I'm still here - in Budapest I mean. I arrived a week ago and I have another five days working in the local office. I'm kept sane by some colleagues, driven mad by others... but I love them all! We are eating a LOT of nice food, though I'm pretty certain there is some kind of law preventing vegetables from being served in resturants! Yesterday we went to a place called Va Piano: you enter the restaurant and are given a card, like a credit card, then you pick either pizza or pasta and queue at one of the desks. When you get to the front, the guy on the other side cooks your pasta while you wait and watch - it was amazing! Everything organized perfectly, and the food was delicious. I'm not sure it would work too well in the UK - we're too impatient and it took a bit longer than other fast food chains, but I would go!
We were all so tired after the week at work, that we didn't organize anything for the weekend. And on top of that it has spent most of the weekend snowing - the kind of snow that doesn't look particularly heavy from indoors, but is quite unpleaseant when you go outside - please remember I'm British and literally half an inch of snow causes us problems. We have maybe 3-4" here in the city centre.
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| The view from my hotel room at about midday today across the Danube to the pretty building on the Buda side - you can just about make out the Chain Bridge away on the right hand side of the photo! |
Of course, that has meant a lot of time in my hotel room watching the skiing on telly and sewing... If I were at home, I would be in front of my sewing machine, but I thought bringing it to Budapest was just a step too far. Instead I am getting a lot of hand sewing done, which has actually been really nice and relaxing - I must do more when I'm at home...
First up my Pembrokeshire quilt. I started this quilt when I came to Budapest in October last year. I was here for three nights and stitched about three seams. I then totally ignored this until I came back to Budapest for two weeks in November. This time I completed the piecing and started the applique.
Over Christmas I did the embroidery. Last Saturday, before I flew out, I bought a beautiful blue batik for the borders and binding (I should have bought a little more than I did - the corner stones were necessity rather than planning) and added both, ready to quilt by hand whilst I was here.
It took me two evenings to completely hand sew down the binding (like 40mins / night after work and dinner - I know, life is hard). And then I started the quilting. I didn't get very far - my thimble is back in the UK. Luckily a colleague was able to lend me one on Friday and I completed the hand quilting - I really enjoyed it - I know I shouldn't be surprised, and I will say again, I should do more hand sewing when I'm at home.
I wasn't rocket science, I just echoed the pieced sections. It needs a date with the iron, but I am declaring this mini quilt finished! My first real finish of 2013! I don't have a tape measure with me, so I can't tell you how big it is, but to give you an idea, the hexagons in the centre of the ferris wheels have 1" sides. The embroidery is different placenames from Pembrokeshire, all of which have very happy memories associated with them - because I used quite soft colours I struggled to photograph them, but "Upper Frog Street" - a street in Tenby - is possibly my favourite - and is real! I finished it yesterday about 11am, before the snow had started to settle.
Today I've been working on some other paper pieced projects and I completed the applique on my hexie table runner. Here is the same view from my hotel room today!
And a better picture of it on a very large double bed (life is very hard), to give you an idea of how long it is.
I have also started a new paper pieced project, but you'll have to pop back for WIP Wednesday (hopefully) for a first peek!
The Pembrokeshire quilt was listed on my first quarter Finish Along post, so once the end of the quarter comes round I will be linking up with this post. I hope it isn't the only one!
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