A Warm Moldovan Welcome

On our first weekend in country, we went on a tour sponsored by the embassy.  This school is a project supported by USAID, and it's got some neat stuff.  It's about an hour out of Chisinau, and is both a primary school and a place to teach local craft.

The kids brought wine and bread in a traditional greeting and then they danced for us.  All the costumes were made at the school and are totally hand embroidered.  The white cloth was woven there too.  The main stitch is a plain old cross stitch.

Advental...

We're supposed to do four of these a week, but as usual I'm behind!  There will be a total of 24 motifs, and I am stitching them all together on one piece of linen.

Still Dotting the Stripes

Still working on the big middle band, but more of it's getting done. 

The Main Drag

Stefan Cel Mare is the main commercial street in Chisinau.  We were walking across it on a Sunday afternoon when I took these pictures.  Andreas wasn't pleased with my timing.  It's a six lane road with a lovely park in front of the cathedral and many shops.  This street also has the national theater and congress on it.

No Where Near...

So, it turns out that I'm no where near done with part five of this!  I've almost done the whole chart, but the instructions now say to turn it over and do the other half of the mandala.  The same is true for part six.  LOTS of stitching!  Since I'm kind of bored with this repeat four times, I'm going to continue on part five while starting part six.  More variety, less boredom.

Time

I ran out of ribbon floss, so it was time to look into the background lettering....

Another Scarf Done

I had some eyelash yarn from Turkey that I bought in Uruguay.  Decided to make something useful with it.  Voila, a scarf!