Saturday, August 7, 2010 - Things that I like - I - Baskets

I I like baskets very much. All of them have their utility and beauty. Besides, they evoke those times when life was slower, when baskets were born from skillfull hands weaving rattan and had a labor use. I also want to live slowly, unhurriedly.


To bring plants inside...


And more plants...


To keep business cards...


To keep unfinished embroideries. This one is about a view from the Aveiro river.


To show dried flowers arrangements... This one was made by my friend L., who has some fairy hands. But the basket was bought in Santa Iria's Fair when I was... maybe 5? I'm not sure; I just remember that I was a little girl and that I was with my mother. It was a chilly October day, she took me by her hand and I paid attention to all those miniatures appropriate to my size. It still exists. I just don't know what happened to the small white demijohn that was given to me by that time. It was lost in the games of time...


To keep the clothespins. It was my mother-in-law who gave it to me, because she knew that I love these things.


To keep the onions...


As a fruit bowl...


To keep the table cloths. This one was part of a Christmas basket offered by my friend S. and family. It contained products of best quality, offered with the best love. I still am touched when I remind that special moment because this basket also contained many messages from God...


TTo keep the eggs inside... You will be amazed now: it was me who made this basket! 11 years ago, when I worked in the town hall of Tomar, participating in an international crafters exchange. It was really wonderful.


To keep the groceries in the kitchen cupboard.


To keep several items in my son's bed-room... The opened basket keeps his father's childhood traditional games.


To keep his bed linen. This basket was my grand-father's suitcase, who was a sailor. During several years I remember that I used to imagine how it would be to carry such a suitcase, to travel with it and not to loose or spoil anything inside it and still resist until today.


To keep the toilet paper in the bathroom...


And to keep my son's hygiene products. This basket was also offered by my mother-in-law, when my son was still in my belly, but it was bought with this purpose.

I still have more baskets. They have less aesthetic purposes now but they wait for glorious days.

Saturday, August 7, 2010 - Hot

The swimming-pool

It was hot in the pool. It was good inside the water and only there! My son seized the day with his friends and cousins.


The beach

I haven´t stood in a tent like this since I was a little girl. When I used to go to the beach with my parents, we used to rent one of them only during the first years. Then this experience was substituted by a green kind of umbrella. It still exists! Strong like a bull. We see all the others flying over the beach with the wind and ours, firm and safe. I feel so proud of it! But it was good to live the tent experience again. The colorful stripes are so beautiful.


Three generations always present. The middle generation was taking the photo.


This way they walk towards the end of a fantastic day on the beach.

Saturday, July 7, 2010 - Misses Needle

Misses Needle was the name of a haberdashery's shop that I owned. It was in the historical center of Tomar, in an old house with stone walls and a stone arch in the middle of it. It was so humid in the winter. I don't know how I didn't get some rheumatic crisis there. I miss it so much...

Misses Needle explains what I like to do: working with my hands and needles. I became a cross sititch "expert" but the truth is that I also sewed some other things. For example, these united hexagons to form a quilt, exclusively hand made! Well, I haven't such a big merit since I've never gotten along with the sewing machine.

The truth is that I had much fun while making it and however the initial intention was to make a big quilt, I became despaired and decided to do a smaller one. It's over my son's bed today. The pink suits him well! And it is so funny to tell him the story of each piece. "Look, this one belonged to a mommy's skirt when she was your age. This one belonged to a grand-pa's pajama and this one to a grand-ma's dress." And he listens carefully, curious about all the family stories. He has only one worry: "Is it true, mom? Is that story real?" And he registers all the true stories of the past, building a present and a future settled on eternal values.

Thursday, August 5, 2010 - My embroideries

This was the first big work that I embroidered. 12 years ago! It took just a little while to embroider because I was addicted to it. My husband, who was my boy-friend by the time, was almost despaired as he was afraid that he would never become a husband. I admit, sometimes it was hard for him to compete with the growing work, growing in color and shape, but he won. He always wins.


Everybody asks us if this is the project of our life house. I use to laugh. The project is a daily thing and we build it day by day. Our house is our heart, all the rest are walls, more or less well decorated, according to the owner's taste.

The next one was the second biggest work. I like light houses. I don't know why. But they transmit me something powerful and humble at the same time. Reveries...



The next one was framed under pressure. The owner of the frames shop called me at mid-night, I was already sleeping. "It's ready! Do you want to come and pick it up?" I didn't, of course, it was too late. It was framed to show it in the crafts fair in Constância, where I should attend in case someone quit the complete list of crafters. Nobody quit, I didn't go and so I went to pick the work up on the next day, without rush, and it's in my living-room today.




The next one is in my kitchen. It was the only framed work that returned from the crafts fair in Almeida. I sold quite well in that fair. It was my first crafts fair and the most special one because of that. Everything was so rudimentary. Some crafters showed their works in old corrals, between stone walls, and others between boards and scaffolds, which we promptly turned into nice showcases. Some others exhibited their works in the barn's courtyard. There was a Spanish invasion on Sunday morning. I've never seen, only in Spain, so many Spanish together in such a small space, but they were all very nice.


These are some of my works.

I lost count to the framed works I've already embroidered, the towels, the cloths, the kitchen clothes, sheets, bags, ribbons and so many others! Almost everything was to offer or to sell. So, there are many people around there that have a little bit of me in their homes.

It's a pleasure to see a developing work, no matter what kind of work it is, but cross stitch has the special taste of color, hand, needle drilling the cloth and creating imaginatios and dreams and fantasies and desires and to see with satisfaction that in the end, even everything seems to be the same, everything is actually different.

Saturday, July 31, 2010 - Home

I like modern houses with beautiful colours, a wall covered with flower paper, a wall covered with a different colour to stress it, modern furniture, straight lines, everything clean. I like it. But I don't know if I would feel really at home in such a house. Because I prefer furniture with history, hand decorated walls, mixture of colours in boxes, baskets, cups, bottles. Maybe it evokes that time when life was lived slowly, day by day.


We changed our hall some time ago, since we turned our library into a bed-room in order to have a place to host those who want to share their days with us.

I love this bookcase. It has more than forty years. It was on the wall of the room where my father used to work at home, a room that was turned into my bed-room after that. We let it like it was, with all the marks of the time and just passed some varnish to give it a cleaner aspect. The bookcase beside is also an old one, especially made to receive the Portuguese-Brazilian encyclopaedia that my father was so proud of and that I used in my research. It's dethroned by the internet today, but it looks nice there.

In front of it we have another bookcase full of books, the favourtie of my son. We have some of his hand made works there, but mainly there they are the books for his "researches". Sometimes he seats on the floor, takes one and turns the pages, speaking lower, for himself. He loves the books about animals and when he asks me something that I don't know the answer, he says immediately: "So... go to the book and read!" And there I go.


I also like open windows! I open everything when possible. I love the light and the wind coming in. To deceive myself and imagine that outside nobody lives quickly, nobody feels that life passes by without meaning; nobody passes over the other to reach his goal. Imagine that everybody hugs the others, dialogue, feel that if they died today they died happy, feel the breeze caressing their faces and know that they are not the owners of their lives, that's why they respect it.


It's good to live in a free way.

Friday, July 30, 2010 - An old cloth shall be turned into a new one

My father-in-law announced me today that he was going to throw this cloth away. I became hysterical. Never! It's a big piece; a great part of it is damaged. I don't know what it might have been. He doesn't know either. Men! He just knows that it's too old, probably coming from South Africa, which means that it has more than forty years, that's for sure. Fantastic.


I didn't resist showing it here. Still wrinkled for having been hidden for so long. It's a pity that the camera does't pass the mould smell, which would certainly give it a more authentic aspect.


We never know what it still can be. Maybe pillows, small bags, tablecloths, curtains... there are so many options. I'll keep it safe in the meanwhile, together with other beautiful cloths. I think that if I worked in one of those fabric shops I would lost me completely. But what really enchants me is all this time it passed through to reach me. I will take care of it tenderly.

Friday, July 30, 2010 - Thank you

A tribute to my friend M., who gave me this little vase some years ago with an aromatic candle inside. The candle has already burnt, but the bright of this little vase still remains in my living room.
For me not to forget that it's in the practice that we produce effects over what we know in theory.
For me not to forget that the most important are people and that is worthwhile to take all the risks for them. In a way or another, we are always rewarded.
For me not to forget that leaving the comfort we are used to, implies in knowing a new world full of surprises for whose we are always prepared, carried by God.
For me not to forget that a distance of thousands kilometres only changes the exterior aspect of things, never its interior.
For me not to forget that better is the end of things than its begining.