Friday Findings: Wire Knitting

Knitting with wool is one thing, but knitting and crochetting with wire is a totally different level. Wire is hard and does not slide from the needles, I often hear of hurting hands while knitting. Here some beautiful wire knitted items from Etsy artists.

nanouke

janraven

JohnBinetFauvel

microcosm

pearlbythesea

kmaylward

PreciousMeshes

Yoola

hypho

Challenge Review IV

Here is another review of the Challenges that the European Street Team has had till now and our entries. If you wonder about the other reviews here are the first, second and third.


The Warm and Cozy Challenge

Your Favorite Book Challenge, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Frida Kahlo Challenge








Your Favorite Quote Challenge, ''It's Raining cat's and dogs''

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Challenge, inspiration was the novel of Milan Kundera

Once Upon A Time.... Challenge

Celebrations, a Goodbye and a Proximidade award

Our little vacation is over and we are back home with awaiting work of a week and cleaning up and aranging all our new supplies, not an easy task if I may say so...
The nice thing is we got some nice motivations these days, as we passed the 1000 sales at Etsy and have been favorited by 8000 Etsy users, thank you for all your support and Love, it really means alot to us!!


While we are celebrating on Etsy, we are also saying goodbye to our very first online shop on Rubylane. I just wanted to share this with you incase you where thinking about opening a shop there. It has been a good experience but just not the right place for us to sell there. Etsy is full of action, like treasuries and Frontpage features, street teams and friends. Rubylane is totally different, you can only sell jewelry, vintage and antiques there, the visitors are different and no one is chatty. Fees are much higher and sales are much slower. So by the end of this month we are closing our doors there, so that we have more time for Etsy.



And last but not least Dindi, a friend of the European Street Team was so sweet to give us the Proximidade award, thank you very much, Dindi!



Proximidade is described as follows:
'This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes for self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!'

This blog award should be sent to your favorite eight bloggers and they, in turn should forward to eight of their favorites. You should include the text for Proximidade (above) in your announcement blog.

As I have to choose only eight, the Proximidade Award goes to:

MatchStickGirl
IngerMaaike
TwoLeftHands
BaconSquareFarm
ArtMind
Meltemsem
Kreativlink
Xue Originals

Istanbul Day 5

The last day of our little escape. As we where finished with all the shopping (he he) and we had to leave in the afternoon we decided to go for the typical touristic things like visiting the Hagia Sophia (museum). As many might know Hagia Sophia used to be a church but in 1453 when Constantinople (Istanbul) was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and Sultan Mehmed II ordered the building to be converted into a mosque. The bells, altar, iconostasis, and sacrificial vessels were removed, and many of the mosaics were eventually plastered over.



The Islamic features— such as the mihrab, the minbar, and the four minarets outside — were added over the course of its history under the Ottomans. It remained as a mosque until 1935, when it was converted into a museum by the Republic of Turkey.

For many years there is a huge restoration going on as you can see. The scafolding , at least fourteen stores high is also fascinating.

Here you can see at the ceiling a mosaic of Maria with her Child but also the symbols for Muslims. I like the way the two religions look peacefully together.

Looking at the situation, the restoration looks like an endless project, we saw workers at the top, must be pretty scary working there.

A funny fact, although many beauty of history can be seen, one thing that got most attention and most pictures was taken off was not very historical but pretty photogenic....

This was the library of the Sultan, behind the metal work.


This is the minbar, which is a pulpit in the mosque where the Imam (leader of prayer) stands to deliver sermons.


There were no staircases but a sort of tunnels which turned slowly up.

All the details where amazing, imagine how it must have been when it was new, and how they made it, is a real miracle.

Mum was admiring...

Fountain (Şadirvan) for ritual ablutions.



After the museum we decided to walk around a little...

we accidentaly stumbled on the Grand Bazaar, oops...

We bought two very yummy bags from a very kind shop owner, all bags are handmade and gorgeous.

In case you are in the neighborhood, the shop's name is Pırlanta and is at the Çarşıkapı Nuruosmaniye Caddesi no 31, Kapalıçarşı, Istanbul.

I forgot to mention some addresses in previous posts, just ask if you wonder :)

We are now home still with the air of Istanbul in our hair, tomorrow everything will be just like before.
Historical information was taken from wikipedia

Istanbul Day 4

Today we met some friends of the EuropeanStreetTeam!



First we went with Heli to the Gülhane Park which used to be the Garden of the Topkapı Palace.


Heli picked the perfect place, it was lovely, the view was great!

Then Meltem called us and we went to the atelier of Şenay, both are friends of our team at Etsy, it was so much fun to meet some of them in real!


Şenay took really good care of us with tea and delicious cookies.

Meltem and Heli.

Starmum, Şenay and Meltem


And the whole gang together :)