{Our Russian Icon - The Mother of God of Smolensk }

Not only do we love East European music but also its very rich culture in general. So it just came naturally that Pieter did purchase this rare and beautiful 17th Century Russian Icon - The Mother of God of Smolensk.

We always admired these icons in the Eastern European Churches!

Here she is; very old, directly painted onto wood in a beautiful manner.

The symbolics

A closeup

Our Religious corner in our living room (minus the bottles of course!)...

At the time of 10+ years that my Pieter was a member of the Monday Night Club, where by turn you host a 3–course dinner after socializing with drinks, we were stocked up on that... Someone gave a lecture, also by turn.

• CHRISTIE'S THE MOTHER OF GOD OF SMOLENSK (←link)

CHRISTIE'S auction of course is about a very ancient 16th Century Icon of The Mother of God of Smolensk but it does give some interesting insight.

We do have the Dutch book: De wereld der Ikonen, Historisch, theologisch en esthetisch belicht

The world of Icons, Historical, theological and aesthetic highlighted

 Author is Dr. W. Theunissen

Inscribed:

Ikonen halen de hemel neerwaarts en trekken

de aarde omhoog. Zij zijn als vensters op de Eeuwigheid.

W. Theunissen

Translated:

Icons get the heaven downwards and pull up the earth.

They are like windows to the Eternity.

W. Theunissen

Related link:

{Our Living Room} | previous post by me where you can see the smaller bird cage
Christie's Listing of Icons | Icons and Artefacts from the Orthodox World - 26 November 2007
Christie's Listing of Icons | Icons and Artefacts from the Orthodox World - 11 June 2007

{Our Apartment in Cornuda, TV, Italy}

Just to give you an idea where we lived in Italy, while working there one year.  We left for Italy, from Pennsylvania, using the Italian Consulate in Philadelphia for all our paperwork. All our belongings went again into a 40-foot container across the ocean, back to Europe. Little did we know that in the harbor of Genua there was a strike so we had to make do 8 weeks without our belongings. Only what we carried in our 4 suitcases was all we had. We lived in an apartment at the top. We had bought a lot for building a house later...

That's the apartment building; part of it... Right above the coffee shop sign: BAR BELVEDERE you see two balconies. Those were ours at the time. One was from the kitchen and one from the living room.

Underneath the BAR sign was the entrance and via an elevator we went up.

To the right you could enter the very narrow parking garage. We just barely could fit our Ford Escort.

Dad's Ford Fiesta that we had to borrow to drive to Italy from The Netherlands, fit a lot better!

That's where we lived. Close to Venice in the Veneto Region.

Cornuda in the Province of Treviso, in Italy.

I did use Google maps because each time when we flew over this region, the weather was not clear enough and our cameras not good enough...

That's the map of Italy and you can see the snow in the Alps above.

Driving to the south to Sicily was as far as driving north to The Netherlands.

Italy is a very long, stretched out country!

The yellow marked places are Cornuda, below, where we lived. Pederobba where we worked and where the office was with two big mushroom farms and packaging. Quero, where yet another mushroom farm was, an older one.

That was in the mountains, on the foothills of the Dolomites and along the river Piave. 

I've never had a more romantic drive, very scenic, to my work as in the spring of 1989 when I drove to Quero.

By the way, Pieter was in the hospital of Valdobiadene, that's where artist Mirella SOTGIU made that beautiful chalk drawing from me. See link to that post below.

Here you could reach the back of the apartment and the parking garages, very limited in number though! To the left you still see the two balconies that were ours.

Stepping back from the apartments. You see there is parking adjacent to the building and that's what we had to use mostly. There was a dirt road going up the hill to an old farmstead with horse stables. We have walked up there several times. It is mountainous.

Here you get a little bit of an idea about the hilly part.

This is from another angle, from a side street. The two left balconies at the top was where we lived.

Below the apartment were shops.

Here I've marked the bottom of our balconies 'yellow'... that gives again a view up.

Shops below and also showing the parking places.

This is just around the corner and I only wanted to show the shop Rosetto where before was a gift shop for luxury items. There I sold lots of my imports in consignment. The lady was saddened when I left...

Zooming in on the streetlevel I used the Google map from this link. Interesting how we still can visit places where we lived by using Google! At the time we worked and lived in Italy we have made very few photos. Studying in the beginning each day a lesson Dutch-Italian and working 6-days a week did not leave much space for other things. But we enjoyed living there for almost one year. Not so much the fact that building there had to be following the rules for the earthquake region. That meant we had to put as much 'money' in the ground as above by constructing with big concrete pillars in the ground, a thick concrete foundation and all walls had to be very thick concrete as well. We went back to Georgia, USA where we have no earthquakes... But we miss the shopping as Italy is the best country for design, for jewelry, for leather goods like shoes and hand bags and also for lingerie... The food part we can find here in Dublin, Georgia as well and we are lucky with our Italian friend and Lady Chef Maria from Ristorante da Maria.

Related link:
{HELP ME FIND ITALIAN ARTIST M. SOTGIU mother of Luigi Tramarollo} | previous post by me with photos from the River Piave
{YES, I did find the Italian artist who did my chalk drawing!} | previous post by me

{Hats & Me}

• As a young girl I always had to stand on my toes, nose against the window, when walking past the Millinery Shop 'Bonneterie Van de Beuken in the Steenstraat of Horst my birth place. 
• My favorite Great Aunt Nelly or 'Oud Tante Nelly', the wife of my Paternal Great-Uncle Handrie, brother of my Grandmother and her sister Mia, did make such lovely hats. 
• I always have admired the special bows, roses, pearls and ribbons they used as embellishment for those elegant hats. Mom used to buy her hats at their shop!
• The very same Great Aunt Nelly, has instilled in me, my love for fine china and silver ware. 
• Whenever I did sew for her a dress or suit, I did visit with her after High Mass on Sunday for fitting. 
• She always did serve me coffee with pastry in her fine china. 
• One never knows how such early encounters at a young and tender age do impact our lifestyle... For sure, Tante Nelly will be smiling down from heaven...

• On August 25, 1984 I had found this matching hat, with veil... to go with my Royal Stuart Scottish Tartan plaid. 
• Husband Pieter went to England for the British Mushroom Days, by himself and he found at the Scotch House in London a wool shawl, matching gloves and this fabric in a Scottish Royal Stuart Tartan plaid. 
• So I did sew this pencil skirt out of the fabric. Later I have hemmed up the skirt and I still have it.

The shoes and skirt I still have...

Too bad that the Scotch House has been shut up by the end of 2001.

Just read: The Telegraph - Scotch House to shut up shop.

Pieter used to buy several things there; already for his little daughter Lizzy a Scottish Tartan skirt when she was a toddler.

Are you covering your head with a hat? 

If only for the sun in summer; that still counts!

Related link:
{My Jessica McClintock Hat & Christian Dior Suit} | previous post by me
Life is better with a hat | previous post by blogger friend Bea from Modern Country Lady
My Life in Hats | previous post by blogger friend Marie-Thérèse from The French Touch
{Do YOU all know Our Nations Oldest City - St. Augustine, Florida?} | previous post by me
Mad Women and Their Hats | previous post by blogger friend Marie-Thérèse from The French Touch

{Sisters Dressed Like Twins}

Most of us that do have sisters probably have been dressed by our parents like twins. At least, my sister Diny, 19 months younger than I am, and I have been dressed like that by our Mom. Even in later life we did manage to get back to that 'TWIN' feeling...

This was in February 1999, when we just had arrived from Atlanta, Georgia/USA to the Netherlands. This is at my parents' home. Diny just received my gift of a Laurèl (by Escada) jeans suit with top. The price tags are still  on the table, next to my elbow... That was fun! For me a size 34, American 4 and for Diny a size 38 or 8.

 I still have mine and it fits.

This outfit I had bought also at the Escada Outlet and mailed it to my sister Diny in The Netherlands in December of 1996. This photos shows us getting together as TWINS once more on April 3, 1997.

Fun again. Even though I could not get the same rib cord top for her, it is still the very same collection.

The skirt came unlined but I guess Diny is showing here some kind of slip...

The men wanted to see who is the tallest of the two...

Guess there was no difference in height!

It sure was fun  to pull this off once more! 

Have you dressed like TWINS in your later years?

Related link:
Tweeling? | Twins? post by Willy from De Tante van Tjorven

{Our Dutch Atlas Zaanse Wall Clock in Oak}

• Maybe you already did see our Dutch Zaanse Wall Clock in my previous post about Our Dining Room. Link you find below this post. 
• It was a clock that I bought just before my wedding in 1972. 
• I recall that due to the gas being on coupons (gasoline distrubution due to limited availability because of an oil crisis), one jewelry store refused to deliver and hang it for us. 
• But this is what we ended up with, the oak version of a very stately Dutch Atlas Zaanse Wall Clock.

At the top you see 'ATLAS' bearing the heavens on his shoulders. He is standing on the metal bell that is being struck by a metal hammer every full and half hour.

When starting your clock, adjust the time and carefully wait for each stroke for half an hour and all hour!

You see the long chains attached to the pear–shaped gilt metal weights being hung up on the curled adornment underneath the wood.

Now tap the pendulum sidewards so that it will automatically move back and forth.

Pull up in time before the weights are down!

Detail showing ' ATLAS ' bearing the weight of the heavens... (click link for definition)

It is inscribed in Old Dutch: NU ELCK SYN SIN

NOW EACH GETS HIS WAY

The cast metal figures represent Faith, Hope and Charity.

The entire clock shows beautiful ornate brass design work.

The dial plate is mounted on black velvet.

Some describe the dial plate as being surrounded with four cherub angels but I'm not sure about that.

Anybody with more information about these ancient figures, please let me know!

This is where ours resides.

The pear shaped brass gilt metal weights need to be pulled up every 8 days.

The pendulum shows a rider on a horse.

They seem to have been made also in Rosewood as is shown here at a Christie's auction.

Christie's A DUTCH BRASS-MOUNTED ROSEWOOD WALL CLOCK 'ZAANSE STOELKLOK'

CHRISTIE'S A DUTCH BRASS–MOUNTED ROSEWOOD WALL CLOCK "ZAANSE STOELKLOK"

Related links:
{Our Dutch Table Clock} | previous post by me
{Our Dining Room} | previous post by me

{My Indonesian Silk Batik Sarong & Kebaya}

Of course having lived and worked for many years in Indonesia I could not resist buying a formal Indonesian Silk Batik Sarong and a white cotton lace Kebaya. That is very much the traditional wear for the country. For normal wear it is made out of cotton batik and for special occasions the use of silk and other valuable fabrics is being used.

• Being blond and blue eyed, I fell for this blue silk batik sarong...

My photographer did cut my feet off... 

It is quite an art for putting this on yourself!

With the use of a half corset, the silk batik fabric of the Sarong is being held in place. I do wear a white camisole under the cotton embroidered lace Kebaya/blouse.

My white embroidered lace Kebaya came from Batik Nyonya Indo

Purchased at Hotel IBIS, Jl Malioboro in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

My silk batik Sarong is from SAPTOHOEDOJO

Our boss in Indonesia did bring us there often.

They had a restaurant with delicious food and she had a beatiful Art Gallery and the best batiks in town.

We also did watch beautiful Javanese dancing in her theatre!

Glad that I purchased this silk batik Sarong at her airport shop...

Related link:
{Anita Anggraeni our Foster Daughter} | previous post by me showing foster daugther Anita in her Wedding Sarong, just scroll down.

{We Both Watched Silkworms Chew Mulberry Leaves in Italy}

• When we went together on one of our consulting trips to Italy, we had quite an experience on June 6, 1986. We will never ever forget this day. After our work day, before our friend Tommaso did drop us off again, at our favorite four star hotel Bellavista in Montebelluna, Treviso, he brought us to the most unusual place we've ever been. A Sericulture or Silk Farming place! Wow, we had never ever seen anything like that! Sericulture or Silk Production... just click those hyperlinks. 
• During my fashion study we did cover the qualities of the various silks, like Japanese and Italian silks being of very high quality. I knew Thai silk as my husband had a very special tie made from Thai silk, I knew raw silk, silk georgette, silk charmeuse etc. etc. 
• But NEVER I had seen those actual silk worms. Yes, there are different types of silk worms, yielding those various silk qualities. But here we were in a kind of a huge greenhouse where racks were build and one could hear those thousands and thousands of silkworms actually chew!

• This is the actual photo that my husband Pieter made of such silkworms being on the racks. In the back you also see some cocoons.
• The entire family in this Italian town were involved. Cutting up the leaves from the mulberry trees for feeding them to those silkworms.

• This is a ready cocoon that will be good for collecting!

I got one but gave it away to my nephew for taking it to school...

• They yield 600 to 900 meters (2,000 to 3,000 feet) when unwinding, after dropping them in hot water. Poor silkworms...

• From friend Tommaso I received this Italian book about Modern Silk Worm Culture.

• Instead of copying some photos from this book, there is a link below this post where you will find plenty of silkworms eating mulberry leaves!

We did have a weeping mulberry tree near our gazebo. We cut it down as it grew so big and completely blocked our pond view. But this would be the leaves that they do prune off and chop them up like making salad, for feeding them to the silkworms!

In our wood garden we also do have a mulberry tree that does yield mulberries. Mostly they fall off and I guess the birds will feast on them. The tree is way too tall for us to get any for making jam.

Did any of you ever see this kind of silkworm farms?

Or does any of you have a mulberry tree?

Related link:
Silworms eat mulberry leaves | link from Bing with lots of photos for getting the idea

{Horst my Birth Place, Used to be an Old Linen Weavers Town}

• Most of you probably do know, how linen is produced; from Flax into Linen. 
• Flax is the world's oldest fiber plant with a lovely flower that varies from white to intense blue. Below this post you find several Flax and Linen informative links. Also you can find out more about the top linen fiber producing countries in the world today.
• Well, Horst in the province of Limburg, my Birth Place, was such an important Flax producing town and we used to have lots of home weavers and also several Flax Fens. One was only half a mile away from my Parents' home; called 't Rotven (Rotting Fen).

• On October 17, of 2005 we did make this photo of a work of art  called: ' Linen yarn drying '. The bronze work refers to the many home weaving mills that Horst once knew. The yarn was placed into water to get the tannins out. Then the yarn got dried on sticks. Hans Stoffels and Mia Daenen created this bronze piece of art work.

• With our friends Johnny and Hannah from Dublin, Georgia, we did travel in The Netherlands and we made this photo.
• Too bad that the art work has been moved away from this spot. No longer is there water around it... a pity as it did signify exactly what it was all about.
• In 1950, the last of the hundreds of home weavers quit his job. But in the 1700s it was a thriving home industry.

• Love for Linen
• Below this post you find a link that reads: Top Ten Wedding Gifts, where Quality Sheets ranks 3rd and Fine Table Linens ranks 6th. So there still is a LOVE FOR LINEN! 

This is from the Dutch magazine, NOUVEAU AUGUST 2010

• New developments and those trusted wrinkles make the age old linen the ultimate material for making it cool and elegant through summer.

• Soft, smooth, chic and flowing: linen is wonderful material that feels great on our skin...

Napkins for the King...

• Do you love linen as much as I do?
• Nowadays there is so much linen being used in interior design, such as linen jute or burlap as we know it. Even on my Zen Cart powered on line boutique Mariette's Back to Basics, I offer lots of French made jute linen gifts. 
• It makes me very happy to see a comeback of this noble fiber with the longest history on this earth of any fibers.

• Linen makes an impressive comeback. Isabella Rossellini was one of the first that discovered linen as a graceful taste maker in the 80s. 'Now you are an eco-fashionista when wearing it, but I simply found it comfortable' she said.
• What is damask? Linen is the material, damask is the pattern weave that is only visible when the light falls upon it.
• Smoothly starched or slubby? 
• Linen fiber is twelve times stronger than cotton and absorbs very strongly; It can soak up 20-25% of its own weight in moisture before feeling moist itself.
• Because it is a lose weave, the moisture dries up again fast, thus feeling cool to the touch in warm weather and warm when it gets cooler.
• Linen does not pill, has just like silk a natural shine and can be worn by almost anyone: pure linen does possess anti-allergic qualities. 
• For the cultivation of flax there is a significantly less need for pesticides and fertilizers than for other crops. The fibers can be recycled and are biodegradable in nature. (Making it Eco friendly!)
• Italian linen does have a more silky finish than for instance Irish linen, which is more 'slubby: that means that it is more irregular, with little imperfections that makes the fabric more alive. The most slubby linen currently comes from Poland and Russia.
• Nowadays linen often is being blended in with rayon or cotton: Armani and Calvin Klein love to use these blends, because they wrinkle less.

Royal table linen

One of the prettiest and most famous linen pieces is the wedding gift that Queen Wilhelmina from The Netherlands in 1947 gave to then princess Elizabeth of England. It was a complete table set of three linen damask tablecloths with 96 napkins, designed by referral of the Queen by Miss Kitty van der Mijl Dekker. The set is still being used.

In search of lovely linen... Sanny de Zoete is specialized in custom woven damask tablecloth of 100% linen after designs of Dutch artists. She does sell linens, gives mangle and laundry tips, does programs and wrote books. She has a FB Page: Sanny de Zoete Damast. World's Prettiest Antique and Designer Linen Damask.

Hoping you enjoyed reading about this favorite fiber!

Related link:
Top Ten Wedding Gifts | Quality Sheets ranks 3rd and Fine Table Linens ranks 6th
{Clothing around 1850 - Museum de Kantfabriek} | previous post by me
{Michelle Obama & Print Unlimited from Horst} | previous post by me
{Museum Lace Factory - Antique Lace Toer or Poffer} | previous post by me
HISTORY OF LINEN | also quite informative
Top Flax Growing Countries Of The World | Linen Fiber Production
Museum de Kantfabriek Horst aan de Maas | video on Youtube

{My Wolford Outlet Score}

• One of the bonus of being an international consultant is that you get to check out boutiques and know what will be coming down the pipeline into the OUTLETS. 
• When we worked in Connecticut for a big mushroom farm, we always did drive to the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets and one of my favorite stores is Wolford. 
• Stocking up on hosiery at a fraction of the real cost and checking out other sales. 
• You even can order over the phone, if you know what you are looking for! 
• Also on line at Wolfordshop so it just depends on what your needs are. We used to have a Wolford boutique here in Atlanta but it closed... Designer Wolford is located in Austria.
• There also is a Wolford Outlet at Orlando Premium Outlets at Vineland Ave. 
• Also at Sawgrass Mills Outlets - 1700 Sawgrass Mills Circle -  33323 Sunrise, FL 

• This is me showing off one of Wolford's scores; a great top in a kind of a rust color.
• Wearing it on my Escada shorts.

• Wolford pieces are perfect for traveling; very light weight and great quality!

• Love the season where we can wear shorts...

Called Lace Sweater by Wolford...

Related link:
Wolford Fashion | FB Page link