i was in philadelphia last weekend, and visited the always amazing fabric workshop. there were really inspiring works on view by the artist jiha moon. i wish i had my camera with me to take pictures of the pieces in the exhibit. the top image is one of her paintings from her website, and the bottom one a piece done while in residence at the fabric workshop.

for many years while living in nyc, my roommates and i made twice yearly pilgrimage to the dosa sample sale. it is happening again this weekend, and i very much wish i could make it - my wardrobe is feeling a little lacking, and over the years i have gotten many of my favorite clothes at these sales. while most of my purchases from past years have completely worn out from use, i still have a few favorite dresses that i continue to wear on special occasions.

interesting mosaic-inspired geometrics from preen (via nyt)

the snow and ice haven't melted around here. it is still lovely and wintery.

i have been digging through some old archives lately, and i love these two postcards i found that i had saved. the top painting is "southern night" 1952 by mark tobey, and the bottom one is "NOMAD I" 1975 by susan rowland.

we did a lot of snorkeling on vieques and culebra islands - it was a blast to use our new underwater camera in the ocean. the beaches were fabulous, with blue, clear water and lots of interesting sea life. on one of our favorite days we happened upon a couple of sea turtles and swam with them for a while... such elegant and beautiful creatures.

our favorite destination in puerto rico was vieques island, the larger (but still tiny!) of the two spanish virgin islands. for a long time, i have known about the bioluminescent bays that are on vieques, and it was the highlight of our trip to visit one of them. we took a kayak trip on a moonless night, and with every movement of the water by fish and our boats, hands and paddles, we saw hundreds of tiny bioluminescing dinoflagellates in the water. the best part was getting out in the water to swim with them! we tried to take pictures, and even bought an underwater camera especially for this trip, but it was too dark to photograph them. the sunset proved a better subject for pictures.

on january 1st, we flew to puerto rico for a little vacation. it was great! we spent the first few days exploring old san juan and el yunque national rainforest. we loved being surrounded by ocean breezes and warm rains. i was surprised to be reminded often of brooklyn on this trip, for two reasons - there is such a large population of puerto ricans in nyc, and puerto rico was a lot more american that i was expecting, despite the obvious changes in scenery.

after our stay on the main island, we went to two tiny ones - vieques and culebra. more to come on that part of our trip...