again. It's been all scotch stitch. I'm thinking of doing this pattern again, but in blues. I really like the diamond design in it.