In Recovery

My whole family got beaten down in the same time by some kind of a virus (according to our doctor), high fever, stomach ache and other similar “bonuses”. We were just laying around our living room, could barely move at all. Now we’re coming out of it though, getting better.

Of course we stricted ourselves to complete diet, and all we did was just sit in front of the television and watch movies. Finally we had time to watch a lot of movies together. ☺ It would have been better if we were healthy though, but since we saw good movies, it was totally bearable.

Die Hard and Die Hard 2 (I have two men in the family, though I like these movies too) and some other comedies before and after, like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or Music and Lyrics (Hugh Grant already showed his amazing dance moves (dazzling hip actions) in Love Actually, but I think he managed to top that in this one ☺)

And it was nice to hear them sing as well:

Before we saw some episodes of the fantastic British comedy series “You Rang, M’Lord?” however we finally started watching them in order on DVD, one after another. It is a funny and interesting series, we like it a lot. 

We saw quite a lot funny and exciting movie together, and when the guys went to sleep I stayed up and watched a french movie called Palais Royal. It has a special atmosphere, I liked it a lot. I’ve known since the movie “Amélie” that we should be watching more french movies, because they are all very good – like the old ones from the past.

Looking Back II. – Home Blessing

My cousin and his family have a little farmhouse in a small village in the northern part of Hungary close to the border.

When they bought this house it was ruinous condition, however since then they’ve been working a lot to rebuild and build on an extension to it. The work hasn’t been finished yet, but it is coming on well. When they first set their eyes on the old building in a romantic and prolific garden.

And here it is today.

And this is a bonus picture for you guys: a printed–painted pattern calendered with a rubber roller on a white basic that came out during the dismolition–excavation. Unfortunately the condition of the plaster was so bad that it was impossible to save the original pattern, so only a picture of it will remain for the posterity.

Even though we cannot visit my cousin and his family in their farmhouse so often that we would like to, we always spend good time there together. At the end of the garden there is a babbling creek on which their ducks with noisy gaggling swim about in all the summertime (they are always really cute). Over the creek there is a small forest just beginning.

Because they are running a second household there, for Christmas and other family occasions we often give them presents that suit for their little farmhouse and they can also use them there (for example self-made tablecloth or bedclothes). For this Christmas we figured that it would be nice if I made a Home Blessing for them.

In the usual old Hungarian farmhouse there was always a Home Blessings on the wall. As far as I know it is also used by other nations, however when I googled on the Internet I found the Irish people have a bunch of Home Blessings with different texts. In Hungary the text is always the same with only some difference in the design at most. Of course the Home Blessing is almost always embroidered with all the regions having their own style and pattern. This is the text in English:

Home Blessing

Where belief is, there is love
Where love is, there is peace
Where peace is, there is blessing
Where blessing is, there is God
Where God is, there is no dearth.

This Home Blessing embroided in Kalocsa style (pronunciation: Kalocha). It is a traditional Hungarian embroidery named after the town of Kalocsa, where it originated. "Writing women" in this town on the Danube in Southern Hungary draw their designs on white or pastel colored fabrics. Daisies, marigolds, cornflowers, poppies, lilies, tulips and roses furnish the colorful motifs.

This is another example made with “written embroidery” from Kalotaszeg. Kalotaszeg is located in Transylvania between the River Körös and the River Kalota. The “written embroidery” is made on homespun canvas with thick cotton thread which is red, blue, black or white monochrome colored. Its motifs come from the nature: tulip, marjoram, poppy, apple and pear. 

I’ve found a nice Webpage which is about a Transylvanian village in Hungarian language, you could find further embroideries there: 
http://magyarvalko.mindenkilapja.hu/gallery/19739303/renderimages/17142475/kalotaszegi-irottas

So back on the subject of my Home Blessing. In my cousin’s farmhouse there are old and traditional furniture, stuff supplemented with some modern ones. So I did not choose a fancy and complicated embroidery, but based on a „blue-dyeing” (Hungarian „kékfestő”) cotton I made a relatively simple structured Home Blessing.

I embroidered the text with my sewing machine. It was the first time that I used it for that so I suffered a lot with it. But I didn’t give up and finally I finished with it, and it turned out to be just as I’ve imagined.

The „blue-dyeing” (Hungarian „kékfestő”) with blue and white color patterns are typically Hungarian cotton fabrics. Here are a few sites (the first one is English-written) about them.

http://www.blaudruckerei.hu/angol.htm

http://www.kekfestokovacs.hu

http://www.kekfestomuzeum.hu/a-muzeum

Have fun looking around!

Looking Back I. – Skirts of Little Fairies

I had written before Christmas that even though I sew a lot, I couldn’t really show my works, because they would be presents.

By now all the people got their presents, so I will not ruin any surprises if I show a few. (Not all because during the big sewing madness I didn’t have time/mood/sunlight to take picture of all of them.)

So. My sister has two beautiful daughters, two little fairies. They are both going to kindergarten. Zsóka is the older of the two, she learns to ballet and she is very good in it. Maja is smaller, but she likes to dance as well. I think all the fairies with dancing feet deserve a real twirly princess/fairy/ballet skirts, so I sew those for Them.

I used two layer (believe it or not, that was my husband’s idea) of thin and silky fabric, from which I cut whole circles. They were enough big so that I could wrinkle the waist of the skirt for the nicer twirl. An elastic band pulls it together even more (they became a bit too large for the children, so my sis will have to pull the elastic band tighter at the waist).

When I trimmed and folded the bottom the fabric stretched a bit, but maybe it was even better this way, as it gave an even more loose falling to the skirts.

I got quite used to the 100% cotton, so it was weird and hard to work with such slippery fabric that tends to get threadbare (it had been long since I used so many pins!).

But eventually I did finish with the skirts, and the girls liked them a lot! They didnt get out of them the whole day, and even more, my sis told me on the phone that they were wearing them in the next couple days as well. I am very glad that they like their skirts so much!

About the pictures: if you ever tried to take a picture of two constantly moving, twirling and whirling little girls, than you might understand why the pictures turned out the way they taken.

Additionally because they are so beautiful girls, I’ll add the two pictures that their father made from them at a summer wedding in the last year, where they had an important task (Zsóka sprinkled the rose petals, Maja was carrying the rings) so they looked very ceremonial. (And they were slow enough to take good pictures. ☺)

My Exhibition is Open

Seriously.

Okay, okay, this is not. It is just a funny little thing showing how much energy I have after the sewing and preparing by the time I get to sit to the computer. (Not much.) Just a bit of fun, nothing else.

The preparing of the Christmas presents are coming along on fine, but I don’t have the strength to take pictures, so I will remake the good ones again in January and take photos then.

I found the site of the exhibition on a few Hungarian quilter’s blog pages (it is possible that you also know this site), my pictures were made here:

http://dumpr.net

Give it a try! Have fun!

Almost Christmas - with Debbie Mumm

Just a nice winter-picture from Debbie Mumm

I've found these lovely pictures from Debbie Mumm for you, because although I’m still sewing, but these are mainly going to be presents, so I can’t really tell you a lot about them, maybe after the Holidays.

A wreath for quilters from Debbie Mumm

Coaster Shower In Blue

I don’t know about you guys, but it happens to me a lot that right after I start into a realization of an idea, I can hardly disengage from it. While I am working I start to wonder, even though for example this tissue holder looks nice, but what would it be with some different colors? And I start again that with new fabrics. Or as I’ve written in my Etsy shop before I usually think in “families” (in whole product lines), so everyone finds matching things. But it’s always true and it also makes me wonder every time I finish a pouch or a wallet (and they are successfully done), how for example an eyeglass case would look if I make it from those same fabrics.

So this happened again with the coasters. While I was working on the Cartography Coasters order (remember, the Little Mariner’s Compass) it came to my head how good they could be for sailors in blue.

So I made them and what is more one set will be sent tomorrow to Canada for my good friend.

While I was embroidering the blue ones (I had plenty of time to think) I thought that the Cartography Coasters have really good land colors and garden colors. My father has a small vineyard where he makes delicious red wine. I thought that a Green Garden set of coasters would be great gift for him, as I would change the Mariner’s Compass embroidery with a bunch of grapes. As this idea didn’t leave me alone, I started to make these new coasters, with Cozy Brown and Green Garden colors, and for them I embroidered the grapes.

I still have to make the batting and backing and sew the bindings, and they will be ready. But then I really finish with the coasters, since I am already thinking of new kinds of pouches, and can’t wait to start making them.

Charms for Charity Contest

I found this on the Quilting Bloggers site: Charms for Charity Contest. I think it’s a good thing, because this is an opportunity for both charity and to play a little. Here are some parts of invitation:

“A friend and I, along with her mom and several other friends, will be getting together in the new year on a regular basis to make quilts for Victoria’s Quilts Canada. We need fabric. … Send me six 5-inch charms of 100% cotton fabric. Three of the charms will go directly to making quilts for charity and the other three will go into a pile for a contest. Once I have 36 charms in the contest pile, I’ll do a random draw and one lucky sender will win the entire pile of 36.”

The detailed post and the address you need to send the charms are found by clicking “Charms for Charity Contest” icon on the right sidebar on my blog.

To participate in I chose three kind of fabrics with tiny flowers and I hope they’ll be easy to fit into any kind of quilt.

The deadline is 31 of December, 2008, so it is still not late to get into!

Coaster Shower

The already mentioned coasters for our cartographer friend were completed. I made more than he asked for, so put some up on Etsy.

This was the first time I “embroided” with a sewing machine. It was an interesting experience for me how the embroiding is kind of eating up my thread. By the time I finished with all the mariner’s compass patterns, I used up about 400 meters (440 yards) of strong red thread.

I have a good progress on the “Coasters for Sailors” as well, you could have seen some of them on the previous post’s picture. I still have to sew the binding, then they will be packed and ready to set sail.

Small Things

Christmas is coming, so I am creating some smaller usable things, which ones I would like to give as presents: pouches, coasters, wallets etc. I really have to hurry up now, so I am just sewing, sewing and sewing in the next days. Fortunately my family is very understanding and supportive about it, they take most of the housework off my shoulders.

Winter Officially Started

Today is the first day of December and from now in the northern parts of the world winter has officially started according to the meteorologists. Here in Hungary (at least at Budapest and the area) we celebrated the start of wintertime with a huge amount of warm rain, that made the only remaining snow disappear as well.

Till snow and ice return and we can build the first snowmen, here is my Seasons Wall Hanging Set’s “Winter” piece for you.

I still haven’t found the right frame for “Spring”. So I better hurry up if I want to show it to you guys on the first day of Spring (it is officially on first of March isn’t), since I have got only three months left.

I was thinking about making the blog get some winter style look as well, but I have realized it’s enough that it’s cold outside, better keep the inside warm. Remain the glowing leaves like the flames inside the fireplace.