31 years ago I made this quilt for my friends, the ones we just visited in Washington. They paid me for it, at the time, neither of us had much money, so they paid for the material and then some. I didn’t make it for the money. The fact that they paid for the material meant I could make it at all.
It is a queen size quilt, they no longer use it on their bed since they now have a larger bed as well as a different color scheme. This is very 80’s, the southwest color influence.
hThery have been taking very well care of it, the quilt is in excellent shape.
Here is the block I used, a modified Ohio Star, no sashing, so the pattern blends.
My binding is much larger than traditional binding. I learned how to quilt from Quilters Newsletter Magazine, which is sadly printing it’s last issue this fall. I bought the fabric in Washington, probably at G street Fabric in it’s original location on G Street. By then I had learned that batting is pretty thin, but I didn’t know how thin the binding is supposed to be. 
Embroidery has been part of my labels forever. I think this may have been the third full size quilt I ever made. At the time I lived in a nieghborhood called Ramot in Jerusalem. I was hoping our friends would move to Israel as well, hense the request to bring the quilt back. They have stayed in DC, and we moved to California, to my husbands hometown. Life is full of surprises.
I’m pretty sure I machine pieced the top. My original quilt (sadly gone) was all made by hand and it fell apart quilckly. I didn’t do heavy quilting here, but I did quilt by hand.
My feathers have gotten so much better! This is the back of the quilt, so you are seeing the back of the stitches, pretty impressive if I say so myself.
Hand quilting means switching colors is easy to do. I bought the cotton quilting thread along with the fabric. At the time neither were available in Israel. Today things are very different there, there is even a vibrant quilting community.
I put together a quilt group, most of us where originally from the US, although Sholmit, the one with the red afro was a native Israeli. I’m on the far right, look how young I was! I also knit that top I’m wearing, some things never change! The woman second from left is Ann, she has since moved to LA as well and we are very good friends.
I don’t remember what we did with the quilt, I know that I made the blcok with the curves, I was into curves from the begining. This post is bringing back so many memories!
Here I am, wrapped in the warmth of an old friend.
One of the fun things about travel is seeing things you don’t see at home, well, the coneflower is also found here.
But this alien flower is new to me.
It appears to be some kind of rapid growing vine.
Like these vines that have taken over a staircase in Georgetown. I guess it doesn’t get much foot traffic anymore.
We have hibiscus here of course, but this one was so red and huge.
Then there is the cattail, often considered a problem because it expands so rapidly.
I saw quite a few of these massive spiderwebs that seemed to capture more plant material then bugs. Maybe the bugs are too small to see or they are consumed instantly.
The common sparrow, eating crumbs that someone dropped.
I don’t know if this is a heron or some other river bird.
A mama and baby deer, yes we have plenty of these around here.
But like all baby animals, who can resist something this cute?
Speaking of deer, the yarn store sure knows how to make a display.
We stayed at the Watergate hotel, famous for it’s curves and these points, of course, it’s famous for other things, but I’m taking architecture here.
1960’s design, the contrast is wonderful when you zoom in.
Zooming in is great for seeing materials and texture, on an old church.
The new African American museum.
Skylight and courtyard at the Portrait gallery. Shadows are a great part of texture.
Gate and bricks in Georgetown. People don’t do this kind of metal work anymore.
Or this.
An old lock on the C&O canal in Georgetown, old brick and wood. More on the canal later.
I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t notice this incredible marble booking in the lobby of the Watergate Hotel until we were leaving.
I thought that because of the expense, this style of working with marble went out in the 30’s with the depression. Now I know why it took five years to renovate the hotel.
So, what is booking you ask? (clearly, you haven’t been on one of my downtown tours). Notice the diamond shape. Four squares of marble, the top two are mirror images as are the bottom two. In order to achieve that, you need to study the marble carefully, then slice it very thin so that you can flip one of the pieces and get a mirror image. In this case, they had to then find another vein in the marble that would be a close enough match to create the diamond.
Another favorite texture of mine is stained glass, of which there is plenty in the National Cathedral.
So these griffins-gargoyles don’t come close to those on the Cathedral, but they are a nice whimsical touch over a store front in Alexandria.
The height of the Capitol determines how high buildings can be. I think my tours in downtown Los Angeles have changed my viewpoint. I like having tall modern buildings in a city, gives it some gravitas.
There is nothing like the Lincoln memorial at night, if I have to choose a favorite, it is this one, the majesty is palpable. Apparently a lot of people agree.
Booyah! to the Marines. The Iwo Jima memorial is so impressive.
With every new battle, they add a new inscription. I confess, I like this much better than the general WWII memorial. That one felt so overwrought and over done. 
Here the sculpture is a true piece of art that really tells the story.
From there, to the greatest memorial to those who fought for our freedom. Arlington Cemetary.
The grave of the unknown soldier, or soldiers, since they have added more remains. I’m thinking that today with all our DNA technology, there may be people who’re bodies are lost forever, but if found, they are identified.
The changing of the guards, so solemn, so impressive, so many people standing and watching and honoring our American soldiers.
Mt. Vernon is covered in scaffolding, up on the weather vane, a crow sits atop the dove with the olive branch.
The National Cathedral is worth a visit. For it’s flying buttresses…
gargoyles…
arches….
and stained glass.
I love this kind of clocks, from back in the day when owning a wristwatch, or a pocket watch was only the purview of a few. It was important to have clocks out in public, especially in busy downtowns.
This looks like an updated sign for a business that is no longer there. I’m guessing it was a pub.
A humble pizza shop made a pizza pie
This is modern creativity, the old-fashioned sign, but made as only a modern one can.
This was my first stop! Only later did I take the picture.
The lamp posts outside the store were yarn-bombed.
Even though it was one of the hottest humid days in the DC area, look at all this wonderful yarn! I had to buy something.
I have a sweater pattern in mind, so I needed sport weight yarn. They were having a sale!!! I bought a color I normally wouldn’t have been drawn to, but it is a beautiful eggplant brown. Sweet Georgia yarns are amazing, I love knitting with them. I probably would have bought something in the blue-green family because that is what I always do. So yay for a sale! Made me buy a new to me color.
Sometimes the sign is really secondary to the color of the building. I’m very pleased that Alexandria allows this kind of colors.
I also enjoy these large murals on the back side of buildings. These look like poppies, of course to my mind they look like California poppies because they are orange.
I saw flags all over this neighborhood, but not in others. I wonder why? Many homes have these small flags by the front door. 
It looks like an older faded flag, with a newer one popped right in next to it. 
At one house I peeked over the fence to the Back yard, to see this large flag with a very healthy tomato plant. At least two are ready for a salad or sandwich.
Then there is the flag proudly hanging over the street.
In a few cases, it was bunting…
Ora single strip from the flag. 
Of course there were flags high and proud on top of buildings.
The day was overcast, but no rain. Probably better to see flowers that way than in bright sunlight. Notice I am dressed for a California winter.
The old cement quarry in all it’s glory. A collection of gardens this size is an ongoing project. Still in the hands of the same family, they are doing a magnificent job, of both maintaining the gardens and sharing them with vast numbers of visitors.
This is my second visit, I have only been here in summer, each season has it’s own beauty. This could be an inspiration for a quilt or artwork, the shapes, the shades of green, the pops of color.
Flippossibilitiesing for black and white open up all kinds of new posiblities.
One can take a boat ride out on the water, this is an island after all.
I only rode the bronze horse, not the many fanciful animals on the merry-go-round.
And now to the flowers, interesting how in a compact grouping, they include mostly common flowers like geraniums and coleus for contrast in color and texture.
The individual flowers are irresistable.
The bees are busy, without them, no flowers.
Nature produces the most vibrant colors.
Often the texture and color of leaves is more impressive than flowers.
Sometimes it’s just the flower.
and sometimes, it’s how one looks at a tree.
Especially if it is the strange monkey puzzle tree.
Or
Look at this, a building from 1863! Guess what, people in Victoria were no more conservation conscious than Angelenos. The difference is that when a city is growing and thriving – the old is always replaced by new. When a city stagnates – as Victoria did from the depresson onwards, there is simply no reason to tear down the old, even if it is empty and derelict.
Victoria’s big boom was during the Klondike gold rush in the late 19th century, so many buildings were erected.
Along with an impressive custom house.
The early 20th century saw a boom in building, from businesses on Government Street.
To the Empress hotel on the bay. We had the pleasure of staying here. I say pleasure, because they have renovated the rooms. Sorry, Victorian size and style of room would have been way to cramped for me.
But all this growth and developement ended with the depression. There are just a handful of Art Deco buildings, and then nothing at all in the downtown area for quite a while.
So Victoria became a tourist town, and that really only started happening in the 1980s.
And that is when smart developers swooped in and started renovating those old decrepit buildings. Even painting them in bright colors.
Victorian homes may have been brightly colored back in the day, but not the businesses downtown. I’m wondering if the TV show Miami Vice had any influence here as well? The old Art Deco in Miami Beach was never so colorful until that show in the 80s. So although I really enjoy these bright colors, they aren’t authentic to the period.
People love these brighter colors. But are they being honest about preservation? I am happy when old buildings get a new lease on life and I am fine when historical inaccuracies like this happen. But I’m also honest in that I don’t call myself a preservationist. I like the mix of old and new, even if it happens to be in the same building.
Painting houseboats in bright colors is also new. This is Fishermans wharf, much smaller than San Fransico. I can’t imagine people living here permenantly – all the cruise ship visitors walk here, as well as visitors like us. Who wants to live in a fish tank?
Another example of that, outside of architecture is this.
I had to go in and see, what is an Indian sweater? Apparently, it is the big bulky 70s style sweater, with some local northwestern motifs. Unfortunately, the yarn is bulky and scratchy. Carpet yarn, not hand knitting yarn.
At one point we walked under the freeway.
Up onto the train tracks. We were told not to walk on the tracks.
The locals don’t care. forest afterwards a very big freight train did come by.
Back down into the forest to see something we don’t see often, a rushing gushing river.
This is what people did a while ago when they wanted to leave their mark.
Today it’s all about spraying with as much color as possible.
In Canada, they authorize this kind of thing. Not sure that I like that they did so on a tree. It has become a problem that viewing nature or even old ruins isn’t enough, everyone wants to leave their mark.
What about arrested decay? There is so much beauty in the rust alone.
So what happened, how did these train cars end up in the forest? It was a freight train, something went wrong and about 7 cars careened off the track and down into the woods towards the river. Many trees were knocked down, but not all, and of course in 60 years others have grown around the train.
Nature is slowly taking back these wrecks.
One of the cars is hanging over the abyss. It didn’t make sense to try and retrieve the cars, so they unloaded whatever was in them and just left them there.
The impact of the cars left it’s damage.
Steel can crumble, but it’s holding up rather well, despite 60 years of snow, rain and wind.
Not only is this now a grafitti park, the cyclists come here and ride all over the trains, they have built bridges and ramps to jump off the tops.
I love old industrial elements like this handle.
Today a new bridge is being built across the river, for bikes and pedestrians. That will make the access much easier.
Back up on the tracks, the old wooden railroad ties and the new concrete ones that were put in when they repaired the tracks after the accident. No one was hurt or killed in the accident, becasue it was freight cars, but that must have been a terrible fright for the engineers.
