A couple catch-ups

In my fine tradition of doing everything late......

Since I did the finishing at the last minute, I didn't get a chance to show the final products before Christmas. The first two are my BIL's ornie. The front is an over-1 version in Needle Necessities of an old French pattern:



And for my sister an over-one penguin on one of mom's spools:


I'd like to be able to do what lots of other folks are, and share my favorite finish of 2007, but at the moment I think my favorite one is a still-secret one. Mind you this week it's owner is supposed to finally meet it and go to get it framed, but that'd hinge on me finding it. Sigh. I just saw it before Christmas and, well, apparently I put it "somewhere safe." Dang it I hate it when I do that!

More soon... I have many exchanges and gifts to share, but, alas, no time!

Have a lovely!!!!!

More DC tripping.....

.... OK, I've managed to get some more pics uploaded for sharing. And it
is a good thing I still have travel pics since my stitchign of late has been "secret" stitching so I couldn't share that anyway!

My final hours in NYC were spent exploring around Wall Street. I visited Trinity Church where Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin are buried and where this memorial to 9-11 stands:

It's a representation of an old tree that was damaged/destroyed on 9-11. The sculpture now sits in memory to the left of Trinity's front door. Aside from the famous personages, the Trinity graveyard also has some fine examples of Colonial and early Republic gravestone angels --

While I have to admit I can be "entertained" for hours if left loose in an old cemetery, I can't quite see my way clear to the recent fad for stitching gravestones. Nope, I gotta say, I don't get it.

Wall St. itself was very nicely deced out -- although I'm sure this would have looked much niftier at night:


And I took one last picture of the happy kidnappers at the "mother church":

Yes, there's something very telling about the BIL's face. lol

After our whirlwind in NYC we headed back to DC to the relative calm (Congress wasn't in session so it really was pretty calm). In no particular order ....
I spent quite a bit of time at the Renwick

which was hosting an exhibit of quilts (amazing quilts, I might add) called "Going West." If it comes to your neck of the woods, go! The map quilt is worth it alone!! The crazy quilts are astounding. Oh, just go already!

The Renwick's permanent collection is the home to the bulk of the Catlin Collection. As it is one of my very favorite things I bonded big time. Right there at the top of the stairs I achieved bliss.....

I just sat and enjoyed for a while....



The Renwick also holds other amazing pieces -- for instance, I'd like you to meet Young's "Amphora Save":

This next one cracks me up -- Zucca's "Shaker Television"


I stopped by the Museum of Women in the Arts (not a Smithsonian) and I am glad to say it was half price because they had two of their floors closed. What I did see does not inspire me to return. Possibly all the very best stuff (and lots of it) was on floors 2 and 3, because all that was out for the public when I was there was about 3 dozen paintings and a wonderful (but very tiny) special exhibit on Acoma pottery. The pottery was marvelous and I'm glad I saw it. But it was a 30 minute museum.
This is Chino's Seed jar for the record:


Like I said, Acoma pottery was worth the trip. If you get a chance to see an exhibit of it, try it out. It is truly lovely.

My final day in DC was spent in very slow wandering through the East and West Galleries of the National Art Museum. In the West Gallery I was completely enchanted by the JMW Turner exhibit

There was no photography in the exhibit, but trust me on this, the man was amazing! Simply amazing. This collection is going to a couple other places in the US. I believe the next stop is Dallas. If you have any liking of painting (any medium) and landscapes then you MUST go. It's pure poetry.

Also in the West Gallery I met new "friends"/photo opportunities .... This is Conova's "Winged Victory":


... and I spent quite a while staring at old favorites -- 2 of Monet's series on Rouen --



I wandered across to the East (modern) Gallery to spend some time with the Calder:

and dropping by the Hopper special exhibit and the special showing of "Small French Paintings" (if you like French artists and this visits your town, go-- these are pics that aren't usually on display and you'll love them).

My final stop is the city was to spend some 20-30 minutes watching what I called the light tower in the Reynolds. I am NOT a modern art person, but I fell under this piece's spell big time --






ttfn --


Just because it made me giggle -- the truck of a DC street-side vendor:

Some NYC pics

Sorry for the delay, but I got waylaid by by trying to figure out how to get pics from the new picture program my BIL kindly installed for me into a format for this blog. I'm sure I picked the long way, but at least I have some now! lol

We arrived in NYC on the 27th via Amtrak from DC's Union Station to NYC's Penn Station and we wandered towards our hotel taking in the City while my long-suffering BIL hauled luggage. Bless him!

We hiked passed Macy's windows which were really neat, but you get a perfect picture of life in the big city when you note that the cotton wool snow in the decorative trees of their displays is grey!


We lunched at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill where I learned my first crucial thing -- all margarita's should be tangerine margaritas!!!

Meet my appetizer -- the raw tuna nachos:


Across from the Flatiron Building, we wandered through a really cool little art park which featured this piece -- "Conjoined"

Here are my kind kidnappers in front of the park's tree with the Flatiron in the background:


Eventually we headed down the Book Path of brass plaques like this one

that lead to the "mother church" (aka the New York Public Library)


Across the street and a little down (I think) was a branch of the library where my BIL caught what turns out to be my favorite shot of me of the trip -- me, a brary, a watch-for-pedestrians sign, etc. Several essential elements of life all right there...


I also accidentally found the Library hotel where the rooms are Deweyed lol


We ended the evening in a wander passed Lord and Taylor's windows

and traipsed through Bryant Park--- hi Tim Gunn and struggling fashion designers of Project Runway!!!


Day two started with a trip to join the Today Show crowds; I shall spare you the pics. Then we wandered the area visiting St. Patrick's

Before heading to the Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Center)


which is stunning, but even there we couldn't escape modern era branding --

Jeez -- anteroom brought to you by Target?????

We left the heights of Rockefeller Center for the Rockettes!

Tres wonderful -- and check out the chandelier!


Afterwards we were off for more wanders which led us to the Alwyn Court Apts and its beautiful facade

through Central Park where my sister discovered a raccoon family


Here are the kidnapping duo and 4 million of their friends in Times Square


We stayed at a cool boutique hotel called Casablanca about a quarter of a block from Times Square -- I'd highly recommend them.

Day three was spent down around battery Park and Wall St -- starting with the Smithsonian's Heye Center which was the nation's Indian Museum before the NMAI opened on DC's Mall


From battery park you can see the Heye Center in the background of The Sphere, the installation that was in front of the Twin Towers on 9-11


We took a water taxi tour of the waterfront for some spectacular views--


and my humorous pic of the day -- note the location of the satellite tv dish lol


More later. I need to pack up for the day!

Tagged for Christmas....

Sorry I'm slow! I was tagged by Chris to share 12, Christmas-related things about me. Since I'm behind my time I thought I'd turn it into a Christmas and New Year's list.....

1) Christmas to me is all about Dickens' A Christmas Carol. My favorite movie version is probably a tie between the George C. Scott one and the 1935 with Seymour Hicks called Scrooge. Lord save me from Mickey and Donald. this year I was pretty sad because I wasn't getting a chance to watch a single version, let alone over and over again like I prefer. But my BIL saved me -- he took us to "A Christmas Carol 1941" at DC's Arena Stage -- a wonderful production putting Dickens' classic into 1941 Washington, DC with wartime concerns, shortages, etc. It was really well done. Really, really well done.

2) I shop all year long, sometimes 2 years in advance for Christmas gifts. What can I say-- I love shopping for folks! Because I do this I usually miss the fun (or if you prefer it "fun") of Christmas shopping in the real season for it, ie., after Thanksgiving.

3) This year is the first year that almost all of my Christmas cards not only went out before Christmas, but before February 1st! Honest!!! And, this was the first year I ever produced a Christmas letter.

4) The first Christmas ornament I can really remember insisting on was a raccoon with ice skates from Hallmark. I still have him and I still love him. He's in one of the 3-4 giant rubbermaid tubs of ornies I have in storage now.

5) My favorite hymn or carol is "In the Bleak Midwinter" from the Christina Rosetti poem. I have probably 12-15 versions of it and I collect more every chance I get. Despite my need for that carol to surround me at Christmas, most often the voice of the season for me is Frank Sinatra. Annnd, despite "Bleak" and Frank, I'm most likely to be caught saying or humming "Mele Kalikimaka" (Bing Crosby).

6) Growing up Christmas dinner was most often squab, but then again most special occasions we had squab. Over the last 10-15 years we didn't really have a standard menu save for the fact that we always had black olives.

7) Traditionally we rarely got our tree down before the end of January. And mom once left one small one (3-footer) up for 3 years!!! Honest and true!!!

8) My fondest growing-up memories of New Year's were those surrounding the family Tripoli game. Sometime after my sister went off to college, my Great Uncle Leo unearthed an old, hand colored Tripoli board (think a cross between poker and hearts) and then a new-fangled rubber one. My parents, I, Uncle Leo, and Grandpa would play for what, at the time, seemed forever ... aka 1-2am. mom would start to loose chips (I'm sure purposely, so we could call the game and go to bed) and my Uncle would start sneaking chips into her pile to keep the game going. Ahhh, the good ole days!

9) I feel bad for all you non-Westerners. We get the Rose Parade in its entirety (commercial-free on a couple channels) and we get it repeated all day long usually too for those of up who played Tripoli way too late the night before. I discovered this year at my sister's that ya'll don't even get the entire parade once! It's a crime!!!!!!!!!!!

10) One of my favorite things for the New Year is the hanging of the new calendar. Mind you, I usually get around to it around February 1st. This year I was extremely perky-- it got hung last night. Now I have to focus on changing it. In 2006, it didn't change after June. Last year it got put up in March and I'm not sure it got changed at all. One of this year's New Year's resolutions is to Change the Bloody Calendar in a Timely Manner.

11) I used to make all sorts of perky resolutions. I'd start thinking about them the month before. Then New Year's would be so busy I never got around to actually making them. lol This year I think they'll be in luck next week.

12) Now that I come to think of it, I really don't like New Years. All I can think about is everything that I didn't accomplish in the previous year.

I'm not tagging anyone specifically ... if you feel so inclined... consider yourself tagged!