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.

Quilt show this week

My quilt guild, The Lake Norman Quilters, is having their bi-annual quilt show this weekend.  It truly takes a lot of hard work from many, many hands to pull off a successful quilt show. And if I do say so myself, we do an excellent job!

Yesterday was judging. We had two judges, Scott Murkin and Carol Larimer, judging our quilts.  The process is fascinating and I learn a lot from working with the judges.  First of all, the quilts are laid out by category on tables so the judges can work their way across the room. Each judge requires several people to help with the process.  Two people will hold the quilt up so the judge can see it as a whole. Then, while the judge examines the quilt more carefully, one person acts as a scribe writing down the judge’s comments and critiques. When the judge is done with the quilt, it is either released to be hung in the show or it is set aside for further consideration.  When the judge is done with a category, he or she goes back to those quilts set aside and re-examines them to decide on ribbon awards — 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and honorable mention.  There are also specialty ribbons awarded that they consider such as Best Use of Color, Best of Show, Best Quilting, etc.

Here I am holding a quilt for the judge to inspect:

And here are the judges considering one of my quilts for a specialty ribbon. I didn’t win it, but it was really nice to see that my work was being considered!

And here are the ladies that were still around at the end of the day:

From left to right:  Grace Howes, DeLane Rosenau, Joyce Mullis, Susan Dunne-Lederhaas, Cindy Magee, Cheryl Campbell, Barbara Barrier, Michele Sheets.

Today, several of us along with some new faces, were back to hang the small quilts on large sheets to make our day a little easier and a little shorter tomorrow.

Our president’s mom, Arline, came to help – she ironed a lot of large black sheets this morning!

Setting out the quilts by color, size, or grouping:

Hanging the small quilts on the large black sheets:

All the small quilts hung on black sheets are neatly rolled up (no folding so we don’t wrinkle the quilts!) and are safely stored at the church. Tomorrow they and all the large quilts will be transported to the school where another group of members (including me!) will hang all the quilts for the show.  Once all the quilts are up and the show is ready for the public, we’ll announce winners and hand out ribbons. I can’t wait to surprise the happy recipients!

I’ll be back with more quilt show news on Friday.

I’m back….

Wow!  Seems like I just disappeared off the face of the earth this summer. Soon after my last post, we went to Pennsylvania for Steve’s annual kayak and canoe races:

 Then, as soon as we returned home, life began to revolve around my son’s wedding. Most of what I was doing was “boring” for blogging….   I cleaned all the garden beds (all 11 of them!) moving plants around and dividing perennials. Then we found a gentleman who agreed to paint the house for an excellent price and get it done before the wedding.  When I mentioned wanting rock work done on the house, he recommended another man and within 2 more weeks, the house’s foundation was completely rocked. The house looks great! (I don’t have a picture yet, but I promise to post one soon).

While Gary and his son cleaned, washed, and painted the house, I painted the dock, cleaned and sealed the deck,  painted all the doors on the house and then I painted our chicken coop and shed to match. 

Although all of this was normal household upkeep, our impetus was having 40 people here at the house for the rehearsal dinner. There were many friends and family members coming in from out of town for the wedding and Steve and I really wanted them to be able to visit with Ted and Lauren on the eve of the wedding. This shot is of the tent in the front yard where I had 2 tables.

In the midst of these activities, I was also helping Lauren and Ted with the wedding. They were married on the 17th and the wedding was beautiful!  We are thrilled to welcome Lauren into our family (feels like we did that months ago, but it’s now “official”).  I’ve been asked for pictures so here we go:

 

Lauren was walked down the aisle by her mom and dad

Ted, Adam (my son-in-law) and Steve

The music for walking back up the aisle was dance music – we were supposed to dance

And dancing with Lauren at the reception

Most of my quilting time was spent working on a wedding quilt for them. They had no idea I was making a quilt for them.  I mailed muslin squares to everyone I could think of and asked them to either write a message or decorate the square in some way that would be meaningful to Ted and Lauren. I received about 2/3 of them back. While I was waiting for the return of the muslin squares, I made rail fence squares out of the green fabrics in my stash. This is the best picture I have at the moment, but I’ve put the quilt in our local quilt show and will have a better picture of it once it is hung.

I promise not to disappear again for so long.

Beaudreaux and Birthdays

My son Ted turned 28 yesterday.  Sometime while he was in high school, he discovered Beaudreaux Cajun kitchen in NODA in Charlotte. Since then, we’ve celebrated his birthday there every year. We went again last night and had wonderful Cajun food and had a wonderful time with the family.

Good times.  I am a blessed woman.

my new toy

I went to the AQS show in Knoxville, TN last weekend with two good friends, Grace Howes and Susan Brubaker Knapp.  Great quilts and about 300 vendors. We got to spend two days looking at all the pretty quilts and shopping at all the vendors. It was GREAT!  Unfortunately, AQS rules forbid me to show you any of the pictures I took of the beautiful quilts – I have to get permission from both AQS and the maker of each quilt — too involved for me!

What I can show you is my new toy.  I’ve looked at needlefelting machines for a while, but just could not justify the cost for the amount of use I think I’ll give one.  BUT at the show, Pfaff was running a sale and it was too good to pass up — especially when Susan and I talked and decided to split the cost and share the machine.  I am so excited!!!

I get to use it first because Susan has some deadlines that she is trying to meet and really doesn’t have time at the moment to play.  I on the other hand have lots of time to play: 

I inherited a lot of wool from a woman who used to hook rugs. There’s a small bit of yardage, but most is recycled clothing that has been washed and dryed thus felting it to a point.  I pulled out some of the wool and played this morning.

I’m not sure what this piece will be, but I’ll keep you posted.

Another day of dyeing!

Got my dyes out again yesterday for another batch of stuff. I just love this process!  I did some more Onesies because I was asked for some ‘girly’ ones.  Then I did some fabric and in each batch of cotton fabric, I threw in a new fabric I found at the AQS show last weekend – 55% silk, 45% cotton. Takes dye like cotton! Very nice. I also threw in some perle cotton to see what would happen.  The colors are not completely true to life, but you can get an idea of my results.

I’m only showing a few of the Onesies. I have several in different colors and sizes. If you are interested in purchasing the Onesies, I have a few in my Etsy shop or you can contact me and let me know what size or color you are wanting. They are $8 each.

And here is some of the fabric I did:

This is a piece of shibori I did.  I love the way it came out:

And here’s close up:

And this one is a piece I rust dyed a couple of weeks ago. I like it, but it was just too plain. I threw it in a dye vat and I love it!!!

Hopefully, I’ll be posting again really soon.  I bought a new toy and want to sit down and play…..

Dye day

I spent the day dyeing stuff on Wednesday. I love the process of dyeing; I love even more the surprises I pull out of each vat!  I do not try to make anything I can reproduce. I love being surprised by what I do. I love the individuality of each piece.   Usually I dye fabric, but I decided to do some other stuff:

I use all sorts of things for my vats. I recycle plastic containers of all sorts. The ones my husband’s athletic drink mix comes in are great!  The washed out cat litter buckets are wonderful for larger pieces. and for small pieces, even a ziplock bag works really well.  Please note: Once I’ve used an item for dyeing, it goes in my dye stuff pile and never returns to the kitchen.

This is a silk scarf I played with one day using soy wax batik.  Everywhere I had put soy wax was white, so I dumped it into a vat with orange dye.  I like it.  It’ll be real pretty around my neck this fall!

I found this shirt on the clearance rack at Target. It was solid cream, but I loved the little flower embellishment. I dyed it blue!

This is a close-up of the little embellishment.  I love the way it only took dye in tiny areas. I can’t wait to wear this! I think I’ll save it for AQS show in Knoxville!

And lastly, here’s a Onsie I dyed.  My daughter’s friends are having babies (7 of her friends!!!)   Have you tried to find a cute ’something’ for a baby????  Oh my goodness – it seems that every boy is to play a sport or love trains and the poor girls are all in pink or have baby ducks on their clothes!!!  I like Onsies – they are practical and comfortable. I decided what could possibly be better than a Hand-dyed Onsie!  I’ve put some in my Etsy shop:   http://tinyurl.com/n9vnut
I’d love for you to go look!  (Grace, I need a refresher course in getting that tiny url thing to work!!!!)

Until next time,  DeLane