Yet another new project!
My husband The Australian was at a conference in the Azores last week, and I managed to tag along. It made a lovely change from grey, chilly England, where Spring has been especially tardy this year. It was sunny, most of the time, pleasantly warm rather than cold or too hot, and when the rain did come it came in exhilarating ten-minute bursts that bounced off the pavements and vanished as quickly as it had come. Since the subject of the conference was a little beyond my reach, I spent some time sightseeing, and found a delightful needlework and haberdashery shop, right in the centre of the town, near the harbour. If only embroidery shops were so easy to find in England! Furthermore, it was so busy there was a ticketed queuing system, and four assistants to serve the customers.
My new Azorean Project
My Portuguese is limited to “Please” and “Thank You”, but in the Azores it seems that almost everyone speaks English, so I was able to explain that I am interested in embroidery and was looking for an Azorean or Portuguese project as a souvenir of my visit.
We found some patterns, and some suitable fabric and thread for the cutwork design I had chosen – a lovely crisp, fine cotton and a hank of DMC floche.
Book on Punta Yugoslavo
Then I found something else, and couldn’t resist it, because the eccentricity of travelling halfway across the Atlantic and then buying a book of patterns from Yugoslavia rather appealed to me!
So, in total, I came back with two pattern booklets for a variety of Portuguese and Azorean embroidery styles, some fabric and thread, and an entirely unrelated booklet about a form of embroidery from Eastern Europe. As if I didn’t have enough to do!
What a treasure trove! I’m glad you at least, have had some warmth. Still bitterly cold today.
You’re going to have fun with these two!
How lovely — a ‘worldly’ experience and you know we’ll all be waiting to see what you make out of these wildly diverse patterns.
My eyes just turned green with envy, I love shopping for embroidery related things. I had read that Yugoslavia also claimed Swedish Darning. What kind of base cloth do they use? Is it also a Huck.
The pattern you show strikes me as very ‘you’.
Lucky you to escape our dreary weather! Have fun with the new projects!
obviously I need to get gareth to start going to conferences – the only ones I go to are in leeds and york
that’s the kind of holiday shopping that I love too. You are right about England….can hardly find a good needlework shop anywhere anymore.
Bought something of hobbies just like hunt a treasure. Enjoy the stitches.
Sounds like a lovely trip – and a fun souvenir to come home with 🙂
I love seeing and stitching patterns from around the world. You’ll have fun creating projects from these books you’ve bought. Enjoy!
How fun!! I’d like to know more about Azorean and Portuguese embroidery. Glad you got away.