Quilt Gift Given

It was our 36th anniversary the other day, so I finally got to give my DH his present!

The City Sampler is on our bed and it's lovely.

His comment was that he always wanted to sleep under a rainbow.

Hooray! Now it truly feels like a quilt finish.
 

Wandering Wednesday: Getty Center Museum Gardens

 

On our way back from the LA Convention center area, we finally arranged our timing so we could stop off and see the Getty Center Museum. It was a gorgeous day, as you can see from the blue sky in this picture. The rough cut Travertine exterior of the museum was so fascinating, it has fossilized plants and animals randomly appearing.

I will be honest, the main reason I wanted to go see this place was this particular roof garden planted with cactus. I remember it 1was in Sunset Magazine back when it was established in 1997.

It's really something! I liked that we were up above the smog/haze layer in Los Angeles so that we could see the horizon.

It was quite hot so we did our outdoor exploring first. The central garden was truly a work of art, or as the garden's designer, Robert Irwin said: "is a sculpture in the form of a garden, which aims to be art." I saw the central knot formation on the map, and was looking forward to walking through the maze, but it was all water.

The pathways zig-zagged around the garden beds that surrounded the central water knot planting. 

Gorgeous flowers were bursting out of all the well designed garden beds.

This shows how far down you go to the bottom of the garden compared to the museum plaza level. 

This was one of our favorite things in the whole museum. Those "trees" are actually bougainvillea vines that are captured in welded rebar "trunk-ish" cages with a spreading grid at the top. 

Fascinating!

We sat underneath and admired the ingenuity (and the shade).

After our rest under the bougainvillea "trees", it was time to walk back up and go see some art.

Walking back up from the central garden you follow the flow of water along gentle zig-zagging pathways all planted with succulents and cactus.

It was so varied and beautiful, and very happy in that hot sun.

The movement of water and the beautiful plantings made it a very easy walk back up the hill.

Up at the very top the source of the water is this fascinating concave vessel fountain. A wonderful optical illusion.

The x marks the spot is the shadow of the grating where the water comes pouring down.

And this was all before we went inside and saw any inside art!

Banner Day

 

One of the things I grabbed last year from my parent's house before it was sold was this Giants yard flag. Mom had proudly flown it for many years, and I replaced it for her with a brand new one for her new Mom-do. I really should have just bought myself one as well, but I wanted to see if I could refurbish this one well enough to use for at least this baseball season (starting this week, yay!). I am my mother's daughter after all.

So, I put on an audiobook to finish (All That She Carried) that was due back at the library today, and got out the Sharpies and worked with them for as long as I could because of the fumes. I'm doing the next session outside on the deck in the fresh and very warm air. My plan is to spray this banner/flag with a UV protector spray. 

Here's how it looks after being completely Sharpie'd. Definitely too streaky for me.

Even after doing the whole thing, I think it's too mottled,especially out in the light, this picture is in the shade.

Out came the Tsukineko inks in orange and black, and oh yes that's looking so much better. The inks really flowed nicely and smoothly on the nylon. Also, a whole lot faster than the Sharpies! The audiobook is over and returned to the library, and the flag is in the sun so the ink can dry. Next step is to fix up the degraded SFwhite machine-embroidered stitching and it will be ready for the UV spray and to put out in my front yard before the Opening Day game tomorrow night on Netflix, SF Giants vs. NY Yankees.

Homeward Snake

 

Back up the freeway we drove towards home, and the traffic was rather bunchy (when is it not in LA?!), so I got out the Snake in The Garden for more stitching. The offending one is on the right hand side, much too thick of thread in the wrong color.

I used the other color of red tharead that I had along in my to-go bag that was a much thinner weight and went around the oval in-between the green stitches. I think it's looking much better. Still not sure what to do about the chicken scratch stitches in the red oval--either take them out or leave them?

There's how the second oval looks with just the new lighter weight and more correct color thread around the outside in-between the green stitches. I think I like the look of that oval now as is, so I'll be taking out the offending stitches on the first oval I stitched.

Kawandii Around and Around

 

More stitching got done on my kawandii, I'm circling around into the center. Adding new fabrics as I go.

There are a lot of pins hanging out, which is not the best for an on-the-road project. Ouch.

The tools I'm using, I really love this thread, WonderFil Spagetti 12wt in a nice sage green. 

Patterns In LA

I've been in LA this week as my DH attends a conference at the LA Convention center and so I've been walking around the area, or taking the metro, and going to museums. This is the very interesting entrance to The Broad museum.

These next two were taken by accident when I didn't turn my phone camera off and kept walking. It was 97F and I was in the direct sun, that's my excuse. But they capture the excess of pattern one can see in a city (or really anywhere) if you look at things from an unusual angle.

I thought I'd be able to capture the shimmer of the heat-haze of the day off the street and buildings. But maybe it's only visible through polarized sunglasses?

This overlap of both grids and the angles of the posts of the storage system inside The Broad is such a great design.

In the downtown main library, the cupola dome is really gorgeous and pattern-filled.

There's a great exhibit about the building of the library nearby and they included these detailed color and pattern guides to some of those patterns. I bet there's a book out there (or maybe in that very library) that contains all of them. How about any of these as the center of a medallion quilt?

The old library card catalog drawers are still there, but glued shut, still look very cool though.

A riot of patterns looking down into the new wing of the library.

And then one of many interesting mosaic doorsteps. This design would make a great quilt.

Hello Again, Kawandii

 

Back to work on finishing my Kawandii. It's my #2 on the UFO Challenge list, so I'm really trying to get stitched all the way into the center.

There's a lot of pieces left to anchor down, and a lot of pins.

I love the big needle that I'm using, it's so easy to handle.