1920's Diva Framed!

I finally framed the 1920's Diva bead woven tapestry that I made! I'm trying to be better about finishing my pieces. I can use a bit of color around the house.

I have three new projects started and I am looking forward to working on them. Bead weaving has really caught my fancy!

Mirrix Looms and a Couple of Pictures

Until about a year ago, I'd never heard of Mirrix Looms. These are upright looms that you can use for both bead weaving and tapestry weaving. I must confess I love these looms! I have three now: 12", 16" and a 32 inch. I am thinking of selling my 12" and eventually getting a 22". For the kinds of things I like to weave, the 12" is too small. I'd rather put two smaller pieces on a larger frame. Right now I have a 12" piece (240 warp threads) and a 8" piece (160 warp threads) on the 32 inch frame. The fit well with enough room in between to be able to weave comfortably. The only thing I've found about these looms that is disappointing is that you cannot weave a piece as big as they advertise. Not comfortably, anyway.

The 12" loom is supposed to have a 9" wide weaving area. I tried to warp mine for an 8" piece using the 14 dent spring. I was a few dents short and that was going end to end on the spring. Most of the pieces I weave are 8-9 inches wide. I've done two on the 12" that were only 6" and 5" wide. I have other cheapie looms that can weave pieces that size on, when I want to. I don't want to that often.

So, I'm going to list my 12" loom in my Etsy store for a bit and if doesn't sell there, I'll list it on Ebay. I think I'll ask for $180 for it with shedder and all original parts, plus a couple of extra coils.

If you happen to be out there reading this and you're interested email me at lynneambrosino@gmail.com .

Now, on to a couple of photos: First is the first, and largest, piece I finished on my 12" Mirrix loom: It is 6" by 15" and I had to get a custom frame to fit it. Still haven't gotten it into the frame, but I'm working on it.

The next piece I did for my long-suffering spousal unit, Bob. He puts up with the threads, beads and looms all over the house. He's a coffee and wine afficianado, so I made this for him:

So Many Topics...not enough time...

Gosh, a whole month has flown by since we've returned home! Lots of times I thought of things to blog, but, honestly, just never had the time. And you know I'm into "no obligation" blogging.

It is so good to be home. I had forgotten how laid back and gracious the people in the islands can be. Everywhere we've gone and told people that we were away and have come back to Hawaii, we've heard "Welcome Home!" I've even gotten that at work.

We've been working hard in the house to get things pulled together. It's coming along well. The main floor is almost there. The upstairs is a totally different story, but I made progress there as well this weekend. Some of the issue with my craft stuff is inefficient storage. I have drawers in my plastic cabinets that have one or two items in them. That's just bad.

Well, it's about 0430 and I have to feed my beasties and get the day going. It's Monday and it's bound to be busy!

ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHA!

We made it back to Hawaii!!! Along the way we had to spend 4 days in Chicago with two cranky cats crammed into a small, but luxurious hotel room. Our plane from Dulles to O'Hare was delayed because United Airlines didn't schedule a crew to fly our plane. Minor, but important detail. We ended up flying Continental with the cats safely in Continental's Pet Safe program flying on the plane with us.

And just a word about United Airlines. They have GOT to be THE WORST airlines flying in the skies today. We have now flown many airlines in the U.S. and Europe and United is BY FAR the lousiest! Even though it was their fault we got stranded in Chicago. Even though all our luggage, except one duffle bag, was forwarded to Honolulu while we were still in Chicago. Even though, they lost our cats for about 2 hours. They absolutely refused to do anything for us, except give us some coupons to a couple of fleabag hotels all an hour from the airport.
We finally gave up arguing with United personnel and decided to book ourselves in to the Hilton across from the airport. Not one manager from United would come talk to us. They were all hiding, I imagine. And the airport personnel kept saying how tired they were. I'm sorry, I just didn't freakin' care! Crappy scheduling, crappy customer service, just plain crappy airlines.

But, here we are. We're home. Our belongings were delivered and we're up to our eyes in boxes and bins. It'll take a while to sort this all out, but we will. And we're staying put for the next few years....

Two More Days....

Or is that "daze"? We're finishing up the cleaning in this humongous house and feeling thankful that our house in Hawaii is not big. The house in Hawaii is an end unit townhouse in a four house grouping. The biggest model of the complex, it's only about 1300 square feet. The monstrosity we've lived in here in Bavaria is at least 3,ooo. It has four floors and room upon room, most of which we never entered, let alone lived in.

The Hawaii house is just two floors, no basement, Oahu is, afterall, a volcanic island. The first floor is the kitchen, living room, dining area (we don't call it a "dining room" because it is more of a nook than a room), rather large wasteful foyer an large full bathroom/laundry room combination and a large, very sunny, very private lanai. The top floor has four bedrooms, two very small and two medium-sized, and a small full bathroom. There is also a really nice storage room/walk-in closet. It's a good size for us, not much cleaning, which we both are loath to do.

My only problem with the Hawaii house is the size of my craft stash relative to the size of my craft room. But, since I've been here in Bavaria and had a craft area at least twice the size of the room in Hawaii, I realized I have too much stuff for anything than a full scale craft studio. As my craft supplies, the majority of which are beads and fabric, arrive in Hawaii, I'm going to take a good hard look at everything and give some away to Goodwill. I really need to downsize and down-spend. Wish me luck!

Bella Italia!

Bob and I returned from our last trip to Italy during our stay in Europe. We will be back to Italy but not for a couple of years. It's expensive and time consuming to travel to Europe from Hawaii. And the jetlag.....

We chose to tour Italy by car this time. We've flown to Rome several times, flew to Venice, flew to Florence, but this time we decided to climb into our trusty yellow Mini CooperS and travel the Italian highways.

I don't know who ever started that vicious rumor that Italians are terrible drivers. They really aren't. They don't take any more risks than the rest of the European drivers I've encountered, although I think their definition of "road lanes" might lose something in the translation. They tend to drive in two lanes at once, but once you get used to that, it's easy to deal with. And they will occupy one lane, at least temporarily, if you wish to pass.

We stopped for several days in Tuscany. That region lived up to its reputation in beauty and food. However, it was rather touristy. And everything was perfectly manicured and cleaned. Anyone who has been to Italy for any amount of time will know that Italy is usually controlled chaos. I think that is part of its charm. Although I do realize that living in ultra-ordered Germany for two years, could be coloring my opinion.

After Tuscany, we traveled on to Abruzzo. We traveled south of the recent earthquake shattered L'Aquila area. We climbed into the mountains of Abruzzo which are wild and un-touristed. Finally we hit a spot with our GPS navigation system just gave up and left us on our own. There was only one way to go....up.

After four hours of driving through wild natural scenery, we arrived at our destination of Rocca Pia. This small...REALLY small hamlet was the birthplace of Bob's grandmother. I think that this small town was the real Italy.

We started at the only open restaurant we could in the town, there was another restaurant which wasn't open at least not for lunch. Needless to say the town residents were rather curious about the yellow Mini Cooper S with German plates that was driving around their town....or should I say back and forth in their town. There was only on street suitable for driving.

Once Bob explained his connection to this little village, the place came alive. The lovely owner of the restaurant in which we had lunch found us a room in her brother's B&B which was closed for the season, but was opened for us. We were assisted in every possible way to find remnants of Bob's family's past. And at 9pm as we were slumbering in our very nice B&B room, we were moments away from meeting some of Bob's family's present.

At 9:45 pm, there was knocking on our room door. Upon opening, Bob found two of his second cousins and one of their children outside our room. Apparently word had gotten around this small burg and the relatives came to call. Bob had a wonderful time catching up with all the family history. Bob and I don't speak much Italian and they didn't speak any English, but I've found that in Italy knowing some Italian nouns and Spanish verbs will get you through. So we managed our way through an hour or so of conversation.

The next day we got up early, having decided to drive straight through back to Germany. We drove along the spectacular Adriatic Coast and vowed to return to that area and spend a couple of weeks. That, however, won't happen for a couple of years. But we will be back...

To all the cat lovers out there....

How many of us cat lovers can relate to this You Tube video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs2ZPU6eDp8