The recipe promised 18 Madeleine. I doubled the ingredients. It was a smart move, I should tell you.
Here, 36 of them. Or most certainly less by the time I took this photo. It was hard to guard freshly baked smelling like Heaven cookies. They were shamelessly stolen from under my nose as soon as I turned away to refill the cookie mold. Well, Madelaine do taste best when warm.

They look so pretty too!

Don’t believe this picture. Never mind how hard I wanted to try, there were more than three for me that time.

Sunday, April 15th is Orthodox Easter. Last year we were in Ukraine during this time and could enjoy the atmosphere of the holiday. And since we’re home in Hong Kong this Easter time, I wanted for my family to have a little bit of Ukrainian tradition.
In Ukraine for Easter there are ALWAYS colored eggs -pusanky and sweet Easter bread – pasky, in pretty much every home. I’m keeping with the tradition, though in an easier way. Actually, many Ukrainians use this same easy way now with the colored eggs. They are not really painted on. It’s a picture on plastic wrap that you put on an egg and then dip it in hot water so the wrap ‘hugs’ the egg tight.
It’s cheating, but the eggs look really pretty.

Last Easter while in Ukraine I used my chance and bought all kinds of different egg wraps and dry food coloring specially made for eggs. I used red and blue color this time.

As for Easter bread … the process of making it takes whole day.
My homemade pasky and here from three years ago.

I’m having it easier for myself this year. Decided to make a cake, we call it keks or bunt cake, and decorated it the same way as with pasky. Pretty, and so much less work and time saving too! Looking good.

On Easter day we all greet each other with saying “Hristos voskres” with the other person responding “Voistinu voskres” or “Christ is Risen!”, and the response is “Truly, He is Risen”. It is also customary to exchange a triple kiss on the alternating cheeks after the greeting.

A glimpse at Easter in Ukraine from our traveling there last year here.

Nevertheless, Orthodox or not, I’m wishing you a beautiful Sunday!

It doesn’t matter if they sewn out of fabric or a needlepoint work or a tapestry. There are only two requirements – they must be beautiful and well made.

Filled with down and feathers, large, handmade pillows are the most beautiful.

When my pillow arrived from the factory, I loved the Aubusson style roses right away. The factory did a good job on the Aubusson, but not on the way the pillow was assembled. I even avoided looking at it, forget about taking a picture of that very poor workmanship. If I tell you that there was a white color zipper attached, you get the idea.

I knew, I had to take the pillow apart and sew it back together again, but this time using an appropriate color of velvet for backing and of course the zipper.

On my trip to the fabric district I was lucky to find a right color of nice silky to the touch cotton velvet to make the pillow backing. An afternoon of sewing and here is my beautiful over-sized Abusson weave down filled cushion!

{the backing velvet and the hidden zipper}

{I made mitered corners too}

Here is the beauty on my Kartell Louis Ghost Armchair.

… and, as it perfectly goes with the theme of the cushion, some real roses, 70+ pieces of them, petit and in lovely shades, from my visit to the Flower market yesterday.
Enjoy!

I’m not a “blue” person. I always loved warm colors – yellow, red, orange.
But as I’m feeling ‘blue’ and nostalgic at the moment, I went around the house to see how much blue color I actually have. Not much I admit.

Looking at the second last picture … nostalgia at its highest … a photograph of my father for his University graduation album in 1956, and a passport size picture of my son we took for American immigration visa. He’s wearing a blue sweater I knitted for him. It’s been only about 13 years ago but somehow feels like a life time. It’s all different now, different country and not even the US any more, different language, different culture. He’s twenty one now, University graduate and working. I’m very proud of him, but at the moments like this I want him to be a four-year-old again … I’m holding his hand while we waking to his art school for a painting lesson. Here is his old watercolor at the background on that same second last photo. He was six at the time he painted it.

The last picture is of the painting of my son’s art teacher in Ukraine. I bought it for my son as a memory of his first teacher before we left for the States . I think I should re-frame this little oil painting that I just propped against an antique frame.

Oh well, I’m going to make another cup of coffee now and go back to my embroidery. The Hare is going really well. I cannot wait to ‘see his fine eyes’ as I’m very close to embroidering them. Next time I will post pictures of the Hare and hopefully he’ll have his wonderful eyes embroidered by then.

But Toma, the Antiques Diva thinks differently. Go here and see why.

I’m very humbled.
THANK YOU, Toma for writing about me!!

{my embroidery: cross stitch on linen, Pierre-Joseph Redoute’s Rosa centifolia Anglica rubra}

I believe now it’s in my genes.
When I was growing up in Ukraine (one of the fifteen of Soviet Union Republics at that time), beautiful porcelain was not readily available in shops. You had to make some effort to get it. Also because in the 70s and 80s the good ones came from Japan, Germany and Czechoslovakia, it was not in large quantities either. Most of the time these things wouldn’t even make it out to the shops’ display cabinets. They would be sold from the back room. The luck was that my mom had two sisters who lived in Central Asia, one in Turkmenistan and the other in Uzbekistan and with the older sister in Moscow, my mom had a larger area “covered” and a greater chance to buy imported porcelain. It took her some years to collect full dinner sets. I remember, one summer visiting my grandmother in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, my mom saw Japanese fruit bowls with the same pattern she had lunch and dinner plates already. I could not understand her happiness and excitement at that time. I also could not understand why my Moscow aunt had to buy another tea cup or mug if she already had hundreds!

{Late Foley Shelley, Royal Stafford, Royal Albert}

I don’t know how this thing works, but one morning I woke up a different person. It is not that I didn’t recognize or appreciate beautiful porcelain before. It is that I had to have it, and so my porcelain collection has started. There are a few of different themes in my collection and I fear it might get wider, to the horror of my husband, who keeps saying that silly thing about not having room for more porcelain.

{cobalt blue demitasse cups collection; Limoges, France and Tirschenreuth, Bavaria}

But I see collecting as a way of learning. It is not that you accumulate only, you get more knowledgeable, you want to read about and find more of a particular porcelain or any object of your collection for that matter.

{vintage Royal Crown Derby}

And so with my collections, I always like to add to the white and gold porcelain for two reasons. First because I already have my mom’s white&gold Japanese and Czechoslovakian made dinner sets and second, you can mix this kind of porcelain basically with any other pattern.

{Limoges, monogrammed antique}

My other favorite is chinoiserie themed porcelain especially with images of people. They always go well together even if made by different makers and from years apart.

{a set of vintage Raynaud/Limoges soup plates and new Raynaud rice bowl}

Here is an interview with very passionate porcelain collector beautifully done by Reggie Darling. If you have any interest in porcelain you will enjoy reading it if you haven’t already.

I’m not buying as many design magazines these days as I used to. But French Art&Decoration is always a favorite. It never disappoints.

{all images Art&Decoration magazine}

I started working on the Hare some time ago. But needed to do a parallel take it easy project.

My choice was wool needlepoint Imari round cushion.

Somehow I went all the way finishing the Imari and leaving the Hare for a while. Well, just 99.9% finishing actually as I ran out of ecru wool. It’s been ordered with more tapestry wool for my next project. I order it from Australia as I have to give up on finding tapestry wool in Hong Kong. Several shop owners that sell embroidery stuff have told me they don’t carry wool as it is too hot in Hong Kong. Where this theory came from? We have plenty of shops selling all kinds of wool for knitting. Somehow it doesn’t make a lot of sense why it would be not too hot to knit with wool but too hot to embroider? If you’re located in Hong Kong and know where I can buy tapestry wool here, I’ll really appreciate you share it with me.

Anyways, while waiting for my DMC wool to arrive I’m back working on the Hare. I’ll need a few hours adjusting working with a finer needle again. Otherwise, it’s pure joy.

PS. Almost completed Imari cushion.

… and the Hare how it looked this morning.

Valentine’s Day was an excuse to make a new cake.

The recipe is from Gorgeous Cakes by Annie Bell.

I have the book for a while but this Pink Specked cake was the first one I’ve tried making using Annie’s recipe. It was also a first time ever I’ve tasted a BEETROOT CAKE! Yes, it has grated beetroot in it!! But if you like carrot cake you will LOVE this one. The taste is wonderful, it melts in your mouth.

The fact that it doesn’t have artificial coloring is another big plus for me, I try to avoid anything artificial as much as I can. To make it pink, a teaspoonful of beetroot liquid is used.

I wished I could find sugar roses to decorate the cake just like in the book! Not much choice in that department in my supermarket, it only had these simple looking flowers. Oh well, I sure will try better next time.

Have a nice and sweet Valentine’s Day!

PS.
1. I’m not sure I can publish the recipe, but if you would like I can email it to you just ask :)
2. If you’re wondering … the empty frames on the wall in the last picture are waiting for their art or my embroideries. Nevertheless, these frames is a work of art by itself and were made in the early 19th and late 19th century in France. xoxo