quilts, birthdays, walks and what not.

Quilting by hand, little by little carefully to save myself misery. That misery always comes if one does too much hand work in one sitting and it is a lesson I learn, then forget and have to learn again.  Over Labor day weekend I got carried away and after putting a recently completed improvisational pink and neutrals top together I began quilting with a mad abandon. It was so exciting to be trying something new. The batting was new, a mix of organic cotton and bamboo fiber which is very soft and drapes very nicely, much more so than just cotton batting I have used before. The other exciting thing was trying some spiral in the design of my quilting. Up until now most of my quilting has been variations using straight lines in diagonal or grid patterns. This set me on a roll and I got carried away. I didn't check how much time I spent bent over layering the quilt then drawing on the top and quilting the spiral. So I had to hang it up for a while and ice my neck to reduce the swelling.  I was lucky it was Keith's birthday last week and we had lots of things to do besides sit and quilt because it is a kind of addiction once I get on a roll. The birthday fun gave my neck and arm which were very aggravated a chance to rest.

Being 49 and turning 50 is a big deal, kind of like hitting 30 is for a 29 year old only different and since I am beyond that and marching quickly towards my 60th I understand that Keith was feeling a little anxious about his future. We decided to do what we love doing the best together to celebrate his big day. We packed up our gear and went for a hike and picnic out in nature. I wanted him to see the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens this summer and that is what he decided we should do for his big day. It was warm and we were covered in head to toe protection from the sun's harmful rays, the mosquito and tick bites, as well as the most dreaded poison ivy rashes. 

 You can see he was rather weighted down with his big zoom lens and that bag which carried essential things like lunch and water. So when we got home we were both hot and stripped off all that stuff to cool down and enjoy the delicious chocolate buttercream iced cake from Whole Foods and tall glasses of iced water with a mountain of gifts for him to  unwrap.

One special gift I gave him is a new orange patchwork coptic bound journal I made into which he may make notes on turning 50 or what ever he decides to write. I think he deserves to have a big smile for being such a great partner all these 15 years we have been together. Bookbinding is another one of those hand made projects that has to be done a little at a time to keep from aching pains. Next weekend I take these 4 hour glass quilt blocks I made to the charity sewing day at DC Modern Quilt guild's next meeting. That is where they will be assembled into a quilt for a homeless kid. This is just one of 100 quilts for Kids challenge. I am looking forward to seeing what the rest of the blocks look like when they all come together in Heather's Hourglass quilt.

Turtle update

I posted  photos yesterday of the Kenilworth Aquatic Garden walk and thought something was missing this morning and checked my camera's memory card to confirm my suspicion, sure enough the huge turtle I saw on the edge of a lily pond sunning it's self was still there but not in my post. I downloaded it and decided to do an update because it was so big and had such long claws. I don't know what type of turtle this is anyone have an idea what it is?
It was as big as a dinner plate and the others were only bread plate sized out on the logs sunning. The big turtle gets it's day in the sun.

For you to compare here is the smaller painted turtle again:

Walking Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

A rare perfect July day to me says get out of the house and go soak up some nature, right now! Yesterday, I picked up my friend Meron for a day at the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens to see the Lotus, waterlilies and native plants and creatures who inhabit the park which sits at the edge of the tidal Anacostia river. It's a huge marsh land with a farm for cultivating those delightful water flowers.

Meron enjoying the garden tour

We enjoyed all the wonders of nature in the ponds and around the edges. Frogs we croaking, Turtles were sunning and dragonfly and butterfly were all around us.

Turtles like those we used to get as children for an aquarium pet were much larger than any I ever raised but this is their natural habitat complete with muddy shells. Meron spotted some sort of snake from our safe perch up on the high boardwalk over the reeds, thank goodness.

Kenilworth also is a birder's paradise and I was challenged several times to identify some new ones we saw. The only one I got a good portrait of was what I now think was a familiy of northern rough-winged swallows.

Honestly it was hard to sort out this bird identity even with these photographs but without the bird guide book and the internet's great resources I wouldn't have known anything but that it was likely some kind of sparrow.

One I did know very well was the red winged blackbird and I  didn't get a great shot of any of them but this one and there were about 75 of them in the marsh but they got down in the reeds where we couldn't see them and the grasses were swaying back and forth making it quite difficult from our location. Might be worth a return trip with tripod and time to sit and wait to get a series of this beautiful black bird.

Canada geese were swimming in the marsh channels searching for grasses they like to eat and what I thought was a duck flying by turned out to be a favorite of mine the green heron who gave it's self away by landing on a log at the edge of the channel rather than on the water like a proper duck would do.

can you find two geese in this shot?

In the end the flowers drew me out on this beautiful day but the call of nature has a powerful draw all it's own. So here are the native and tropical waterlilies that are blooming now...

black berries for the birds

Our picture perfect visit lasted from 11 till 4 PM next time I will take along a picnic lunch and iced water. This weekend is the big festival of waterflowers at Kenilworth and I have to say it is a very special place. You can read about it in this week's Washington Post article here: Kenilworth water lilies thrive.