Happy New Year

A word on Armenian Birthday Cakes

I've talked about Armenian birthday parties on this blog before now. But I don't think I've ever addressed the unique twists that Armenians have taken with regards to birthday candles. Here's a photo from a birthday party that I attended recently. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. 

Sisian's Tonasar

New Years preparations are well underway, and the town of Sisian is getting ready to celebrate in style with an enormous Christmas tree being constructed in the center of town. 

Anatomy of An Armenian Bedspread

Our family has been kind enough to equip us with some simply wonderful woolen blankets. Today,the sewer and tinkerer in me couldn't resist opening it up. So, while making the bed, I took a closer look at it. 

Above is a picture of the whole blanket, we were given 2 of them I started by opening up a small corner. (Don't worry, any seams I opened, I closed right up afterwards)

Inside the outer fabric, there was a second layer, made of a rough muslin. 

Inside that, there was lots of raw fleece. It didn't look like it had been thoroughly picked clean of straw and twigs before being made into a blanket. Just washed enough so that it doesn't have anymore lanolin on it. 

The  fleece inside the rough muslin fabric was quilted with large stitches, about 1 inch in length and spaced 2 inches apart. 

Both of the blankets were supplied with duvet covers. Each duvet cover has a hole in the middle, positioned in order to display the fancier fabric on the inner square of the outer layer of the blanket. 

The holes are decorated with embroidery. 

When it's all put together, it looks very elegant- a far, far cry from the raw fleece within.

Properly made, the blankets use folded up to cover about half the bed.

The sleepers each then have their own little sleeping burrito blanket set up.

The final touch is a shiny light blanket to cover the whole thing, with a few decorative pillows. 

And there you have it. The Anatomy of an Armenian Bedspread. It may not be on interest to anyone else, but I was curious...

The View from Sisian's Cemetary

Christmas 2015

We celebrated Christmas this year by taking a hike outside of town- I wanted to take pictures of sunset on the mountains. It was beautiful, windy, and cold. I couldn't have had a happier Christmas.

Merry Christmas

We may be far from home, but we're still enjoying Christmas together.