Exchange Received

I'm participating in the Christmas in July ornament exchange and I got my surprise yesterday. Pascale in Belgium went overboard, and I love every bit of it. Thank you, Pascale.

Little Yellow One

I finished off the berries and added the yellow flower this past week - it's coming along, but I need to get it done in the next two weeks. The closed fly stitches made cute little petals, though I think the satin stitches on my berries look somewhat ragged.

A Treat for Me!

When I was alone in Vienna, I was walking along the main shopping drag and came across a shop named "Petit Point". Naturally, I had to stop in. This is one of two purchases I made there; the other's waiting for another blog post. The thread is DMC, she was working on it in her shop, and we talked about stuff. I gave her the names of several silk floss manufacturers and she was really interested in switching production to silk. She's not the only one who does it. As the work is hand made and well executed, its price is commensurate. She had a lot of lovely purses too, but they were out of my price range.

You can tell her attention to detail in how well the inside's finished off. Anyway, if you want to go (she has no website), it's southeast of St. Stephensdom on the main pedestrian street, a couple of blocks down.

Trogir

Yes, I'm still writing about the road trip weeks later - cause I keep getting photos put up and there's much to tell. On our last day in Split, we went to Trogir. It's about half an hour north of there and UNESCO has marked it as a World Heritage Site because it's the best-preserved medieval town in central Europe. It's a great little place. The old town is on an island in the middle of the newer parts, and there's not a single modern building in it. This top picture is the former town hall; it's used now as a school. I'd imagine it's hard to study there with the view of the boat basin out all the windows.

Here is part of the inside of the "fort" part. We walked the battlements and inside that tower is a great big pigeon den. It stinks, literally. The views from the walls are pretty, though.

And this is the landward entrance to town. The walls encompass everything to the water side.

Lots of little alleys like this one run in a crooked way throughout the town. It's easy to get lost in them if you don't keep your bearings or don't keep the water in sight. The place was crowded; again, my companion had to wait to get a shot without people in it.

This is the footbridge to one of the newer areas of town. It's just a pretty bridge, so I put it here. There was also a market on the new side and we were lucky enough to see a line of parked classic cars on the quay as we ate lunch. My companion took a lot of pictures of them for my husband. If you want to see more pictures of Trogir, go here.

Part Six Done

I got part six done just before I went off on my three day airplane odyssey (it wasn't as bad as it sounds). They mailed me part seven, but I haven't started it yet. I probably will in the next day or so. There's definitely an inkling of the overall pattern now, and with all the leaves, I'm glad I picked a green thread.

Flowers!

I finished up the bottom flowers on the outer panel and started one on the inner panel, then began the berries. It's coming along pretty well and goes quickly when I work on it ... which will be a lot more now that I'm home.

More Celadon

Been working on filling in more green on the plaques. Can't work on it tonight; my bag's checked in all the way to the States and I'm in Paris at a hotel. Tomorrow I'll be home. It seems so long and so short a time simultaneously. I am going to miss there.