Category Archives: knitting

Silence

Things changed rapidly between my last post and now. This season has had some cruel surprises. I have struggled to process these, so I felt silenced, not only from writing but also from other things. Bob has done an exceptional job not only handling these situations, but also writing about them.

In my silence I have been weaving, and knitting, and even making a couple of small basket projects. It has all been somewhat disappointing and frustrating. I guess I was expecting more….and better. I’ll get to that momentarily.

Meanwhile, there are always scenes. Caribbean colors, sunrises and sunsets, moon rises and moon sets, rainbows, all daily. We’ve been lucky to spend some great time with friends who have now become old friends. The years have flown by and friendships deepen. My land friends have rallied around me with great care. I thank each of you beyond words. I don’t mean to be secretive. Bob has said it all so well there is nothing for me to add.

Before the couple aboard Simplicity were attacked, we were in Fort de France, where I always visit a fabric store called Doum 2000, and where I look for linen fabrics from France. This year I found this wonderful eyelet fabric (cotton) in a glorious orange. While this display shows how well it would look as a skirt, I am planning a jacket.

Doum 2000 never disappoints in tempting me with wonderful linens. I must be in an orange mood this year. The printed linen fabric is very sheer. Perhaps a floaty top of some kind?

Here is the small basket. It’s going to be a birthday present for my older son, whose birthday was just over the weekend. Somehow he has now turned 40. This is supposed to be a wine bottle coaster, but it can surely be used in lots of other ways too. The maple base has a crab lasered onto the inside, and since our son lives in Maryland, it seemed the right base to choose. I will make another basket for our younger son, who also has a birthday approaching, when I get home. It has a horse shoe crab lasered design. Neither son ever looks here, so the baskets will be a surprise! This basket needs sanding and varnishing and the hole in the bottom gets a tiny corian plug instead of the traditional ivory plug. The key fob is for me!

There is progress on my first wedge weave tapestry, but I am not happy with it. It seems like I’ve put a ton of time into this for no good reason. I am trying to change my attitude to one of thankfulness for the experience of learning this technique, and also managing to weave some Gobelins style figures into the wedge weave. I have learned a lot, but it’s a bitter pill to work on something and decide it’s a failure. I know I should be thinking that disappointing outcomes lead to better understanding of where I’d like to go next time I sit down to weave. But….still….this is disappointing. Here are a few images to show how this piece came to fail.

If only I’d paid more attention to how wonky my green wedges had become right here. I was just so happy with my inserted squares.

And then came the circle. I was quite happy with that. The thing is, I know how to weave shapes in standard tapestry. The point of this was to learn wedge weave.

A couple of days ago I reached the point where I could no longer weave without shifting the warp downward so I could have more weaving space. I’ve done this on Gobelins style tapestries before, but never on wedge weave. Have you done it? I feel like I lost control of the tension when I moved the warp. Another disappointment. I won’t do that again. Bigger piece, bigger loom, next time. And when you cannot see the whole piece it’s hard to decide if it’s done. Since I’m rather disappointed with this piece, I’m going to level it off and call it done even if I can’t see the whole thing to make a decision. When the fell is level I will do a row of knotted soumak and cut it off. Then I can transport it home without the loom. One good thing.

I have three unfinished sweaters onboard. I cannot even bring myself to describe them, and my waste of time in not knuckling down on the right one to finish. Boy, I have wasted time on these sweaters! But I did finish spinning some lovely merino/silk and now have five full bobbins to ply at home. And I made a small shawl with an intriguing stitch design that looks a bit like butterflies. I will soon get some wear out of this on cool April days in New England. It needs better blocking when I get home. I did not have nearly enough pins to block the lace points.

Here is detail of the little butterflies (sideways).

And speaking of April, we have made our flight reservations home for April 1st–from Antigua. We are at the southern end of Martinique right now, in a village called Ste. Anne. It’s now time to start retracing our steps north to make that flight. I feel like I need a week to corral all my supplies into vacuum bags to shoe-horn them into our not-very-big duffle bags. We may need to find a giant box, or rent a car to drive to St. John to buy a big suitcase. Considering how disappointed I am with most of my work at this point, I sure wish I hadn’t brought all this stuff onboard.

I’ve put off writing for at least a couple of weeks due to my dark mood. I probably should have waited longer. I always think silence is best when I can’t be enthusiastic or positive. I am counting on a change of scenery–to New England spring!–to help my outlook. There should be daffodils by then. Fingers crossed.

And just to prove I am not completely in a funk, I will show you the rabbit hole that has drawn me in this week. I’ve just learned that there is such a thing as sashiko-ori. Woven sashiko. How about that? I’ve seen some lovely examples, and I even learned that someone in my guild is currently weaving this technique. I got in touch with her, and she has offered to get together and show me how to design in this technique. It’s basically supplemental warp and weft, and I’ve done a lot of supplemental warp scarves in the decades when I sold my weaving. Here is my current drawdown of an idea. It’s not quite what I want but I’m sure my friend Julia will set me straight when we meet.

I’d like to use my hand-dyed indigo linen yarn that is fairly fine, and the supplemental warp and weft will be natural sashiko embroidery thread. I can’t say more because some people might look at this post and then their future gifts won’t be a surprise! Mums the word.

I look to the work I do with my hands to keep me in balance, to get me through good times and bad. When multiple things go wrong just when I need a break from other things, it’s difficult. But that’s how it goes, doesn’t it? Ups and downs. The sons of the couple who died last month wrote a beautiful tribute to their parents, and this quote comes back to me every day over the past month:

 We live in a world that at times can be cruel, but it is also a world of profound beauty, wonder, adventure, love, compassion, caring, and faith...

In the Depths of Winter

Recently one of my oldest friends starting seeing a life coach. In one of the sessions the coach asked if she’d rather work or go on vacation. My friend answered that she’d rather work! She is a sculptor and painter. When I gave this a mere moment of thought, I realized I would answer the same. So, here I am in the depths of winter, living on a boat while visiting numerous Caribbean islands, and what I want to do everyday is work!

I have more projects onboard than I can possibly finish in the 3+ months I’ll be down here, but each year when I promise myself I’ll only bring what I can actually accomplish, I break that promise. This year is no exception. Somehow I want to finish one tapestry and start and finish a second one, quite small, but still. I brought 8 oz of merino/silk to spin (so far the only finished project!); three sweaters, two to continue and one to make from start to finish (half done with that one); two embroideries, and a basket to start (and finish, of course). I couldn’t complete these projects at home in three months, even if I worked 12 hours a day! But it’s hard to choose what to bring. And don’t you know, even with all I brought, I pine for the things I didn’t bring!

One day recently, when I was recuperating from the seasick meds I take, I lay on one of our settees watching a couple of hours of youtube videos on various techniques in bobbin lace. I know I cannot do bobbin lace on this boat–but that doesn’t mean I can’t wish I had a pillow here to try.

This year, since we have starlink to stay in contact, I have also started a tapestry study group with six of my students from previous live classes. Setting up the scene for doing these zoom meetings is a little more challenging on a boat than at it is at home.

It’s a feat of Rube Goldberg-ness. I have my computer on our dining table, sitting on both a cutting board and a box in order to get it at the right height to see more than the top of my head. My tapestry in progress, which has some bamboo skewers inserted in an empty space in order do demonstrations of techniques, if needed, is sitting on a table top easel on top of an ottoman. In this photo I haven’t yet set up the cable to my mobile phone on a reticulating arm that faces the tapestry as a 2nd camera for when I might need to do demos. Bob had a big hand in gathering all these random props to get things just the way I needed.

Tomorrow is our second session. I am now in a less protected anchorage, and we are rolling sideways quite dramatically. I will try to set up in the cockpit so I don’t get seasick down below. Meanwhile I am a little worried that the students may not feel good themselves watching the horizon roll side to side behind me. Fingers crossed….

Spinning onboard is the easiest activity. I can look out at the horizon and keep myself oriented. I’m using an EEW Nano 2 from Dreaming Robots. It’s hard to believe that something so tiny and lightweight could work so well, and it doesn’t slide around as I draft out the fibers.

I did a poor job winding on my first bobbin. I forgot that I need move the hooks often when I’m spinning without a Woolee Winder which does the winding automatically. My next three bobbins got a lot better!

And those three sweaters onboard… I’d like to finish one of them! The two that were in progress when I put the materials onboard are a design by Martin Storey, which is a summer loose wrap type sweater made with two yarns held together–one linen and one cotton–called “Skylark.”

The other is a Kate Davies design called “Auchnaha,” also a loose wrap type sweater.

It would be wonderful to finish one of these to wear in spring when I return home to New England. On the other hand, it would also be great to wear this vest which I started onboard with my advent yarn from Kate Davies. Can you see the faint ‘shadow’ work in this? This is the left front/back, so I’m half finished with the vest, which is closer to completion than the other two sweaters. The right side of this vest has entirely different colors in it. What you see on the left side of this photo is not the armhole. It’s the neck opening with the collar already knitted into it. It’s a clever design, inspired by a design from one of the most clever knitters–Vivan Hoxbro.

Recently I returned to embroidery, which I haven’t touched in years. When conditions are calm I can do close work. This is a kit from Melbury Hill in the UK. Years ago when I bought this kit I could have chosen any of their designs, which are all Arts and Crafts inspired. I guess I settled on bluebells because I got to see a ‘bluebell wood’ the last time I visited England to see my friend Lesley. A truly amazing sight! I may finish the flowers today. Then I’ll have another completed project under my belt.

As I write this Bob is ashore checking Pandora in to Dominica. We spent almost a week in Deshaies, Guadeloupe, after about 3 weeks in Antigua, in English Harbour, Falmouth, and Jolly Harbour. I miss the calm harbors of Antigua. No wonder the English were so successful there. Calm harbors with great defenses against attackers. I’ve been onboard exactly a month today.

I have done a few things in the category of sightseeing, but since this is our 7th winter down here, I don’t feel compelled to revisit everything. We see rainbows multiple times a day, and Bob records all of them with his camera. We spent a delightful day at the botanical gardens in Deshaies, Guadeloupe. This year I only took photos of birds and fish. I took the bird photos for my friend who has had a Nandico parrot for more than 30 years. If we rent a car while here in Dominica, we will visit the Kalinago community, and I will enjoy seeing their stunning baskets. Hopefully I’ll bring a few home to give to my basket making friends. There is a lot to do here, in the depths of winter, but I’d always rather be making something with my hands most days. I’d rather work!

Janus

Ready or not, it’s 2024. I romped through the fall like a woman with her hair on fire, and I did manage to complete the loom woven projects I was determined to finish. I never managed to touch a tapestry loom. I’m not one who likes to look back and list all the things I didn’t accomplish, but every year I work hard not to do that. Here are some images of what I did finish! And I am celebrating!

For most of the fall I was in a class with Fran Curran to design a project entirely in linen. While thinking about napkins or curtains, or even just kitchen towels I remembered that I’ve wanted to weave some bread bags for a couple of years. Here was the opportunity, which I wrote about in my last post!

I love using these for my sourdough bread loaves.

Since I wove my project at home rather than at the Weaving Center where Fran’s class took place, I finished before the class was half done. So I started another linen project, which is also in my last post. This is a wonderful design called “Meta Weave” by Lisa Hill, which you can purchase her Etsy site. I don’t know any weavers who don’t love a design that looks like weaving within weaving! Her instructions are for kitchen towels, but I decided to make 6 napkins in sets of two colors each. I used blue that you can see above, before switching to red, then green, and I managed to get a 7th napkin in yellow. I also found that I preferred the underside of the design.

Five yards and seven napkins!

Okay! Enough of that. It’s been a long time since I’ve woven a project so quickly. It was amazing to zip through this project, especially after the drawn out experience of weaving the paper placemats that required dyeing twice and unweaving two placemats after they were cut from the loom in order to get back some of the paper weft in order to dye it! That was almost the limit of my patience, but not the limit of my stubbornness, which may actually know no limits!

Then, in mid-November, a good friend gave me a table loom dressed with a sakiori project, also known as ‘rag’ weave. She gave me the loom because she thought I might be able to shoe-horn it onto Pandora. It’s a special loom. It belonged to the oldest current member (96!) of our state guild, whose father made several of these looms for her mother. Sue, our member, had dressed this particular loom with a loosely sleyed cotton warp which she intended to weave with 1/2″ strips of quilting cotton. The loom came with a large stash of cut cotton strips. I didn’t know how long the warp was, but I didn’t want to just cut it off. In fact, I didn’t want to lose all those cotton strips she had cut either. So I felt incredible time pressure to weave it off. And it was enjoyable, especially after I learned the interesting quirks of this little loom. When the levers are up the shafts are at rest. When I depressed the levers the shafts raised. It’s the opposite of any table loom I’ve ever used, and it took me some time to get used to that. In the long run the warp was enough for 3 runners, each about 20″ long by 10″ wide.

I gave away two of the runners, one to the woman who passed the loom to me, and the other to a friend whom I learned had helped Sue dress the loom and cut all the fabric strips. Sometimes things work out just as they should. I have my small runner aboard Pandora now. And how serendipitous it is that the color of the weft cotton strips goes quite well with our onboard decor. I couldn’t be more pleased.

Then, lo and behold, I had the intense desire to weave another sakiori design with my own fabric. Now it was truly approaching time to gather our family for Christmas and get packed to depart. I found some wonderful Christmas-y fabric at a fabric thrift shop while traveling with a friend to see an exhibition in Vermont (Salley Mavor). I wasn’t sure it would be enough, and fate led me to find it on Etsy. Also, it was a stroke of luck that my husband offered to cut the strips! Three yards of 1/2″ strips was no easy feat.

I loved every minute of the weaving. It flew by like skating on smooth ice.

It also worked well with a few of my Christmas runners. Win! Win!

We had a simple Christmas with our younger son and a local family and some of their adult children. Holidays have certainly morphed in new directions since our kids have grown and grandchildren have joined the family, sadly not nearby. It was suddenly time to take down our few Christmas decorations and get packed for the flight to Antigua where Pandora was waiting. That deadline threw me into thinking about what I’d accomplished in three months of weaving, and a temptation to look at the things I didn’t accomplish.

That’s when I thought of Janus and the new year. He is the Roman god of beginnings, hence his placement as the first month of the year. He is depicted as two-headed, each of his two faces looking the opposite direction. This is my Achilles heel (sorry for analogy, but it fits so well). I want to take stock and see my accomplishments measure up to my aspirations. But since they never do….what weaver ever finishes all the projects she plans?….it’s not necessarily healthy to go down this path.

My younger son uses an app called “Notion” in his start up business. I am now trying to learn it because I think it will change my attitude about taking stock. It’s an app for tracking projects and goals, mostly for businesses, but I think it could help me realize that I get a great deal done every year. I’m struggling with the app a bit, but in the long run I think it’s going to be a positive thing– a wonderful way of keeping track of all my aspirations, my progresses, and my accomplishments. Every year there are projects I lose track of, and can’t find, in my over-stuffed work space. This app will remind me of things I started and eventually forgot. If I can just learn the nuances of this application I think I will be thankful to use it. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, it’s the new year, I am now onboard living a very different kind of lifestyle, with scenes like these…

This is the giant mango tree in English Harbour, where people usually meet because it’s such an iconic place to gather.

I have started two knitting projects. The first is a shawl, which typical of me, has already been set aside due to more tempting projects! The yarn is what makes this project a zinger. It is handpainted with long runs of the background color and short spurts of the contrasting colors. The pattern calls for knitting the background color in stockinette, then when you see the contrasting colors approaching the needles, you make a little motif by putting five yarn overs on the next three stitches. On the next row you let the yarn overs drop and take the working yarn to wrap those long stitches, creating a little ‘star’ or ‘butterfly.’ I decided to make an asymmetrical shawl shape with a small Shetland lace border called “iron brand” on one side to continue the asymmetrical effect. I was thoroughly enjoying it until bigger thing stole my attention!

The project that took me away from this shawl was an advent calendar of yarn from Kate Davies Designs in Scotland. She has a yarn called “Milarrochy” that is a single ply, 70% wool, 30% mohair blend. I have used it to make her “Con Alma” vest a couple of years ago. The mohair blooms nicely when wet finished. Well, imagine my excitement when she announced that she’d made up boxes that held 24 small balls of “Milarocchy” for an advent calendar! I could not resist. So fun. The box arrived in early November, and it was hard to wait until December 1, but I did it. Here is a photo of the most exciting day for me. On the last day, the little bundle also held a card with a link to an e-book full of patterns for using this yarn.

Drumroll! I love that last color, a perfect Christmas red.

After a good deal of thought, and a fair amount of arranging the yarns into colorways I might knit, I decided to make a vest using Vivian Hoxbro’s ideas for shadow knitting. I am enjoying the process.

I was quite challenged at first because the only needle I had in the appropriate size was only 24″ long. My idea was to knit sideways, a left side front and back, then a right side front and back which would give me vertical stripes with shadows. That’s why I have the yarns gathered in two sections. The right and left sides of the vest will not match. What a struggle to knit that long run of stitches on a 24″ needle!

I was thrilled to discover not just one but two (!) #3 US circular needles that are 40″ long that I’d already stashed on Pandora earlier in the fall. The knitting is so much easier now. Can you see the shadow effect moving diagonally across the knitting? I am almost done with first left side front/back and am looking forward to starting the 2nd colorway for the right side of the vest.

So, here we all are at the open gate of the new year. Let’s all concentrate on looking forward, shall we? Not only about ourselves and our work, but also everything, from family, to community, to global issues. Let’s make this a banner year in as many ways as possible. That’s my wish for all of us.

A new venue

As happens every year in January, I have changed venue from my messy studio in Connecticut to a tiny living space and studio aboard our boat Pandora, in the Caribbean. It’s now mid-January, and I have been in Antigua in the West Indies for two weeks.

We arrived by plane on January 30, with one day to move into the historic English Harbour for the annual New Year’s Eve’s fireworks, after first having a memorable French dinner at La Brasserie. English Harbour is where Lord Nelson protected this island’s sugar cane plantations before he was Lord Nelson. He made a name for himself here which catapulted his career. Over the past 60 years Nelson’s Dockyard has been carefully restored and is now a UNESCO site. It’s a dramatic place, and also quite lovely. There is a strong sense of the 18th century here, amidst some modern conveniences, like running water and electricity for the boats on the dock!

Dinner at La Brasserie and the fireworks afterward never disappoint!

But my real story here is how I plan to continue to work while I am living aboard. I often get lonely over the winter because I miss ‘my people,’ those I meet with at groups throughout the year. They are the spinners, weavers, lace makers, and others who work with their hands who inspire me and learn with me. Down here people do plenty of work with their hands. Just keeping their boats running is a huge job, and often there are women who do handwork as well, which includes knitting, crocheting, quilting, embroidery, and other kinds of handwork, and even more pressing work like sail repair and canvas work on their boats. Sadly, in the 11 years we’ve been doing blue water sailing, I have yet to meet another weaver.

This year a friend of mine who is down here for the first time aboard her own boat, with her husband, has started a needlework group that meets twice a week. Now, why didn’t I think of that? Every Tuesday and Thursday we meet for at least two hours. The group changes week by week as some sailors move on to different harbors on different islands, and some new comers join us. It’s been fascinating. We actually have a member who lives here in a house, although she’s also quite an accomplished sailor. I definitely look forward to this creative time with new friends each week. Thank you, Ellen, for making this happen!

The restaurant of the Antigua Yacht Club allows us to use their space to meet. How generous! Our surroundings are amazing so sometimes we just have put down our projects and admire the views.

I have been bringing my tiny Nano 2 e-spinner to some of the meetings. This is my first spinning project on this little gem, and I was concerned about stressing it by filling the bobbin too full or spinning too fast. It can handle anything I’ve done so far, and I think it’s perfect for spinning in small spaces.

The second bobbin is almost full, so Bob will soon be ’inventing’ a lazy Kate for me to hold the bobbins while I ply the the strands of yarn together from each bobbin. I knew I’d forget something! I’m looking forward to seeing how the plied yarn turns out. I believe I know what I’ll do with this yarn when I get access to my looms at home.

This old fashioned hot water bottle cover was the first thing I finished during the first week of January. I won’t need it down here, will I? Still, it was something that caught my eye before we left home, and I enjoyed knitting it! To make the opening I knit one round in waste yarn, only on the front half of the stitches, and then unpicked the waste yarn to separate the front into two pieces for an opening.

As I unpicked the waste yarn I picked up stitches on both the upper and lower sides of the knitting. Then I could knit ribbing on the lower half and ribbing plus a button hole on the upper half.

And here is the finished hot water bottle cover. I just need a button. I will block this on the actual water bottle when I return home.

Yesterday was my birthday, and I woke up to two surprises. One was a decorated main saloon on Pandora! Bob bought these fun decorations in the US before he sailed down here. How thoughtful! It feels like party, although I do not! I awoke on my birthday to some kind of very nasty bug. I hope it’s only food poison, but in the middle of the night for the past two nights I’ve imagined myself dying of ecoli or some other horrible thing. Surely, I’ll be on the mend soon!

And how about these fun knitting inspired presents? I love them! This is a journal in case you’re wondering.

In the meantime, I had a wonderful zoom call with family and a couple of close friends. The joys of keeping in touch with loved ones, from such remote places, is priceless! This year Bob has just installed Star Link. So far, so good! It’s struggling with streaming video so far, and it requires more of our battery power than he realized. Thank heaven for solar, wind, and lithium batteries. I have been trying to catch up on the videos I missed from Giovanna Imperia’s class for the American Kumihimo Society’s recent online event. But I’m not discouraged yet! It’s interesting to hear the small white Star Link disc change direction as Pandora moves to and fro at anchor.

I hope to back to normal soon so I can finish spinning and move on to other projects. I wish you well in your own endeavors in the new year.

The Toroise and the Hare

Sometimes it’s bit off-putting when my husband Bob recites his long list of accomplishments at the end of a day and then asks me what I did.  Most of the time I can only reply that I wove a couple square inches of a tapestry, or made one inch of lace.  Sometimes I feel more like a slug than even a tortoise!

If I had this conversation with other weavers and lace makers we’d all be high-fiving each other for getting such a LOT of good work done in a day!  Wouldn’t we?

The slow march to having enough lace for Tori’s christening gown is enjoyable time for me, except when someone else tells me the 10 things, or 100 things they’ve done in the same amount of time.

–Which brings me to the list I made ages ago on the relative amount of time it takes to do various handwork.  Here it is, in my order of fastest to slowest.

  1.  Machine sewing!  It’s down right warp speed compared to all the others!
  2. Loom controlled weaving.
  3. Kumihimo/Knitting….zoom, zoom–I think it’s a tie.
  4. Embroidery
  5. Tapestry weaving
  6. Bobbin Lace

Sometimes I get a little down that I am attracted to doing things that move so slowly.  Sometimes I don’t care at all.

During September and October we spent almost two weeks with Tori.  She is a bundle of giggles and smiles interspersed with an occasional stunning tantrum.  I love every minute of being with her!  Here she is wearing the Debbie Bliss sweater that I knitted last spring.  She has almost outgrown it, so it’s time to think of her next sweater!

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I often see a lot of Tori’s mother in Tori, but this photo seems all ‘Butler’ to me.  I see my father, my sister, and even me!–so, of course that means I see her father too.

It’s time to find the next knitted garment to make for her.  Years ago I bought the pattern and yarn for this Dale baby sweater.

I have had this pattern for years and have hesitated to make it, wondering if it’s a bit too busy for such a small person. I think it might be cuter as a dress, knitted from the top down, with raglan shaping so the shoulders fit better.  The ladybug pattern would have one repeat around the torso and upper arms and another near the hem of the dress.  I am leaning toward the bright green for the background color, with perhaps the little Fair Isle pixie stripes here and there with yellow background.  One ladybug pattern on the purple background, and the other on the bright aqua.  I have to take a look at the yarn I purchased for this sweater and adjust the amounts since I would be changing so much of the design.  Luckily Dale baby yarn is super wash so Tori’s mom won’t have to be too careful with caring for this.  I’m getting a bit enthusiastic, so I’d better make the plan and get the yarn onboard before we leave!

Meanwhile, I have started the actual christening gown now.  I have 49″ of the larger lace and am trying to make an inch or two each day now.  By the end of next week I should have all the lace finished!  The fabric that Kandice chose for the dress is stunning!  I originally bought white linen at Britex, but Kandice sent me a photo from Pinterest of a dress made of silk shantung that she loved.

It is beautiful fabric!  On our way down to visit them last week, I made a quick stop at Banksville Fabric in Norwalk and was thrilled to find they had it!  The dress in this photo is basically the same as the pattern I’m making, with a slightly fitted bodice and an attached gathered skirt.  Now can you picture this with my lace?  I might put the larger lace along the hem as well as at the lower edge of the bodice.

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Well, talk is cheap….I’d better get to work on making the last few inches of lace.  The tortoise only succeeds by keeping at it!

 

 

 

Antigua to Guadeloupe, from English Charm to French Shabby Chic

We left Antigua more than a week ago, and I have not had internet until now.  Bob has had better luck than with that than I have.  Isn’t that weird??  He’ll be sitting next to me able to get email and write a blog post while my computer will not connect.  The mysteries of cyberspace…. especially the mystery that his ancient clunker of a PC works so much better than my moderately middle ages Macbook.  Hmmm…

Guadeloupe is the most beautiful island I have ever seen!  Some of our cruising friends have told me that Antigua is the beginning of the ‘real’ Caribbean, and that every island gets more and more beautiful as you head south.  I really cannot imagine that.  We spent almost a week in the small harbor of Deshaies (pronounced DAY ‘Eh–reminds me of a certain Caribbean song made famous by Harry Belafonte…how about you?) on the northwestern coast of Guadeloupe, and I was thoroughly enamored of the charming seaside village.  As we sailed in the mountains rose up all around us and a tiny bit of shoreline was dotted with colorful buildings, all with red roofs.  The scene was dominated by a white tower with a red roof that rose above all the other buildings.  No surprise that it is the Catholic church for the village.  We had arrived back in the land of baguettes and wonderful vegetables!

But before I talk about Guadeloupe, I should finish up with our last days in Antigua.  We rented a car to take Chris to the airport, so after we said our tearful goodbyes (for my part certainly), we took the rest of the day to explore parts of the island we could not get to on foot.

Betty’s Hope is a well known tourist attraction.  At some point in Antigua’s past there were about 600 stone windmills on the island, used to power the processing of sugar cane into sugar.  All these windmills were built by the hard labor of slaves and oxen.  There are still about a hundred windmills in various stages of decay on the island, but two at Betty’s Hope are beautiful examples. One has been restored to working order and is used to demonstrate grinding the cane on certain occasions.  While we were not there on one of those occasions, it was still very impressive to see the windmills.  Just to move the arms to face into the wind requires a lot of manpower and oxen power.

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Betty’s Hope was named for the daughter of the landowner.  I was disappointed to learn this.  I had hoped that the name was in honor of a slave woman, possibly the wife, mother, aunt, grandmother of several of the men who had built these windmills.  Well, so much for my romantic notions about the history of this place.  What on earth was this Betty hoping for?  A big sugar yield to make her family wealthier than they already were?  I can imagine so many more interesting hopes for a Betty who lived and worked the land with her family than for the real Betty.  Still, I bet there is some pretty interesting history here.  I would know more if we had internet!

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Betty’s hope is now home to a large herd of goats, which Bob and I enjoyed most of all!  There were lots of kids frolicking, even some newborns.  Baby goats are about as cute as babies get! Our new baby granddaughter, Tori, would have enjoyed them too!

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We have been so entertained by all the goats on Antigua.  There is large solar farm in the middle of the island where we saw goats eating the weeds around the panels.  This is their day job. Late in the afternoon the goats somehow know it’s time to go home.  They head out with no shepherd to guide them.  They know the way.

Bob and Chris encountered this mother and kid heading home after a day out.  Bob said the kid whined the whole time he and Chris were behind them.  Makes you wonder if kids complain about the long trip home, or the heat of the day, or even the two creepy humans following them, just like our kids might. The goat mother bore it without comment.

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And speaking of kids, here is a scene from our last full day with Christopher before he headed back to his new home in San Francisco.  We took a cab up to Shirley Heights, right outside of English Harbour.  It’s a great place to watch the sunset, and every Sunday hundreds of people show up to do just that.

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With a view like this, you can see how popular it would be–

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–especially at sunset.

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Back to the day that Chris left– at the end of the day we drove out to the northeastern corner of the island to see something called “Devil’s Bridge.”  I had no idea what this might be, and so I was pretty awestruck to see this natural wonder.  It doesn’t look like it will last much longer, but that’s just conjecture on my part. Maybe it’s been in this almost crumbled state for a century already.  I know that people walk across this bridge, but I certainly wasn’t going to try it.  Bob didn’t either!

When we returned our rental car to a parking lot in Falmouth just around sunset, and I was feeling a bit sorry for myself to return to Pandora sans Christopher, we found that the local liquor store was having a tasting of French wines hosted by a French importer who lives on St. Martin.  It was a very nice distraction to an evening I was dreading!  All in all a wonderful last day on Antigua.

The next day we sailed about 50 miles to the pretty harbor of Deshaies on Guadeloupe.  Here is a bit of what we do when we have a long day at sea.  Bob fishes!  This time I was quite lucky that he caught a small tuna!  It’s no fun at all when he catches a king mackerel, and hardly fun when he catches a giant mahi mahi because we have to deal with a very large fish on a rather small boat!  This tuna was perfect for our appetites and our size boat!

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I worked on my orange linen sweater while we were underway, which sometimes includes winding a ball of yarn (Shibui linen) on the steering wheel.

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At mid-afternoon we arrived in Deshaies.  It was wonderful to be back in the land of French food.  There are plenty of tourists here, but also a big fleet of local fisherman.  The next morning we were given a first hand view of fishing with a purse seine right behind Pandora.

First the men dropped the net in a wide circle between Pandora and the boat behind us.  One of the crew jumped overboard wearing his shorts and t-shirt and snorkeling gear.  Perhaps he was checking on how the net was laying before the rest of the crew began drawing in the purse.  3-22-17b 006

As the crew began to draw in the circle of net at the water’s surface, the diver stayed at the opening.  We are guessing that by being there, he discourages any fish from trying to escape at the opening of the net.

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The crew began drawing in both the perimeter of the net on the surface as well as the purse at the bottom to trap the fish.  As the net closed more I could tell that this was very hard work. In fact, once both the top and bottom of the net was closed, the diver got back on board to help pull it in.

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There is a pelican inside the net, helping himself to a bit of the catch.

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It was a good catch! My friend Maureen (Kalunamoo) told me that these fish get fried in strips and served like French fries.  I have not seen this yet in any restaurants. But, when we were ashore yesterday, we came back to our dinghy to find several pelicans diving right around the dinghy dock and three dead fish in our dinghy, just like the fish in the net.  There must have been a school of them being chased by larger fish and some jumped right into our dingy to escape certain death from the big fish– only to find themselves stuck in our dinghy.  Out of the fire and into the frying pan, as the saying goes….

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Experienced cruisers in this area, including Bill and Maureen from Kalunamoo, have told us that once you get to Antigua the islands just get more and more beautiful as you head south.  It’s hard for me to imagine this!  Both Antigua and Guadeloupe are so charming and scenic and dramatic with their ancient volcanic mountains–how can it get better?  I guess I will have to wait and see.

A Day at the Cricket Match

Well, who knew I’d ever be talking about cricket–me, the obsessive weaver/knitter and somewhat reluctant sailor will now spend a few words on cricket.  We were given tickets to the West Indian/English cricket match here on Antigua.  Antigua has spent a fortune on a modern stadium for this sport so the locals must love this game.  They have chosen having a stadium over having better water or sewage systems on the island, and certain over having good roads.  Who am I to say what’s more important?

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Lucky for us that two very nice Englishmen were seated in front of us, who were willing to explain the game and give us some background on cricket.  It’s a long game.  We arrived over an hour after the start and still saw most of the first half, in which the West Indian team was batting.  By the end of that half they had scored 258 points.

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I know these photos don’t do justice to the action.  All I can say is that I’ve never seen anyone run as fast all these men do!  It was more exciting than watching the Olympics just to see them run and catch balls.  They can catch anything!

I wish I had a photo of our English cricket tutors.  They were both dressed so perfectly shabby/chic in their rumpled linen shirts and khaki shorts, finished off with panama hats and shabby boat shoes.  Their diction was also perfectly Queen’s English.  I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn they are both barristers, or maybe even earls.  Enchanting gentlemen…

The spectators were very well dressed.  This has to be quite a big social event for the locals.  And during the breaks you could buy all kinds of food–or get your face painted!

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We left about 4 pm, even though there was more than an hour left in the game.  Because the game is played in two halves, with only one team able to score during its own half, we have no way to know who won.  Maybe we can find out from a local when we get ashore later. You do really do have to stay for the whole 8 hours!

Life aboard continues as ever.  More of our acquaintances have arrived in the harbor so we’ve had several nice get togethers. As you can see our numbers are growing.  It’s hard to all congregate on one boat so we’ve moved on to larger venues on shore.

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Each day brings it own chores, just like home anywhere.  The last week was focused on fixing broken things aboard Pandora, and Bob has made some great headway on those things.  We are still waiting for some kind of power supply for the SSB, and then that repair will be finished.  Our friends on Kalunamoo came into Falmouth yesterday with a broken windlass.  You may remember what that is from a couple weeks back when ours died as well.  It’s the thing that pulls up the anchor since a hundred or more feet of chain is way too much for a mere human to handle.  It’s important.  When it breaks it’s time to get on that project right away.

This morning we have been busy making water and doing two loads of laundry.  I hope to get out my small tapestry by noon.  Tori’s little sailor sweater is finished and almost ready for giving when I see her at Easter.  I hope her parents will like it enough to have her wear it through the spring and on cool summer nights.

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I almost took a photograph of all our laundry hanging out to dry, but then thought better of it!  Here’s a photo of what Bob has to do to get anything out of our freezer for dinner.  “You want the WHAT??? Honey, that’s at the very bottom!”

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Our younger son Chris arrives next Wednesday to spend almost a week with us in English Harbor on Antigua.  March and April are big months in the Osborn family.  Both Rob and Kandice have birthdays in March–Rob’s is this Wednesday!  Where does the time go??  In between Rob’s and Kandice’s birthdays, little Tori will turn three months old!  I haven’t seen her in a month now and she is changing rapidly, as babies do.  Luckily Rob and Kandice send us new photos of her almost every day.

Here she is looking very glam in her shades!

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And this was taken yesterday.  For almost a month now she has been standing up while holding on to Mom or Dad.  It appears she may be as precocious as her daddy was at that age.  I’m enjoying remembering Rob’s babyhood through Tori, but I know that Tori’s mom and dad are in for wild ride ahead! She started doing this just after turning 2 months old.

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Chris’s birthday with be next month, just before Easter.  So much to celebrate, and we are too far away to do it properly!

Time to finish sewing that last seam in Tori’s sailor sweater and then get out my loom…. maybe Bob will find out who won the cricket match while he is ashore using the internet to order some more things for Pandora.

Traveling with Friends

It is early February, and I am writing from Simpson Bay Lagoon on St. Martin in the Caribbean.  We are later this year in slipping our moorings in New England and moving aboard Pandora.  Lots of things contributed to the delay, but we are here now, anchored near some dear sailing friends who are introducing us to others who will become friends as the months and years pass.

After entering this harbor on the first bridge opening this morning, we anchored near the ketch Kalunamoo, whose owners are friends who took us under their wings five years ago to lead us through the Bahamas on our first trip down there.  Now they will surely be our tour guides though the Windward and Leeward Islands.  We see each other each summer when our boats are back in north Atlantic waters, but this is our first winter rendevous in three years.  It’s so comfortable being together again by water.

Before I left home another dear friend, one I’ve known as a weaver and land-based friend, sent me her map of St. Martin.  She and her family spent a couple of weeks here only a month ago, and she wanted to share with me a map highlighted with the things they enjoyed doing, the restaurants they visited, the boat excursions they took.

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Now that I’m here and am beginning to get my bearings, it’s wonderful to see the places she visited and know that I will follow in her footsteps.  It’s going to be a fun part of this trip, finally visiting places that some of my friends have been before, even if they traveled very differently than Bob and I are doing.  It should help me feel less isolated this year than I have in the past–especially last year, in Cuba.  That was a wonderful trip in many ways, but it was also the most isolated place I have ever been, since at the time, the US allowed no communications with Cuba.

We left home a week ago, and already I get daily photos of my new granddaughter, the Tiny Super Moon named Tori.  She is such a joy to both Bob and me.  He still gets teary every time he sees a new photo of her.  I get the lightest feeling in my chest….such happiness!  Here she is beginning to celebrate her 2nd month birthday, although she won’t actually be 2 months old for another week!  I guess it was a great photo op for her parents. 1-IMG_0293 Before I left I tried my hand at a bit of embroidery that I found on Facebook.  It’s astounding to me what I stumble on perusing fb.  I’m glad to know this technique–I think it will come in handy for all kinds of projects.  I embroidered this little onesie as a practice, and clearly I need more practice.  But I’ll get it eventually.  I’ll do some spring colored onesies in this technique soon.  Hmmm….no photo.  Where did it go?

I have started a little sailor sweater for Tori.  It is one I made a few years back for my niece.  It’s a design by Debbie Bliss and uses her soft eco cotton.  This time I am using a soft green/blue color that I call faded robin’s egg, with cream.  I love it.  I’m still stumped by what I feel is a bad design for the collar.  Sorry Ms. Bliss, especially since I love your designs! It’s the focal point of the sweater and I still cannot make peace with wrong side of striped garter stitch showing.  For my niece I knitted the collar in a single color.  I am debating what to do for this version.  I have time to decide.

After 4 days in the BVI, making very quick visits to West End, Jost Van Dyke, and Bitter End on Virgin Gorda, we have made the long, 100-mile passage to St. Martin.  The weather has been challenging for the past month (since before I got here), and our weather router suggested that it is quite UNlikely that there will be a good time to head east for the next several weeks.  So we took the lesser of bad weather days to slog eastward yesterday.  It took us 15 hours to travel 100 miles, in fairly rough conditions.  They were very rough for me, but nothing like what Bob and his crew endured getting down to the BVI.  I was very sick for the full 15 hours.  We anchored out in Grand Case Bay on St. Martin, which I understand can be very lovely in calmer weather.  Last night there was quite a swell rolling in there that kept us rolling side to side.  We entered Simpson Bay Lagoon on the first bridge opening this morning….not a moment too soon.

We have reconnected with our good friends and will join them for dinner tonight at a Middle Eastern restaurant called Little Jerusalem, where we will start to meet people we’ve heard of many times through various groups, and whom we’ve spoken to on the radio.  The beginning of new friendships.  I wonder if I’ll meet a knitter or a weaver.  You never know.

Knitting to the Rescue!

It’s sad for me to report that my looms are in the same condition as when I arrived home.  Life has gotten in the way of my plans…

While I was determining the most pleasing way to thread the pattern for the JOY (Just Our Yarn) yardage project, I had my semi-annual visit to the dermatologist and discovered that a worrisome spot on my arm had become melanoma.  I noticed this spot had changed to something of concern back in January, but I could not get to a doctor then since we had already sailed away to tropical waters.

Still, the news was a bit shocking to me.  I was already beyond Stage 1, so removal of lymph nodes was mandatory on top of removal of the offending spot which ended up being much bigger than what shows on the skin.  It’s all behind me now.  I got a consultation with a surgeon at Smilow Hospital at Yale, and the surgery was only a week later.  Whew!  Two weeks later I got the news that my lymph nodes are clear and that the surgeon got clear borders around the malignant cells.

Yet I’m still not weaving…. The long cut on my arm and the smaller incision in my underarm severed quite a few nerves, and regaining use of my arm is going to take longer than I imagined.  That’s a small price to pay for getting rid of the melanoma, and I can certainly knit and also do bobbin lace.  And every day I am doing arm motions to improve my dexterity.  Very strangely, I have all kinds of odd sensations in my arm all the way down to my hand:  burning, stinging, numbness.  It’s very strange.

Meanwhile,  back to talking about weaving.  Diane and Cathy from Just Our Yarns gave a program to the Connecticut weaving guild last November, in which they demonstrated using two completely different handpainted yarns for warp and weft.  One of the slides showed a scarf woven with a warp of one of their skeins painted from the cool side of the color wheel–mostly blues and purples.  The weft was a brilliant contrast of oranges, yellows and peaches.  You cannot always purchase colorways that you see and like in JOY yarns since they do not repeat any of their handpainted designs exactly.  But I found two contrasting handpainted that should give a similar effect.

I chose a twill weave structure called “Raku” by Carol Bodin from the book Sixy Scarves for Sixty Years from the Weavers’ Guild of Greater Baltimore.  Here is a partial view of my plan.

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The long warp and weft floats should show off the color contrast of the warp and weft nicely. My warp is mostly muted greys, purples and blues, while my weft is a blend of peaches and creams. The sett will be 35 epi so those floats won’t be too long.

Now, the BIG question:  Should I flip the threading at the center of the warp and have the second half of the threading lean the opposite way?  Should I flip every other repeat of the sequence??  Should I just thread the whole thing in one direction and cut the fabric and turn it as needed for whatever I end up making?

I’ve favored each of these ideas at different times, and at the moment I’ve come full circle back to leaving the threading alone.  It would certainly help if I already knew what I will make with the finished fabric.  Typical of me, I have focused on the intrigue of working with this yarn rather than what I might do with fabric.  The warp is 17″ wide on the loom and I plan to weave 5 yards.

Meanwhile, as I ponder what to do about that threading,  I’ve been knitting and doing some Idrija lace on a bolster pillow.  I don’t even have to prop up my right arm on pillows anymore in order to knit, so I’m definitely improving.  This baby blanket is moving along nicely.  Interestingly, after looking at innumerable lace patterns, I ended up choosing a Eugen Buegler pattern.  He has designed lace patterns for many years and you can see many of his designs at the link above and on ravelry, as well as in numerous books by XRX.  He designed the first lace shawl I ever knitted, over 20 years ago.  I actually went to the local knitting store as I felt myself coming down with the flu in order to make sure that I had something to knit while I would be stuck in bed.  I still have that shawl…. in butterscotch colored, fine merino yarn from Grignasco.

But back to knitting for little baby Ozzie.  Here is the baby blanket as shown on Ravlery. It is called “Lace Plumes Baby Blanket” and is available as a downloadable pattern from Fiber Trends. Thank you, Eugen!  I’m using “Sublime Baby Cashmere” which I ordered from Jimmy Bean’s Wool.

I’m now further along than this photo shows because I work on it almost every evening, and then I realize that evening is not a good time for getting a photo.

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Next up will be this adorable sweater from Little French Knits on Etsy.  It’s a bit feminine, but, since I am so smitten with this little gem, I am clinging to the fact that, should our little bundle of joy be a boy,  they have traditionally dressed in rather delicate clothes as newborns.  This is just too lovely to pass on. Oui?

I have not yet shown a photo of the first sweater I made for our future little one.  The pattern is a design by Sephanie Pearl McPhee called Nouveau-ne.  It is delicate and fun to knit without being overly feminine.  I used Plymouth Yarns “Perlina” which is 100% merino which I bought at my LYS, Saybrook Yarns. The pattern has a matching bonnet style hat that I have finished but did not photograph yet.  There are also booties which I have not yet started.

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I have little limpet shells from the Bahamas that I will use as buttons instead of what I’ve shown here.  I lent my stash of limpets to a friend, and as soon as I get them back I’ll pick out the tiniest ones for buttons on this sweater.  I think it will be wonderful to have a little embellishment from our travels on our grandchild’s first sweater.  Aren’t I clever??

And I turned my attention back to the little Idrija lace ‘doodah’ that I started at the lace retreat back in May.  This little organic shape reminds me of a fiddle head fern or some kind of sea creature.  I’ve decided to make this two more times in a combination of blue and green.

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Second fiddlehead doodah in progress.  As you can see, the piece is woven upside down. On the next version I will make the central ‘squiggle’ in green and the side ‘squiggles’ in blue.  Then I plan to attach them to one of my summer tops.  Hopefully soon!

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So the past month has been taken up with the excitement of a first grandchild and the fears of having cancer–cancer that managed to progress past stage 1 before I got diagnosed.  It’s been an emotional roller coaster, and as usual, handwork– mostly knitting– has saved the day.  It took a full month to get diagnosed, have an initial consult with a surgeon, have the surgery, and get the pathology reports.  Waiting may not be the hardest part of being sick, but it’s certainly not easy.  Making these little projects and dreaming about future projects is what kept me sane during those long weeks.

Today I stumbled on this book of animal themed pom-poms made by a Japanese woman. She has captured the essence of each animal. After making each pom-pom with a mix of colors to imitate the animal’s fur, she adds details with needle felting.  I looked for the book online, hoping to order it, but so far I only found it on Japanese Amazon with no ability to order from the US.  I shall try harder.

And here’s a video of the author making a bear and teaching others the technique.

Just another little idea for Baby Ozzie to tuck away.  I hope I can find the book!

Basket Man

Yesterday may have been our last day to visit Old Havana, and I’m so glad I didn’t know it then because I would have felt a need to rush about more. Luckily we had a relaxing day and enjoyed some kind of holiday celebration that was happening.

We are trying to figure out the best ‘weather window’ for leaving Cuba. We knew we’d get the window some time this week, and now it looks like tomorrow is the day. So, here is our loose game plan. The winds are opposing the gulf stream a good deal of the time right now, but for the next couple of days those winds are pretty mild from pre-dawn until midday. So we will leave early in the morning, and sail in the gulf stream until the afternoon, when hopefully we will be near Key Largo. At that point we’ll head toward shore, out of the stream, and sail near the Florida coast until early the next morning when the winds die down again. We’ll head back into the Gulf Stream to Ft. Lauderdale, where we hope to clear in. By doing this we get a boost of speed from the northbound currents in the Gulf Stream while the opposing winds are mild, and when those opposing winds are stronger during the afternoon and evenings, we’ll slip out of the stream into the calmer waters outside the stream. I’m sure I’ll be sick, but hopefully less so than during some of our passages this winter.

The US Coast Guard sent us an email the other day (right after Bob had just composed a message to them) to ask if we were still on schedule for returning to the US by May 1. Bob responded, and we are hoping to hear back on whether we can clear in to Ft. Lauderdale. I have my fingers crossed about this because it will be more convenient for us to arrive in Ft. Lauderdale than in Miami. My flight home is Tuesday morning, out of Ft. Lauderdale.

Bob has just heard that the no-anchoring bill in Florida will indeed go into effect on May 1, so our plans for arriving in Ft. Lauderdale have to be adjusted. We will go to Miami instead, not a first choice for either of us. I guess we will rent a car to get to my Ft. Lauderdale flight. That’s boat life for you….you can make all the plans you want, even at the last minute, when you think you’ve got everything in hand, but the powers that be just laugh and laugh.

Yesterday we went back into Old Havana to look for the headquarters of the Women’s Federation for Handwork. Over the weekend we found the retail shop where the garments are sold, but the workshop where women take courses and make things for the shop is closed on the weekends. Yesterday we had a bit of a run around trying to find the workshop. When we did find it, we learned that all the ‘professores’ were gone since classes only take place in the mornings, while we arrived in the early afternoon. Maybe it’s just my imagination, and a leftover feeling from my visit to the workshop in Santiago, but I got the distinct impression that there would be complications trying to get anyone to see me. Yesterday I got to speak to a custodian and a language teacher, but when I asked for a ‘manager’ they both responded that ‘this was not possible.’ After meeting the open and generous women on the Paseo del Prada, and sharing such an excitement for handwork in spite of our communication barriers, I just couldn’t muster enough energy at this point to care if I met the administrators of this federation. I don’t think their goals are quite the same as mine. Admittedly I do not have the ‘whole picture,’ but from my limited perspective I believe their goal is to promote traditional clothing and make a successful business training women to keep these techniques alive and make the garments ‘saleable.’ It is a business venture that needs to succeed, and I hope it does succeed because that just makes handwork more valuable to everyone. But my mission is to meet women who love handwork and want to share what they do. I found that in spades with the group of women who surround Adriana Martinez.

It was some kind of holiday yesterday, but I never understood what! Several people wished us a ‘happy holiday,’ and museums were open in Old Havana that had been closed during our previous visits. While we were in the ceramic museum, I asked our guide what holiday was being celebrated, and she replied that it was the national holiday for ceramics. Bob and I are not at all sure we understood this properly. All kinds of museums were open that have been closed during our previous visits…maybe the holiday was really about Cuban heritage. Anyway, our guide still maintained that it was a ceramics holiday.

The ceramic museum was in the home of an historic ceramic artist who had a workshop and shop on the ground floor and living quarters for his family on the upper floor. The building was from the late 19th century with a central courtyard, and it made a wonderful museum for a history of Cuban ceramic artists. Each room featured a different time period of artists’ works. The courtyard was devoted to vessels and large figures.

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Our guide understood enough English for me to tell her that one of my good friends is a ceramics artist who does large figures in terracotta. I took these photos for her.

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Somehow in our conversation it came about that our guide loves to knit. She took us to the entrance of the employees lounge and asked us to be very quiet since her boss was in there. She went in and came back moments later with a little bag of her knitting. It was the same ecru cotton floss type thread that the women on Paseo del Prada were using to crochet and make lace. I wonder where they get this material. Our guide told us she’d like to knit all day long, but can only find a few minutes here and there during her breaks at work. She said she never gets any time to knit at home because she has to cook and take care of her family. Sound familiar?

There were so many places open for touring or for business that had not been open all weekend long. It was a festive day, and there women dressed in traditional costumes on many street corners. You could take a photo of there for $5 CUC, which seemed a bit dear to us. Near the end of the day, Bob managed a discreet photo from a distance.

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One of the places that had been closed over the weekend was a perfumerie. We had looked through the windows of this museum/shop and admired the antique brass containers used for distilling fragrances, the wonderful colonial furniture and display cabinets, and the glass apothercary jars that held the fragrances. I was thrilled to get into this shop to see things at close range! Bob took some photos while I smelled the fragrances and bought a ceramic jar of violetta for myself and lavender for my sister.

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Every store has a beautiful courtyard since they are housed in historic buildings. This is the courtyard of the perfumeria.  Bob and I had been admiring the stained glass every time we walked by this building over the weekend.

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In the late afternoon yesterday, Bob and I happened upon a young man making baskets from palm fronds. In his large basket he had a number of exquisite, small items made from the fronds….birds, and a little house with a cricket on top.

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He was easy to talk to and knew enough English that we could communicate quite well. As Bob and I were marveling at the fineness of these tiny basket creations, he offered me one of his ‘birds.’ It appeard that he was giving me a gift, but I wasn’t entirely sure. Here again was someone offering a gift and letting fate take his generosity where it would. I put the bird back in his large basket and asked him for the little house with a cricket on top. Buying that took a bit more time and frustration than we’d anticipated! First, Bob could not find his money, and as he searched we had the sickening feeling that maybe we’d lost all our money. After a few heartstopping minutes he did find his stash of money, but then we did not have exact change to buy the little cricket. The basket maker could not make change for us. So Bob went in to the local bar to ask for change, but they did not have it either. Then the basket maker left his spot to go buy a beer which would give him change. (You can walk about the streets in Havana with alcohol). He came back smiling, and yet he still did not have the necessary change! In the end, laughing, he accepted somewhat less than his price, and he still handed me the little bird as a gift.

Bob and I went to dinner with my little house with cricket and my birdie sitting on the table before us as a quirky centerpiece. We kept admiring both these baskets, and I decided I had to have another little house with cricket as a present. I hoped we’d still find our basket maker on the street where we left him by the time we left the restaurant—which was a beautiful courtyard that had once been a print shop.

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Restaurant Imprenta:

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When we got back to the spot where we’d seen the basket maker, the other street artists had just finished packing up their wares and were headed home. Likely the basket maker would soon be doing the same. But we’d gotten there just in time to ask if we could watch him make a little house with cricket on top, and he seemed happy to oblige even though he still had one already made. It took about 20 minutes for him to make, and we had a wonderful conversation with him as he worked.

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He started with two long palm fronds and crossed the fronds (north/south/east/west) over each other in the middle of the frond lengths. Starting with the ends that taper down to points, he began to fold each frond over the other in a consecutive direction. Since the fronds were tapering down to their outer ends the little box he was making got smaller and smaller, tapering like the fronds themselves. This made the roof of the house.

 

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Then he went back to the other half of the fronds that led to the base of where they’d been cut from the tree, and he made the same consecutive folds for making a square. This made the house itself. Very clever. He cut some frond strips to insert into the box for doors and windows.

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The exquisite litte cricket!

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As he worked we talked…. He loves to make baskets and these little figures are things he ‘invents’ himself. He is always thinking of ways to make some kind of little structure or animal out of the traditional basket making techniques that he uses to make regular baskets. He took out his phone and showed us photos of his baskets. If he’d had any of these with him I would have bought some too! He does careful work that results in beautiful baskets!

I told him that I sometimes make baskets too, but not from palm fronds since there are no palm trees where I live. Bob took my phone and began showing photos of my weaving and bobbin lace since he could not find any photos of my baskets. When Bob showed a photo of my tatting the basketmaker’s face lit up and he said his wife does this! I asked if his wife also does crochet and ‘tejer,’ and of course he said yes! He said she loves these techniques and loves to work with her hands. We had a little discussion of how it feels to let our hands work the repetitive motions of these crafts while our minds are free to ponder. Making things with our hands allows our brains time to contemplate many things.   He also told me he plays the piano and the violin. Someday he’d like to have a cello. He loves the cello most of all.

After giving me the little house with cricket he’d just made, he asked if I’d like him to make a snake. Naturally I said yes. I was curious to see what other techniques might be used to make these little figures, and the snake involved a different kind of manipulation of the fronds. When he finished he gave me that too. He really was most generous!

The only downside of our visit with him happened when a woman stopped for a moment to watch while he was making little cricket on top of the house for me. He offered her the one that was already completed. When he told her the price ($3 CUC) she said, “Big city prices….no thank you!” and walked away. We were all stunned. Yes, there are vendors who have high prices for things and who expect you to bargain, but these are mostly vendors who sell things that they have bought to sell. The artists we’ve encountered sell their work for very little, and I cannot imagine haggling with them. Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but how can you expect to pay even less for such an exquisite concoction of creativity? $3 Cuc for 20 minutes of work? Also, as a craftsman myself, I have stood in my own booths over the years and overheard people say that handwoven items are too expensive—that you can buy something just like it in a store for far less.

Well, you cannot buy a little basket woven house with a tiny cricket on top in any store that I know of. I was disappointed in this exchange. It would have been better for her to acknowledge what a little gem he’d just handed her, but that she could not spare the money at this time. It’s such a sad commentary that she felt she had to devalue his work in order to get away.

During all our cab trips to and from Old Havana we drive through modern Havana, including Embassy Row.  The US Embassy is newly opened and has never been on the avenue where all the other embassies are.  Most of the embassies are in historic colonial buildings and are quite a sight.  The Russian Embassy is the exception, although it too is quite a sight!  It is an wonderful example of Soviet architecture.

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Tonight we’ll have drinks around the pool here in Marina Hemingway with some of the other cruisers we’ve met in the last few weeks, along with Lars whom we met as we arrived in Cuba two months ago.  Some of us will walk to a local Spanish restaruant in the nearby town (Jaimentio?–something like that) to have a final dinner together.  Then is farewell to Havana and to Cuba.  It’s been great, but home is beckoning.  Bienvenidos Florida by this time on Friday!