Thursday, April 26, 2012

Somewhere to put my pins

If you follow me on pinterest then you will have seen this (and had a good laugh) already, but on Monday I came across Ayumi's pricked pincushion and it totally made my day. I love it so much I had to make one for myself (I asked her permission first of course). I told Costas about it and he said, "oh, so are you going to give it to me?" and I'm like, "but you don't sew.."
heheeh.  here's the back:
very inspired, I've been playing with my stamps and fabric ink, writing all sorts of nonsense..

It's like talking to myself while sewing. 
I made this one too, for a guild friend I miss hanging out with..
It's been fun to do some stress-less sewing this week.  Have you made anything silly lately?

Got my hopes up..

This week seemed to get off to a great start.  George went back to school after 2 weeks of Easter break and I had the kitchenette and the morning to myself.  I turned on the radio and went about rearranging furniture to make a good sewing set-up..
 I moved the table over so I could plug in the sewing machine (finally!),
 (a view from the opposite angle)
And I set up a cutting area and the ironing board.  It was working out really well.  I even sewed a belated bee block for Mary~
I played on line, caught up on blogs, and even got inspired to sew something totally not on my sewing to-do list (more on that later), but then.. it all came to a screeching halt.
George got sick again (2nd time in 3 weeks) and has been home from school for the past 2 days.  I moved all the furniture back and put the sewing machine away.  Yesterday we played playdoh on the table and the little sofa is again covered in laundry to be folded/ironed.  I am back to hand stitching in front of the tv while I try to feed him and keep him from getting cabin fever.  
My big quilting projects are crawling along at a snails pace.  Maybe I'll have better luck next week?

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Easter

 So Easter (which seems to last forever here) has come and gone..
It brought with it lots of church, lots of candles, and way too much food (though not enough chocolate, and absolutely NO marshmallow peeps!)
A good time was had by all, but somewhere in the middle both George and Costas got sick, and now we're just hoping for a quick recovery for both. 
Unfortunately with only one "briza" (plug converter), I can only charge one device at a time, and it's usually the cell phone or the laptop that wins, leaving the poor camera battery to never see a full charge, and hence, not enough photos of any of the Easter festivities.  I did manage to get the above shot of Geoge before he got too dirty, but we missed out on a family shot of the 3 of us.  It's really cute, I think he's looking more and more like Costas every day. 
Once everyone is healthy again we'll try for another photo.. maybe this weekend at George's name-day party?  We'll see..

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Tuesday Laiki

One of the simple pleasures of life in Athens is the local "Laiki" which is somehow a cross between a flea market and a farmer's market.  You can buy everything from toilet paper to underwear to fresh fish..
Within walking distance from our house there are two weekly street markets-- to the east on Mondays and to the north on Tuesdays.  Today I strolled through on my way to pick up George from school (which he loves, btw)..



Most of the women come with small hand carts to carry their purchases home, but I wasn't planning on buying much so I didn't think to bring anything like that.  I learned a valuable lesson today though-- don't go to Laiki hungry..
I ended up spending all the cash in my pocket and had to carry home a few kilos-worth of produce.  but it was worth it.


Tuesday's Laiki doesn't have a lot of "stuff," mostly food.  I did buy two t-shirts for 2euros each, and I was tempted to get some cotton scarves, but I held out this week.  Let's wait and see when I cave into the temptation..
I did come home with half a kilo of strawberries which George promptly ate when we got back to the house.  I also picked up a bag of shelled pistachios and guiltily ate those myself..
I have a feeling by the end of our trip I will have tried everything they have at least once.  Do it while you can, right?

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