Wine, Wonder and Wurzberg

We broke our train trip from Munich to Hannover with a three hour stop in Wurzberg- for a luncheon meeting with one of Dan’s collegues and a quickie tour of the town! After a lovely lunch in a local restaurant ( I had a regional specialty-a soup called Leberknoedelsuppe) we made a mad dash through town to one of the special vinters of the local Franconian wine. The wine comes in a distinctive blue bottle and it is said that wine has been produced in this area for over 1000 years. (We’re taking the wine to friends in Hannover. ) You can see the vines have been cut back for winter.

We stopped off to view the famous staircase…isn’t it mystically dreamy!

And the fall colors! I am so enjoying being here to see the leaves change…its been years and I will probably continue to bore you all with photos of the leaf colors across Germany! :)

More embroidered beauties from Munich

I wanted to share some more of the wonderful things I saw in Munich (Picasa is very bossy and would only let me upload 4 pictures! in my last post.)

This is a corner of the Courtly Love embroidery showing a kneeling woman. The embroidery was done in silk and gold threads…I’m not sure what the red background was-it may have been paint!

IThis is from a different embroidery-isn’t it a wonderful face!

Does this make you think of an applique quilt?...its a wood inlay table!

All in all, we’re having a wonderful visit so far-days visiting museums and evenings talking and eating with friends! And enjoying the beautiful fall foliage!

Report from Germany: Frankfurt, Munich and an antique embroidery

You know how I and many other quilters like to make reproduction quilts…well in Germany, they have reproduction buildings!

On this major-square in Frankfurt, these half timbered buildings have been rebuilt to replace the buildings destroyed in WWII-using pre-war photos to exactly reproduce the buildings.

In Munich, we went to the Residence-also a reproduction building!The Residence was the palace home of the Dukes of Bavaria. They were later called the Electors and then the Kings of Bavaria. They were called the Electors as they were part of the select 7 who elected the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire.Did you know that the Holy Romany Empire continued until the 18^th century? I didn’t-I thought it ended with the Fall of Constantinople in the 15^th century-apparently not. Only the Eastern Holy Roman Empire ended then the Western continued until Napolean. (I’m learning quite a lot of history on this trip…I really only know American and British history!)

This is a photo of the building from one of the interior courtyards-it is trompe l’oeil–click on the photo and you will see that all of the shadows recreating the look of a stone exterior are painted on a simple stucco exterior.

The Residence is chock full of wonderful reproduction rooms…rooms with Rococo wall and ceiling plasterwork, rooms with painted wooden ceilings and rooms with brocaded walls…I think I am more impressed that this is reproduction work being done today than if these were 17-18^th century rooms! What a wonderful job! Unfortunately, no flash was allowed and none of my photos came out.

The Residence also has a wonderful Treasury full of the crowns and jewels of the Bavarian Dukes/Electors/Kings. From the 13^th century, there is a wonderful crown and a jeweled necklace, both with semi-precious stones the size of eggs!

We also went to the Bavarian National Museum-this building is partially original and partially reconstructed-and used to house the King’s wonderful collections-sort of an overflow repository for the treasures he just didn’t have room for in the Residence! There’s a whole silver state dinner service including plates, servers and silverware…made me feel better-it, like my silver, needs polishing!, a wonderful display of Meissen porcelain figurines-showing both painted and white (pre over painting) examples of the same figurines!, and down in the basement wonderful rooms filled with painted Bavarian furniture (a complete bedroom set for one) and local redware pottery that looks so like the painted furniture and Redware from Pennsylvania!

Some wonderful embroidery pieces-this is one of two couples that are the center design of this “courtly love” 14-15^th century Bavarian embroidery.

It was very dark in this room and I, of course, didn’t use a flash-wow! the wonders of digital manipulation!)

Off to Germany

We're off to Germany tomorrow ! We'll be stopping first to see friends near Frankfurt and Munich and then its on to Hannover-where DH is giving a lecture and then Berlin for 10 days (DH is giving a lecture there too but mostly it will be sightseeing!)

I'm looking forward to seeing the collection at the Textile Museum in Berlin...you can see why-maybe I'll get to see this amazing dress... or this wonderful lace curtain.

Of course, I am on the hunt to see some quilts but my German skills are so slim (ok, non-existent!) that even with DH's help, the hunt via internet isn't going too well! It will be dumn luck if we hit a quilt exhibit but I'll let you know!

Katrina, a German blogger, has kindly sent me a wonderful list of quilt shops and a link to the guild so that should help make this a quilty trip!

I'm taking my little netbook so I hope to be able to blog and check up on what everyone's doing while we're traveling! I've loaded my i-pod with free audiobooks from Librivox and lots of music so our plane and several long train rides should be ok....I'm thinking I can listen to an audiobook and still look out the window on the train-we'll see if that works!

The Phillies are in the World Series!!!Two years in a row! Totally amazing!

Floral Mock Log Cabin Quilt Finished

I finished this quilt last week and its already at home at its new owners! The patchwork pattern is a variation on the mock log cabin pattern, woodpile. Its fast and fun to do-all strip piecing. I used all florals and it has a very sweet colorwash look, I think. It is machine quilted with an overall cable design.

Its a lap quilt and I thought it looked a little long and narrow so I added an extra narrow border only on the sides-which gave me room for a little free motion quilting in a leaf/vine pattern with a few leafy hearts thrown in.

Here's a close-up of one block-you can see the cable quilting too, done in a variegated thread. I use my walking foot whenever I do cables-I just gently turn the quilt like you do for any curved sewing - such as sewing sleeves.

I just love the back of this quilt...it reminds me of the wonderful North Country whole cloth quilts I saw on our trip to England a few years ago. It makes me think that maybe I want to make a machine quilted whole cloth quilt. (BTW, the pillow is hand quilted!)

White Lies by Jayne Ann Krentz

This is the first book of the Arcane Society novels that I’ve read and I’ve enjoyed it enough that I will look for others.

“Level-ten parasensitive Clare Lancaster (a human lie detector) has resigned herself to the fact that she may never find a suitable mate”…(ha! Of course, we know better.)

Clare, having lost her job, is free to visit when her father calls…and her adventure begins. She meets Jake Salter, her father’s new business consultant, and immediately feels a powerful attraction even as she senses that he isn’t being altogether truthful (but not outright lying). She can live with that-she’s made peace with her unusual gift by realizing that some lies are harmless (for example, small social lies -hmm, this is delicious J), and only gets upset when she detects that the lie is meant to cover up something dangerous or evil.

With Jake’s help, they plunge into an investigation of murder and more, making the world a safer place and finding love too. So if you like a bit of paranormal sleuthing (on a subtler level than “Ghostbusters”) and romance, you’ll enjoy this book. I know I did-so much so that I’m ready for another Arcane Society novel.

This is my seventh book review for the 2000 Support Your Local Library Challenge.

Vintage Thursday Thingie: Japanese Lacquer Box

Today I'm showing another item from my Japanese collection. This is a red lacquer box with black and silver decoration. Here's a pix of the black lacquer interior.

And a close-up of the design on the side of the box.

Lacquerware has been popular in Japan for hundreds of years. ..actually, archaeological excavations have uncovered lacquered items from thousands of years ago.This piece probably dates from the early 20th century, no earlier :). The box has been lacquered over a thin wooden box.

For more vintage treasures, hop on over Coloradolady.