Tomorrow we may sail to São Jorge, an island near Faial. I’ve been in Azores for more than two weeks, on the islands and Faial and Pico. Here’s a little photo journal of what I’ve seen on these two islands.
Flowers! The Azores are famous for having miles and miles of hydrangeas. They were introduced here centuries ago and have thrived. You can drive for miles with lace caps and mopheads lining the roads in all the shades of hydrangea–pinks, deep purples, a mix of pink/blue purples, and of course, blue. We were a little early for the full show, but you can see how many buds are on the verge of opening.
This is a wall of deep blue morning glories on Pico, with my friend Lynn standing in awe of the display. She lives here part of every year and told me that people are now encouraged not to plant morning glories. They do appear to be rather invasive, but what a breathtaking view.
And then there are fields and fields of lantana, nasturtium, and purple clover. These have been the source of our bouquets onboard.
June is a month of festivals throughout the islands. We got to participate in one on Faial and one in a small village on Pico near our friends’ house. The first festival we saw took place in Horta and was called “Maravilho,” which means “wonder.” The word is a combination of the word for sea (mar) and the word for island (ilhos); together they create the word “wonder.” It was a grass roots kind of festival with people selling handmade wares and food, and there were free rides on homemade creations like a bathtub swing, a stuffed chair swing, and best of all (!), a bamboo contraption that was a kind of rudimentary whirl-a-gig!
One of the vendors was screen printing tote bags from his small booth. I bought this one fresh off the press.
They spent a good deal of time balancing the size of the kids on this homemade whirl-a-gig, otherwise the ride would not twirl. Note the smallest child is in a bucket!
A week later we went to a festival on Pico. People brought food to share, and there was music planned but it was too windy to play Azorean guitars which are quite fragile instruments. They are shaped a bit like a mandolin and have 12 strings, although this one appears to have 8.
Instead they played recorded folk music and performed some of their folk dances, which include a caller to guide the dance. The wind was howling. Notice how lightly dressed the women are. I was wearing long sleeves, long pants, and a sweater. No was chilled except me!
While we were visiting Pico another festival took place on Faial, in Horta. It may have been Semana do Mar, Sea Week. The fish decorations were in the air, on the ground, and on walls. The day before we left for Pico I watched a crew of men drive a cherry picker down the road to get all these decorations up on the power lines.
Did you know that Portugal is paved in mosaic walkways? I learned this when we visited mainland Portugal about a decade ago. I did not know I’d find more of them in the Azores. It’s mesmerizing to walk the streets seeing so many different designs. Here are a few. Even the simplest designs are a delight to see.
My favorite!
Sometimes the designs are white on black, sometimes black on white.
There is so much to celebrate here: food, art, fine craft, museums, boats in the harbor, including whaling boats that are no longer used for whaling but get launched often for rowing and sailing practice. We will not be able to take advantage of everything here before we leave for the next island, São Jorge, probably tomorrow.
It’s be one week since I arrived in Horta, on the island of Faial in the Azores. I landed at the airport on Sao Miguel, after quite a few mishaps. If something—anything!—could go wrong on my journey, it did! But since I arrived all those mishaps have faded into memory, except the strange allergy or virus that came over me as I walked down the stairs of the plane onto the tarmac in Sao Miguel.
Although I had the longest trip ever to JFK airport (with a driver who made me quite uncomfortable for the duration of our 4 hour drive together) my flight was hugely delayed so my late arrival at the airport did not cause a problem. My luggage stayed in NY as I traveled to the Azores, but it also arrived the next day, in spite of the fact that SATA airlines does not fly JFK-Ponta Delgada every day. I lost my purse for a short time in the Ponta Delgada airport (Sao Miguel) and that was truly a panic for me, since it contained my passport, and all my important ‘cards.’ The cleaning lady had taken it and hung it on her cleaning cart. Luckily she was still nearby when I came back. What a stroke of luck for me!
For months before I traveled here I looked into what handwork is done on these islands. I worked myself into quite a frenzy of anticipation to see embroidery, lace, weaving, and basketry. Right before I left I learned that there is a technique used here for creating tiny gems with fish scales. The fish scales are collected, sometimes tinted with dyes, often cut to shapes, and sewn together to create mostly floral arrangements. Since I belong to a group of women who make Sailors’ Valentines, led by quite an expert in that field, Sandi Blanda, I thought they might be interested in knowing more about this technique along with me.
I had no idea it would be so hard to find examples of this work! I found an artists’ co-op (I think that’s what it is) outside of Horta, called Centre de Artesanato. We rented a car late last week, checking the hours the center would be open and the route on Google Maps, only to find the place closed. We arrived in the morning, then toured the island for a few hours before going back in the afternoon, since many shops observe a midday siesta here. No luck. The place is beautiful, and I was sad that I could not get in to see the wares.
We will try again this week. I won’t be deterred. Meanwhile, I’ve asked everyone who might help me about finding some of the handwork done on this island. Everyone knows of it, but not where to find it. It’s quite a mystery. Perhaps people make these things for their own satisfaction, which I completely understand since I do the same. But I am determined to see these works, hopefully understand a bit about how these works are made, and perhaps take something home with me! On the Centro de Artesanato website I found one fish scale artist who lives right outside Horta. This is the photo she put on the website; she is Zelia Freitas.
The fish scales appear to be sewn together with a fine silver thread, and some of the petals may have been dyed, or perhaps the fish itself had these delicately tinted scales. Zelia has offered for us to visit her home studio tomorrow afternoon.
Yesterday Bob and I found a small market on the side of Horta where the ferry terminal is. There were mostly bakeries, green markets, and one butcher in the market, as well as one small booth with ‘souvenirs.’ Among the inexpensive items was a glass cabinet that had some fish scale pieces in it! At last! After a week of searching I found six examples of this technique. The framed piece on the left is made from fish scales, and the artist signed the piece MJ Melo. The one on the right is something entirely different.
Last week we visited the Horta Museum, an interesting and somewhat odd collection of things that supposedly cover the history of this island, but only manages to cover very brief moments in the long history of the Azores. One of the galleries was full of intricately carved pieces made of some white material. It was definitely not whale bone, of which there are many examples here of scrimshaw and whale bone carving. Bob and I learned that one of the traditional crafts here is carving the white pith at the center of fig branches. I’ve never heard of this, but the Azoreans have made quite an art of it.
The most renowned carver is Euclides Rosa whose works fill an entire gallery in the museum. He has carved village scenes with buildings and people and trees, as well as individual items. Here is one example from the museum website.
The white pith at the center of fig branches is soft until it becomes a bit hardened over time. Even in its hardened state, it is softer to carve than bone or wood, but requires very fine tools and great dexterity. Layers of carved pitch are glued together with gum Arabic, and that has to be expertly done because over time the gum Arabic turns yellow, while the fig pith remains white. The glue has to be well hidden and carefully applied. The framed piece on right right above is a tiny cluster of roses carved in pith. The artist did not put his/her name on the piece. On a previous visit to Portugal (2014), I learned that there are associations of craft techniques, like guilds, and that in order to put a name on a piece that artist needs to achieve a certain level of expertise and be judged by the association. But the little arrangement of roses is so delicate and finely done I can’t imagine this carver would not be able to sign the work!
And so begins my search for how Azoreans express their creativity with the materials at hand on these islands. Bob and I will visit the island of Pico over the weekend where there are many walled gardens, like the cloistered gardens from the Middle Ages, where micro climates are created by protecting the gardens from the harsh Atlantic winter storms. There are walled vineyards which we hope to visit! There are two other islands we hope to visit before we spend our last week in Sao Miguel in early July, before I fly to Scotland.
It’s almost June, and I have been writing blogposts in my head for about two months. None of them has made it to reality here on this site. I am approaching the end of my 3 1/2 months at home before leaving to go back to Pandora in mid-June. It’s almost time to go again. Somehow, when I am living aboard it seems that several months at home will allow me to get a lot of things done. I envision myself weaving, knitting, creating every single day, but life always has other plans. Still, there has been a lot good over the past three months. In 10 days I’ll be on a plane heading to the Azores, where I will wait for Bob to arrive, unless he beats me there. There is a slight chance for that.
In spite of never accomplishing what I hope to do in any given period of time, I have experienced a tremendous amount of productivity and inspiration. I attended all the meetings I normally miss, and what an exceptional treat that was to be with so many other weavers who all have ideas worth noting. I now have a longer list of things I want to weave and knit, spin and sew. But before I can plan new projects I have to finish the ones currently on my looms, currently on my knitting needles.
This is the project I put on my Baby Wolf shortly after I returned home after taking a zoom class on double huck with Cally Booker in January, when I was aboard Pandora with no way to weave. It’s Finnish linen, single ply #8, which I think is about 2400 yards per pound. To start I set my warp at 33 epi, which is only 16 epi for each layer of the double weave. I wove two samples and washed them. I think they are both too loose.
Cally suggested I try 1/2 units of huck alternating with 1/2 units of plain weave before I decided to re-sley. It didn’t help.
I re-sleyed at 40 epi (20 for each layer), and I like what I’m getting now.
So I’m on the real project now, a cowl, with 3-4 colors in both layers of the warp, but only two colors in the weft. I may add more colors in the next cowls after this one. Of course, now I’ve decided that I want to take this with me on my summer travels. So the heat is on! I leave in 10 days.
And of course I wanted a new sweater to take with me for the windy, chilly Outer Hebrides that I’ll visit in July. I have now finished the 2nd sleeve and will sew it in later today. This is a design by Martin Storey called “Skylark,” for Rowan yarns. I bought this yarn years ago for a different sweater which called for two versions of Shibui yarns, “Fern” which is a soft organic cotton yarn, and “Twig” which is a fine linen yarn. That sweater required holding the yarns together, and of course that made it quite expensive. I thought it would look better in this design, even though this sweater “Skylark” calls for a wool yarn from Rowan. So of course this meant I was play a game of ‘yarn chicken’ which I detest doing! And I knew I was going to lose, which is why I decided to do the front bands in three strands of 16/2 linen from my weaving stash. You can see the front bands are a darker color. Then came the mistakes! Although it doesn’t show (to me) there are significant decreases after the cabled ribs at the bottom of the sweater. When I knit the right front (on the left in the photo) I forgot to do that! When I was almost finished with the shoulder shaping I realized that this part of the sweater was WAY bigger than the other front. I had to rip all the way back to the top of ribbing. Not fun, especially since it’s all stockinette stitch. Then came the next big mistake: I did not notice that I accidentally carried the front band yarn all the way across that second front until I was sewing the body pieces together. Can you imagine how frustrated I was when I realized I had another major mistake? I decided I could not face ripping back and knitting again–all that stockinette stitch. This unsightly stripe is on my right, and since I usually wear a cross body bag when I am out and about, the bag will hide most of this problem. If I get really inspired (unlikely) I could duplicate stitch with the darker yarn in various other places to continue the look. I often find that if I wear something before I consider it finished I never go back to do the embellishments I’ve planned. I am going to wear this sweater on Friday, complete with the cross body bag disguise. I’ll probably never do the duplicate stitch. It is what it is. And I won’t even mentioned that in spite of using a different yarn for the front bands, I had to go on long, deep internet search to find one more skein of “Fern” to make the 2nd sleeve. This sweater had its challenges.
A few weeks ago I found some beautiful linen fabric on Etsy. It is printed linen from Finland. I seem to be on a roll with materials from Finland. How could I resist this?
I made a simple top, except that at my level of skill that neckline was not so simple. I didn’t get the two sides of the V-neck the same, even though I re-did it three times. When I tried this on the first time I realized it needed darts, and I did manage to put those in after the fact. One point for me!
I decided to ‘decorate’ the neckline based on sage advice a weaver once gave me: If you can’t hide it, decorate it! I made some crocheted cord that is used in Romanian lace, but that only accentuated the uneven neckline. Then I tried some decorative edge embroidery, but that also drew more attention to the problem. Last ditch effort was to go through my vast scarf stash. Bingo! I found a scarf made of manipulated ribbon that I made in a workshop with Sally Shore, almost 2 decades ago! I have never had just the right top to wear this scarf, so I am thrilled that almost 20 years later it’s just the right accessory.
I no longer have any clue how we made these ribbon scarves. They were entertaining to make, and I don’t think it required as much sewing as it looks like it did.
In 10 days I leave to meet Bob in the Azores. He left home in late April and has been sailing ever since. He started in Trinidad, which is spitting distance from Venezuela, and stopped in St. Maarten and Bermuda. He got a change of crew at each stop. On May 31, he left Bermuda with two new crew members to head non-stop to the Azores. He hopes to get there by mid June, which will mean he’s been sailing for 6 weeks with no rest. He’s had technical problems and health problems along the way. He has mostly taken it all in stride, but I have not. I have to admit that I seriously thought we needed to rethink these plans. But he’s on his way, and the passage is going very well so far. The prep for this passage certainly didn’t.
I will fly to the Azores on June 15th, and just in case Bob hasn’t arrived, I have booked five days in what i hope is very comfortable hotel, right on the harbor, walking distance from a scrimshaw museum, a knitting store, and a fine craft gallery. I hope I find something wonderful to buy for Bob’s 70th birthday which is Sunday. We are missing being together on both our 48th anniversary and his landmark birthday. But he chose to do this trip so I know he’s doing what he loves.
In mid-July I will fly to Scotland to spend 2-3 weeks doing some very exciting things with a good friend whom I have traveled with numerous times. We travel well together and always have a good time. And this is when the abundance of good is going straight into the stratosphere. I have an appointment to see the tapestries that Archie Brennan’s family has given to the National Museum of Scotland. I believe they have in the neighborhood of 100 of Archie’s tapestries. They are in storage now, but I hope there will be an opportunity to display them. We all got cheated for his retrospective exhibition when it took place in July-August of 2021, when it wasn’t yet safe to travel. Maybe there is another chance for a big exhibition of his work.
After that I have an appointment to meet the current director of the Dovecot Studios. The last time I was in Scotland, and so looking forward to visiting the Dovecot, it was closed for renovations. Now is the time. I am so thankful. I’ve been asked to give a talk about Archie, so I am preparing for that, and yes, I am very nervous. The Dovecot is where Archie learned to weave, and where he established his career as a tapestry designer and weaver. He is a legend there. Here he is, age 16, in the center front, with the other weavers from that time. It is 1947 or ’48.
It’s going to be an exciting summer, full of an abundance of amazing opportunities. When I leave Edinburgh, my friend Kari and I will visit Stirling Castle to see the reproduction tapestries of the “Hunt for the Unicorn.” While I was studying with Archie and the Wednesday Group, we met the weavers from the UK, who visited the Met Cloisters in order to study the originals. Now I will get to see their finished pieces. And we’ll visit Galashiels to see the “Great Tapestry of Scotland” which is an embroidery on a vast scale, like the Bayeux Tapestry. As luck would have it, earlier this year I met three women who either worked on this monumental piece or are related to someone who did. What serendipty. Then we’ll head to the West Coast to do a sightseeing excursion through the Outer Hebrides. I’ve got a few mills and other textile places on my ‘must see’ list. I have to wonder if I’ll ever have such a textile rich trip again. It’s an abundance of good.
An amazing thing happened to me on Saturday while Bob and I attended a huge party of several hundred people that was a celebration for sending off the crews of various large yachts, from mega yachts to large yachts, for the Caribbean 600 Race. That’s a race that starts and ends in Antigua, with a 600 mile course that circumnavigates a number of islands in this part of the Caribean. First of all, the music was amazing, but prevented conversation with anyone, yet I still met someone quite incredible!
Here is a short video of the steel drum band. I didn’t arrive in time to catch the beginning of one of my favorite songs from my youth—the Turtles “You and Me.”
The real excitement of the evening was that I met a woman living aboard her boat in English Harbour, where she has a Harrisville 22” folding loom onboard. When I asked how she set that up down below, she informed me that she weaves in the cockpit.
We met a couple of evenings later when we could actually talk. Her name is Helen, and she lives part of year the in Minnesota, and part of the year here in Antigua, on her boat.
Right now her loom is set up with an 10/2 Tercel warp. I’m not sure if she has decided what she’ll weave. She may have a plan by the time I see her again in a few days. Like me, she gathers her materials at home and brings them with her. Here is one of some photos she shared with me. I don’t know what she does when the tropical showers start with no warning. Her loom would definitely get wet because here doesn’t come without wind…usually lots of wind.
Sorry that the image is blurry. I couldn’t pass up using it because it’s such an incredible feat to meet a weaver while sailing, especially a weaver who manages to weave onboard. I have never attempted to bring any loom onboard except a copper pipe loom. In order to weave I put a table easel on a folding table and then set up my loom.
I have been considering table looms even though I don’t like them! Is that the voice of desperation? (yes) I was quite intrigued with Jane table looms, but wherever I might set it up I would have to stand to use it. If I bought a stand for it, or had Bob make one, it wouldn’t fit onboard. Oh, the hindrances of living in such a small space while trying to weave.
The only other weaver I’ve met who weaves aboard is Doris Florig, and we didn’t actually meet in person, just online. At the time, 2015, she was aboard her sailboat in Guatemala and had set up a large tapestry loom where her dining table is in the main saloon. I wrote about her here. Currently I believe Doris mostly weaves somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Here is the photo of her loom she sent me back in 2015. Again, not a crystal clear photo, but impressive, yes?
So it goes to show that I should never say ‘never.’ I have spent 13 years lamenting that I have never met a weaver during our sailing adventures. I have now met Helen, in real life (IRL), who weaves on a pretty large loom on her boat. No, it’s not a large loom by weaving on land standards, but I doubt I’ll meet anyone else who has a floor loom on a mono-hull sailboat. (I refrain from saying never.) Bob would never agree to Doris’ solution, and I actually don’t blame him. I know I can’t get even the little Harrisville onboard Pandora. If you’ve got advice for me please get in touch!
Meanwhile, life goes on doesn’t it? And those of us with hurdles try to figure out how we can keep weaving.
And now it’s February of the new year. I spent the last month taking inventory and getting my myself organized in Notion, which was also a way to prioritize where I’m headed this year. It was a great exercise, and now I’m implementing what I discovered about my work.
I am halfway through my time onboard this winter and so I’ve begun to plan what I’ll do when I get home. If you set aside small projects like knitting or spinning or embroidery, you can continue to work on other projects. You change the bobbin on your spinning wheel, or get out another drop spindle. Same for knitting. You put the knitted item away, get out more yarn, more needles and off you go on another knitting project. This has gotten me in loads of trouble over the years–no, wait! Over the decades. I have knitting projects that might have passed 20 years since I filed them away.
Weaving projects can be set aside, but you can’t move forward with a loom until you weave off the fabric. Some of us have multiple looms, but none of us can set aside nearly as many weaving projects as we can with other handwork. I have the rest of my sashiko warp waiting for me at home. Lucikly, I’m still enthralled with it and look forward to weaving the rest of that fabric. I am also very much looking forward to putting on a warp for double weave huck once the sashiko is off the loom. Cally Booker’s workshop on double weave huck has me excited to do a few projects. On the sample warp which will come first, I hope to advance to making some cowls at some point on the warp. The main project I want to do is a ruana type wrap which will be a bigger warp and a bigger weaving commitment. I have in mind a double sided ruana, each color staying on its own side, stitched here and there so the fabric stays together, and I can wear it on whichever side I fancy. I love big commitments!
This is a double sided, machine knitted wrap that caused quite a bit of swooning among the group in the workshop Italy. One woman had this one with her, five more of us found them in a shop in Orvieto and bought our own. I would love to make something similar in double huck.
I have gone as far as I can go on the sweater I am knitting with some beautiful baby alpaca/silk/cashmere yarn that my older son gave me for Christmas. I have to order one more ball (but which color?) in order to get the sleeves the length I’d like. It will take only a couple of hours to finish this once I’m home and have ordered the yarn. I am dreaming of wearing this sweater in early spring in New England and also in Scotland in summer.
In order to knit the sleeves I had to divide each of the remaining balls in half. After wondering how to do this, I remembered that Bob had made me a PVC pipe niddy noddy a few years that I store onboard. I had no idea where it was, but Bob found it immediately.
I’ve turned my attention back to a knitted work in progress, although it’s quite a usurper in the UFO category. I started this vest only months ago, and there are far older UFOs that should have been higher on the list. I love the combination of charcoal and marled taupe in this design by Hanne Falkenberg, called “Avenue.” I particularly love the little tool bag that a good friend gave me for my birthday that looks perfect next to the vest in progress. It’s a gem.
It’s such a gem I decided I should carry it as a purse sometimes.
During January I also researched where I might go this summer when I need to get off Pandora while Bob sails from the Azores into the Mediterranean, to Spain. I have a week to ten days to do something. In the long run, I have decided to take more time, 14 – 21 days, to travel through Scotland. I have a lot on my list to see, including the Dovecot Studio, the “Hunt for the Unicorn” reproduction tapestries at Stirling Castle, the Great Tapestry of Scotland in Galashiels. My luck here in the Caribbean has been such that I have now met two women who had a hand in that epic embroidery. I look forward to seeing it in real life. Luck has also smiled down on me that my English friend will meet me somewhere on the West Coast of Scotland, and a dear long-term friend wants to join me on this adventure. We want to include some of the islands which is what will make our trip longer than I originally planned. I met a yacht captain who is from the Isle of Mull and now lives on the mainland. He has invested in a small start up for a friend who wants to knit traditional garments with a flat bed knitting machine. This friend gave Martin a long cowl made on a similar machine by Marie Wallin. He showed it to me and offered to take a photo of me wearing it. I’ve now learned that Marie Wallin runs workshops in her croft where students design and knit a Fair Isle garment. So, so tempting.
I don’t want to leave anything off my list for this Scottish adventure. I can’t count on going back again, only forward. Scotland in July….the light will be beautiful, the weather at its best, and there will be midges, lots of midges.
