Portugal

The dude wanted to go to Portugal for his 50th, and I had no objections. We spent four days in Lisbon, staying on this street, which had a stop for Tram 28 just down the hill. We saw lots of that iconic tram. We took a cooking class, which was a fun entree into the culture. We learned to make bacalau a bras, a salad, and a nice garlicky clam dish. We walked everywhere, and if you've never been to Portugal, it was built on a hill on top of a hill between two hills. As our cooking instructor said, "I never go to the gym but every day is legs day." We walked between 10,000 and 18,000 steps every day. All of it uphill both ways.

We had lovely, perfect weather in the mid-70s almost every day, and cooler in the evenings. Perfect for all those hills!

We went to Belem and saw the tower and the monestary and ate pasteis de nata, though we had those every chance we got! (That was our very touristy day.)

Cross stitch in Praça do Comércio! See, I haven't stopped thinking of you...

From Lisbon, we took the train up to Coimbra, which houses a 600 year old university. We visited the library there, but no photos are allowed. You should go check it out. We also went to see a performance of Coimbra fado; we've become fans.

From Coimbra, we went up to Porto. I had invited two of the dude's oldest friends to join us as a surprise for the dude. And boy was he surprised! We had gone to the Livraria Lello when I got the text that they had landed. Then everything I did, I did slowly after texting them. "We're at lunch here;" Me: tiny bites, extra chewing, lots of conversation. "We're at the church across the street, with the tile on the outside." (Me looking at every piece of sculpture in *both*--side by side--churches.) We were standing in front of the churches when I saw them--thank god because I had no idea how I was going to stall from there!

The dude was so surprised, totally bewildered that they were there! So we went and tried some port.

And then we celebrated Portugal's World Cup run. We got to see the Portugal-Spain match in a square in Porto with a few hundred of our Portuguese friends. Our waiters told us where everyone would be for that one. What an awesome thing it is to watch the beautiful game with others in public. We're thinking we need to take another trip to a world cup country in 2022. (But that will be in winter ...because FIFA. 🙄)

We spent a lot of time at the river because it was so flat! A relief!

And on the "six bridges" boat tour I found more cross-stitch!

There was lots more but I don't want to be the person showing all the slides while people snooze!

Portugal was fabulous! You should go! I'd love to go out to the Douro Valley next time, but there's a great big world. Who knows what's next.

Trip to DC

I've been trying to get back here since the second weekend of December when the dude and I took the train down to DC to visit the Vermeer exhibition at the National Gallery. But between being sick (pretty much up until Christmas eve) and preparing for the holidays, well, you know how things get.

On the train down, I worked on 47 Hearts. I made some good progress despite the fact I kept nodding off. (The last time I stitched it.) I think February might be the month I try to finish the anniversary pieces I have going, and start a new one for 2018.

Biscornu (Did I really not stitch this in 2017 until now? Previously.) I'm getting there!

Even though we went down to DC to see the Vermeer exhibit (we have now brought our total of Vermeers to 20/35) and were lucky enough to get tickets for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, I only have this photo of a stumpwork mirror for you (1650-1690, silk with silk and metal threads). I always love trying to find a fiber-related photo for you!

And here we are with the national Christmas tree. It was a little disappointing because, as you can see, it's just a scrim over a tree. Cheating! Definitely one of the better selfies we've ever taken!

Denmark

Our big trip this year was to Denmark. I would have moved there if my Danish were better. (I can say hej.) Although I will say everyone's English was fabulous. Even the guy working the register at the grocery store spoke English well enough to make a joke about the dude being British and me being American ("That's one way to keep an eye on the colonies.") (Seriously he could not have been any cuter.) Also, if they needed stewardship in higher education which they do not because they don't rely on the largesse of the super-rich to fund education. But I digress...

 So our fiber tour starts right in Philadelphia! At our gate were three incredible felted wool projects. They were in glass cubes, so I did my best to avoid glare in the photos. These are by Heidi Bleacher, and you can read more about her work in the airport here. (She will also replicate your wedding cake in felt!)

When we first arrived, we headed to Christiansborg Palace to see the public rooms. Then we made our way around to the back, recognizable to the Borgen fans, and I pretended I was the fake prime minister by posing with a bike that was parked there. (I'm a dork.)

(The Danes are dedicated to bicycling. There were at least five rows of bike racks out of that photo. There were cykelkælder at all the metros.)

Inside the public rooms, you can see the weavings that were done for Queen Margrethe's 50th birthday. (And I thought a trip to Tanzania was an amazing gift!)  The 17 tapestries illustrate Danish history from the Viking Age to "the future." They were designed by a Danish artist, but woven in France over 10 years by 60 weavers. (And I thought my stitching took a long time!) Anyway, they weren't mounted until her 60th birthday. (Phew. I thought I was bad giving people late gifts.)

I put the dude in to give you a sense of the scale.

Close up. I have so many pictures of these tapestries but I don't want you to end up like these two.

 We visited Frederiksborg Castle, which is amazing, filled with treasures. (Including a 400 year old organ that they play once a week, which coincided with our visit!) They had an exhibition of clothes that were knitted based on a design found somewhere in the castle. It was fascinating! I couldn't take pictures with my camera (stupid flash) so I used my phone and the pictures aren't great, but you can see how stunning this pieces are.

We also visited Kronborg Castle. This is the castle in which Shakespeare set Hamlet. I was so psyched to go here because during the summer they have actors staging Hamlet in the place where it was set! Oh, I was in heaven. But then it turned out they only did some of the famous speeches, on a timed schedule. It seemed somehow cheesy. And then during the "To Be" speech, Hamlet said an extra word. DUDE, IT IS IAMBIC PENTAMETER, YOU CANNOT THROW IN EXTRA WORDS. NOT ONE SYLLABLE.

But then I looked around. The castle is nearly empty. There are only a handful of rooms with period furniture and some paintings. (So, the opposite of Frederiksborg.)

And my mindset changed a bit. This was a set. And the cheesiness was part of the experience. It is totally camp. And then I decided it was pretty awesome. Our tour ended in two rooms displaying photos of actors who had played Hamlet at Kronborg, and all seemed right with the world. 

In a little bower off Queen Gertrude's room, they had this frame set up with crewel work. I think you could try it out. Nice touch. 

Our Airbnb in Copenhagen had this piece in the bathroom. I'm guessing the Google translation is missing some nuances, perhaps idioms.

"Here I have been sitting so many days/
And dreamed the happiness of the world/
Here I have deceived my mind behind/
And dump it all a piece."

I am going out on a limb to say that "dump" has the same double entendre as it would in English.

From Copenhagen we went to Ribe, Denmark's oldest city, but I didn't take any fiber-related photos there. From Ribe, we went up to Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city. The ARoS Art Museum  was fantastic! We liked it even better than Louisiana. As you can see from this photo, there is a giant fabric sculpture, er excuse me, textile installation, hanging right in the middle of the museum, Valkyrie Rán by Joana Vasconcelos. You can watch a video about it here. She has 50 people working in her studio. (No wonder I get so few projects done! Where are my minions?)

Anyway, I was quite taken with it.

So was the dude.

From Aarhus, we went up to Skagen where you can go to the very end of Denmark. There I am standing between the North Sea and the Straits of Denmark.

We went to the Skagen Museum. Skagen (pronounced like you are trying to say both vowels in skein,as in yarn) produced some amazing artists, known as the Skagen School. They say there is a quality to the light, particularly at dusk, but since we took a picture of the sunset at 10:10 pm, we weren't seeing the beach at dusk. However, we did see this felt installation.  (There was another one at the Denmark Design Museum, but I am finding no information about who did it. Both were in places where sound would be a problem, and I would not put it past the Danes to do something like this for acoustics.

On our train journey back to Copenhagen, I got a text from Delta that they were offering a weather waiver if we wanted to change our flight. The weather on the east coast of the US was supposed to be super bad last Friday, the day we were set to fly. My aunt works for Delta, so I texted her. She said, "Do it NOW." So we had an extra day in Copenhagen. We went to the aforementioned Danish Design Museum. There was a ton of Danish modern stuff, which the dude duly photographed. (Me looking at chairs, mostly.) But they had a room that included needlework.

And below the display, drawers and drawers of needlework. I only photographed the cross stitch, but there was lace and whitework as well.

(This piece from 1733.)

1784

That fabric is dyed black!

Memorial.

There was also a wonderful exhibit of  Erik Mortensen a Danish designer for the French fashion houses Balmain and Scherrer. The exhibit was called "I am Black Velvet," but you know how well black velvet photographs.

The absolute highlight of our trip was the Dine with Danes program. For a fee, the organization matches you up with some Danes. You go to their house and eat dinner and chat. We're pretty introverted, so we need this kind of extra help. The couple we were matched with were a little older (recently retired) but we had much in common otherwise. I can't say enough about this experience! We should do this everywhere!

And good news, people, I stitched!

Even Quicker Trip

When I planned the Pittsburgh trip, I took a longer view of our summer and decided we had to take a quick trip a couple weeks later. It made sense at the time. Still does.

We went to Jim Thorpe, PA. Jim Thorpe, you may have heard, was a Native American athlete who competed in the Olympics (but had made like $5 playing baseball so they took away his medals, but then reinstated them after he died). He also played football. Oklahoma wasn't going to make a big enough deal of him in death for his wife, so she basically sold the body to the highest bidder. Mauch Chunk, PA made a monument to him and changed the name of the town to honor him. Pretty big deal.

They were a down-on-their-luck coal mining town looking for an attraction so they could make money. So now they have Jim, Asa Packer's mansion*, and some little shops. If you go further afield there's some hiking too.

The highlight of our trip was The Parsonage, the B&B where we stayed. The food was fantastic! The couple who runs it met in culinary school. The breakfast
s were so unusual--and had courses! On Saturday morning we had baked yogurt with candied ginger and fruit (pitted cherries, nectarines, plums) followed by a frittata with a spicy sauce, little scoops of guacamole and salsa, a rosettes of home cured maple and bourbon bacon. We didn't even think about lunch until three o'clock after we had done a hike! On Sunday, three courses: an apricot rugelach; regular old yogurt with homemade granola and another spectacular fruit salad; and cauliflower bread pudding made with eggs from heritage breed chickens that were freshly delivered by one of the other guests, and a side of ham. There was also a blueberry mimosa. And for dessert, or something, we got a glass of chocolate milk from a local dairy. People, I don't even like bread pudding.

There are four rooms, and if you rent the whole joint they will do dinner for you.

You do not know how much I want to rent the whole joint!

And that description leaves out the art! I think there were 31 paintings in our room alone. And pottery. They are collectors of the highest order.

* Another thing about being really poor? When they were given the mansion, they couldn't afford to do anything with it, so they closed it down for like 40 years, and when they finally found someone to help them run it, it was in pristine old-timey condition.

Take a Trip with Me

At the beginning of June we went on a little trip. The dude hadn't been anywhere since December, and he needed a break. I planned a long weekend to Pittsburgh. I know it doesn't sound glamorous, but it was a great trip. I'm enamored with the city.

We visited a number of museums and the like: The Mattress Factory, Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History (great dinosaurs!), The National Aviary*, and the Andy Warhol Museum. At the latter, I took two photos for you. I always take textile photos for you!

The first is a national costume worn by Andy's mother. You can tell someone's region by the costume, but I'm only expert enough to know that much and not which area she was from. (Although it probably said somewhere on one of those little cards.)

These pants were embroidered by Claes Oldenburg's then-wife on the occasion of Warhol's first exhibition. I love that she has "exhibition" written right where it counts. (In the cabinet she's only identified as "Patty," but her name was Patty Mucha). (In fact, she sewed a lot of Oldenburg's soft sculptures.) (Which means she did the grunt work. Trained as an artist and she did the grunt work. Sigh.)

If you are looking for a good restaurant, go to Tako. 

On our way out of town, we went to Fallingwater. I've wanted to go for forever. It was awesome, and now I want to go to other FLW buildings. (I'm up to three including Hollyhock House and the Guggenheim Museum.) I am, however, glad I did not have to deal with Frank Lloyd Wright as my architect.

* I did not know there was a national aviary (bird zoo**) in Pittsburgh. In many of the exhibits the birds are loose and flying around you or walking right up to you. It is awesome, you should go. 

** I'm sure you don't need the help, but I kept saying we went to an aviary and people gave me the puzzled look, so I started saying bird zoo.

Still Here

Friends, I had not expected to be away for so long, but I have taken nary a stitch for months. And months.

It took me a while just to be able to stay up and eat dinner after my safari. It took me a couple of weeks to feel like I was back in the game, but honestly I've felt off for months--I haven't even baked any cookies for the old ladies! I have finally gotten around to figuring out how to share my hundreds of safari photos with you. The only problem is that you won't get to hear my patter.
I am still reading rather than stitching. But I have missed you, so I'll be making the rounds. See you on the interwebs!

February

Photo from Death to the Stock Photo

I haven't been stitching. I can't settle on a project. I'm distracted by so many things... The most enjoyable of which is trying to keep up with my three book groups. One meets only three times a year (after winter break, spring break, and fall break) and the other meets only four times this semester. But in January, I had three meetings in two weeks. There was a lot of reading to get done! I'm still reading. I'm six books ahead of schedule for my  Goodreads Challenge.

At the end of this month, I am leaving for safari in Tanzania. I'm going with my mother and aunt. I'm very excited for this trip but there is so much to do! (Which seems odd since you can only bring 66 pounds of gear. Total. Including your camera. For 12 days.)

Because I will be gone the first week of March, I've decided not to do Craft Month this year. I had themes planned for each week and projects chosen for almost every day. I just can't see how to make it work. Best just to go away and enjoy being away.

My lack of stitching induced me to designate Ladybug, Ladybug as my project for February. So far, I've managed about 40 minutes on it. But I'll be back. I'm not giving up this easily.

Four Fat Friends

 You may have guessed from the blogging from the phone thing, that I was away from the computer. The dude and I had a quick trip to New York. He went to see a match in the World Chess Championship. (I went shopping that day.) On Saturday we went to the Met. All.day.long. It was awesome!

After dinner, I put my feet up and stitched, I worked on this freebie from Drawn Thread, Four Fat Friends. I started this for Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January Challenge in 2015, and I don't think I've shown it to you since then, though I have indeed worked on it. The branches are growing!

Travel Gives Me Room to Stitch

Photo from Death to the Stock Photography

More than a couple of people told me they can't get stitching done when they are on a trip (in reference to my recent vacation). But I look forward to vacation for a handful of reasons, chief among them more stitching time.

When I'm on vacation, I don't have to cook; I don't have to clean; I don't have to walk the dog. These don't take up a lot of time every evening, but they do take up some of it. I walk the dog in the evenings (the dude's on morning shift) and that can eat up an hour easily, after I've cooked dinner. I don't do a lot of cleaning (we have a housekeeper) but the laundry, the inside of the refrigerator, making sure things are where they belong...these things eat up time, and even worse, mental energy.

I don't have any other to-dos on the list. The volunteering, the meetings, the random appointments vanish. Instead, I have stitching time. When we travel, we rarely make many plans for events that happen after dinner. We're like reverse vampires: the sun goes down and we need to be hiding in our rooms!

I can stitch on a plane. I know there are a lot of people who don't like to stitch on planes which are dirty and cramped and ill-lit. I have no problem stitching any project on a plane. I try not to worry about dirt I can't see. I sit with the dude, who has spent 24 years on the other end of the couch from my stitching. He knows needles sometimes fly at him. (I've never hit him. Not once.)

I can stitch in the car. This is a bit of a gift. I know a lot of people find doing things in the car queasy-making, but I was the kid who could read in the car (and did). Whether we're in for a seven hour journey (to Maine) or just shooting over to Sissy's house (45 minutes) I take advantage of this time.

So you can see that travel does give me extra stitching time. And since vacation is supposed to be about relaxation, there's got to be stitching.

What I'm still no good at is estimating how long any project will take me. 

I Made It: Seattle

I've been in Seattle all week for a work conference. The dude and I had one day to see the sights. Actually he had almost a week, and he made use of it. I saw the inside of the Westin...

So what I made this weekend was a photograph and good use of my time.

I did get some stitching done, and I'm excited to share that with you on Wednesday for the Smalls SAL. Until then!

Weekend Wanderings

When the dude and I made our New Year's Day list, we included quarterly weekend trips. We've been sneaking them in just under the wire. (I refered to, but did not share, our first quarter trip to D.C. in March.) This weekend we went to Hyde Park. The dude is a bit of a history geek, and he is slowly learning the intricacies of American history by dragging me to Presidential homes and libraries. (We're up to nine after this weekend.) On Saturday, we visited FDR...

Later,  the dude heeded Eleanor Roosevelt: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

And walked across the Walkway over the Hudson. (He's afraid of heights.)

We'd read that Poughkeepsie--where we traversed the bridge--had quite a hip dining scene, so we went to Rhinebeck for dinner. We had a fabulous meal and strolled around the town a bit after dinner. I think I could get the dude to go back for the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival should the right amount of sheepherding trials be present...

On Sunday, we drove out to Kinderhook to see the home Martin van Buren, our eighth president, retired to. It was a beautiful drive. In fact, Google maps kept taking us on very strange but beautiful paths.

We followed up Lindenwold with the Vanderbilt Mansion. The Hyde Park property is the smallest Vanderbilt mansion, and the only one in the hands of the National Park Service. So the entry fee was way smaller than Biltmore (which I still hope to get to someday). The lovely thing about both the places in Hyde Park was that the grounds were free to wander.

On the way home today we drove down to Pocantico Hills to see the Chagall and Matisse windows at the Union Church (where the Rockefellers worship). This was Matisse's last ever completed project. He died two days after delivering the design.

It was a wonderful relaxing weekend. We had great weather too. I'm looking forward to our next quarter!