Still Hearting Along

As of Friday night, this is my progress on the heart. I hope to mail it out this week, and I think I can keep my goal.

Varna Stash

Sometimes you just turn around and a shop is there. That's what happened several times in Bulgaria with us. The shop I bought this stuff from in Varna was - get this- in the pedestrian underway to cross the road in front of the cathedral. It was a tiny hole in the wall and stocked with trims and yarn, no fabric. In Bulgaria, it's either a trim and yarn shop or a fabric only shop, no mixing! I couldn't even find pins in the fabric shops.

The two skeins of yarn are a local brand and eyelash. I just liked the color and they feel silky smooth. The trims were dirt cheap. I really like the dyed lace on top the best.

I even bought some beads. My companion said that every time I walk into one of these shops in poorer countries, I pay the shop's rent for the week or month. I think he's silly. All the shop keepers were friendly and helpful, even when I didn't speak Bulgarian and they didn't speak English.

Another Bit of Progress

I told you last week I'd made small progress on this. It happened again this week. Most of the progress, even, is to the side. But it's several stitches more toward completion. For some reason, I've been a bit busy.

Plovdiv Cross Stitch

I bought two cross stitch kits from the yarn shop in Plovdiv. They're from a Polish company called Ariadna. The fabric's pregridded, and you can see from the designs that they're completely stitched. Price was exceedingly small. I'll start working on one soon to see if I like the way it stitches up.

Another Round Robin Start

This block was pieced entirely from fabrics I bought in Kosovo and Bulgaria. The theme for this round robin is autumn, so I made it all in what I consider to be "fall" colors. I like the look of it and wonder what they will do with it.

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.