Museums, part 3a: The ABBA Museum

[My husband, Tim, felt that the ABBA Museum deserved a post of its own. Herewith, is a guest post.]

If you visit Seattle, take the underground tour, visit Smith Tower, take a Duck Tour, go to the Market. If you come on a weekday, go to the Starbucks on the 40th floor of Columbia Tower.

And if you visit Stockholm, see the ABBA Museum, an experience the likes of which you will never have outside of Sweden. 

Mamma Mia! The ABBA Museum was bright and noisy — from the ticket line at the beginning, down into the Waterloo Eurovision exhibit:

Right through to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop’s Muppets appearing in The Last Video:

They had lots of ABBA costumes and an exhibit about costumes — and the costumes were pretty wacky. They had a room full of gold records - and gold cassette tapes, if you can believe that.

Shiny things everywhere!

I did learn a few things, though.

For instance, all the members of ABBA were established pop stars when the group formed. They all had professional gigs and some recording contracts before they started performing together.

They were doing music videos (then called “promotional films”) long before they became hip - and even required - in the late 1970s.

There was an exhibit about ABBA’s recording studio and how they worked together, trying out different lines and tunes and finding things that work as songs. Apparently, the order of battle is that the male members of the group wrote the songs and the girls did the singing - and the girls’ voices were instruments of music, like other instruments.

Which brings up an interesting point — do pop songs need to make sense?

“Dancing Queen” would never have been written by an American pop band (or British, I suspect). Teenage girls do not refer to themselves as “Queens,” you do not look for a place that “plays the rock music”, and what you’re doing is not “jive.”

Or take my get-drunk-and-fix-your-resume-song, “Super Trouper.” Nobody would say “super trouper.” I don’t know why. They just wouldn’t. And being bummed out that you’re on a concert tour where everybody screams and adores you — that is so far beyond being a First World Problem (FWP) that words fail me.

Nevertheless, I guarantee you, play this song on a loop and drink some red wine, and you’ll be ready for a new job.

But never mind — the ABBA museum has music and gold records and lots of other shiny things and it’s fun and you should go! Yes, YOU— because, dig it — you’re the DANCING QUEEN (oh yeah!)

The Coffee Shirt

Earlier this year, I hit on the idea of making my husband Tim a shirt.

We were out and about at one of the theater events put on by Moisture Festival. He was wearing one of his favorite shirts, a bricky-red silk number. It was tucked in, and in the process of settling into our seats, he pulled it out and the side seam ripped badly.

The damage was pretty bad, and I said to him, well, I could make you another shirt.

Later that weekend, we went down to Pacific Fabrics to see what options were to be had.

As we were perusing the selection of batiks, my eyes fell on a coffee cup print. It was perfect!

I bought the appropriate yardage, as well as a pattern, thread, buttons, and interfacing.

Over the next few weeks, I made the shirt. But it had been a long time since I had made clothing. All went well until I did the buttonholes and buttons.

I thought I was all done, but when Tim tried it on, he said, "Sweetie? The buttons are on the wrong side."

Oops.

I suppose I could have left it that way. But the OCD part of me couldn't let it lie.

I snipped off the buttons, zigzagged the buttonholes shut, and re-sewed them on the correct side.

When the shirt is buttoned up, you really can't see the sewed-up buttonholes. And even if it's unbuttoned, the thread blends in rather well with the fabric print.

So, I got off easy.

And I'm getting ready to do it again, with this really cool fabric based on this iconic image, which we spotted in the window of Esther's Fabrics on Bainbridge Island.

Weekend Miscellany

A little about a lot of different things.

SOCKS

Today, I finished the "first" sock of the pair I was knitting for Tim. Now there are two.

I finished the knitting part last night. That just left stitching up the toes and weaving in the ends.

He reports that they are very warm. Well, they should be. Have you ever seen a cold alpaca? (I stole that. He said it first.)

I'd like to start another pair, because I really like knitting socks. But I should get back to my sweater instead.

GARDENING

Today, we planted the seeds for what we hope will be our summer garden. Two kinds of lettuce (red and green), zucchini, pumpkin, and leftover California poppy seeds.

I could have posted a photo, but there's nothing to see yet. Just potting soil in little planter cups.

I also have a bunch of sunflower seeds that I harvested last year, that I will just plant in the ground. And the raspberry canes are leafing out nicely. I hope their output is better than it was last year.

GREEN LAKE

After a week of mostly rain, it cleared up this afternoon. That prompted me to suggest that we head down to Green Lake for a walk.

The turtles have been out of hibernation for a few weeks now. I thought there would be more of them out sunning themselves, but only a few made an appearance.

However, on the other side of the lake, we did see something a little out of the ordinary.

 QUILTING

I managed to get out to the studio for an hour or two. The project I am currently planning involves using leftover strips of fabric that I have collected over the past several months. I am sewing them into longer strips and trimming them to various widths.

I have drafted a larger version of this block, as well as a diagonal version, and will sew the strips together to make a quilt of a size yet to be determined. It will be unplanned, spontaneous and random. Very different from what I usually do.

FLOWERS

This has been a good spring for flowers. It seems like there have been more crocuses and daffodils in our front yard than in years past.

The dark purple crocuses showed up first, followed by lighter purple and white crocuses.

Then came the daffodils.

  

Soon, there will be tulips.

Last weekend, we enjoyed the warmest day so far this year. It was a beautiful spring day — the warmest day so far this year with a high of about 65 degrees. We were out and about around Capitol Hill and took a stroll through Volunteer Park. Many flowers there to see.

Lastly, inspired by our visit to Vashon Island a couple weeks ago and the Seattle Distillery where we purchased a bottle of their coffee liqueur (scroll down), I found a recipe for homemade coffee liqueur which I will try out, with some adjustments.

Today, I prepared the cold brew coffee and purchased two vanilla beans and a bottle of vodka. Stay tuned . . .

Strange Things Found in Thrift Stores

This morning, Tim visited a nearby Goodwill store in his continuing quest for an old-fashioned, manual wind-up watch.

On an earlier excursion, he had picked up this object.

It customarily lives in the kitchen near the cookbooks, and occasionally serves as a mail holder.

It now has a baby.