Daily art on the cruise 2

I wrote in my last post about a large piece of stitching that I did on my cruise, and said that I was not pleased with the result.  

The next piece I worked on made me much happier.

stitching, July 31

It was fun to be working on color after two weeks of beige, and I started out making little stars in the corner for a sky, but after only one day of stars I shifted to blanket stitch across the bottom for the earth in a landscape.  And after only one day of that, I realized that the sashiko thread wasn't playing well with blanket stitch.  

stitching, August 1

I don't have a lot of experience with sashiko thread, despite having admired its use by many other artists.  A friend gave me a package of it some time ago, but I only started using it earlier this year.  I love it for straight stitches, but apparently the blanket stitch causes the thread to twist and I found that after four or five inches, the two strands of the thread would start to separate, and I didn't like the looks of the stitches with the two distinct strands.  I compensated by twirling the thread in the opposite direction between finger and thumb every few stitches, but this was tedious and imperfect.

Before too long I was planning my exit strategy from blanket stitch, plus an exit strategy from the six-pointed stars, which I realized would be boring if they filled the whole sky.  There had been a supermoon earlier that week, with lots of nice pictures on TV, so I decided to put a supermoon in my landscape.  I wanted it to be perfectly round, so I made a template and filled the circle with tightly packed coral stitch.

stitching, August 6

The moon went slowly, and on August 10 I had a disaster, taking a classic face-plant fall when we were ashore in Ireland.  I smashed my glasses and ended up with a beautiful black eye.  That left me coping for the rest of the trip with my $2 glasses that I had luckily stuck in my cosmetic case just in case.  They focused about 24 inches from my eye, perfect for computer work and acceptable for reading on my phone, but not well suited for precise embroidery. 

I could see well enough  to finish the moon and start a new density of sky, in which I picked up only one thread in a tiny dot of a stitch.  But I couldn't see well enough to actually do the tiny stitches accurately.  So in a snit, I switched to another piece of fabric and started a new stitching.  It was not well planned, and it looked terrible.  So I slunk back to my blue landscape and resolved that I would figure out how to soldier through for the ten days left in the cruise.

Turns out that sometimes you can overcome adversity with a good attitude and a willingness to try what seems impossible.  I found that I could reliably make stitches over a single thread of background fabric by feel, if not by sight.  The hefty homespun-type fabric had fat enough threads that I could place the tip of the needle at the hole where the thread emerged, then carefully move it up and over one thread and stick the needle in where it came down over the hump.  This worked for probably nine stitches out of every ten, and on the tenth, I was willing to pull the thread out for a do-over.  

stitching, August 23

At home, of course, I wouldn't dream of being so picky and patient, but what else was there to do while listening to lawyers talk about the fine points of mugshots?  It was surprisingly calming to slowly stitch a Milky Way across the blue, and I finished the piece a couple of days before we came home.

Daily art on the cruise 1

I do daily art, you know, and I gave some thought to how to do this while traveling.  Most of the time this year I have been doing a separate small piece of stitching each day, working from my huge inherited stash of my friend Joanne's leftover fabrics.  But I didn't want to have to prepare 35 pieces of fabric to take along.  So I found four large pieces, packed a couple of skeins of white sashiko thread and worked a little bit each day. 

The routine on a cruise ship varies depending on whether you're at sea or making a port stop for the day.  On sea days there are more activities such as concerts and lectures, and I did a lot of stitching during those events.  But where I really went to town was while watching the news.

There's a very limited repertoire of TV stations available on a ship, and our news choices were slim: Fox, MSNBC and BBC.  For much of our cruise there wasn't much to look at, but then we struck news gold -- the former president was indicted twice and mugshotted once.  For once there was actual news to be watched and discussed, and we were impressed by the legal experts assembled to explain the niceties of criminal procedure.  Many of them were former federal prosecutors themselves, and I learned a great deal from them.  And while I learned, I stitched.

As it turned out, I finished two of the four pieces I had brought along. 

I was reminded that seed stitch -- the bulk of the top half of this composition, where the stitches go in every direction -- is surprisingly hard to do.  If you want your little lines to look random, you have to think several stitches ahead to avoid a lot of parallel pairs.  Not so much thinking as to take your mind totally off your music or news, but enough to slow you down considerably compared to running stitches.

I was not thrilled with how this piece turned out.  The blanket stitch "railroad tracks" through the middle drew too much attention without being particularly beautiful, and the spirals didn't stand out all that much from their backgrounds.  I think the drab neutral background would have been better with a colored thread or at least some colored accents, but I had nothing with me to do that.  I was glad when I finished it.

I'll show you the other pieces in the next post.

At sea again

Nanortalik, Greenland 

Prins Christian Sund, Greenland 

For 50 years we've sweltered through Louisville summers and asked ourselves why we don't go somewhere cold for July and August.  This year we finally did it, and set off for a cruise to Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scotland and other cool climes.  We're in Rotterdam today at the halfway point, and will head home on pretty much the same route.

You can keep your sunny beaches, I am drawn to the cold places.  And we're getting our fill on this trip!

Girls' week out

The last time I saw my sister was in September 2019.  It was not a particularly good time for either of us.  She had just lost her husband a month earlier.  I had a brief visit for the funeral and promised to come back soon, but before that could happen I fell and broke my ankle.  So between grief and hobbling around in an orthopedic boot, we were not at our best.  We vowed that when we did this again, we would both be in better shape.

Then came coronavirus and lockdown, and a year and a half passed, and now finally we have managed our visit, this time accompanied by my niece, who needed a vacation from pandemic childcare.  We chose scenic South Bend Indiana, perhaps not your first choice for exotic travel, but it's exactly halfway between our homes so we each made a half-day trip instead of somebody making an all-day slog.

Our rented place had a huge long table where we spent all day together reading, working, talking.  A walk every day, in glorious sunshiny weather.  I brought along a big crate of art stuff and we made little "sampler" books, trying out different tools and mediums.

We found a restaurant that served wonderful red-sauce Italian, which reminded all three of us of our upstate New York youth.  I have lived in Kentucky for more than 50 years and my regrets in leaving New York include brilliant fall foliage and red-sauce Italian food.  

Yes, there are Italian restaurants in Kentucky, and some of them are even pretty good, but you can't match the Sicilian edge that I treasured from long ago.  Every time I visit the Rust Belt I seek out Italian restaurants, preferably those with the authentic vibe of the 60s that I remember so fondly.

This one, Carmela's, was a little more upscale than my fantasy dive, but the food was perfect.  We came back on Thursday night and ordered the same eggplant parmesan that we'd had on Tuesday.  Make sure you patronize this place if you find yourself in South Bend!

My father was a graduate of Michigan State and a football fan, and I was raised to look upon Notre Dame as the archfoe, both in football and religion (we were Lutherans and thus kind of suspicious of Catholics).  So I was a bit wary to be entering enemy territory when we strolled around the Notre Dame campus.  Fortunately I escaped unscathed, and was totally charmed by the beauty of the place, indoors and out.

So, a great trip.  We've resolved to do this every year, and expand it next year to include the daughters-in-law.  I'm already planning what our craft projects will be.

Daily art on the road 2 -- calligraphy

As we set off on our cruise I planned carefully for my daily art projects; before we left I hit the art supply store and bought some new pen holders and a couple of nibs to complement my existing supplies, plus two new bottles of ink.  After we got on the airplane heading for Rome, after dinner, I hauled out my sketchbook and pens.  But when I fished in my carry-on for the ink, it wasn't there.  I searched.  I searched in the other carry-on.  No luck.

TSA must have seized the ink -- even though each bottle was well under three ounces, and they were sealed in a regulation-size baggie.  Usually they will tell you when they confiscate your stuff (I sometimes think they really like that part of the job) but I figured it happened while I was tediously taking off my orthopedic boot to be separately screened and even more tediously replacing it.  I cussed and muttered, and found some gel pens in my art box to do that day's writing.  I fretted about how nasty it was going to be using just those two pens for a whole month -- and one of them was already starting to run out of ink.

The next morning, after we got off the plane I googled "art supply stores in Civitavecchia" and found one within (long) walking distance of the hotel, but it turned out to sell housepaint, not artist things.  I cussed and muttered.  But then I happened upon a stationery store in the same block as the hotel, and they had a big display of pens.  I bought half a dozen (and later wished I had bought even more).

That got me through a lot of daily calligraphy, although I still cussed and muttered every time I saw my unused pens and nibs in my box. The days when I wrote passages from the books I read were particularly frustrating.  I have become enamored of the flexibility of the dip nibs that give the beautiful thick-and-thin strokes, and writing with a plain old round penpoint seemed graceless and without character, even if the colors were beautiful.

On many days I would write many layers of script, so densely packed on the page that you just see color rather than words.

Other times I would revisit my old "cascading letters" drawings.

About halfway through the cruise I had a brainstorm -- I brewed up three teabags in about a half-inch of boiling water, and after it got good and dark I stashed the cup in a drawer to evaporate and, I hoped, get even darker.

Several days later the tea was getting dark and sludgy, but it seemed too gooey to use with a pen.  But wait -- here's a brush in my art supply box!

The first couple of days, the ink was still pretty pale.

But by the end of the cruise it was darker, and I had learned to put a second dab of tea over the letters before they got fully dry.  Of course, just when it was getting good, it was time to leave and I had to pitch my homebrew.

Much as I cussed and muttered about losing my ink, and was frustrated and bored with using the plain-tip pens, I was happy doing my calligraphy every day.  Almost to the end of the year, and I still have a thrill each day when I open the sketchbook and select my pen and my text.  And working under the constraints of very limited supplies did inspire some creativity, which was fun.

P.S.  When we got home last week, what did I find on the kitchen counter but a little ziplock bag with two bottles of ink.

Daily art on the road 1 -- miniatures

I have always defined my daily art with the full knowledge that we like to travel, so my projects have to be portable.  Since we were decadent and took lots of luggage, I would have been able to take even more supplies than I did, but there's a certain excitement in working with constraints.

For my daily miniature, the rule is that I have to make something to pack into a tiny 1 1/2 x 2-inch plastic bag (no fair just picking up a piece of stuff).  So I needed some tools and supplies:

Two spools of thread (on our last long vacation I took only one and got a little bored, so I splurged this time), a little jar of seed beads in assorted colors, some wire, scissors and tweezers.  A needle, which I neglected to put in this photo.  And a glue stick, which expired en route and did not come home with me.

But I augmented these sparse supplies with a lot of stuff that I found along the way.  For instance, here are the miniatures I made during the week of October 20:

Three little books made from paper acquired along the way: a flyer from the jewelry shop on board (no, I don't remember why they had elephants on the cover); a map of  Kotor, Montenegro; and the admission ticket to a tiny church in Croatia with a Tintoretto above the altar.

Four found objects tied up with wire or thread, embellished with beads:  some nicely shaped twigs, a clam shell from the bouillabaisse dinner, two metal doodads found on the docks.

Nothing from this particular week, but sometimes I would make elaborate knotted constructions, especially on days when we watched a movie in the cabin and I needed some handwork.

I like working with constrained supplies; it forces me to be creative and attentive to my surroundings.  So I have always found my travel days to be particularly enjoyable as I try to find something new and different for daily art.  Yes, there are times when I get sick of the only two colors of thread that I brought along (that's when I start using the string from the teabags).  And yes, there are times when today's miniature looks a whole lot like yesterday's.  But that's part of the game.

Last month on Art With a Needle

Faithful readers with not enough to do may have noticed that my usual "last week" posts, always done late on a Saturday night, have been missing in action for a while.  That's because I have just spent four blissful weeks on a cruise ship, neglecting my blogging simply because it's too much work to do it via phone or kindle without regular internet access.  So here's a catch-up post. 

We flew to Rome on October 15, spent one night in a waterfront hotel in the port city of Civitavecchia, and boarded our ship on Friday afternoon.  Eleven days poking about the eastern Mediterranean, visiting small port cities in Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Greece, Malta and Italy, then back to Civitavecchia before heading west, stopping in Spain and Madeira before going to Florida.  The ports where we made day stops were kind of second-tier tourist attractions; nothing much to write home about unless you had been a devotee of Game of Thrones (we weren't) and liked Dubrovnik, the old city where it was filmed.  Mostly our routine was to go ashore, stroll about for a while, find a sidewalk cafe and drink a beer before returning to the ship.  Low-key, but totally satisfying.

A big pivo in Kotor, Montenegro 

For us the best part of the cruise was not the shore visits but the sea days, with nothing to do and nowhere to go except two classical music concerts with a piano quintet (two violins, one viola, one cello, one piano).  I read 15 books in 26 days and took naps (I caught a cold midway through and was wiped out for a week). 

We sat on our balcony a lot, enjoying the balmy weather, smooth seas and mesmerizing sea -- or on days in port, watching the parade of people, vehicles, containers, boats and ships on the dock below and in the water. 

The view from our balcony -- Catania, Sicily

The last stretch of the voyage, from Madeira (off the coast of Africa) to Fort Lauderdale, was seven days, during which we had to adjust for five hours time difference.  That meant five 25-hour days.  Considering that the Sunday in November when we go off daylight time and get back our extra hour has always been my favorite day of the year, this was heaven on earth.

I did my two daily art projects every day -- I'll write later about how that worked out -- but other than that, just relaxed.  No cooking, no housework, no telemarketers.  What could be better!

A glimpse of Van Gogh

Although our brief visit to Amsterdam last week was well before the high season for tourists, there were plenty on hand in the rock-star sections of the Rijksmuseum.  As usual, as many of the people were looking at their phones as looking at the Van Goghs.  I mostly stood back and looked at the people.

Airport surprise

I haven't posted in a week because I have been busy!  After a two-week sea voyage from Florida to Amsterdam, and a couple of days doing museums there, and a marathon trip home yesterday, we're home.  I will have lots to share, but here's a quick one.  As you walk through the Amsterdam Airport (and you'd better bring your hiking boots, because it's about a half-hour stroll from where we checked in to where we got on the plane) what do you see but a sign that says "Rijksmuseum."  And it's not a billboard advertising the museum, but an actual tiny museum set up in the middle of a concourse.

Inside, two large rooms with pictures.

No Rembrandts, but real pictures, giving you a birds'-eye view of the great motifs in Dutch art: rich burghers, landscapes and seascapes, still lifes, a big sea scene painted on blue-and-white Delft tiles.

And of course a little gift shop.  Impress your friends and loved ones; make them think you spent your time in Amsterdam at the art museums instead of at the Museum of Hemp & Marijuana or a Red-Light District Tour.

I thought this was a fine idea.  Surely the Rijksmuseum must have thousands of artworks good enough to be in its collection but not good enough, by comparison, to make it onto the main gallery walls.  Surely it's better to have them on view than in crates in the basement.  And how many frazzled travelers will benefit from a few minutes of peace and beauty before they hit the road again.