Last Flower Done

It's pretty much all background to do now.  All the major elements are done!

Progressing To The End

I've decided to just finish this up, as I found some more of the floss I had run out of.  It's getting close!

None Are The Same

 In the neighborhood between the port and Deribaskaya Street, there was a law in the nineteenth century that no two houses could be architecturally similar.  These pictures show some of the resulting diversity.

Bits Of Tree

Got more shutter done and some bits of tree.  It feels like such slow going.

Thank You Anna!

Evidently, October 5th is Teacher Appreciation Day in Moldova.  What this means, in practice, is that students bring gifts to their teachers on that day.  If they don't, there's the possibility their grades may be negatively affected.  Anna, one of my temari students, gave me a gift of candy on the seventh, the day of our temari class.  Since I don't grade, I'm sure it was sincere!  Thank you very much, Anna!

The candy is by the local manufacturer Bucaria.  They make some very good candy and need to start exporting some.

Berlinwork Done

Here's a picture of my completed Berlinwork sampler by Pelin Tezer Zirh.  I did it over one, and this coin next to it shows how small it really is.  It's good to have something with this much work complete.

Bamboo

Transnistria (an unrecognized autonomous area within Moldova) has a pretty big textile industry.  One thing they do is make home goods for stores such as Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma.  If you go to their factory outlet, it's much much less expensive than buying in the US.  We went while we were on an embassy trip on Columbus day.  Part of what we bought was this circular bamboo-print tablecloth, a pair of hot pads, and a pair of chair pads that we are going to use as trivets.  All of this, at top quality (they don't sell seconds), came to about $20.  Not bad at all.