For the Love of Textiles

For this weekend the plan was,to plant red tulip bulbs on Bram's grave on Saturday and to do some heavy gardening in our garden on Sunday.  Yes, I still feel it is "Our garden", and for the moment it is still difficult to write "My garden". I have never been a real gardener myself. Bram was the one in our relation who always did the garden, and I was the one who enjoyed it. He was not a man with plans for the garden. In a way, that was more or less his attitude towards life in general. Not too much planning, and see what will happen. The funny thing is that in his work he was totally the opposite. His designs really needed planning, and he was good in that. A few years ago it was time for me to step in. Bram had no more energy to do the work after his aneurysm operation. The garden had become a mess. Everything was over grown with weeds, and our little City garden behind our historic home really needed some work to be done. I remember a bit chilly Autumn

While I was in Amsterdam last Sunday, I also visited ScheepvaartMuseum which tells the Maritime history of the Netherlands.  Situated close to Central Station, it was just a small walk to go there. I had never been there and I think Bram hasn't been there either during his life. (but He would have loved it, I thought after my visit) It was built in 1656 as 's Lands Zeemagazijn (the Arsenal), so over 350 years old, and it has been the museum's home since 1973. Very impressive and it exudes history. More info about the building can be read HERE . It has been renovated and had a grand opening in 2011. One of the most spectacular part is the roof which covers the whole courtyard and gives beautiful shadows when the sun shines. It is a very modern museum and after coffee and "appeltaart", I did the tour. Very modern and spectacular at some points. .  You hear sea-waves...while passing beautiful objects. There is a book which shows you a

Last Sunday afternoon Loret Karman organized a special tour in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. To tell you the truth...Van Gogh is not my favorite painter, but after this afternoon I have seen something very different in his paintings. Imagine this : You walk in the exhibition with little balls of hand dyed yarn round your fingers.  8 women do the same, but only with different colored yarn balls. Yes, I can hear you thinking: rather odd and what is the reason for doing this.. But let's start with the beginning. Loret, who I never met in real (only virtual through Facebook) is dyeing her own yarns. She is absolutely one of the few people I have met, who has a very good sense for colors  but she also is interested in the paintings by Van Gogh. One of the first questions she asked me (just after a Big Hug) was..do you like Van Gogh's work? After my answer (see above) she told me..you will see it from a totally different angle this afternoon..it will be an E