Last bit of Autumn

The leaves are falling here in Stockholm now, but I thought I would share my last Autumn colour pics. We took a walk a couple of weekends ago around Djurgarden and back to Sergels Torg. The trees and light were too good to miss that afternoon.

I'm afraid the cold of winter is just around the corner!

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Museum visiting in Stockholm

There are some 87 museums in Stockholm, so there's always another to investigate. Each time I visit I try and see one or two that are new to me, but I must admit I'm getting to the point on the list where I either think I'm not interested (day out at the Tobacco and Match museum anyone?) or the more difficult to reach by public transport with no sense of direction and a cartoon map.

This time it's been a pleasant surprise though, I've visited two that I had previously thought too boring - The Museum of Ethnography and The Historiska Museet, or the Museum of Antiquities.

The Museum of Ethnography is described in the brochure as 'a meeting place of cultures for everyone interested in the wider world'. As a lover of the old fashioned style museum I loved the current exhibition of 'bringing the world home' which is a broad selection of objects from the museums archives, displayed in old fashioned glass museum cases, aisles and aisles of oddities behind glass - just what I love in a museum. As a twist they have displayed everything in groups as it is stored, which is by material rather than origin. In order to give the illusion of never ending cabinets they have installed mirrors at the end of the rows, which worked a little too well, as I found myself stepping aside to give way to, well um myself!

I did struggle in this exhibition to match up the cabinets with the English translation sheet, so just gave up and enjoyed the looking with no great information on what I was looking at.

This fellow wins best oddity I've found to draw in a while, the skin of a baby hippopotamus which must have been folded for transport.

The displays on climate, and how cultures adapt to extreme climates were something different, and there was an extensive Aboriginal display. It was good to see that it was fair representation on the modern Aboriginal culture, explaining the issues of the stolen generation and land rights. There was an area of displays and film related to Swedish explorers in Australia who took skeletons and recently deceased from funeral sites as museum items, and film documenting the apology and ceremonies related to the return of these in recent history.

There were displays on historical expeditions, to Papua New Guinea and the Congo (and cultural damage there by well meaning missionaries of their day).

All up, lots of interesting objects to draw, and rather sadly the opportunity to see how history has repeated itself over and over; white men travel to foreign lands and try to 'improve' the locals by stealing their children and raising them as white, introducing alcohol, tobacco and violence to traditional cultures - apologising after 200 years and leaving these cultures in a mess of identity, dependency and violence. Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Congo, North America, Canada, and Northern Scandanavia.

The Historiska Museum has it's 'Gold Room' as pride of place, with an extensive collection of antique gold, silver and jewel currency and jewellery. For me the more interesting sections were the textiles hall, with ancient embroideries, many were church vestments. The amount of work put into these was amazing. I sketched some of the animal shapes to perhaps embroider myself later as the designs were really interesting.

There were halls full of old church icons, alters, and iconastas - which made me wonder if every old church in Sweden was gutted at some point? There was so much of it. It was great to see them, but I did feel a little sad about how much of it had been removed from where it belonged? I would have liked to drawn some of these but there were no seats available and my back was not cooperating with standing and holding a sketchbook to draw.

I ran out of time to take in everything, and while doing a speed view through the remaining exhibitions on my way out, this fellow caught my interest. At about four feet high, carved from wood with rope decoration, holding a skeleton which appeared to be various real bones with a wooden carved skull. I had to stop and read, and then draw;

"Associated with the cannibal dancing society: skeleton made from various animals such as seal paws and a carved human skull. When covered in vegetable pastry it looked like a human corpse. Used in ceremony when someone was obsessed with the cannibal spirit to regain their human nature"

I'll definitely look forward to another visit when I'm looking for a drawing refuge on a rainy day.

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Autumn goodness

I'm spending most of the month of October in Stockholm, and the city is beautiful at this time of year. The first two weeks of the month the weather was perfect for Autumn - cool but clear with warm sunshine, then a snap of crisp air as soon as the sun lowers. I took advantage of one of the sunnier days to visit Skansen.

Found a lovely spot of afternoon warmth for a bit of knitting. I'm working on 'Birch' by Rowan, but using a lace weight wool I purchased a while back in Stockholm, and Addi lace circulars. This took me a long time to get started, but it's moving along now.

The bear cubs were still out playing, they've grown so much since they were born! It's been such a priveledge to be able to visit frequently enough to watch their progress. I think hibernation must be just around the corner though.
It was a little too cold, or rather I wasn't inspired enough to draw despite the cold on the day, but had a bit of a sketch when I got back to the hotel room.

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Cruising along

Well no surprise I've fallen behind again on my posts, I just can't get the hang of blogging whilst travelling. I'll just have to knuckle down and figure out this Blogsy app, and no doubt have a few accidental postings along the way. Apologies for what I will assume will be rubbish formatting, brought to you courtesy of Blogger, Blogsy and Apple iPad - or the axis of blogging evil as I think of them.

I did have a pretty good excuse for September though, I was at sea for most of it, 24 fabulous nights aboard an Eastern Med cruise, including the Black Sea. It was brilliant, we loved every minute of it, and were both surprised to find after 24 nights we still didn't want to get off. Just to postpone that moment, we followed the trend of our previous cruise holidays, and stayed up till 3am on the last night, enjoying lots of laughs, and plenty of Gins, with new friends. Of course in the morning, when we had to be out of our cabin by 8am, this didn't feel like it had been a brilliant idea!
So as way of warming up to blog posting again, I thought I'd share a few photos;

Firstly some craft: I just, and I mean just, finished my Mohair Bias Loop in time to pack it (pattern from Churchmouse yarns on Ravelry). I'm not really a fan, it served it's purpose with this dress for the first (of six) Black tie nights. By pinning it with the brooch it meant I didn't have to keep fiddling with it, and didn't find I had to use T-Rex arms too much! Overall though, it's never going to be an 'easy wear' to have it off the shoulders like this, it's prone to either slip down to the elbows, or off one shoulder etc. Love the Rowan Kidsilk Glamour though, and I imagine I will wear this again as a cowl.
Onto the gratuitous holiday shots: Our first port of call, Lisbon, early morning sail in

Next stop Valetta, Malta. An even earlier morning sail in, but it was a beautiful sight in the early light. We splurged on a cabin with a balcony, and took our Nespresso machine aboard with us - and both were worth it to enjoy these early sail ins.

Then onto Kusadasi, Turkey. We went on an organised tour of Effasus and the Terrace Houses, which was an amazing archeology site to visit. There is rubble, slippery marble, and feral cats underfoot all around, yet I managed to fall down a half flight of modern metal checkplate stairs inside the Terrace Houses. There is a network of stairs and glass viewing platforms all above the houses, for viewing. I'm afraid I was too busy viewing and didn't quite get the top step right. Ouch, as always though, the embarrassment hurt way more than the bruises!

When we pulled into the dock in the morning, we were just enjoying a coffee on the balcony, admiring the view, when another ship pulled up alongside. The Azura dwarfed The Queen Elizabeth! In fact we realised our fellow passenger number of around 3000 equated the population of the town we formerly lived in back in South Australia!

Next destination: Yalta, Ukraine. We had been so looking forward to visiting the Ukraine, as the highlight of our trip, as we have close friends in Australia who are of Ukrainian heritage - and what great times we've had with them at family functions and New years. The pickles, the vodka, the singing, the dancing, and the food that just keeps coming at you! All excited at the prospect of a 'traditional lunch' as part of a scenic tour day we set off. Things went down hill quickly. I had accidentally booked us on a tour focused on the Crimeon War, and wow did our guide Olga know a lot about it, enough to talk on the subject ALL DAY, barely stopping for a breath. The traditional lunch turned out to be a disappointing unidentified fish and Greek style salad.
We did enjoy the start of the day though, a visit to a former Soviet Nuclear Submarine base, hidden under a mountain in Balklava during the Cold War years. The last stop was interesting too, a visit to a circular museum housing one of the largest mural paintings, 'The siege of Sebastopol'

To add a bit of excitement to the day, whilst we had been in Sevastopol there had been some extremely heavy rains closer to Yalta, causing flash flooding and land slides across the road separating our tour bus from our Ship. These are the moments where you feel happy to have paid for the ship organised excursion, as it's their problem to get you back! So we pulled over and waited for word that we could get through, across the road was this little church perched on a cliff.

I suspect in true Ukrainian culture some cash exchanged hands as about 30 mins later our bus drove past all the waiting traffic and through a gap cleared at the slide!
Our next port was Odessa, Ukraine. This time we were determined it was going to be the Ukrainian day we wanted, and it was. We wandered around the city on our own for the morning, admiring many of the lovely old buildings, sadly in need of attention.

We then found a restaurant for Varenyky for lunch - a sort of tortellini made from potato flour, sometimes stuffed with potatoes, we chose chicken though. While waiting a complimentary vodka appeared, complete with tiny piece of bread and pickle - this was more like the Ukranian way we know! After lunch we returned to the ship, refusing all offers to hold eagles and monkeys on the Potemkin stairs, to join our afternoon tour.
We had booked to do a home visit, where a small group of passengers (7 in ours) are invited into a locals home for the afternoon for tea and a chance to find out about local life. Our host Lucy was great, very open about the way of life in Odessa with crooked politicians, double entry book keeping, working cash in hand off the books. She spoke of life under Russian rule and the good and bad since. We were fed well (of course), with various pies and tarts, and tea and coffee. As expected the vodka appeared, and how could we offend, of course we shall drink! Tradition required three (large) straight shots before we could eat anything!
Lucy explained that very few older people in Odessa speak Ukranian, so my chance to try a bit had to wait until her granddaughter arrived, who learns Ukrainian (and Spanish) in school, and English from Lucy. Stacia was very sweet, quietly tapping me on the arm to correct my pronunciation of Varenyky (it was agreed it was my Australian accent!). The funniest moment was when we asked if Stacia knew 'Mnohya lita' - a sort of Ukranian all purpose song of joy. She was a little hesitant, so Lucy suggested why don't we just sing it and see. So two Australians sang a Ukranian song, to a round of applause and a very Russian response of 'no, we do not know this song'. Hilarious! It was then pointed out the vodka must be finished, another couple then, oh and then the congac. We returned to the ship with happy memories of the day, and our eyes rolling around in our heads!
Lucky we had a sea day before Istanbul, we needed all the energy we could muster to cope with a day in Istanbul. It was an amazing city to see and experience, but constantly shuffling in crowds and being on pickpocket alert is not something either of us enjoy.
There were some amazing sights to see though;

Mosaics inside the Hagia Sophia

The amazing Basilica Cistern

Oh and what a glorious day Athens put on for us;

We feasted on fried Greek cheese with fig sauce, hot dolmades, and pasticio oh the pasticio, yum!
Our last stop was Vigo in Northern Spain which was a good port to find a bar with friends and enjoy a beer and tapas in the sun before we returned to the grey UK - so that's exactly what we did.
Oh and one last tease, the sunsets at sea, are amazing.

The moons a bit trickier to capture from a moving ship with a basic camera, but it's lovely to watch with a late night cocktail in hand, sigh.

We spent the first week home searching future cruises, checking out the cruise line recruitement pages, and generally sitting around waiting for someone to appear with a cocktail or 5 course meal. Sigh, normality has resumed.

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Been bitten by the sewing bug

Oh dear technical glitch (can't possibly be user error!) I just found my September writings all happily still sitting there in draft form - whoops, clearly I forgot to set their publish times, oh well. So here's what I was thinking about before I went on holidays!....


Once upon a time I used to sew, a lot. In fact I used to sew for a living, working for a costume hire store, making, repairing, altering costumes - anything and everything from 1800s ball gowns to tutu's for toddlers, to 2man horses, and Santa suits. Should you ever need a jabot in a hurry, I'm your girl.

What, you haven't heard of a jabot - I have made, repaired and ironed enough of these for three lifetimes! Although having just found this pic on gothiquerose.com for $16.95US, perhaps I should whip up some more!

I became interested in sewing through my Mum, who sewed a lot through my childhood and teen years, perhaps too much some might say, I shall never forget my embarrassment at my music teacher telling me, at 15, that she was really impressed with the bra's that my Mother had made for me, and clearly been showing around in the teachers lounge....shudder. I have no shameful memories though in association with some glorious very high waisted chords, with self fabric braces - they were cool, THEY WERE SO!

Four years at Design school meant most of my sewing was modifying charity shop bargains, one pink paisley sheet into a fab skirt, and matching tie,why yes I could.

The Eurythmics fan years

I was married around the end of my time working for the costume hire business, and being just a slight control freak made my wedding dress, the two bridesmaid dresses, and the flower girls dress. I think one of the best interventions ever made by my BFF was to demand I put down the needle and step away from my dress, when at 9pm the night before the wedding I contemplated beading the entire hem. I feel I should give a warning here - early 90s man mad fibres, shield your eyes!

Then for some reason sewing kind of died in my life, there were the odd curtains, tracky pants, crazy Christmas outfits, and fancy dress costumes, but the lack of fabric and pattern options killed the joy of it for me, and it had become all about rushing and frustration of finishing something for a special occasion.

me take fancy dress too seriously, never

and why stop at just making your own costume, when you can dress all your friends?

the skills you learn - roller skate RM boot cover, much safer on alcohol than the real thing (in theory)

Over the last year, probably as the result of getting more into following blogs, I've started to get itchy fingers to get back on the sewing machine. Plus with online shopping, and the resurgence in 'make do and mend' there are so many options out there now for fabrics and patterns. There's a whole community out there of like minded people to share the highs and lows with, and reach out to for advice - something I never had in real life back in my sewing days, I only had one friend who sewed.

I have a number of black tie functions coming up soon, so I'm trying to satisfy the urge with some hand sewing, adding trims and modifying some bargain purchases. I had great fun pouring over sewing pattern catalogues and materials in Stockholm, picking out bits of trims to make a belt, and some hair decorations. I scribbled away on ideas (at least the sketchbook was getting used, kinda). 

I might have to put a sewing machine on my Christmas list, then again, perhaps I should make it a reward for myself if I manage to reduce my wool stash by half (wouldn't want to over commit) and paint on at least half the canvases I have leaning against my desk? Oh yeah and there's the cross stitch to finish.

hmm, yes, maybe the machine will have to wait.