High Museum

And now, after a great delay, some pictures from my vacation last March.

These are from the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Some craft items ... The picture on the left is a quilt from 1875. Its maker must have been well-off, since this doesn't seem to have been made from scraps. On the right is an example of tramp art, made from discarded crates and boxes.

Very colorful discarded plastic! This was a fascinating piece.

Ubiquitous peach imagery starts now

100% Natural (Bridge)

This is the Natural Bridge, a 215-foot high natural stone arch that carries Lee Highway. If you have spent any time in Virginia, you just asked "Uhhh ... which Lee Highway?" Because it seems like every highway here is Lee Highway. To road nerds, and those who lack imagination, this Lee Highway also answers to US-11. Hey! You can't do that! But obviously J. Hey from Philadelphia did, back in 1850-something. Old-time graffiti wasn't for people without significant time to commit. Today was about 8 hours of driving, with the only real break being the hour and a half I spent at the Natural Bridge. After I had been driving for about two hours I stopped at a 7-11 in a small town, and not only did the cashier called me "Darlin'", but people had accents! It is nice to be away from the DC area for a while.

I am spending the night in Asheville, NC before continuing to Atlanta, GA in the morning. Asheville seems to be a run-down yet quirky place. I have seen a lot of former light industrial buildings that have been transformed into spaces for artists. I know, that sounds like what urban planners dream of at night, but it looks like it's happening here. I saw lots of artsy-looking people riding bikes and little scooters.

I had dinner at a really good Thai place (called "Jae") in a deserted-looking strip mall, and next-door was a supermarket that didn't sell any products containing high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils, among other things. It was a handy place to pick up a couple of tasty organic free-range self-actualized pears for the road tomorrow. Bumper sticker seen on a car in the lot: "Keep Asheville Weird."

One more photo for the road, just because it took me so many shots to get this one ... I was so glad I spotted that little icicle.

Storm at Sea is taking shape

I finally have enough tiny pieces of fabric to start assembling them into larger pieces. I haven't done any quilting in years and years. I've always wanted to make a Storm at Sea quilt because I like the way the straight lines give the illusion of curves without having to piece curves, and there are so many different ways to arrange colors to emphasize different aspects of the pattern's geometry. This is just one square that I put together -- I think there will be about 24 of these in the final product. Zellie will be thrilled; she loves to burrow under light quilts. I used this image on my computer to play on with different color arrangements.