A thimble exchange with Costa Rica

I am not a collector of thimbles. A couple of months ago I took part in a thimble exchange though.
It was via Kim's blog of Wisdom with needle and thread  and I exchanged with Christy from Peru!
You can read all about it here.
Then a lady from Costa Rica reached me to do an exchange with her too.
Here's what she sent me. A lovely thimble from her country, two fridge magnets, chocolate and a piece to stitch.

Here's what I had sent her. A thimble from Parga.Isn't it gorgeous?

A thimble from Thessaloniki.

(Sorry for the blurred photo!)

And a fridge magnet from my city.

My parcel took ages to reach her! Some postal services are really bad! Anyway I am glad my parcel arrived safely afterall and she liked everything I sent her!
Thank you Arlette for this lovely exchange.

Keeping busy with gifts.

Juliana and John, my sea glass friends from Scotland had sent me a lovely parcel back in February.

That generous gift included papers for card making, a cross stitch magazine, a beautiful watch,a cross stitch card kit, some threads, a seaglass turtle, a pair of beautiful frames, a Scottish recipe book, a handmade birthday card, a good luck charm and lots more.
Here I should show you some of the things I made with them.
I made Shepherd's pie and it was delicious!

I stitched the card kit into a coaster using an empty coaster I had from another project. I am going to send this away as a gift to someone special soon.

I also stitched a little Scottish thistle fridge magnet kit they had sent me in a previous parcel.

The coaster took some time to be made as there were lots of tiny stitches but the fridge magnet was very quick. I am keeping it as it reminds me of my great Scottish friends who once again preferred Greece for their holidays!
 I also stitched a pattern from the magazine using the threads in the parcel which I will show you later when it is framed. So my friends Juliana and John as you can see I have used  and liked your gifts very very much! Thank you once again!

Frieda was here!

I am so glad when Frieda, my sea glass friend from Skiathos visits her sons who study in my city.They happen to live in my neighbourhood; this way Frieda and I have the chance to meet and do things together.
Frieda is such a crafty person, she made me these Greek drachma fridge magnets, a crocheted purse out of supermarket plastic bags and also she baked these traditional windmill speculaas biscuits and put them in this lovely Dutch tin box. They are absolutely tasty. I hope she will put the recipe on her blog.

 While Frieda was here we went to IKEA together and for a walk at second hand shops.We bought some books there.
We also went to the theatre and watched Madame Soussou by Dimitris Psathas.

That's the new Municipality building of my city which we passed on our way to the city centre. It is decorated with a kite as it is Carnival time here.

 We had coffee out together.

 She also came home for coffee and at a family meal where hubby cooked the tuna fish she brought us from her island, fished by her husband.Hubby marinated it in dill and mustard sauce and cooked it in the oven. It was great!

 I made cous cous with shrimp and cabbage and carrot salad.We had a good time.

 I made Frieda a small gift,too. I cross stitched the symbol of her project on Skiathos island, the Green Fox.She and her friends have started this project a year ago trying to collect and send away to the recycling factory all the plastic water bottles used on the island.Here is their blog The Green Fox of Skiathos.

I used this site on the net that changes pictures into cross stitch patterns.
I really enjoyed my time with Frieda. I hope we will meet again soon.

Gifts for Christmas....(1)

I got lots of lovely gifts this Christmas. Thank you all for your thoughtfulness and love.
I will start showing them as I am taking photos.
From dear Frieda, my seaglass friend from Skiathos island.
Frieda upcycled old Christmas cards in an excellent way with crochet and wooden beads.

 I loved the beautiful sea glass pieces....

... especially the one with the bubbles....

 But I also loved all her handmade gifts like this little fridge magnet made from a beer bottle cap.

 And these fantastic crocheted Christmas wreaths.

Thank you Frieda, and thank you for reading and commenting on my blog,too. Hope we will meet again soon!

The Taming of the Shrew and other stories.

I love Shakespeare of course and have read many of his plays,have watched quite a lot of them on the theatre or as movies and even acted in one!I played Helena in Midsummer Night's Dream. That was directed by Kostas Halkias a great actor of the National Theatre of Northern Greece,  who was also acting in Wednesday's performance of the Taming of the Shrew.I really liked Robert Sturua's simple approach with not many elaborate costumes or words.

 When I was 21 I visited England for the first time with my University colleagues. I bought an anthology of Shakespeare's plays from a bookshop in his birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon which is my favourite book ever!I love the way it has the master's plays in it and the beautiful pictures and when I am working on one of his plays I always read it from this book!

 Some blog readers and friends commented that I receive lots of parcels and presents.Well I have to say that I also send many!!!But I don't usually show those!
So this week I received two fridge magnets from a friend who went to Egypt for Easter.

 Also two of my recent orders arrived.
This original watercolour painting by Svetlana Rasuleva aka palmeras who also makes fantastic sea glass jewlery.It's called Before the storm!(Exactly what I am afraid of!LOL!)

The other order was from otchipotchi,Paula Valentim's shop.I got two more doily stones as they are going to be discontinued and I really like them and two pebble vases.

Paula makes great little parcels with recycled paper.

And of course some more additions to my balcony flowers in pots.