Disappointed

 I received my Midnight Fantasy Garden block back a week and a half ago.  It was stitched on by four ladies.  Two of them did a wonderful, lovely, great job.  Their work is pretty much all on the right side of the block.  They did some great embroidery and an applique butterfly and crocheted pieces on it.  I love the right side of the block. 


The right was mainly done by the other two ladies.  I cried when I saw it.  I hadn't specifically said "no apple faces" and "no pastels"  an "no toy butterflies" on my block, but I had hoped that, you know, people would stick to the theme and the color scheme, overall.  It's courteous to do so.  I will be completely reworking the left side soon.  The current configuration brings me pain.


This, along with some other issues in the group, is why I am not signing up for more round robins with Crazy Quilting International.  I do my best work, looking at the block and the preferences of the block owner, and don't throw whatever is in my "to be tossed" pile of accessories to put on a block.  I'd like others to do the same.  Unfortunately, these two ladies (and I keep getting into round robins with them for some reason), don't follow the golden rule in that regard.  


Should I be as upset as I am in this regard?

Dinner For Six

 Early in the spring, Chisinau was blessed with the opening of a new pizza place.  Like most cities, Chisinau has a lot of pizza joints, including a few local chains that deliver.  None of them, however, compare to Pizza Caruso.  For one thing, Caruso uses -real- cheese.  For another, it's owned and run by an Italian/Moldovan couple who keep their quality high.


While their salads could use a little love (Moldova's not known for salads.  Lettuce is a garnish.), the pizzas are excellent.  They're thin, hand made crust with tomato sauce, cheese, and various toppings of choice.  You can see from the table shots that the pizzas are big, too.  A small costs about $5 and is 30 cm or so in diameter.  A large is huge.  The bottom picture is of some lasagne that one of our table ordered.  He said it was very good!

Shutters And Leaves

It doesn't look like I've done much, does it?  The left sides of the shutters are done, but for the bottom one, and leaves are sprouting all over.

Challenge Supplies

I have been in charge of challenges for the CQI yahoo group this year.  It's been somewhat tough going, as people have not been doing them.  This quarter, the challenge is to embellish a crazy quilt block with at least six of the materials I sent to the participants.  They're all in this picture.  I'll be making one too.  I just hope the seven participants -do- their blocks.  All these materials, by the way, were bought at a store locally.  They were cheap!  The overall price, for everyone, was about $50.

Lunch At The Armenian Place

 I've forgotten the name of this restaurant for the moment.  It's a couple of blocks from the embassy and serves a mix of Moldovan and Armenian food.  Theresa had a salad; Andreas had his usual Greek salad, and I had zeama, the local chicken noodle soup.  Nothing really special about any of it, except it was a good excuse to get outdoors and enjoy the day.

Bits Of Buildings

On a piece with this much stitched, it's hard to see progress each time, but I promise you, it's there.  I worked on the leftmost bottom building and the roof of the bottom center hall.  It's plugging along.

Not Much Room

 I worked on Kathy's butterflies and dragonflies block last week.  The block still has one more person to go after me, and was already nearly full.  I found some places to work, though.  There are now a yellow bug in the lower left corner, a row of daisies in the pink, a caterpillar, and a row of ribbon flowers on some seams.  I hope she likes it.