5 Terre

The awesome Hubby and I have now been married 35 years. How did that happen anyway?

To celebrate, we started our vacation in Cinque Terre, Italy.
After a quick visit to the leaning tower of Pisa .....

 (I made John try to straighten it up a bit.)

(Here it is, peaking out from behind the big basilica next to it.)

we hopped a train to La Spezia and then got on the "Milk Train" to the Cinque Terre. Don't ask me why they call it a milk train, but it is basically the local train and we got tickets for on/off  to use while we were there, and then didn't have to worry anymore about how to get around.

Staying at the second most southern of the "Five Terraced" villages, an adorable hilled assembly of colorful houses and various buildings called Manarola, was a really good choice on our part. This picture was our window view from out rented room. About as perfect of a location as we could have possibly dreamed. At least 2 of the other villages would have been great choices too, but it seemed that we couldn't have lucked into a better view/building to stay.

 From the same window in our little "hotel" room, we could take this shot to the right. These terraces have been maintained and farmed for 500 years, and are located all over these hillsides on the coast. They grow grapes, beans, grapes, squash, grapes, figs, citrus, and most anything that we grow in Northern California.

Walking along the village paths we find all sorts of alcoves and treasures for photo opps.

There are also paths connecting the five villages and although one trail was closed due to land slides into the Mediterranean, we were able to successfully hike the "easy" treks.

 Staring off from Monterossa this was one of the most built up areas of the trail.

John is in his photographer mode and we are always lucky when that happens.

Honestly, the guide books say they are easy, but we did not agree. If I can walk a mile in 15 minutes, that is what I consider easy. If it takes me 1 hour and 30 minutes to walk 2 miles, I think it must be a little more difficult. It is not that we had to crawl up any sheer cliffs, but there were thousands of rocky stairs of varying levels and widths, as well as narrow ledges and creeks to ford.

 The mountains go right to the sea. This reminds me a little bit of Big Sur.  We should really take more advantage of living as close to Big Sur as we do. I'll put that into the mind catalog for future use.

 Looking back at Monterosso, which is the most be beachy of the villages with crowded pebbled beaches and wall to wall bodies lying on them.

The next village was only 4 km away and yet it took us 1.5 hours.

This is Vernazza and is also just so quaint and cute. All villages have a church with ringing bell tower in the middle of the town. I'm sure it used to be the most important building for the people so they made each church accessible to everyone.

One thing we always like to do is check out the inside of the churches. Some were fairly simple, but most had some pretty fancy ornate decorations reserved for the best building in town.

 After a nice breakfast of eggs and vegetables, we headed out to the next town of Corniglia. I'm kind of a shiny sweaty girl here.

Another building that each town seemed to have in common was an old walled castle at a high point. Romanesque in nature, they were the lookouts for passers by.

The wild flowers along the way were mentionable. Poppies, scotch broom, all sorts of pretty things.

Here we are approaching the tiny town. This one is up higher on the hill than the other 4, so you have to climb down stairs to get to the beach or the train station. We did notice there was a small shuttle bus between the station and the main area of town, but we of course didn't take that.

 In Corniglia we had lemon granite. Like a slushy but better. What we call granita's I think.

 Finally to the last town of Riomaggiore, where we ate again. I'm seeing a theme here.

 The train between towns is in tunnels most of the way, so the scenery is not part of the ride.

To walk to the train stations you also have to walk through tunnels. This particular pedestrian tunnel is in Riomaggiore.

John, sitting down for a wonderful meal where we just ordered antipasti. We had 12 different types of antipasti - including about 10 different fish dishes. Really unique sea food. And of course lemon gelato to finish it off.

One of the days we took a boat from the 5th town back to the 1st town stopping at each (except Corniglia) as we went.

View from the sea.

Our town of Manarola had some huge rocks that people jumped into the sea from. The girl in the black suit up there could never quite get the courage to take the plunge. She had quite a crowd cheering her on.

 Looking back onto Manarola from the path which is closed up ahead.

Another fun thing about Italy in general is their lack of clothes dryers, or rather their proliferation of clothes lines. This man here is adjusting the laundry from his balcony. We had a line from our window, and it made me want to have one even more in California. The clothes become so fresh and white when hung out in the sun to dry. I've been considering a line since before we redid the back yard at our house. Just can't quite come up with a cool solution in this small brain of mine.

My camera has some really cool settings and this is John experimenting with it.
Such a cool sketch of our little vacation town.

Overall one of the best vacation spots we have ever been too.

LOVED IT!!

Perfect Lady(s) For The Easter Parade

The little Colorado granddaughters needed Easter dresses from my stash of fabric this year. I have wanted to use some old pink/blue plaid fabric for a new kind of smocking for many years, and have never quite gotten to it, so this was the year. 

But, first I thought I'd grab some fine white cotton and make a fancy lace embellished dress for the little one. I've also had this fabric for several years and it has woven striping and kind of a French entredeux running down the fabric every ½ inch or so. It is really cool fabric.

I also have some Swiss embroidery insertion that I bought about 22 years ago. This was a time for me when I had just learned the basic methods of old fashioned heirloom sewing and I purchased several yards of some of my favorite types of laces and insertions, and I just looked at them once in a while when I was sorting through my sewing notions.
The picture below shows a close up of the dress bodice. Here the lined fabric runs horizontally whereas the rest of the dress fabric runs vertically. The cotton val lace and embroidery were put together without entredeux and I used the point de paris stitch (#1229) to mimic the look of entredeux. This Bernina 830 machine does such a good job and I starched the fabric making it easier to run through . Turned out great.

I sent the dress to CO with a blue satin sash, but I had to actually go to the store and buy it before I felt like the dress was finished. By then I guess I was over the pictures.

Herre from the back of the dress. I lined this with a lightweight cotton and then added a 6 inch gathered pettiskirt chiffon to give it some lift.

The base of the dress is finished with more lace and pre-embroidered insertion. The ⅛ inch blue satin ribbon adds a little more blue for nice effect.
This French val lal lace is pretty easy to sew together. I just slightly gather the top line of the 1 ½ wide lace and then put it next to the ⅝" lace and set my machine on a small zig zag and go. The wearer has to be a little careful when playing in a dress like this, and I always tell their mother to take off dresses like this before feeding little faces. Then you don't have to wash them each time they wear it.

The corkscrew ribbons and some more of the embroidery tape to mimic the dress made a cute little ribbon for her hair.

Now onto the plaid.

Like I said this plaid is needing to be turned into a new kind of smocked dress.

 

You don't have to pleat the fabric to start with, but rather you use the lines of the fabric to make a geometric design in the bodice. I found this heart pattern and went with it. 

Of course I had to make another hair bow to match this dress too.

The white collar and cuffs are a heavier solid white cotton pique. Now that the dress is gone, I feel like I should've put a little heart embroidered on the collar and cuffs. Maybe I'll add something when I go visit these cute little ones next month.
These little females also have a 1 year old brother. I made him a simple tie out of the plaid and so they should all match for the big Sunday celebration.
Maybe they can even walk (i.e. parade) down the halls at church showing of their finery.
Happy Easter.

Barcelona

The Hubby and I are in the cool OLD city of Barcelona. He has a few days of work and I tagged along. The we are staying on for a few more days to enjoy the city and surrounding countryside a bit.

 We went to church on Sunday morning and didn't understand much except the hymns and makeup of the meeting were sure familiar. We attempted to read different words to familiar tunes. We partook of the Sacrament which is the reason ultimately to go to the meeting anyway. A fun experience.

 We also went to the Catholic church that day, as there are hundreds in the city and this old and beautiful one in the Gothic quarter was amazing.

 There is a new window in this one up above the entrance as the old rose window was destroyed in an earthquake in 1429. The new one was completed in 1459. Quite new, right?

 The magic fire water show was pretty cool at night. We arrived by Metro subway and the whole place was hopping with people on a Sunday night in September.

 Hoogy big.

It was like a holiday. I can't imagine how crowded it could get on a busy day.

 We notice that the nearby stadium had an event going on and hoped that we would get back on the subway and out of the area before the game got finished.

 The whole avenue was lined on both sides by fountains with the culminating one at the very end. We will come back here to go into the Picasso museum during our stay.

Subways always intrigue us west coasters and this saxophone player had back up music and was quite talented. His "Take Five" rendition was heard for a hundred yards before and after his location. It really fills up the corridors. Very cool.
I'm excited for a fun week.

…and He Cooks Too!

Every year in the Los Gatos Ward we have a Men's Cook-off. It is actually an adult Ward dinner, that someone several years ago put a different twist to. The men seem to enjoy competing for the best in several categories, and the women enjoy eating ... and not cooking at all.
John had Friday night to prepare, as our Saturday was full of various other activities, so ... he got cooking some good pasta.

 Pretty good attitude about it, I'd say.

 Mmmmm, chicken, mushrooms, mozzerella, marinara, all kinds of good stuff.

Here is the parmesan topped finished product.
We thought it started at 6:30 so when we arrived and it had started at 6:00, some people were already on to dessert.
It tasted yummy, but only got about half eaten.
Moral? Always pay attention to the announcement regarding time.