Back in February I went on a trip to The Hague in The Netherlands. When travelling I always keep an eye out for any craft supply shops and art shops and there were a few. The Hague is a lovely place to hang out with many lovely streets, shops and places to eat. The Maritshaus is the perfect small art museum.
At Tessuti fabrics I found some good quality jersey and I picked out a rich purple. Later on in april I sewed it up into a Vera top a pattern by forget me not patterns. I liked the v neck and the puffy sleeves. There is an option to have a longer cuff which I went for because that would mean the puffy sleeves wouldn't be getting in my way. It was a straight forward sew. I hadn't sewn a v neck before but it turned out really nicely. The instructions were really clear and I clipped into the seam allowance around the v and when turned around it looked good. I really like this pattern and will make it again.
I visited a few craft shops while in The Hague. Tessuti fabrics is a traditional shop with fabric all over the place with a pretty big selection. I've never been in a shop with so many buttons.
Cross and Woods is a different vibe, a much more curated upmarket space. They have a gorgeous selection and I found some very nice finnish yarn in my favourite chartreuse colour to take home.
I also popped into Pipoos an art and craft shop. This was a really fun shop with lots of supplies for different crafts including painting, yarn, beads etc. If you have kids who are into crafts they would find lots to amuse them in here.
Top of my list of things to do in The Hague was visit the
Maurithuis museum. It’s a wonderful small museum with some beautiful paintings. On my first day I called by and found out a new exhibition about birds would be opening the next day so I delayed my trip until the second morning.
There is a room of Rembrants and three Vermeer paintings. They also have a few Rachel Roysch paintings. There is a room with three Vermeer paintings, The Girl With The Pearl Earring, Diana and her companions and View Of Delft. I really wanted to see View Of Delft and well it exceeded every expectation. It is the most wonderful painting and I was delighted to spend a good while taking it in. It is incredible, the handling of light in it is just exceptional. It is much bigger than I expected. Vermeer paintings always have a sense of peace for me and this one was no exception. There was another man in the room while I was there who stayed looking at it for ages while groups came and went getting their selfies with the girl with the pearl earring. I see why you need to get a selfie with the girl with the pearl earring as she is absolutely beautiful. She is small but she catches your eye wherever you are in the room. It was lovely to see Diana and her companions too, the colours are beautiful. I enjoyed the fabulous floral art of Rachel Roysch, she’s an interesting lady who carved out a career for herself in art which wasn’t the done thing at the time. I can see why she was successful.
The Birds exhibition was really well presented. The theme was explored well and I got to see Fabritus’s The Goldfinch. I like many others came to know this painting from the book of the same name by Donna Tartt. It’s such a sweet little painting. Such a tragedy Fabritus died so young and that the world lost his works and talent. There were some DaVinci drawings and interesting sculptures rounding out the exhibit. I enjoyed that they’d included an Iris Van Herpen dress design as part of the exhibition too. Well worth seeing.
I took a trip on the tram to Delft to see Vermeer’s town. I had some waffles and coffee in the square and wandered by the canals. The Vermeer replica museum was fine but unfortunately the area with the replicas was closed so I didn’t get to see them. Every afternoon when I got back to the hotel I did some sketching of my day and that was enjoyable.
I also went to the
Kunstmuseum, the modern art museum. So much there to enjoy from the artwork that is the building itself to the excellent strandbeest hanging over the cafe. There were plenty Mondrians, Van Gogh and Monet and various other exhibitions. Very much worth the stroll around. I think this is my longest post to date so I'll leave it there.
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