Wooden Ships

I picked up this WIP this week: The Workbasket's "Bay Sampler." The fiber is The Thread Gatherer's Silk and Colors. I'm glad I kitted it up then (about four years ago; the thread has gone up about 70% since then--yikes. Which leads me to think, since needlework supplies have performed better than many stocks, it may be a very good investment. So tell your Significant Others that "it's not my stash, it's my hedge against inflation.").

Here's a picture of the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole, Cape Cod (courtesy of Capecodonline.com). When I was a kid, my dad worked for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. So did a lot of my friends' dads. I thought it was normal to go to work in shorts and sandals, to muck about in marshes and tidal flats, to go out to sea on ships and come back with core samples from undersea trenches. When I was about ten, I negotiated with my parents to attend Vacation Marine Biology School instead of Vacation Bible School. Consequently, I know a great deal more about sea urchins and copepods than about religion. And working in an office, wearing shoes and proper attire seems awfully restrictive.
Quite of few people who lived in our area decorated around things they found at the beach or the stuff the scientists brought home from their expeditions: Japanese glass float balls, strung in nets; shark teeth; whale jaws; gigantic lobster shells from 5-10-pound lobsters (now a rarity, sadly--they used to be common enough); containers of sea urchin shells, dried starfish, jingle and boat shells.

For some reason, putting half-ships on buildings is big on the Cape. I know I've seen more. I'll have to look for them when I go visit my parents in a couple of months.