Sewing again

Thursday I worked on these needle books.  I had the embroidery done for 2 of them. Now to start putting them together.

Two blocks, one for Isabelle, and one for me.

Mom and Dad have come to visit.  He stood guard while she ate.  I wonder if she will nest in my garden again.

Can't you just smell the lilacs??

One of my" little" gardens.  I have four small beds like this one.  I pack as many flowers as I can in them.  I love flowers. Can't you tell by all the pictures I take of them!!

Happy quilting, and have a great weekend.

Mary

Fabric I got fabric

I wanted a variety of colors from Caribelle Batik.  I ended up purchasing some scarves,( 1/8 yard pieces). I picked up 4 triangle kerchiefs. These are about half of a fat quarter. The reason for these strange purchases is because their fabric is made up into clothing and accessories.  Quilting fabric was limited.

The piece in the back is a 2 yard cut.  That is the only way it was sold. That was a $40.00 purchase.  The smaller blue pieces are half yard cuts, 5 pieces for $50.00.

As I was checking out a lady was folding these pieces.  Had to have them!

Thought this piece would look nice in a small quilt.  The custom pieces beautiful.

In St Lucia, and St Maarten I saw these plaids. Loved the color combinations, one piece is a caftan, and one is a scarf.  I don't have a problem cutting these pieces up. I thought the colors were wonderful.  I really wished I could have found a fabric store.  I could have done some more damage.

See the two cute pincushions in the back, two ladies.  Love them.  These are things I brought back. I do love that batik.  It is so soft and wonderful.

Here is my coolest purchase.  A lady in Marigot Bay in St Martin made that cool sack purse, a water bottle holder, a scrunchie, and a headband all for $15.00.  Now that was the buy of the day!  These are all made out of rayon batiks. 

While on the ship Kaitlyn, our party planner, had craft sessions. I made a lanyard, cards, a travel journal, and  ribbon bracelets.  One of the dining room servers taught up origami. I made penguins, bunnies, a fish and a butterfly.  It was so much fun.  He said he can make 70 different origami animals and objects.  Then to top it all off, we got to decorate our Holland America totebag.  She had all sorts of things we could use to glam them up.

I love, love all my purchases and fun things.

Today is Thursday, and sew day.  Yea!  Can't wait to go and see my quilt friends  We have decided we are a "bee". We need every week and have lunch and sew and of course talk.  We have so much fun.  I miss them when I am not home.

Happy Day, Happy Sewing!!

Mary

Philipsburg, St Maarten

Here we are coming into St. Maarten, our last island and last day for seeing land until Friday.  All of the docks we visited are called deep water  ports.  They have these real long docks.

We came over a hill to view the French capital, Marigot, in St. Martin.  There is a border between St. Maarten, and St. Martin. Philipsburg is on the Dutch side, Marigot, is French.  Our guide told us, if you have friends or relatives in St Martin, and you live in St. Maarten and called them, it is an overseas call.  They are two distinct countries on one island.  There is two of everything on this island. Two capitals, two school systems, two court systems, and even holidays. 

This is in the Marigot marketplace.

Spice lady sells in any quantity.

Look at the colorful dresses from one of the street vendors.  Notice the plaid, it was very common in the islands. I fell in love with it.

Local homestead, notice the gravestone in the lower left hand side.  They do bury family members on their own property. Again, there are bright colored houses. Most times the houses are concrete, with corrugated metal roofs.

There were 4 big ships in port. We were the second from the left. Those big ships are amazing.



Here are are at the Butterfly Farm.

Monarch Butterfly.  I was having fun trying to get some good closeups of the butterflies.  Our guide gave a lecture of how they are grown. It was so interesting. There were some gorgeous butterflies.  The only problem is, you don't get to spend enought time viewing everything.

Here I am in front of our ship.  I had a wonderful time in the islands.  I had not been to any of these six islands.  I would be interested in going back.  This may have seemed like a lot of pictures , but I can tell you, this is nothing.  I actually took over 1300.  I have been working on my composition skills, and closeups. I love flowers and trying to capture pictures of birds and of course scenery. It is hard for me to see the pictures on the screen on the back of the camera. Even on the computer screen I have problems telling if it is blurry or not.  I printed a lot, and been playing around with the windows applications for pictures. I  love to take pictures, can you tell.  Good thing for digital.

It is a wonderful experience that I have been able to go on these trips with my Dad. He appreciates me there as I take care to make sure he gets his medicines. He was not able to do so many of the excursions this time.  He has arthritis in his right hip that causes him a lot of pain.  He does use a walker, but this time he used it like a wheelchair, he sat, I pushed.

Dad loves to check out the ship. He talks to everyone. I have to watch those stories, some seem to change a bit with time. By the time he leaves, all the ship personnel knows him.  He has over 400 days at sea now.  On this voyage, I found out there are people with far more days, and have been sailing a lot longer.  Who knew!  I met two ladies that had left home on December 1, and had not been home yet.  They go from one ship to another. What a great way to see the world. 

As you can see I love to travel.  There are so many wonderful and interesting places to see in this world.  I feel I have been blessed to be able to do this.  I hope it can continue.

Ok, I know you have wondered what I brought back. That is my next post.  I finally got pictures taken today, now to upload them and share. 

Have a great evening, Thank you for indulging me by following these adventures.  When I started my blog, it was to keep a record of my sewing and my travel adventures.  I do keep a written journal as well when I travel.  Maybe someday, someone will find one of my journals and think, what an interesting life this person has had.

Have a great rest of the week.

Mary

Castries, St Lucia

Entrance to the terminal in Castries, St Lucia

The tour I went on today was "Island Splendor Drive". This is St Marks, an old colonial home.  It is on the side of a hill. You actually have to look down from the porch to look into the garden.  Our guide had to back his bus into the driveway, up hill.  It is very steep.  There is actually part of the original family still living in the house.It is full of antiques and was very pretty.

This was the view from that front porch. This is our ship.

Our guide warned us of this, if you needed to use the washroom you would have to pay.

This is the view for Marigot Bay.  It was so pretty.

This is the fishing village of Anse La Rayea.  Some of these houses are more then 100 years old. Everything is so colorful. There was a local market place. Vendors had their wares set up for selling.

This is a young man working on a piece of wood work. We were at the Eudovics Art Studio. This studio is known for its exquisite and intricate carvings.  The finished pieces are beautiful.  They were giving us 20% discount if we purchased anything.

Here is Dad enjoying one of the local brews.  You could purchase the local beers 3 or $5.00.  They were not bad at all.

On our way back to the ship, we passed this little bay.  Here were the local boats.  They were colorful.

Here was one of the local birds.  He was singing his heart out. Again, there were colorful trees and flowers. Everyone is very relaxed and friendly.
Only one more island.  There are so many things to see and do. I think it would be fun to go back some day.

Mary

Bridgetown, Barbados

Terminal at the port. The tall V shaped building in the background will hold 22 tons of sugar cane.  They still grow it on this island.  Most other islands have abandon growing it because of the costs.

That is our ship to the left.

One orchid.  I'm letting you off, I took lots of pictures of orchids.  They were gorgeous.  So colorful.  We are at Orchid World.

View of one of the settings at the gardens.

Check out how they grown the orchids.  Mine are all in pots.

View from the Orchid World on to sugar cane fields.

This was a fascinating place.

Sunbury Plantation House.  The setting for this home was so pretty.  It now is used for weddings, and receiptions.

Antique sewing items in the plantation house.

Even found a miniature sewing machine.

This is in place of MacDonalds.  Everything was closed in town, as it was Sunday. Sunday, is for families. Susan, our guide said family is very important.  The parents get very involved with their children.  There is a 99.7 literacy rate on this island.  Here the gas prices were $6.09 a gallon, US dollars.  She said her family spends about $150.00 each weekend in fillups.  We think we have it bad.

One of the oldest churches on the island.

This pulpit uses a variety of woods, and is all hand carved and is put together with no nails.  It was beautiful.  There was a cemetary on the grounds.  The graves had steps leading down to the burial area. Slabs of stone  covered the graves. It was a beautiful setting.  The church looks out over the Carribean Sea.

Next up St Lucia

St Vincent, Kingstown

Beautiful views.  Houses are built on stilts.

Kentucky Fried Chicken was on all islands.  MacDonalds is not.  Go figure.

Here we are on St Patricks Day.  This was a beautiful island.  I would like to go back, the gardens were gorgeous.  They had two gardens and we were orginally waitlisted for this tour.  When we got on the ship found they had added more transportation, so we got to go.

This Botanic Garden was beautiful. Everything was well organized, and manicured.  Our guide Sandra, knew all the types of plants, trees, and flowers.

This was looking down into the main part of the garden.  Everything is grown on slopes.  There is not much flat ground on this island.

I think she called this a poor mans orchid.  It is actually grown on a tree.  The flowers are beautiful. Love the color.

A

This is part of the Montreal Gardens.  It was quite the adventure to arrive here.  You never thought you were going to reach it, let alone know if you were going in the right direction.  It was on the highest hill (mountain) on the island.

There is a small river running through this garden.  Again, it is built on a slope, only this one was very steep.

Torch Ginger

Colorful houses

Breadfruit.  They know this tree is one of the orginal ones brought to the island by Captain Bligh, of the Mounty. Incredible!

Livestock is tethered.  This cow was not anxious to move over for us.

Next stop, Barbados.