Quilts and Snow

It snowed yesterday here in Romania, well not as much as we get in Green Bay, but it was very pretty. I love snow days because everything gets really quiet and I have the desire to quilt. Making a quilt warms you twice, once when you are working on it and then you get to snuggle up under it. I love to see the patterns, sometimes it is not what I expected but the secondary pattern is usually interesting. The real fun comes when I get to 'play' with the blocks. I get a different pattern depending on how I set them together. It is a delight to twist and turn the blocks to see which pattern I like the most and how the finished quilt will look.

I have been working on Bonnie Hunter's Double Delight Mystery. Wow, what a lot of blocks I made and still have a bunch to make. They are 3 inches finished. I peeked, I could not wait to see the finished quilt. It really is worth the work and I can't wait until I am finished. I just love all of Bonnie's patterns and best of all, they are free. She is such a gracious person. I have put a link on the side of my blog to her instructions, but I would encourage you to look around her web site. She has a blog and there is a Yahoo group to discuss her quilts.

This and That

These are my Valentine flowers from my best friend; my husband. They were bundled like a sweet nose gay. The housekeepers here at the flat in Romania tell me that they are the traditional flower that is given on Valentine's Day. I am blessed to be married to my best friend.

We did some sightseeing this past weekend. We went down to the railroad station and were lucky enough to see a train pull in. Wow, you have to be fast to get on or off as the train only stays in the station for a minute or two. There is a platform but you have to cross some of the tracks to get to it. This is me outside of the train station. Cernavoda is the town we are staying in while we are in Romania. It is about a two hour drive from Bucharest and thirty minutes from the Black Sea . It was very cold but we still had fun poking around town. The town has a bunch of stores, but no department stores or mega markets as we know them in the States. The stores are small but carry everything you need. I found a lovely store that sells fabric (a necessity for me as a quilter), thread, yarn and laces. I had to buy a few meters so I can make a quilt with Romanian fabric. The fabric is a very nice weight cotton. It is fun to poke around in each store to see what they have.

February already

Here we are again in Romania. It felt a bit like coming home as we drove from the airport to our flat. We will be here for 90 days this time.

I brought the small sewing machine that Bruce gave me for Christmas so I plan on finishing several projects that I brought with me. This little machine (Janome Sew Mini) has straight and zigzag stitches and weighs less that 5 lbs. I also brought my little 10.5 inch lap top which is great for traveling. I took a picture of my lap top and sewing machine with Bruce's red 15 inch lap top to show you how small the machine is. Don't be fooled by the size as it sews like a dream. I know it won't quilt through many layers, but for piecing it truely is great. I had no difficulty getting it through airport security at home or in Europe. I had to take the lap top out of the case, but not the sewing machine. I just love technology, don't you?