Fab Friday: Intention

I shared with you a couple of weeks ago that my word for the year is “Intention”.  Being on vacation made it difficult to focus (and to blog!), but the word would cross my mind occasionally and I found myself making better decisions for my health as we went along – I managed to eat LOTS of good German food and not gain weight!  I also found myself more easily able to enjoy the moment we were in and the experience we were enjoying at that moment (I have a tendency to want to see what’s around the next corner).  

My intention for today is to continue to sort through my stuff and make decisions about what I will use, how I will use it, and how I can best store it so that it will be USED and not just OWNED.  One of my year’s goals is to reclaim organization in the area of  my art.  I’ve been busy over the past year and have been guilty of opening cabinets and tossing stuff in and then digging through stuff to find what I’m looking for and not taking the time to put stuff where it belongs.  The result is I have stuff everywhere and it’s all in a jumbled mess.  I feel like my mess is a sign of disrespect to my studio and to my art.

I like my studio. I’m able to create and sew and I find peace in that room.  My studio was a birthday gift many years ago. My husband had a friend of ours come in and put built in cabinets in and a counter top for my sewing. He cut the cabinets down so that the  height is perfect for me.  I feel very loved when I sit down to sew.  In that room is a small closet that we converted to a desk space for me when I was working on my masters degree. We had a desktop computer there. It recently ‘died’ and we’ve taken it out which has opened up some space that I want to use for some of my non-sewing activities. 

Here is a picture of the closet area before I started working on it:

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Germany in January 2010

We flew into Frankfurt on Saturday around noon. Once we got our luggage and picked up our rental car, we drove to Heidelberg for lunch and to walk around town.  This is a picture of the town of Heidelberg from up on top of the hill where sits a castle. (yes, we walked to the top of the hill to see the castle!)

Sunday morning, we drove into Rothenberg. It was a small walled city. Unfortunately, everything is closed on Sundays except for the occasional bakery. We saw lots of shops we wished were open!

We did find this lovely little bakery where we got mulled wine and apple streudel.  Plus it was WARM inside!   ;-)

This little bakery was closed, but I loved the faces made from bread dough!

Sunday afternoon found us in Nurnberg. This is the town square.

Steve and me on the subway to Dachau. I’m practicing taking our own picture.

When we got off the train in Dachau, we had no idea where to go. The town had these maps on street corners here and there. It was really nice and made us feel welcome.  It was snowing and cold. We were wearing long underwear, winter clothes, scarves, hats, gloves, wool socks, and winter boots and we were STILL cold!  Temperatures were really cold while we were there – daytime highs were running between 1 and -10 Celsius!!!!

Steve and me  walking through a small park we found with pretty bridges over a stream that ran through the town.  The little “cloud” is my breath. I forgot to hold my breath for the picture.

That afternoon we toured downtown Munich. We walked through the old church and then went up the tower in the town hall. Here we are at the top of the tower – wind is blowing and it is still snowing….

See that light colored tower? That’s the tower we were at the top of in the last picture.

And this is the church we toured. It was heavily bombed during WWII; the pictures they had of it were very sad. Nice to see it so nicely rebuilt.

This is the main street in old town Salzburg. I love the signs hanging outside each shop.

We found Mozart’s birthplace and we were surprised to find we were there ON his birthday. How cool is that? We did not go in, they wanted 7 Euro to see it and from the outside looked like it couldn’t be more than just 2 or 3 rooms.

Right around the corner from Mozart’s birthplace, down a small alley, we found this small area that looked like a winter wonderland.

This is the abbey were Maria from Sound of Music spent her time as a novitiate.  The abbey is built into the side of a large mountain. The catacombs where the Von Trapps escaped are behind those arches on the right. The catacombs go back into the cliff of the mountain. I was upset that we missed getting to see the catacombs by exactly 1 minute!  Do you see the castle way up at the top?  YES, we climbed all the way up. There’s a cog train that goes up and we were looking forward to not having to walk — the train was closed for the month of January!   So, up we WALKED!

And this is the view from the castle. Salzburg is beautiful.  And yes, it was cold AND snowing….

Halfway back down from the castle.

At the bottom of the hill in front of a pretty fountain. A group of handball players from Palermo, Italy took our picture for us.

This was our hotel in Garmish, Germany. Fairly typical of the style in Bavaria.

A couple that spoke no English took our picture for us here. We are on our way from the hotel to the ski slopes where we were hoping to do some sledding.

Here are Ted and Lauren with their sleds.  Do you see how small they are? The sleds are called “sledges” and are one piece molded plastic.

AND if you get a sled, you also have to get a ski lift pass and you take that small plastic sled up the ski lift to the top of the hill and come down.  I was in line to go with the kids and the longer I stood, the more nervous I became and finally decided to chicken out and let the kids have their fun on their own.

I’m so glad I did. Steve and I waited 45 minutes for them to come down the hill. And the stories they told were almost unbelievable. They had come down what would be the equivalent of a black diamond slope on those silly little sleds.

They all made it safely down; you can see how snowy they are from the tumbles they took along the way.

Here is Neuschweinstein castle.  It is best known as the castle in “Chitty, Chitty, Bang Bang”.  It was built by Ludwig II.  It is beautiful and a typical ’storybook’ castle. The inside is gilt and gold and has painted murals everywhere – most are scenes from operas written by Wagner.  We were not allowed to take photos inside the castle.

I wanted you to see that yes once again we walked UP a hill to see what we wanted to see.  The road meanders in a curving way up the hill ending with a couple of switchbacks at the top.

Steve and me in front of the castle once we got to the top. We had stripped off our hats and coats because we got so hot walking up. The walk takes about 40 minutes.

An American soldier headed home for leave offered to take our picture at the airport. We are pooped! And facing a 10 hour flight home.

The trip was wonderful – it was great to be with our kids in Germany. We have over 500 pictures, but it is impossible to share them all with you here. I wanted to give you a quick taste of how nice our trip was. If you’re interested in seeing them all, let me know and I’ll hook up the computer and share!

Fabric prices

Steve and I flew to Germany on the 22nd with Rachel and Adam to meet Ted and Lauren in Frankfurt for a week’s vacation. We had a wonderful time!  The picture above is of Rachel and me walking in Dachau, Germany last Tuesday.  It snowed the entire time we were gone, but we didn’t let it stop us from seeing what we wanted to see.

Dachau is a beautiful, small German town. Steve, Rachel, and I took the subway over to walk around and see what was there. One goal Rachel and I had was to find a yarn shop.  We were walking down this sidewalk and saw a tea shop along the way; we stopped in and using sounds like “click, click” and making knitting motions and pointing to our sweaters and hats, we managed to convey our wishes for a yarn shop to the owner who spoke a little English. She was able to tell us how to find the shop in town.

Here’s Rachel looking at yarn.  We found some beautiful yarns! And the prices were excellent for those yarns made in Europe. We were looking for yarns that we can’t find here in the US.  Once I had chosen a few yarns I walked around the shop and found shelves of fabric – turns out the store was a combination quilting/sewing/knitting store.  What amazed me were the prices on the fabric.

I ought to back track just a moment and remind you that I was in Italy in November. I found a quilting store in Venice and was astounded by the prices there.  With the exchange rate, 1 Euro is equal to $1.50 US dollars.  One meter of fabric is 3 inches longer than our US yard (39 inches to a meter vs 36 inch yard).  In Venice, the fabrics I found were 17 Euro a meter — that’s $25.50 a meter.

In this shop in Germany where the yarns were so reasonably priced, the fabrics were quite expensive:  She had a few bolts of fabric that I would compare to our Hancock’s Fabrics or Walmart quality fabrics (coarse to the touch and a looser weave) and those were priced at 6 to 8 Euro a meter ($9 to $12).  Most of her fabric was a very nice quality similar to what I expect to find in our local quilting stores — those were priced hold your breath…….  at 28 to 39 Euro a meter  ($42 to $60).   

What I kept thinking is that these women must really love to sew and are devoted to their craft.

The next time I am tempted to complain about the price of fabric here in the US, I hope I can remember my “sisters” in Europe and the price they have to pay to create their works of art.

NC Quilt Symposium 2010 Registration is open!

North Carolina has an annual symposium where quilters from across NC congregate to take classes, listen to lectures, join in on all sorts of quilt related fun, shop at the vendors, and visit the quilt show which always includes amazing quilts. It is always fun; it is always inspirational. 

The Symposium moves around the state as quilt guilds across the state take turns hosting this annual event.  The 2010  Symposium will be held in Charlotte, NC this year and I am so excited about it.  Classes and accomodations will be at Johnson and Wales University in Uptown.  Most will choose to stay in the dorms at the University and it turns out to be a lot like a grown up sleepover/pajama party. If that’s not for you, there is a hotel across the street where you can make your reservations to stay and still be close to all the classes.  And if you live locally, you can choose to be a day student and only come for the classes, but I encourage you to stay over with us even if you just live a few miles away. It’s just too much fun!

It’s going to be so nice to have it so close this year. Registration began Friday,  please  check out the teachers and activities and put your registration in the mail to join us.  I’m excited and I can’t wait!  I keep reviewing the list of classes and teachers available and I’m having a hard time choosing which ones I want.  There are classes for everyone from beginner to advanced quilters, from very traditional to “out there” art, and from hand work to dyeing to thread painting and bobbin work.  Here is the list of teachers coming this year:

Charlotte Angotti
Cynthia Corbin
Melody Crust
Patti Culea
Kim Diehl
Karen Eckmeier
Ellen Anne Eddy
Robbi Joy Eklow
Flavin Glover
Bonnie Hunter
Janet Lasher
Susan Purney Mark
Velda Newman
Jenny Raymond
Paula Scaffidi
Pat Sloan
Karen Stone
Carol Taylor
David Taylor
Laura Wasilowski
Elin Waterson
Terry White

You can check it all out at the website  http://www.charlottequiltsymposium.org/    I hope you’ll decide to come join us!

And finally, the donation quilt made by the Charlotte Quilt Guild in Charlotte, NC was designed by Susan Brubaker Knapp, a good friend of mine. Isn’t it beautiful????  The pattern will be available for purchase at Symposium with all proceeds benefiting the Symposum fund. It is called “Nothing Could Be Finer.”

Fab Friday

I’ve been wanting to share with you my word for the year.  I read a blog post a couple of years ago by Christine Kane that encouraged us to consider using a word to guide us during the year rather than making specific resolutions (that I’m NEVER able to keep).  I rather liked the idea and this year I chose the word “Intention” as my guiding word.  Some meanings can be 1) a wish that one means to carry out;  2)having a goal or determination to achieve something; 3) an act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result; 4) a  purpose or attitude toward the effect of one’s actions or conduct.

 The way I’m thinking about this is that if I have intention in my life, I will be more likely to do those things leading to my goal, less so to do those leading me away. BUT, if I do choose to walk away for a while, I can come back to my goal without guilt or recrimination or feelings of failure.  Intention also frees me to incorporate so many aspects of my life: quilting, exercise, nutrition, finishing projects of various venues, travel, money, using space……

So that’s my word for 2010.  Intention.  I’ve used it over the past couple of weeks and I’ve found it is working well for me.  I wake in the morning thinking about what my “intentions” are for the day.  I’ve found myself more than once remembering the old adage “the road to hell are paved with good intentions”.   What choosing this word has done for me so far is guide me — I think about what it is I want to accomplish and then I try to involve myself in activities that lead me to the outcomes I want.  I’m not always successful, but I know that even one action towards my goal is meeting my ultimate goal of “intention”.

I’ve had an up and down week. Was diagnosed with a sinus infection that really started on Christmas Eve. Finally started feeling poorly over last weekend and then started a fever on Sunday.  Finally gave up and saw the doctor and got some antibiotics so I could start feeling better.  I am.  BUT, in the midst of that, I was still able to meet a couple of goals:

I started a sweater last year and stopped partway through the second sleeve. I decided I wanted to wear it so I found it, and got started on it again. It’s done and I wore it yesterday! I love it!  The buttons are sawn reindeer antlers that I bought in Alaska in 2001.

 

The goal I met today was I actually swam a whole mile!  I started swimming in December and could barely swim 10 laps.  Quite an improvement and I’m proud of myself.

So, it’s been a good week.   If you haven’t read Christine Kane’s blog  http://christinekane.com/ I encourage you to do so.  And I encourage you to think about and choose a word to guide you through 2010.

2 weeks before Christmas….

I spent Monday with some good friends known as Pandoras.  We meet monthly with a goal of learning new techniques or new ways to use techniques we already know. Being with these ladies re-energizes me; I love our time together.  Monday we met and played with alcohol inks. These inks can be used on non-porous surfaces – I used them on some  metal washers, some metal scrapbooking doo-dads, a tin can, and even a Coke bottle I had rinsed out. I really these inks! I hope to play with them again soon.

These pincushions are a project designed by one of our members, Alisan Royster. She had these little cans that were originally gift card holders – way to up-cycle!!!  Aren’t they cute?!

Several of us played with inking washers. Mine are the reddish ones on the left. The shiny stuff is UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel). I have an idea for making jewelry from mine. 

Thursdays are my day to meet at our local community center with a group of ladies who love to knit. We met yesterday and each brought goodies so we could eat and celebrate Christmas. Next Thursday is Christmas Eve and we won’t be meeting.  I was excited that I actually thought to take my camera AND remembered to get someone to take our picture!

This is our road this afternoon. We rarely get snow in our area of NC. We have about 2 inches outside right now, I don’t think we’re expecting any more overnight. We will be waking up to lots of ice, though!  Our dogs don’t like snow, can you tell?

For those of you who live with snow for months out of the year, this seems trivial. Our problem is that snow is so rare we have no good way of dealing with it except wait for mother nature to warm it up and melt it away. We come to a standstill as roads are hazardous.  We were supposed to have a Christmas party tonight with 21 people expected. Party had to be cancelled because of the weather.  We’ll re-schedule for January sometime.

So, that’s my week so far. I’m really hoping to sit and knit tomorrow!

European trip – part 3

We arrived in Civitavecchia the next morning. It was a one and a half hour drive into Rome on a large bus. We were taken directly to the Vatican museum. With our tour, we were taken directly inside the museum – there was a line for those without reservations that came out of the building and around the corner and as far as you could see down the road. That alone was worth the price of our tour, I think!

La Pieta by Michaelangelo. No flash allowed and the statute is kept in semi-darkness for preservation reasons. It’s really hard to get a decent picture, but I figure taking this one proves I was really there in person!

We were told the Pope was in residence, thus the Swiss Guard on duty.

I found Vatican City overwhelming. It is huge. There is art EVERYWHERE!  Tapestries, statutes, frescoes, mosaics, EVERYWHERE!  The floors, walls, and ceilings are covered. Walking through it brought on sensory overload.  I took many pictures, but tere are many areas where photos are not allowed and many where photos are allowed only without flash and the areas were dark. I took many photos that simply had to be deleted. And the areas where photos were allowed were so vast, there was no way to capture the images.

After the Vatican, we ate lunch in a small restaurant and then headed to the Coliseum:

This statute was just outside the Coliseum and I love it!

This is the open daily market in Civitacvecchia. All sorts of stuff – fresh meat and veggies, clothes, toys, electronics….

If you think I am looking tired in these pictures, I AM tired!!!!  We kept crazy hours and we didn’t participate in most of the cruise ship offerings. Most of our tours began by 7:15 in the morning and lasted between 9 and 12 hours. We often got back to the ship just in time to throw on a different pair of pants and change shoes so we’d be allowed in the dining room for dinner. Dinner was over around 8:15 and then the ship offered a show each night from 9 – 10. We went to all but one. They were great – we say a very funny comedian, an accomplished musician (played violin, piano, sax, and oboe – and ranged from classical to country), a juggler, and productions that included Broadway musical selections with singing and dancing.  We usually headed to our room as soon as the show was over and lights out by 10:30. We missed the midnight buffets, costume contests, gambling….. I cannot imagine how tired we would have been if we’d stayed up till 1 or 2 and tried to get to our tours!  Someone told us they were shocked that we weren’t playing bingo, etc and we told them the ship was simply a mode of transportation that provided us with a room and meals.   And don’t forget, we were in jet lag with a 6 hour difference from home. Oh, and between Greece and Turkey there was another 1 hour change and then changed back between Turkey and Italy.

The next day found us in Florence.  I had really been looking forward to seeing Florence again. I was there when I was 16. I was most disappointed in this city of all the ones we visited. In the 34 years since my last visit, Florence has become a large, bustling city that just happens to have some art in the middle.  When I was there before, there was a reverence you could feel concerning the Duomo and other sites; that is gone.  I thought it was interesting that we saw many many people begging, but we were told they don’t get in trouble for begging – the people caught giving them anything are fined $1,000!!!!   Geez! Glad we were told!

The Duomo from an overlook above the city.

Michaelangelo’s tomb

After Florence, we arrived in VilleFranche. We were 3 miles from Nice, 25 from Monaco, 20 or so from Cannes.  We were tired at this point and neither of us is interested in the opulence of the richest city in the world, so we avoided Monaco.  We took the train to Nice. I wanted to see the museums.  We found a couple from the ship at the train station who also wanted to go see the museums, so we shared a taxi to the musuem furtherest away. Once we had seen the Matisse museum, it was walking downhill to Chagall and then downhill again to the train station back to VilleFranche. We stopped along the way when we found a small deli and got a sandwich and scone for our lunch.

Our ship anchored in the port of VilleFranche:

A random photo:

 I took pictures of statutes, fence railings, balconies, sidewalks, all sorts of stuff. I got some strange looks from people around me, but I have tons of inspiration to get me through the next few years while we’re saving for our next trip! If you want to see those, let me know – I’ll be glad to share!

We visited the Marc Chagall museum (this photo) and the Matisse museum in Nice. Both were wonderful.  No photos allowed in the Matisse museum – bummer.

I only have one more city to go, but that will have to wait until later.

One question I have been asked is what was my favorite place.  That’s really hard to answer. I enjoyed different places for different reasons.

I LOVED Venice and really want to go back. We met a couple who had rented an apartment in Venice for a week for $400! They found the market and cooked for themselves and spent a week exploring. That’s what I would like to do there. I think Steve would like to go back and try to do an orienteering course.

We both want to return to Turkey. We found the country beautiful, laid back, and quaint; the food was simple, the people gracious, and the prices reasonable (they haven’t yet joined the European Union).  We’re told Istanbul is even prettier that where we were.

Barcelona (I’ll blog soon, I promise!) was incredible. The city was huge but it was laid out well. It was easy to negotiate and find our way around. I think we’d both like to return there and spend a little more time.

Every where we went was expensive. Not fancy mall expensive, it was EXPENSIVE! Baby booties started at $25 a pair and that was for the simple ones! Florentine trays started at $50 for one that was 5×7 inch! Canned soft drinks were $3. Fabric in Venice was $28 a yard. A folk art angel doll pattern in Barcelona was $75.  The subway in Barcelona was over $4 per person each way. Ladies sweaters started around $150, a man’s suit coat was over $1,000!  I could go on, but it’s depressing. What we don’t know is whether the wages in these countries are such that these are reasonable for them….  The prices also reflect how badly our US dollar is doing against the Euro right now.   Needless to say, we did not buy stuff.  We took lots of pictures and enjoyed what we were seeing and enjoyed being together.

I promise to get back and blog Barcelona soon.

European trip, part two

We were absolutely amazed by the traffic in Athens.  We only traveled 7 miles, but it took almost an hour. Our tour guide told us that the government has made rules to try to decrease traffic – on even  days, only cars with even numbers at the end of their license plate are allowed to drive; on odd days, odd numbers. Our guide laughed and said she thinks everyone now owns two cars one of each, odd and even.  Gas is about $8 a gallon (we saw as high as $10, and the lowest was $6.50 in the countries we visited) so there are a lot of mopeds and motorcycles. We were aghast at how the motorcyles are driven. They dash in and out weaving between cars and trucks often going 60 or more mph!! yikes!  And it seemed very common for the motorcycles to drive in between the lanes.

We visited the Acropolis. How amazing to walk around these ruins and try to wrap your head around how old these stones really are and what kind of people walked here hundreds of years ago.

Here is a typical street in what’s called the Plaka in Athens. It’s a several block square of town where no vehicles are allowed – the entire area is pedestrian only. Lots of shops, street vendors, and places to eat. We found a tiny restaurant off the beaten path where we were the only people who were not local. Had an excellent lunch of pork pita platter while we watched people go by.

Leaving Athens, we spent one day at sea while traveling to Turkey:

This is the view from our bus looking back on the harbour where our ship is docked.

The highlight of Turkey was our visit to Ephesus. This ancient town is the one Paul wrote his letter to in Ephesians in the New Testament. They had a hospital, a library, temples, shops, homes with heat and plumbing…..  amazing. 

I was struck endlessly by the beauty we found — this is a floor made of tile. I’d love to have seen it when it was newly installed!

This is the stadium where Paul preached to the people of Ephesus.

We were actually docked in a small town called Kusadasi, about 30 miles from Ephesus. It was a quaint town very dependent on tourism. We walked up beyond the tourist area to see how the people really live. Very simply would be an appropriate answer.

Rug weaving is a dying art in Turkey according to what we were told. The government is working with the University to teach women to weave. The patterns they use are handed down from mother to daughter and each family has their own patterns with very little exchanging between families. If you look at this picture, you’ll see the pattern sitting on a ledge about eye level to the woman. It looks like a cross stitch pattern. The white area is thousands of very thin strong warp strings. The woman looks at the pattern, chooses the right color of thread and two of those thousands of strings, and knots the thread onto 2 warp strings. It was amazing to watch. 

A woman, if skilled, can complete 9 square yards of carpet in her lifetime.  Think about that….. It is slow tedious work.  The wool rugs have about 500 knots per square inch; the silk rugs can easily have over 1100 knots per square inch. The rugs are breathtakingly beautiful.

And here is Steve, back on board our ship. We’re preparing to leave Turkey on our way back to Italy.

We spent the next  day at sea,  and then we arrived in Naples:

It was really cool to stand there and see the castle and the train station and the ferry landing where I spent time when I was 16 years old. I did not have the time to explore the area as we had two tours to do that day:

A street in Pompeii

Standing in a plaza, looking up another street in Pompeii.

This is a long shot of Herculaneum. It’s hard to see in this picture, but if you look closely, you can see where they’ve built new buildings on top of ruins. The experts speculate that most of the ancient town of Herculaneum actually lies underneath the new town….

a mosaic of thousands of tiny tiles – a decoration inside one of the homes of Herculaneum.

Steve and me standing on what would have been inside a home in Herculaneum.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more pictures and stories. Four more towns to visit…….

Our trip to Europe….

We’re home.  I love traveling. I love seeing new places, the way people lived and live, how people eat and shop and dress; I love seeing how different the earth can look and sometimes I am amazed by how similar it can be halfway around the planet. I do not enjoy the hours of sitting in small cramped places it takes to actually get to the places I want to see. That is one reason (of many) that we chose to take a cruise this time.  So we left Charlotte on Friday afternoon flying to Venice via Toronto and Vienna. Vienna was interesting! The flight from Toronto to Vienna did not land until about 10 minutes before our flight was supposed to leave for Venice.  In spite of that, we exited the plane onto the tarmack and were loaded onto a bus and taken to the front entrance of the airport where we had to go through passport control and customs (we just did that in Charlotte AND in Toronto!) and had to run through the airport back to about where we started when our flight landed to catch our plane that had been held for almost an hour for us!!! YIKES!  There were about 12 of us in the same predicament, but the passengers who had sat on that hot, stuffy plane for an hour waiting on us were NOT happy!! Once we arrived in Venice, we were guided along by cruise ship employees and taken directly to the ship. NICE.

I know many of you have eagerly awaited pictures and stories. I’m not sure you want all the pics OR all the stories at once! I took 1454 pictures!! My opinion on taking pictures is that with 8 gig memory chip in the camera, I’d rather take pictures that eventually get deleted than get home and wish I had a picture of something.  I also was taking pictures of “weird” things because the way my mind works, I’m always seeing quilt patterns or a new use of color or shape that I think I may use in my work.

One night on the ship, I attended a lecture on Picasso. One statement stood out in my mind. The speaker told us that Picasso said if he saw something he could use in his work, he felt free to use it. As I walked through ancient ruins, I was struck by how similar many of the patterns were to what we’ve been using in quilts for the past few hundred years.

So, to the stories and pictures:

We arrived on our ship around lunchtime on Sat.  Once we ate lunch, we decided to get a map and walk into Venice. Downtown was only about 1 mile from the ship….  We walked and walked and saw gondoliers and canals and crossed several bridges. By around 4 we decided we really had no idea where we were or how to get back out: Venice is a maze of small alleys intersected by canals and bridges. Best we can figure, we walked about 6 miles by the time we found our way back to the ship. We are very thankful to a very small, older Italian woman who told us to go down the next alley and to “go and go and go”.

This alley is actually much larger than the one we walked down in the dark!

Our second day in Venice, we took a small taxi boat from the ship over to St. Mark’s square and stayed within a few blocks of the square periodically swinging back around to be sure we didn’t get lost a second time! This day found us sharing the small alleys with racers in an Orienteering race. The youngest racer looked to be about 7 and the oldest must have been in his 80’s. What was fun to watch was that each racer had a map and compass and they were weaving in and out of alleys each with a different goal in mind. One racer would go left and the next right; then someone would come out of the same alley another racer would go down. We stood transfixed watching for quite a while.

That afternoon our ship left Venice and the views were spectacular!

The next morning we found ourselves docked just outside of Dubrovnik:

These pictures were taken overlooking Dubrovnik while we were standing on the city wall. The city wall is one and a half mile around and there are over 900 steps to go up and down during the walk; the walk took Steve and me about 2 hours because we kept stopping to look at the views.

Yes, we did walk up to the top of that watchtower!!!

Two cities down and 4 more to go…..  I will post again tomorrow with more photos and stories.

Lake Norman Quilt show

Several members of the Lake Norman Quilters (and many of their husbands and a son!!!)  gathered yesterday afternoon to hang our quilt show.  230 quilts were hung in about 4 1/2 hours – a pretty incredible feat! 

Once the quilts were hung, the winners were announced and ribbons given out.  A committee of 9 ladies worked this year to make our ribbons:

Jean Newman made these teensy little yo-yo ribbons for our winners to wear on their name tags. When you’re at the show, look for ladies with these on their nametags- you’ll know they won a ribbon in the show.

One of my quilts, “Cold Foot Contest”, won first place in its category:

I’ll post more pictures tomorrow once I’m able to walk around the show and find all the winners. But I had to share Best of Show. I’m so excited for my friend who won! Susan Brubaker Knapp made this quilt and it’s the one her new book is based on:

If you’re in the area we’d love to have you come see the quilts. And we have many wonderful quilt vendors and one lady with hand dyed yarns!!!

Friday, Oct. 30 and Saturday, Oct. 31
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
East Mooresville Intermediate School
1711 Landis Highway, Mooresville NC 28115

If you need directions to the show or want more information, please go to the webpage for our group. It contains a down-loadable PDF with a map and general information.