the city at night

alight and glittering, as viewed from the Space Needle.

Guten Morgen

An overwhelmingly beautiful morning at Marsh Lake. I'm sure this is Pauly.

Seals

The last of my images from the Nordic Heritage Museum:
Danish Christmas Seals
A tradition that began in 1904 when Einar Holbøll, a postmaster, designed the first set of seals with the proceeds going to benefit ill children. I didn't realize until I saw these and then did a little research, that anyone is welcome to submit designs.

One of the best-loved seal sets was designed in the 1970's by the people's own Queen Margarethe.

These may be my best-loved, designed by Erik Petersen in 1962, they feature the gamle håndværk -”old trades”- of Denmark.

in the wee small hours

Thinking of this record cover and the brilliant 3rd season of this which took Frank's title for episode 9.

P A U L Y

A Dear Lady like no other.
Rest in peace, sweet little gnome.

S E (A) T T L E

Kubota Garden

Another wonderful afternoon in Seattle, wandering through Fujitaro Kubota's garden.

Growing

My favorite object at the Nordic Heritage museum: an extendable child's bed from Sweden dated mid-18th century.

the Sleeve

on a man's work shirt dated 17th century. A beautifully conceived insert just below the shoulder consisting of 8 tacked pintucks surrounding a box pleat.

From the Nordic Heritage Museum's Danish Room.

Instructions for making pintucks can be found here.
And here's a contemporary example of the pintuck being put to good use.

Hand Stitched Buttonholes

Icelandic. In red and green cotton floss on cream melton cloth. These are side openings of a pair of cropped trousers, accommodating gaitors and boots. I don't know what the little green rubs of dye are and stared at them a long time trying to figure it out. They're not decorative because they don't appear anywhere else on the cloth, and they're too bright to have come from the brass buttons or some other equipment. And they seem to match the green thread so well ...

No date or other information on these. They're certainly a man's garment, and I'd place them at the early part of the century as the seams are machine stitched (treddle?).

smitten

Daggy and Alice.

The ECHO HARP

A member of the illustrious Hohner family of harps which includes the Echobell, Trumpetcall, Puck and Double Puck, Harmonette and Harponette.

Hohner also makes some of the tiniest functional musical instruments in the world: 3.5 cm long harmonicas with a range of one full octave.
The below label appears on the inside of every Hohner accordion box. See here for more on the Deutsches Harmonika.