Something About Nothing

While in DC we visited with our friends who are serving a mission at the Washington DC LDS Temple.  We went to dinner at a wonderful seafood restaurant and afterward took a walk down to see the Potomac. (ugh! I do not like this photo but it's all I have to prove we were there)  The next evening the Smith's took us by DC Temple where they serve.  It was a little rainy so we didn't get out of the car.  The rain had brought out all the blossoms on the azaleas.  Everything was beautiful! And dinner at the Smith's apartment was delicious!

So many of the people in portraits at the National Gallery of Art are so serious and even grumpy looking. But in the case of this portrait of Catherine Bras(s) Yates I understand why she is grumpy.  Not only is he making her look up from her needlework but. . . the artist, Gilbert Stuart, had the gall to paint in the hairs growing above her lip.  How dare he!

I'm in Washington DC with my husband for a few days and seeing lots of wonderful things but I am always drawn in by the amazing things in the gift shops.  I have had to restrain myself from buying so many things, especially while I was in the National Art Gallery gift shop. This magnet was really fun :   It's very clever really.  Thin black plastic cut out to look like a person with joints so you can make him dance about but the really clever part is the magnets on the back of each piece.  I can see myself having fun making him dance around on the refrigerator. The kids would have especially enjoyed playing with him when they were younger.   I really loved the ingenuity but I just couldn't justify $11.50 I guess it's a good thing I'm cheap. My husband told me that he needs a coaster for his office desk and there were a lot of fun and beautiful coasters in the gift shop.  Many of them...

While visiting the  National Gallery of Art I learned about an interesting little machine called the Camera Obscura:   "Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside down, but with color and perspective preserved. The image can be projected onto paper, and can then be traced to produce a highly accurate representation." Many variations of the camera obscura have been used for centuries. These artists were getting their basic outline by TRACING.  And it wasn't cheating. I love this revelation as I have traced photos (cameras are just a modern Camera Obsecura with a way of keeping the image) to get basic shapes and perspectives on drawings and I thought I was cheating .  Turns out I was just following in the footsteps of  Canaletto and Leonardo Da Vinci!

My sister's birthday present is almost finished.  Just a little more quilting and a binding.  I hope she enjoys it!

When bolts of fabric come in to Whimsy Cottage , the quilt shop I work in, we slice off an inch or two of fabric from the bolt.  This approximately 2" x 42" strip has a number of purposes: The bolt is often crooked and cutting off this strip straightens the end up We place the strip in the bolt to allow us to cut off a small piece if a customer needs a sample to compare to things at home We also cut a 1" piece of the strip & glue it to a piece of paper so we know what has come in recently  And finally when a bolt is finished we can use this piece to find the fat quarters that are left and mark them down Once this strip of fabric has served it's purpose it goes into a bin and one of us takes them home.  I've been collecting the strips for about a year or so and have been anxious to make some String quilts from them.  The quilt(s) will be truly scrappy and I plan to make them a bit wonky as well.  But before I can use them I feel the need to organize the...

Spring is trying to come. It snowed yesterday, but melted as soon as it hit the ground. The weeds have a great head start on me. I'm afraid my knees are going to let the weeds win.