Happy Wednesday! I'm still feeling good after a very pleasant evening at The Workroom's Stitch 'n Bitch. I met Karyn, the very cool owner of The Workroom as well as some other lovely people, including Shannon Gerard (Etsy shop here) who crochets like a MACHINE! She's also a very talented illustrator and very nice. I'm really glad I went. As soon as I'm working and have a disposable income, I plan on taking a sewing class there.
In the meantime, I'll have to settle for mostly free craft activities. Like blogging! As promised last week, I'm going to post more pics of neat-o patterns I found during my travels in Eastern Europe in March. Today I'm going to focus on windows. We of course saw some lovely stained glass windows in the churches we visited, but I don't take photos in churches (even when it's permitted), so I don't have any of those. But I did get photos of the stained glass windows at the Hungarian Parliament (can you tell I love that building?) and also at a hotel we stayed at in Romania.
We arrived in Oradea, Romania (near the Hungarian border) in the evening and hadn't booked a place to stay. After an unsuccessful attempt at finding the one hostel in the city (we had a pamphlet, but the place wasn't at the address it listed), we decided to follow our Lonely Planet (Romania)'s advice and enquire at the one remaining budget hotel in the downtown area. Luckily for us, they had a room available - actually, they probably had several available (cash only). The Hotel Parc, originally built in 1785 and expanded in the early 1900s (and presumable turned into a hotel at this point), is on the main pedestrian shopping street of Oradea. At one point, it must have been quite a grand place, but it was pretty shabby. And a bit creepy at night. In fact, I had to actively prevent myself from thinking about scenes from The Shining. But it was cheap, warm and clean (apart from the mould in the bathroom, but mould was ubiquitous in Romania so we were used to it by then). And in the daylight, parts of it were quite beautiful. Especially the windows and doors.
This is a window in the stairwell - isn't it pretty? The plaster decorative accents were throughout the halls as well.
This is the front door. Anyone who knows me knows that I love Art Nouveau (and Art Deco for that matter), so this door was a real treat. I'd love to live in a place with gorgeous iron work like that.
From Oradea, we headed straigth to Budapest, Hungary, so a couple of days later we visited the Parliament, where, along with pics I posted last week, I snapped photos of the windows.
Sorry about the lousy quality - we weren't allowed to use a flash in that room. I love the main diamond and circle pattern - definitely want to play with it in cross stitch!
All the patterns in this window are great, but I was especially taken with the side borders. I like the mix of geometric shapes with organic ones.
I hope you're liking these posts about travels and patterns. I got a sketch book from my mom on the weekend, so I'm keen to start doodling some of these patterns and seeing where they take me!
