Fine Craft

This is the most scenic place we’ve visited so far this winter.  The mountains rise all around us, and there is the pristine little village of Deshaies nestled against the protective shore in this northwest corner of Guadeloupe.  The pretty church tower rises above all the other buildings in the village, and the whole vista seems like an illustration from a fairy tale.  I must not be the only one who thinks this, since this is the place where the popular crime series, “Death in Paradise,” is filmed.  I haven’t seen any of the episodes yet.  Isn’t it cruel that I will have to wait until I get home to watch a tv show about the place I am currently visiting!

Guadeloupe is two islands sitting very close together with a small opening between the two.  One island is very steep with volcanic mountains, and the other island is quite flat.  Seen from above the two island together look like a lopsided butterfly. Ironically the mountainous island is called Basse Terre, and the flat island is called Grande Terre.

Guadeloupe is one of several island called “the islands that brush the clouds,” along with Antigua and Dominica.  The clouds are full of moisture which contribute to daily rain showers and lush greenery that includes rainforests.  There are some significant waterfalls on Guadeloupe.

When we found out that there is a botanical garden in Deshaies, we were determined to visit. You can walk up the very steep road to the garden, or you can call them and they will send a van to pick you up. Since we do not speak French, we were lucky to have a shop owner call for us.  The van met us at the main crossroad that heads out of the village.

It was quite an experience!  The gardens are well maintained and wonderfully designed.  There are tropical plants in abundance, and also plants from other exotic places around the world.

We met some fellow cruisers, originally from Colorado, who live aboard their boat Hi Flite.  It turns out we have many cruising friends in common, and have been hearing each other on various SSB networks–that is, before our SSB died.  It was nice to finally meet them, and they took this photo of Bob and me standing in front of a large specimen poinsettia!

The same was true of rex begonias and angel wing begonias–they grow as big as hedges in their natural habitat!  There were all kinds of large specimen growth plants that I’ve only ever known as potted plants…. deiffenbachia, schlefferia, phalaenopsis and paphiopedilum orchids, bromeliads–well, if I named them all I’d never stop typing.  The plant that impressed me most is a vine from some region of Africa that I see every time I visit the New York Botanical Gardens (the one in the Bronx, not Brooklyn).  It is a lush vine that has long drooping flowers in a truly nasty, unnatural shade of aqua.  But, of course it is perfectly natural.  Whenever I visit the gardens in New York someone always has to have their photo taken in the midst of these strangely colored flowers.

There were some beautifully designed landscapes.

some with secluded places to sit to admire the views.

The water features were run by electric pumps, but the water came from a natural spring and was wonderfully icy cold in this tropical climate!

We made plans to meet our new acquaintances from Hi Flite for lunch at the restaurant at the top of this waterfall and spent some time getting to know each other and finding all the connections we had in common.

The coi match the plants at the edge of the pond–a familiar potted plant in northern nurseries.  At the moment I can’t remember the name, but you will know it.

All through the gardens there were stands of this bromeliad that is well known for it’s colorful flower stalks.  The flowers were all spent but the plant is better known for the stalk than the flowers anyway.

Here is a banana in flower and starting to make fruit.

There were several stands of these large plants, and you could walk into them, like walking into a grove a bamboo.  But these were not anything like bamboo.  They were starting to flower with large pink flowers on tall stalks–chest high.  I wanted to make a point of remembering the name of this impressive plant, but now that name is long gone! It’s a ‘rosa something.’ The flower is larger than a baseball….maybe larger than a grapefruit.  Stunning.

Here is Bob standing in the midst of a kapok tree.  Remember kapok?

There was an entire arbor of red passion flowers, just coming into bloom.

And there were so many phalaenopses and bromeliads growing on trees.  Some of the phalaenopses were clearly meri-clones of new hybrids that have become so popular–with strange color breaks that have never occurred in nature.  It did not seem natural to see them in a garden setting, but then neither did that strange aqua flowered vine that does occur in nature.

This is the healthiest staghorn fern I have ever seen.  I wanted to take a piece…actually, I was terribly tempted to take many things.  I don’t have any plants onboard this year and I am sorely missing a little greenery.  There was plenty to choose from here, but I could not do it!  I was holding out that there would be plants for sale in the gift shop.

And the birds!  What a feast of color!  There was a large aviary full of ‘parakeets’ like these. They were such a delight flying all over and around us.  They’d swoop down right next to anyone on the path–no fear at all.  They sang beautifully too.  Very mesmerizing.

Then there were very large parrots outside at another part of the garden.  What keeps them in the park?  Having their wings clipped? What amazing colors.  I thought of all the feather tapestries I saw at the pre-Columbian textile exhibit at Yale last summer. How many birds would it take to make one of those tapestries?

And there was a flock of not so colorful flamingoes.  Maybe there aren’t enough live shrimp for them on this island? Still, they are beautiful birds, whether deep coral or slightly off-pink.

At the end of the day, when the van returned us to the crossroads, we found a local woman who set up a small folding table behind her car in a parking lot to sell ice cream.  She had two buckets of freshly churned ice cream that was selling fast as you’d expect on a tropical afternoon.  The choices were something off-white and something deep raspberry red.  I asked what flavors and she replied “coco” and something that sounded like ‘rose,’ (with an accent on the final ‘e’).  I asked again about the rose.  I asked if maybe it was framboise since it looked so raspberry colored.  No, she said rose again.  She said it several times, and others who were waiting in line piped in too with more and more hand motions.  I guessed cerises, and fraise, and everyone continued to say what sounded like rose to me.  Bob got his double scoop, one of each flavor, and we headed off to sit on the rocks along the beach.  I had a few tastes and thought the tangy red flavor was  wonderful.  Suddenly I realized she had a small chalk board next to her table and the word on it was ‘griseille.’  Why did no one point to that sign during all my chatter?  I swear I never heard anyone pronounce that ‘g.’  I guess I have a lot to learn if I’m ever going to understand spoken French!  It was red currant!  Yum!

Everything about Deshaies is about as colorful as the botanical gardens, and I’m loving it!  In the end, when we got to the gift shop there were only four very sad looking cacti for sale.  As desperate as I am for a green plant onboard, cactus doesn’t even come close to tempting me.  That gift shop was the first place I noticed that everything with the word “Guadeloupe” machine embroidered on it as a souvenir, was made out of a bright madras fabric, or was printed to look like the same madras fabric that was on all the textiles.  It seems to be the national fabric of Guadeloupe.  Maybe their flag is even madras.  I don’t know because they fly the French flag, but surely they have their own flag too.  Madras is big here, and it made me realize that this is part of the history of the West Indies.  It is not only influenced by the flavors of their food, but also the textiles from India.  It’s all very colorful.

 

 

 

It’s Sunday morning here in Antigua, and it’s the first day of Daylight Savings Time on the US East Coast, so now we’ll be in sync with our family and friends.  No DST here in the islands.

I’ve got a load of wash going in our washing machine.  It’s been going and not going for about two hours now.  We keep losing power to our generator which is the only way the washing machine can run when we are not tied to shore power.  We are almost never tied to shore power, so we need our washing machine to work on the generator.  Bob has spent all morning trying to figure what might be wrong with the generator.  Meanwhile, I am beginning to worry that our sheets may not get on the bed by tonight if they end up hanging out to dry during the afternoon squalls that blow through here.  I like to have the sheets dry before noon, and now they may not even be out of the washing machine by noon!

During this time Bob is also washing the cockpit with fresh water and a brush–think swabbing decks from the old days!  I’m down below, out of the sun.  I’ve finished writing some emails and am turning my attention to an orange linen sweater that I set aside some months ago.

The yarn is Shibui linen, made of several very fine linen threads cabled together.  I chose an orange that is bright–but not too bright–like a happy pumpkin.  I am making a light weight, top-down, A-line, simple pullover.  How’s that for a lot of adjectives strung together?  The pattern is by Cynthia Parker, and I got the pattern and the yarn from Churchmouse Yarns.  Churchmouse is my absolute favorite online newsletter about knitting.  They send it out several times a month. They have such a great sense of style in their newsletters, and I always want whatever they feature, even tea and Emma Bridgewater pottery!  In reality, I can only afford to buy things they have on sale.  This color of Shibui linen was discontinued, and I think I was lucky to get enough to make the pullover.

Here is the finished sweater as shown on the Churchmouse website.  I have adjusted my version to make it more A-line, to nix the pockets since they would not actually be useable on such lightweight fabric, and to add a bit of length to the sleeves.

Later when I knuckle down to knitting for the afternoon, I will plug in to my earbuds and listen to The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon when you live on a boat and want to stay out of the tropical sun.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon anywhere. I loved her book The Art Forger, so I have great hopes for enjoying this one too,

I have made some progress on my small Portuguese Man of War tapestry.  I am not feeling at all confident about my decisions on depicting this creature who got badly blown off course and into our path near Palm Beach, Florida, a couple of years ago.  The water in the harbor near the dock was definitely not clean enough for this ocean going invertebrate.  It was already showing signs of ill health when we came upon it.  It was during a time when I kept stumbling on Portuguese Man of Wars (Men of War?), and I was thinking they might be in my path every year.  But this ailing one was the last I have seen since then.

I warped a small loom which means as I weave I need to advance the warp and pull some of it around to the back.  Not being able to see the entire piece at once is giving me lots of qualms.  If I don’t like it in the end, at least it has given me plenty of hours of creative problem solving and enjoyment weaving.

I’m going to try to show most of what I’ve done by putting the separate photos of the front and back as close together as possible.  It’s the first time I’m seeing it too.  Unfortunately there is a bit missing — the part that is going around the copper pipe.

As luck would have it, I began to realize I would run out of the darkest green/blue the first year that I had this onboard.  We were still in Florida, and I was able to mail order the yarn from my local embroidery shop at home, in Connecticut.  The package was sent to Marathon in the Keys, and I got it delivered to a marina there.  Now, fast forward two years, and I am running out of the medium shade of green/blue.  Bad luck!–and yet a pretty common occurrence for me.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to judge how much I need to do a project.  And now I’m in a place where mail would not reach me until sometime well after I returned home!–possibly not even this year!

I tried looking on websites, including Amazon, to see if I could get this yarn sent to my son in California, who will be arriving for a visit mid-week.  No luck with expedited shipping from any of the websites I checked.  It’s a good thing I am weaving this small piece with an easily available embroidery thread, mostly DMC cotton floss.  The thread I am almost out of is DMC floss #502.  In the long run I used my local embroidery store yet again. I called them on our international cell phone for only $.02 per minute (that would be T-Mobile). They were willing to send the yarn 2-day priority mail to California, and Chris will now bring it with him.  Problem solved!  It’s amazing how often this happens to me, and even more amazing how often I am able to solve the problem!

One year I forgot to bring any tapestry bobbins!  I was in St. Mary’s, Georgia, before I even got out my tapestry gear and noticed the missing bobbins.  A wonderful friend in Virginia, packed up five of her bobbins and sent them to me in St. Mary’s.  By the time I stop sailing, I think I’ll have a treasure trove of stories of missing items that I need to keep sane and how these dilemmas were solved–good friends being at the top of the list for jumping in to assist.

Before I left in January, I’d been through rather a roller coaster of family events.  A friend of mine sent me a package of goodies with cards, and the note that was attached read: “It’s a testament to the cycle of life that in one package I am sending you congratulations on the birth of your granddaughter, sympathy for the loss of your mother, and a birthday greeting as well.”  How true….it was a crazy month in which all that happened.  In the package was a kit for a beaded bracelet that I had admired my friend wearing back during the holidays.  With red and green crystals, it was very festive for Christmas, and so sparkly!  A couple of days ago, I sat down to make the bracelet, which thank heaven was easy enough for a non-beader like me.  It took me longer to search for the beading needles I could swear I brought with me, give up on that, and then search for the finest embroidery needles I had onboard, than it did to make that bracelet.  Voila!

We go ashore almost every day, and now that we’ve been here three weeks (due to very high winds), it has begun to feel that there is nothing new left to do ashore.  But it’s still a very different place than home, and there is always some little something that we haven’t seen before.  This week it was a donkey tethered to the town dinghy dock.  It had such a sweet disposition, just chillin’ while she waited for her owner.

And the sight of a phalaenopsis orchid growing on a tree near the restaurant where we celebrated Bill Woodroofe’s birthday (as in Bill and Maureen of Kalunamoo).

Here’s Bill opening a present just after we sat to down to lunch at Catherine’s.  What a spot! — an elegant dining room, open right onto the beach in Falmouth Harbor.  The chef is French, and so far it was the best meal I’ve had this winter.  So, I know you are dying to what I had for that best lunch of the winter —  Tuna tartare with a wonderful mango sauce to start, and then a lobster salad that was so tender I almost didn’t believe it was Caribbean lobster.  Yum! That empty glass in front of Bill was a Rum Ti, something I’d never heard of before.  It is white rum with cane syrup and lime juice.  He loves them!

Many days we play with our little mouse, Louis, who came to us in St. Martin, via Denmark.  I made him a couple of books to read when he gets left onboard alone.

This may be proof that I am losing my marbles.  Maybe it’s just what anyone would resort to if confined in small quarters for too long.  Like prison? (I am remembering a quip I once heard that ‘sailing is like being confined to a prison cell, with the added posibility of drowning.)  Well, maybe, but this is considerably better than prison.  Louis really belongs to our granddaughter Tori, but I cannot give him to her until she is a bit older.  So, in the meantime, he is living with us, and we figured we should document his adventures and perhaps even write a little book for her about his travels and adventures.  I would much rather have drawings or watercolors as illustrations, but since I cannot do that, I am taking photos.  I have to do what I can.

Here is Louis playing in the garden. (Okay, so it’s really just a small vase of local flowers…please don’t tell him!)

And Bob gave him some instruction in the use of our VHF and SSB radios.  He likes electronics.

Quiet time onboard seems very different than at home.  There are simply less distractions, at least for me.  Bob is very busy whacking moles these days, so I’m not sure he has much quiet time.  During mine I have had some very productive creative thoughts about what direction I might take on a number of projects that I have left at home as well as on projects that I have in mind for the future.  I have made some notes for my large Portuguese Man of War tapestry and am looking forward to starting that!  It will make use of different techniques and skills that I have picked up over the years, and some of these have nothing to do with tapestry.  I hope this project will be a successful blend of techniques that I’ve used over many years.  It’s time to bring such things together in one statement.  Or so I hope.

I’ve also thought about the little book about Louis.  I wonder if I can use Photoshop to turn some our photos into more interesting images that evoke drawing or watercolor.  This might be cheating, but I’d like to do the book entirely myself and I really want something simpler than photography to illustrate it.

And then there are the sights each day brings here.  I’ve complained a LOT about the wind for the past weeks.  I should balance that with some photos of wonderful things that also define this place.  We have a rainbow almost everyday, and sometimes two!  And one time we had three rainbows in one day. Of course this happens because there are so many squalls!  You gotta take the good with bad.  Here’s one from this week–can you see the very faint double rainbow on the outer right?

We hardly ever sleep through the night.  Who does, at our age?  But above and beyond the call of nature that wakes both of us in the night, there are the squalls that come through.  Since I sleep on the outer edge of our pullman berth, I am the one who gets up to close all the hatches when I hear the rain start….every night.  And I am the one who gets up again to re-open all the hatches once the rain has passed.  We always need the breeze. I should note that most nights have several squalls, so not a lot of sleep is going on for me.  Too bad these squalls don’t coincide with that other reason for getting up.

Bob often gets up to check all the other things that might be cause for alarm in the night.  Mostly these are odd sounds or odd feelings.  Are we dragging?  Is the anchor chain chafing?  He got a beautiful shot of the moon setting over the western hills of the harbor this week during one of his wake up calls.

And then there is dawn…a new and beautiful one every day. And sunsets like this one.

So that’s how we spend our days.  The sheets are dry on the line now, and the towels are ready to be hung up on our make shift laundry line.  I’d better get to it. Then I’ve got a good book calling to me and a bit of knitting.

 

We’ve been here a week now and have enjoyed many of the local attractions.  Yesterday was a particular highlight for me since it was the weekly open air market.  There were plenty of stalls with cheap, manufactured souvenirs , but on Saturdays the locals set up stalls with handmade items, like hot sauces, spice blends, shell creations, beaded jewelry, watercolor paintings.  It was a colorful market, and I bought some fun things.

We bought several kinds of spice blends and several bags of nutmeg,–of course!  We now live in the nutmeg state, so we had to have some straight from the source. The reason our state has this distinction of being the nutmeg state is because the early trading ships along the Connectiuct River sailed to the Caribbean and brought back spices.

This was a fun purchase!–a peyote stitch, beaded starfish made by a woman who had set up a booth at the yacht club on the Dutch side, which overlooks the drawbridge where all boats enter and exit Simpson Bay Lagoon. Bob and I had stopped there for a drink to watch the drawbridge open and see what big boats might go through.  Finding the tables of beaded jewelry was a bonus for me.  I just know my beading friends Karyn and Janet will either already know how to make this little gem, or will quickly figure it out when they see this.  The both live on beaches, one on the Jersey shore and one on the Cape, so I think they would enjoy making something like this.

After years in the Bahamas, I have to say that the best thing about these Caribbean islands is the food!  And on St. Martin it’s mostly French food!  I do not know how they can make bread and pastries as delicious as their mother country when it is so hot and humid here.  The baguettes are amazing and the croissants are too!  At the markets I’ve been able to buy food that looks like it was picked locally each morning, even though it has been flown here from France.  Such fresh baby heads of lettuce…tiny romaine heads and heads of red leaf lettuce.  Cooking is so much more enjoyable with these beautiful ingredients!

Here is the pastry case at Serafina’s boulangerie et patisserie.  Are you salivating?

Earlier this week we had lunch at a beach bar, and my lunch was so beautifully displayed, and such good food, that I had to take a photo of it.  In the US, you can imagine lunch at a beach bar as a greasy hamburger and fries, or a hotdog, or maybe fried clams on a roll.  Look at this and weep!

Shall I describe what is on the plate?  First, three big prawns with a bit of aioli for dipping. Then a half dozen little snails with a muslin covered lemon to squeeze on them.  Then there are two glass containers stacked at the far end of my plate.  That top dish is a salad of crabmeat topped with alfalfa sprouts and caviar in a lemon vinaigrette.  It was fabulous!  Underneath is fresh guacamole to go on the toast points.  There was also a remoulade sauce not shown here… so a collection of shellfish, served with 3 sauces, a salad and bread!–and a view of the beach to set the mood!

St. Martin is a must stop destination for all cruisers, so whenever you are here you will meet boats you’ve seen in other locations.  Thursday evening we had a farewell party for some couples who were headed in other directions, both back north and further south.  There were 12 of us for dinner at LeCanal, a wonderful French restaurant that sits on a canal on the French side, run by a husband and wife.  They also live on a boat and hope to make a go here for a few years, before returning to France.  They have a beautiful 3 year old daughter who came out to greet us during dinner.

We are going back today at noon to enjoy crepes for brunch.  Sarah makes the crepes at your table, while I believe the fillings are made by her husband back in the kitchen.  I’m looking forward to this!  The idea is to have a savory crepe first and then a dessert crepe.  There was a time in the distant past when I made Julia Child’s crepe batter almost every weekend.  It’s been a few years since I’ve made crepes.  Today will be a treat!

More later when I have returned from another fun visit ashore in St. Martin!

The first real snow of the season is falling, and I’m watching it out the window next to my computer, as I drink coffee late into the morning.  It’s the end of an exhilarating week, and we’re all in free fall toward Christmas, Hannukah, and Kwanzaa, which fall so close together this year.

Our grandchild arrived on Monday evening this week!  We were on the Jersey Turnpike , heading south, admiring the rising supermoon when our son called to say the baby is a girl!  She has a lovely moonface, and I’m calling her Tori Tiny Super Moon.

She’s blessed with a full head of hair, isn’t she??  –Just like both her parents.  Rob’s hair fell out when he was about 4 months old, leaving behind lots of blond peach fuzz, but Mom kept her head of thick hair.  We’re very curious to see what happens to our Tiny Super Moon’s head of hair.

Also, she has dimples!  I didn’t know that babies could have dimples when their cheeks are so well padded to help them suck.  Well, she’s got big ones!  Her parents were wondering where on earth the dimples came from– and then I arrived!  When I smiled at Tiny Super Moon they both noticed!  Voila!  She has a little something from me.  You cannot imagine how happy this makes me!

Like the heavenly lunar body she is, she wakes up in the evening and shines all night.  She sleeps during the day.  We are satellites in her orbit.

That last photo was taken in her adoring Grampy’s arms.  I happened to have caught the ring that Bob got from his father when his father passed away.  Boy, would he have fallen under her spell.

When we left to drive to Maryland, I had not yet finished Tiny Super Moon’s Christmas outfit!  Horrors!  I figured I’d knit in the car on the way down, but I completely misjudged the high state of emotion I would experience!  Then came the days of visiting in the  hospital, running errands for the parents, doing a few little chores at their house.  No knitting!  Finally, on the night before the new family were to come home I got out the little sweater and knit ’til it was done….ran all the loose yarns into the wrong side of the sweater and lightly blocked it.

Finished!

On the drive home I found that my hands were itching to knit something else for my little lunar gem.  I just happened to have brought some yarn and this little book with me–yeah, just happened! I never go anywhere without at least two extra projects on hand!  I started the sheep, Spud….and as the years go by, maybe I’ll knit the whole barnyard!

This is not a good photo of the book.  I took it as it lay on my lap in the car! Isn’t Spud adorable?

When she’s older I will knit Chloe, giving her the appropriate hair and eyes of our tiny one.  I am so looking forward to watching her grow!

If Tiny Super Moon and her dad are sleeping it must be daytime!

We are going back exactly one week from today (not that I’m counting the days or anything) to visit for Christmas.  Uncle Chris will join us from San Francisco.  Tiny Super Moon is so excited about her first Christmas, and mostly about seeing me again!

 

Our first grandchild is arriving in only 3 weeks, if not sooner.  I am over the moon with anticipation at seeing the child of my son and his wonderful wife.

Can you imagine how I’ve been knitting for this new little Osborn?  First, a sweater by Stephanie Pearl McPhee called “Nouveau Ne” that made my heart race.  How perfectly she has interpreted the delicacy of babyhood without designing something too feminine. Little rows of brioche stitch separated by a garter ridge…lovely!  You see, we do not know what gender this little Osborn will be, so this pattern strikes the perfect note of sweet babyhood without femininity.  I think this sweater is just luscious, made even more sentimental to me by my addition of buttons made from shells that we collected in the Bahamas, where this baby’s mother and father visited us for two winters in a row. The yarn is a wonderful blend of superwash merino and silk.

Then came a baby blanket, a lace design by Eugen Beugler called “Lace Plumes.”  I don’t think it’s too feminine of frilly either.  It is a slightly heavier weight of superwash merino and silk.  Only the finest for our new Osborn!

Little Nugget (as we’ve been calling her/him for some months now) will be arriving anytime between now and December 14 (you may ask how I know that!  …because if Nugget doesn’t arrive by then she/he will be brought into the world on the doctor’s schedule, due to some conditions that are a little worrisome), so of course Nugget needs a Christmas sweater! And Nuggets’ mom has asked for knitted baby pants to go with a Christmas onesie.

I’ve just finished the pants but will wait to adjust the elastic waistband when I know what size to make it. I liked the proportions of this knitted fabric which was made with Cascade “Forest Hills.”

Yesterday I started the Christmas sweater, a design by Sorren Kerr called “Anders.”  It is adorable…. but it called for sport weight yarn.  Hmm….

..I’m not so pleased with how the yarn looks at this scale.  It seems a tad bulky for a baby.  So I started it again in the same yarn I used for the baby pants–Cascade “Forest Hills.”  This yarn is a 50/50 blend of merino and silk.  It is not superwash so there could be some disaster in wait on its first wash.  I’m willing to take that risk.

Here’s the difference between a sport weight version and my lace weight version.  I have re-written the pattern to get the size right in the lace weight yarn.  I like it!

I got the Ewe (love) Ewe at Knit New Haven when I visited the Andean weaving exhibit at the Yale Art Gallery back in September.  I think this yarn would be fine for a toddler or pre-schooler so I’ll just save it ’til then.  Meanwhile, maybe I’d better see if I can get another ball in the same dye lot so I have plenty for that larger size.

So….just saying….I prefer fingering or lace weight yarn for babies.  This means I have to re-write the whole pattern for Little Nugget, when time is short.  Still, what a nice way to spend my time as I await the big arrival.