A chance to see Civil War era quilts in two different venues. Well, there were some pre-war and post war. Just saying 19th c. quilts doesn’t sound right.
On Saturday I was at the Huntington Library for an amazing tour. More on that later. Usually when I go, I’m walking around the gardens, at a friends suggestion I went into the American Art Gallery, boy am I happy I did.
I went to see the exhibit Becoming America, Highlights from the Jonathan and Karin Fielding collection. Some paintings, a lot of crafts and of course quilts.
The background of this Bethlehem star is really a lovely blue not grey. What can I do, the camera sees what it sees. Since it is made from solids, I’m going to guess it was from the south. Look at those feathers!! 
A flying geese quilt.
Here is an incredible quilt. Bethlehem stars, Broderie Perse – this is where one cuts motif out of chintz fabric and appliqués them, a way of stretching out that very expensive chintz that came from Europe. Then we have smaller pieced stars as well as very accurate saw-tooth borders.
This is attributed to Mary Seeds Moon, made in Baltimore around 1840.
A detail of the quilting, OMG. This quilt is in phenomenal shape, which means it probably wasn’t used much. 
One of many painted boxes. This is a quilt pattern, so I have to share.
On to the Valley Quiltmakers guild meeting with Arlene Arnold. She farms up in Colusa CA and she loves and collects these wonderful old quilts. Here she is in all her glory in her Civil War garb. She bought this when she was sharing her quilts with Civil War reenactors a number of years ago. Got to get as much use out of it as possible. Her she is showing her version of a quilt that is similar to Mary Seed Moon’s. Unlike most of her collection, this was purchased from a museum that was liquidating it’s textile dept.
The larger pieces of chintz in this quilt look very similar to the border in the Fielding collection. Unlike today, where we have so many options in fabric, there was less choices in those days. An Expensive Chintz could very easily have found it’s way to two quilters.
The lecture started with us saying the pledge of allegiance, how refreshing. The first quilt Arlene showed is this Seven Sisters quilt. This pattern was developed in the south to represent the first 7 states to secede from the Union. The North forbad flying the Stars and Bars, so intrepid women made this quilt pattern over and over and displayed it in the window, on railings. At some point Northern soldiers may have caught on, but they never bothered the women or their quilts
Southern quilts were usually made with solid fabrics and northern quilts had many more prints. Look at the effort that went into this baby quilt.
Nine patch with prints.
Two quilts made by the same quilter. No, she didn’t sign her quilt, but she did include hearts in her quilt. 
Here is a quilter who makes sure that her signature block be large and noticeable!
Front of the quilt, from the north, see all the prints. But…
Here is back. I have been known to use orphan blocks on the backs of my quilts. Look at how many this quilter has. I think most of us today prefer the back to the front.
Another kind of signature, quilting in the quilters scissors!
I am very fortunate to be able to see these wonderful quilts, made by women over 150 years ago.
40 years ago I made a sweater with this stitch pattern. I created it myself, not finding a pattern around. So I have a soft spot for this. This would not be heard to duplicate and I might try, although probably not in these colors.
I should have snapped more pictures of this shawl. Many booths had it in different color ways. I know the pattern is available on Revelry. I don’t want to make it, but I really liked the graphic aspect of this one.
In these challenges one has to buy the package of fabric from Cherrywood, I think they can add other Cherrywood fabrics as well. To me and my friend, this just looked too dark.
I am extremely impressed with the quality of work! I guess it’s just all that dark purple that really dominates. 
This was my favorite, I don’t think First place was in this show. I love it for the brightness, the design, the quilting and the bling.
Two other ones I really liked also had bling. Bling isn’t my thing, but here it was necessary.
So what did I buy? A grab bag of Cherrywood fabrics of course!
Then on a Sunday walk I came across this harlequin house in Santa Monica. LOVE IT!
Speaking of color and creativity, what is better than a fundraising event that includes painting a bus?? Nothing, nothing is better.
Except for a very happy grandpa and grandsons.
This is an image that Becky shared with me. Ok, I get the idea, no way would I ever make something like this, but, lets go with the idea.
It is very easy to find a silhouette of Mickey online. I used 
It went quickly. These are 10″ blocks.
Of course, I have to have some Minnies!
Throwing everything up on the design wall.
I added hearts.
I think this is the final layout. At this point the quilt will be 50″ x 60″, I wanted it a little larger. This isn’t a lap quilt. It is meant to be cuddly and warm, so I need to increase the size.
Here we go, now it’s more like 55″ x 72″, much better. Now I have to plan out the quilting.
I had these labels printed up at Spoonflower. As you can see, I add the actual last two digits of the year by hand. In this case I even embellished the printed border with some embroidery. Now this one is ready to be gifted for the holidays, yes I have someone in mind.
Because this is an unincorporated area, no one has rules about the exterior of your home. Since this was ranch land, there are plenty of old farm tools to be used.
This is probably a real covered wagon that came west, with new canvas of course. The original would have rotted years ago.
Another example sits outside a local restaurant.
An old windmill for a well.
Plenty of interesting garden art, a lovely example of stained glass.
Birds.
Birdbaths for the real ones.
Interesting mailboxes.
Keep on walking!
We stopped by the pumpkin patch near his school. 
Ah, the joy of making a grandson happy!
Didn’t see this part of the family on Halloween, thank God for phones and pictures. Mama took the picture, I think she wore something pink and fuzzy.
How about Mickey Mouse. This was taken at Daycare, they manage to get him to keep the hat on his head.
For actual Halloween, he was Mario.
He wasn’t alone. We all walked the neighborhood before the real trick or treating started. Yup, this trio got a lot of high fives and laughs.
Getting into the picture. Then it was on to the older grandkids to actually walk around and trick or treat with them.
I had no candy whatsoever, none. Quite and accomplishment in itself.
We started out in Corrianville Park, named for a Hollywood stuntman. Turns out a lot of Westerns were filmed here. This is Stunt rock, where many a stuntman was shot and fell into Robin Hood Lake. Clearly no one has kept the lake up, so it’s a dry bed with a bunch of kids on bikes and skate boards. Today there is a modern Studio right near by.
Complete with it’s own ‘backlot’. Fellow hikers told us there was a major Western filmed here recently, they built a whole facade of a town in the park.
The rock formations are unique around here, even the hawk likes them.
Simi Valley is quite the suburban area now. It is a very friendly safe place to live.
The community next to the Park is called Hopetown. That is because Bob Hope used to own this land as well as the filming locations. They were donated as a park, and the community took his name.
The old Santa Susana Railroad Depot and museum. We got there too early, the museum wasn’t open yet.
So we enjoyed the displays outside. Like this citrus truck.
Tapo is the name of a nearby canyon. Sunkist is still the large cooperative of Southern California citrus growers. Sadly, this label wouldn’t be allowed today, something to do with cultural appropriation. The local Indians never wore these headdresses, but that isn’t why this isn’t OK, rather than accept our history and move on, people feel the need to erase it. Maybe that is why it is behind a screen, so it won’t be vandalized.
The train came by! No trains stop here anymore. It’s just a museum. The Santa Susana pass is very steep, modern trains can handle the climb, but back in the stagecoach days, the climb and then descent into Chatsworth were very scary and dangerous indeed.
Often it is the simplest pattern that works best with knits. Something I need to remind myself.
I’ve been seeing in the fashion blogs that midi length skirts are back! I thought that would never happen. I also never thought that big full eyebrows would be the rage.
Luckily for me, I only plucked my eyebrows a few times. Never into that tiny little strip. I just left them alone. These days, as they get lighter in color I do need to ‘pump them up’. At least it is my natural eyebrows that accept the pencil or powder, so it’s not too fake looking.
I know, I wrote about hating polyester. And here I go and buy a polyester knit. I figure that when it’s cold I can wear a cotton camisole underneath. What can I say, I found this fabric on the remainder table at Michael Levine’s. I fell in love with the print and color, also, this is a pretty heavy knit, it has real body to it.
I think I paid $10 for the whole piece, so if down the line I’m not happy, I will add it to the good will pile. I guess you could call this me made fast fashion.
What can I say, this dress makes me very very happy. I hope to keep it in the wardrobe for quite a while.
This is the kind of image I usually get of the sign, at a distance, not seeing the whole thing.
Here I am, up on the roof, right under this massive neon sign. Yay for special tours. 
Another angle, with some sky writing in the background. I think it had to do with a club. The skywriters must go up in the air with a number of commissions. Later I saw ‘Vote Yes On Prop 6’. Amen to that! repeal the gas tax! The only proposition I’m voting in favor.
From the Bendix roof looking over at the Applied Arts building. It is fun seeing these details close up.
A view towards the financial district downtown. I never get bored of this skyline, no matter what angle I’m looking at it. It is changing so rapidly, I should probably try and put together images I’ve taken in the last five years. If I can find the photos…
From this angle Santee Alley doesn’t look very busy, I can assure you, a Saturday in this area is a zoo. The alley is packed with people, the streets, like Maple and Santee are not only full of people but also wall to wall carts. Some selling fruits and many selling those hotdogs you see there. Hotdogs wrapped in bacon. Me, I had chicken tacos from one of the carts. Yummy street food.
Back on street level, these figures on the Bendix building, progress, innovation. There are others as well.
Inside the Applied Arts building, this is what the top of a mail chute looks like. This building is once again used for applied arts. The top floor, where I was standing is today a woodworking shop. The kind of place where as many tools as possible are available, and people can come in, rent time and make things. I’m used to sewing studios that offer, sewing machines, but carpentry tools take a lot more space and specialization.
One that has to have a human operator. And here he is. Btw, that round lever is very very important. He has to gauge when and where to slow down the car. It is never perfectly accurate when stepping on or off, it’s either step up or down. I know there are still a number of buildings downtown that haven’t upgraded the elevators. This is the first time I had the pleasure to be in one.
I made these two, can you guess which one is her favorite?
Yup, the longer, fuller, frillier one. She made the headband, one of these days I need to start teaching her how to sew.
Love the dress with the sparkly sneakers.
Back view
I did have to shorten the sleeves. The whole dress is a little big, the sleeves were way to long. She won’t outgrow this one too quickly.
Lets take the picture by the fountain she said!
How is this pose? Great! Yup, there are always shorts underneath, so when she bounces and cartwheels she is still covered up.
Back view.
This time it was a tour given by the LA Conservancy. Sure they wanted me as a docent, I give enough tours. The joy of being a volunteer, I paid my money and went on the tour. Sure there were plenty of buildings that I am very familiar with, but I always learn something new.
Initially I had my camera on the wrong setting, by the time I figured it out, we were halfway through the first part of the tour. So you are getting the artistic image of the Gerry building. Some people use filters to get this, I just shoot on the wrong setting. A few years ago I posted images of this building. Not much more information, except this has always housed garment manufacture and designers. 
A few years ago there was talk of turning this into lofts, glad that didn’t happen. And yes, that font is amazing.
Great Streamline moderne element, the curved concrete and windows! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!
Repeating the font on the side as well as that lovely deep orange brick paint color.
I have often wondered about this building. It was nice to get some information. Built in the early teens it was originally the 
Brunswick, Balke, Collender Company, or simply the Brunswick building. They made Billiard Tables. Although based outside Chicago, they quickly expanded throughout the country. The business also expanded beyond Billards, to bowling balls, other sporting good, boating, yachts and Military equipment. They sold this building long ago.
The back is much more prosaic, we were trying to figure out why there was this door on the second floor? Any suggestions are welcome.
Always love ghost advertising.
Alleys downtown are like the rest of the city, people are commisioning murals. 
Mighty Mouse? An original Mickey?
These are just a few of the murals in this alley. There are tours dedicated to murals all over the city.