Wednesday, November 30, 2016

A Little Update...

Gentle friends,  while we were over at Alcatraz I had my sister take some new snaps of Rico and me.... and so I've updated my "About Me" snaperoo in the right-hand column.... here tis...

... I had my Santa hat  just for the occasion and Rico had the crazy antlers on....  yup, we're nuts!!

Have a great evening!!
edgar

A Thanksgiving Weekend - Lots of Photo's

Gentle Friends...  our Thanksgiving weekend started off with us heading over to Pier 39... 

... to meet up with Vonna, The Twisted Stitcher!!  
She was out here visiting her brother and his family for Thanksgiving.

... we had a lovely long lunch ... and I knew from our years of cyber-friendship, she was a delight!!!
... here we are in front of the giant tree ... Rico , Vonna and me.
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My sister, BiL and niece were all in attendance for Thanksgiving......
... my annual shot of us sitting down to dinner,....  the menu : 

Rosemary Roasted Turkey & Gravy
Cornbread & Sausage Stuffing
Triple Cranberry Sauce
Dinner Rolls
Watermelon Pickle
Sweet Potato Casserole
Caramelized Brussels Sprouts
Green Bean Casserole

Marionberry Pie
Peach Pie
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Cream Puffs
Christmas Cookies
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On Friday we headed to Alcatraz, my sister had gotten tickets a few weeks before... you get catch the ferry to Alcatraz at Pier 33....


... the gun to the left in the picture is a replica Model 1861 10 inch Rodman Cannon since Alcatraz began as a US Army Fort it was designed to defend San Francisco Bay from enemy attack.  at the height, of the Civil Was, there were more than 100 heavy cannon the island.  The Rodman Cannon ranged in size from 8-inch caliber guns up through 15-inch caliber models - the largest could weigh in at nearly 50,000 lbs.  by 1869 the US Army had shipped 39 Rodmans to the island.  The last of the cannons were donated to a scrap drive in 1943.  This replica weighs in at about 20,000 lbs, could fire a solid 128 lb cannon ball, with a range of 2.75 miles... 

before getting on the boat we had our picture taken....

 ... although I took this shot as we were leaving this is where you land on the "The Rock."



... there are still signs of the Native occupation - 1969-71.

... a cell block...

.. a typical cell...


... the is one of the cells in "the Hole" - or solitary confinement....
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 ... the views from the island are spectacular......






.... the approach to the island has this sign  for all who came here when it was a prison....

leaving the island....

... and returning to the city...
...  it was a really fun trip and one I had been looking forward to.  I've lived here more than 20 years and have never visited...  it was so worth a visit, my only recommendation is to get tickets before you visit, as they sell out early .
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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by dos stop again!!

Take care
edgar

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

A Fun Lunch

Gentle Friends, here's a post I meant to get up last week......better late than never.......

  ...it was a wet and stormy Saturday here in the City by the Bay.....we had been running around and instead of heading home for lunch we headed to 24th street to my favorite pizza place......I drive, so I get to choose the place - it's one of the few things I get my way.... hee hee!!  We found some sweet parking - just across the street and ran through the raindrops into the restaurant... Patxi's Pizza...

...the place was almost empty so we got sat right away...we decided on a thin crust...

...with pepperoni, sausage, and green pepper.... I had a delicious Italian beer while Rico had a soda ...

... we gobbled up that sucker!!!

... on the table with the other condiments was some honey, we were told that it was for the crusts, we tried some and found it to be a nice sweet ending to the pizza slice.
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There you go sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,
edgar

Monday, November 28, 2016

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle Friends, over the weekend I made a little headway on the border and have gone with mixing the light and dark pinks for the berries...... here's a snaperoo....

... this is a great border as it sort of meanders along and I really like the purple (Elegant Eggplant) I choose for the grapes or poke berries or whatever they could be.....
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There you go sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

take care,
edgar

Thursday, November 24, 2016

A Very Happy Thanksgiving...

Gentle Friends,
Just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!  

Remember....



... I'll be back next week, have a super weekend!!!!

Take care,
edgar

Monday, November 21, 2016

A Little Stitchin' - Meet Miss Sarah......

Gentle Friends, this is my 2000th post so it is great that I am talking about the start of a new stitching project... after finishing up "The Plantation Sampler" I pulled another OOP chart out of the old stash pile and I had already done all the digging about through my linen and deciding between overdyed flosses, I finally got started .....  Sarah Maddock by Simply Samplers....  a schoolgirl sampler from 1810....here's a snap of the first stitchity bits of border....


... after I saw this piece a few years ago on another blog I had to have it and eventually I found this kit on the bay of evil - and it comes with the DMC floss and a 27ct piece of linen.... I've changed out the linen to 36ct piece of "Barn Owl" and the DMC I've converted over to lovely Belle Soie (Classic Colorworks)  silks.... in shifting to silks I've also changed the odd colored berries from the weird blue color to a purple/grape color I like better.  

The border is really great (and it is what I was first drawn to ) and is made up of grapes, berries, and skinny leaves... the berries are made up of a gold and pink, now my quandary is - do I like the lighter shade of pink (Rustique) or the darker shade of pink (Terra Potta)??  I am leaning toward the darker of the two, the DMC shade from the kit falls between these two shades of pink..... but I kinda like the darker.  
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That's about all there is today sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,
edgar

Friday, November 18, 2016

Wrapping up the trip... a visit to New Bern...

Gentle Friends, I think I'll wrap up my trip today... my last day in North Carolina Dale and I drove down to New Bern to visit the Governors Palace.  The original Palace burned in 1792, the building there now was reconstructed in the 1950's using the original plans and source material.  


The only building from the 18th century still standing on the property is the Stable Office building which, by the 1950's had been turned into apartments.  The site now has the reconstructed Palace, reconstructed kitchen/office building and stable office block.  Along with the Palace, the grounds have been replanted with mid-20th century "colonial revival designed gardens" and a few smaller out buildings.

A front view of the palace with the kitchen/office to the left and stable office to the right

Impressive gates open onto the front drive
The Palace and other buildings are made of locally sourced bricks and are laid in a Flemish bond pattern,  which is...a header brick between two stretcher bricks


To see inside one must take the colonially garbed docent-led tour, which begins on the front steps at the front door.... it's a nice way to start... you are led into a front hall and then into....

... the library - the Palace is filled with many lovely antiques and the library is filled with books of the period that any English gentleman might have...

The largest room in the Palace is the Assembly/Dinning Room, with portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte overlooking the proceedings...

... a small withdrawing-room has a gorgeous bookcase and tea table....

and a super set of needlepoint covered chairs surrounding a card table...

... the small dinning room was set out with a dessert course... 


... this small room is a sort of butlers/housekeepers room...

... in the central hall was this table and a great Chinese punch bowl...

... I stepped back and took this snap of the beautiful cantilevered flying staircase in the great stair hall...

... on of the main bedrooms on the second floor....

... this was originally intended to be the Master bedroom but turned out to be the hottest bedroom in the house, it is situated centrally overlooking the back gardens towards the river so Governor Tryon chose another room that would get cross breeses and bebit cooler....

... this little room is M'lady's dressing room, and laid out on the sofa and chairs are costumes and period garments that she might wear...

... for some reason, I only have this corner shot of the Governor's bedroom with a tea table and chair...
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... from the second story we hustled down the back stairs to the basement to see the Housekeepers room.....

... and the butler's room.... the furniture was still all up on blocks to protect it from any water that might rise.  Remember, I visited just after a hurricane passed through and there was still plenty of  flooding going on in Eastern NC.  If you look along the brick wall you can see the original 18th-century brick foundations that the "new" Palace was built on...
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....  looking at the stable office building...
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... from the house, we headed over to the kitchen office building where they were .....

...baking up an apple type pie.  There were two lovely ladies there answering questions and talking about what went on in this building during the 18th century...

... this is the servents hall and wash room...

... this is the kitchen gardens and bit over grown but full of things that would have been found there in the 18th century...

looking at the dovecote...

... one of the lovely gardens created in the 1950's, that still held lots of mum's from the "Mumfest" earlier in the month...

...  included in the ticket price were two other historic houses to tour so we headed over there to catch a tour....  the first house we saw was the "John Wright Stanly House"...
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John Wright Stanley bought the property the house sat on originally in  1779, and the house was completed in 1787 - and is considered one of the finest examples of late Georgian architecture in the state...


... the house has been moved three times to save it from demolition and has gone through many incarnations from private residence to boarding house then public library and finally a restored historic house that is just beautiful.  Although we could take as many pictures as we wanted to the two large front rooms on the first floor were off limits, as they contained many things on loan from Stanley family memebers... just like at Mt Vernon....

.. another lovely stair hall...

... in the front upstairs bedroom, they had a vignette set up with a piece of needlework in a tambour frame sitting on a locally made dressing table...

... the second bedroom..

... and a couple of shots of the master bedroom set with a tea table... notice the super garniture of Chinese export porcelain on the mantle...


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The second house on tour was the "George W Dixon House" - built in 1828 for the successful merchant and a New Bern Mayor, George Dixon.  It is a fine example of neoclassical architecture - although built when he was flush eventually it was lost to foreclosure.  During the Civil War and the Federal occupation of New Bern the house served as a hospital for the 9th Vermont Infantry.

The house epitomizes life in the first half of the 19th century when the town was a prosperous port and one of the state's largest cities.  It is furnishings, reflect the Federal/Empire period as it was interpreted in America.


... a snap of the front of the house, the original part of the house is the main block you see here...


... this is a snap I took from the Palace side or back of the house, here you can see the later Victorian additions added in the 1840's and the 1870's...

... the front room is covered is a really loud wall paper that was made especially for the house...

... another shot of the front room... boy, that paper was "busy"...

..and it wrapped into the dining room...

... the front upstair bedroom was also covered in period paper, and as with the downstairs rooms just full of lovely period furniture.
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From New Bern we headed back to Ayden, and stopped at a great Antique mall, I'll show you next week what I picked up..... That's about it for the trip, I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed rehashing everything!!  Thanks again for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,
edgar

It's Spring!!

Gentle Friends, a lovely variation of Vivaldis's first movement of Spring....  bright and cheerful........ ________________ The year mov...