Glendalough Illuminated

 

This is the first piece in an embroidery series inspired by our trip to Ireland in July 2001 and the beauty of Irish illuminated manuscripts.

For the background I combined two photographs taken at Glendalough – the place where the Irish saved civilization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendalough

https://www.amazon.com/How-Irish-Saved-Civilization-Irelands/dp/0385418493

Then I drew an illuminated “G” based on a classic design.

Combined it looked like this.  Then I printed it on linen, and added the embroidery.

Here’s the finished piece again.

Here’s a look at some other embroidery posts…

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/07/embroidery-chat-eiffel.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/07/embroidery-tall-coral.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2014/01/embroidery-rialto-bridge.html

Cheers!

PJ

 

© 2026 PJ Lehrer

Gingerbread Houses p2

 

This year’s display of gingerbread houses at the Museum of the City of New York is wrapping up today, so I thought I’d post a second set of photos.

I’m not sure why someone decided to build a power plant, but it does have some cool structures.

Could anything be more NYC than Santa stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn bridge?

Maybe Broadway dancers?

The Bronx Botanical Garden is a favorite of course. 

 Here’s a link to the pics from this year’s Van Gogh sunflowers exhibit.

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2025/09/sunflowers-nybg.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2025/11/nybg-sunflowers-2.html

 

And one of their waterlilies.

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2025/10/water-lilies-nybg.html

But probably what hit me hardest was this one of the Christopher Street subway station complete with homeless person.  Sadly, I have often seen them at this stop.

The Westside tennis club in Forest Hills is another NYC classic.

And you can never go wrong with a lighthouse.

But this Santa caught my eye because it reminded me of the window display I did for the bookstore at Northeastern while I was in graduate school.  Someone asked me if I could make Santa Black and I said “Sure.”  (He is a fictional character after all. 😉)

All in all, I enjoyed the exhibit so much, that I am thinking about going again next year if the stars properly align.  Fingers crossed.

Here’s the link to the first set…

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2025/12/gingerbread-houses.html

Enjoy!

PJ

 

© 2026 PJ Lehrer

Central Park White Out - 12/14/25: P2

We got more snow in NYC on December 26^th.  (Not as pretty as last week though, so these pics are from the 14^th.)

I guess whoever predicted that NYC was going to have a snowy winter was correct.

 

This time we got 4.3 inches.

It’s the first time since January 2022 that we have gotten over 4 inches.

 But it didn’t compare to some of the big storms we have gotten in the past.

95/96 was NYC’s snowiest winter ever. 

We had 75.6 inches.

Other notable seasons include 1947/1948 – 63.8 inches

And 1960/1961 – 54.7 inches.

2011 was notable because we had our snowiest January ever and it was epic. – 36 inches.

Here’s a great chart showing all of NYC’s snow totals since 1868…

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.weather.gov/media/okx/Climate/CentralPark/monthlyseasonalsnowfall.pdf

 

Here is the previous blog of CP white out pics…

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2025/12/central-park-white-out-121425.html

 

And here are some blogs which include pics from January 2011.

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/01/january-2011-nycs-snowiest-january-ever.html

https://pj-studio.blogspot.com/2012/01/icicles-in-central-park.html

 

Cheers!

PJ

 

© 2025 PJ Lehrer