The perfect winter weekend getaway and a little culture!

A girlfriend and I just spent a most fabulous weekend luxuriating in the Hawaiian weather in Honolulu!  OMG.  It was wonderful to get away and see some sun and warmth.  Of course, when I returned, the freeways to my house remained closed due to mudslides so I had to drive an extra 90 miles to get home.  But well worth it.  We had a blast.

When we were there,  one of the highlights was our visit to the former home of Doris Duke, called Shangri-La. www.shangrilahawaii.org/  
Of course, I saw quilt patterns everywhere!  


Have you ever seen or heard of a banyan tree?  This is what greeted us before entering the house.  Amazing!~!

I learned that Doris Duke was the richest woman in the world, having inherited her father's wealth when she was 12 yrs old!  She married in her early 20s, used a personal cruise ship to honeymoon around the world  and wound up staying in Hawaii for 4 months and loved it so much, that she bought 5  completely undeveloped acres on the water and built an estate.  She traveled extensively during her life but especially loved Islamic art.  She accumulated quite an eclectic collection of art.

Because she was so very rich, nothing was out of her reach.  And I think she had very good taste, although I wouldn't say that I loved all her art.  She had all her floors made of hand-cut marble and tile.  These were some of the floors!




Some of the pictures are a little blurry--and you can just make out my flip flops and orange toes here! ;-)







This was on a wall!

The amount of tile work throughout the house was just overwhelming and gorgoeus.  


Of course, all the doors were hand carved and contained messages.  This was just one.


Then there was the furniture, with its ivory inlaid construction!  We do these patterns with fabric.  Can you imagine having to cut ivory and put it all together like this??  I couldn't imagine the labor involved!






And the gardens?  You can just imagine how wonderful they were!
I just loved this display in one smaller area.  Weren't her interests so eclectic?



If you look closely at the bottom of the marble steps, you can make out quilt patterns in the marble as well.  This was the side entrance!!

The next day, we hiked up to Diamond Head, a former volcano,  and I'll show you pictures of that tomorrow.  I hope to get some sewing done tonight, having been away from my fabric and machines for the entire time (and more!).  I might even have some blocks to show you.

Don't forget that our sew along starts on March 1st... one week!  I hope you'll join in!