March towards Spring

This weather is beginning to give us real signs of Spring! Yesterday with the warm temperatures and sunshine we headed out for a long walk and discovered our early miniature crocus were bursting out of the brown grass and dead leaves! Narcissus are poking up their bud filled heads and leaves and a few trees are beginning to show signs of earliest blooms. After so much cold weather and a lot more snow days than Washington DC is used to having we are all ready to move on to the next season full of promise.

In the intervening cold days and even on some of the warm days I have managed to get back to sewing and piecing. I was inspired by a color combination in a fat quarter that I played with using purple, hot pinks, oranges, and magenta it's one of Kaffe Faussett's designer's named Phillip Jacobs in 2012 it was a feather design. DC Modern Quilt Guild threw a lecture and pop up quilt fabric shop at Anacostia Arts Center this past Saturday and I was hunting for more of these fabrics and found non but I did get an idea to spread out my bright blocks with neutrals from the two speakers on quilting design and color Katie Blakesley and Laura Gunn.

Katie Blakesley on stage with her slides discussing quilt design.

Katie Blakesley with one of her quilts from her new book  Vintage Quilt Revival

artist and fabric designer Laura Gunn talking about color 

Laura Gunn's great grandmother's crochet Afghan and the quilt it inspired. 

Laura Gunn talking about painting and color 

So to bring you up to date here is what I have been playing with this week in the Orange and magenta log cabin project. 

building orange purple blocks 5.5 x5.5"

Adding space to the blocks 

mixed up white and orange purple blocks 

white on white log cabins

Time for a walk on a cloudy almost Spring day. Comments welcome on my new project. My biggest concern is how to let go of the compulsion to be so regimental in block building.

Autumn leaves & quilts

Went for a walk earlier this week and saw a few pretty colors in the trees and vines and the sky was so blue I had to take a few photos to share and save the moment. 

Virginia creeper's brilliant red is an early sign that fall is underway

maples seem to change by the hour from green to orange red...

New paints and roof looked great on this Newton St. NE home

Newton street is just beginning to show the bright colors of maples 

Fort Bunkerhill the park where the poison ivy got me. 

American Beech trees in Ft. Bunkerhill are the gray bark beauties

dogwood leaves getting red 

crab apples anyone?

that's how the leaves from Newton Street maples fell to the ground below

While on a visit to Manassas I also took mom out to Haymarket to see a show of local quilts at the town museum. It was a fun experience to tour the show of about 75 quilts in the tiny former town hall with the curator. I enjoyed seeing the big history quilt of the town's important buildings and all the pretty hand work. I only took a few photos as a memento of our visit. The Black applique seems to have been my favorite.

Museum curator and Mom 

Vintage Yo yo quilt 

sampler 

Haymarket History quilt

 This quilt was all done by the local chapter of Quilter's Unlimited Haymarket and donated to the Museum telling the history of this little town in pictures of it's historic buildings.

Black applique quilt made of felts and hand sewn was very impressive. 

National Arboretum Azalea Collection

The collection of azaleas initially was planted in 1947 at the National Arboretum in northeast Washington DC. 1,500 azaleas in groups of 10-15 of each variety. That was expanded over the years bringing the whole wooded area to 40 acres of azalea filled woodland and some formal gardens featuring Azaleas of all sorts and colors.

Last year we almost lost most of the older plants due to lack of funding to maintain them and spending freezes from the crazy government budget stalemate. They were going to cut most of the older azaleas down and thereby lessen the work load for that part of the arboretum... anyway the community said NO! With money donated and extra volunteer hours given, the community managed to keep one staff person named Barbara, who we met yesterday.

The display lasts about a month from beginning to end giving you more time to go see than the famous Washington Cherry blossoms that only last a few days. Keith and I took our lunch, sun hats and cameras to take a tour walking for a couple hours in this wonderland and it was good. Here are some of my favorite photos from our tour.

Entrance to the Azalea Collection path 

creeping phlox a pretty ground cover under the red azaleas

Native woodland may apples are the green leaves  covering the forest floor

Keith zooms in with his telephoto lens to get close ups 

This reminds me of a real red azalea we had in front of our home when I was a child living in Springfield VA.  

Native type of orange azalea I saw in the appalachian mountains as a child.

   

May apple flowers under the canopy of the bright green leaves

truly a yellow azalea

formal garden with boxwood hedges is where we ate our lunch

we really did enjoy our walk

Some of the restored azaleas which were cut back in March to spur new growth 

Some of the work that needs to be done is removing by hand invasive English Ivy.

Eastern Towhee was one of many birds we heard singing in the woods.

Towhee songs played here: Eastern Towhee birdsong I enjoyed hearing the song while I was loading the photos... 

The other thing I want to say is there is no way to reproduce the feeling of awe and wonder of being surrounded by all these colors and sounds and smells. Photos are fun but they only go so far in conveying the experience. This weekend Friends of the National Arboretum have their annual spring plant sale Friday and Saturday. Money raised at the sale help keep things going while the government is underfunding this national treasure.