Botanic Garden Greenhouse Tour

Once a year the US Botanic Garden opens its greenhouse to the public for tours. It was kind of fun to get a peak at what goes on behind the scenes. The USBG receives its funding directly from Congress. They grow and deliver all the office plants for the Capitol Hill complex here. All of the seasonal plants for interior displays (like poinsettias, chrysanthemums and Easter lilies) are grown here. This is where they maintain the botanical collections that aren't currently on display at the Conservatory or Bartholdi Park (like orchids and insectivorous plants).

The greenhouse is actually 85,000 sq. ft. divided into 34 bays with 16 different environmental zones. What I found most fascinating is how the zones are all completely computer automated. The shade cloths, air flow fans, and evaporative cooling systems are all computer controlled to create the desired environment. It was really noticeable walking from a subtropical environment to a desert climate.

Being early March, not a lot was in bloom. But then, there probably isn't much in bloom here at any one time anyway since those plants are probably put on display. Here are just a few pics for you.

Goodnight Moon

I didn't go anywhere this past week. Rich was out of town and the weather was a little dreary. I did get this block done for my Happy Hauntings quilt. It's supposed to be a moon. It looks a little "sleepy" to me. I'm not totally happy with how it came out, but I still need to embroider some details - nose, smile lines, etc. - and I think that will perk it up a bit. But that will have to wait until after I move back to Albuquerque this summer.

Home for a Week

I was home (in Albuquerque) for the last week in February. It was so nice to catch up with friends, sleep in my own bed, relax in my own home. The weather was beautiful and my daffodils were just coming up. Can you believe I forgot to take a picture of them? D'oh!

I flew in and out of the Baltimore airport. Isn't this stained-glass crab amazing? It's absolutely huge! If you look just above the open claw you can see a woman sitting on the other side texting on her phone. Yup. That's how big it is.

A Capital Time

A couple of weeks back Rich and I thought it would be fun to see a hockey game. So, we looked up the Washington Capitals schedule, and of all the remaining regular season home games, there was only one that we'd be able to make it to. We bought tickets and went to see them play against the Montreal Canadiens.

We had so much fun! The Verizon Center was packed. I don't know if it was sold out or not but there weren't very many empty seats. It was a great crowd. I know very little about hockey, but the action was non-stop. The Caps are having a great season and were expected to win. And they did. IN DOUBLE OVERTIME! I can't begin to tell you how exciting that was.

(I dated this back when it happened, but at the time that I'm writing this, the Caps have just beaten the New York Rangers in the first round of the playoffs and will be facing the Pittsburgh Penguins in round two. GO CAPS!)

Comcast Has Left The Building!

Late last year Verizon spent quite a bit of time wiring our building for FiOS. It became available to us last month. We mentioned it to our landlord and he said that he preferred FiOS over cable and that if we didn't mind he'd like to switch services. If we did, he'd make the switch when we moved out. We've never had FiOS but have heard so many wonderful things about it that of course we didn't mind.

We've had FiOS less than 24 hours. We're lovin' it.

My Next Applique Project

So now that I've finished all of the appliqué on Thru Grandmother's Window, it's time to start the next project. I like to always have at least one hand appliqué project to work on while watching TV in the evenings.

I decided to work on Happy Hauntings by The Vintage Spool. You can see a picture by clicking on the underline.

I've finished one block so far:

I think this will be a fun one to work on.

Now They're Really All Done

One of the biggest challenges for me when working on a project is choosing the fabrics. I've gotten a little better since I first started quilting, but I still make some bad choices now and again. One of them was with this block:

I don't know what I was thinking, but I just did not like the leaves that come out from behind the tulips. I set the block aside and finished all of the others, and still did not like it. Since those pieces are behind the tulips, I didn't want to take everything apart to fix it, so I chose a different fabric and appliquéd it on top. Now, the block looks like this:

It's hard to tell that this is the same block since the block looks different due to the lighting. I do like it better. The new leaves might be just a tad too bright and too "teal" for the blue center, but I like it better than before. It may still not be perfect, but I can at least live with it now.

Here are all of my Thru Grandmother's Window blocks. You'd never know that the backgrounds are from the same fabric since the pictures were taken at different times with different lighting, but they are. Maybe at some point I'll take new pics all at the same time.

Now, I need to start working on how I'm going to sash these.

Chocolate Heaven

The weekend before Valentine's Day, Rich and I went to the Chocolate Lover's Festival in Fairfax, VA. There are events all over town, but we just made it to two.

A Taste of Chocolate was held in the Old Town Hall and it was wall-to-wall people. There were hundreds of chocolate items to sample made by area confectioners. There were cakes, brownies, fudge, cookies, candies, truffles, ice cream. The chocolate fountains made my mouth water just watching people dip fruit and pound cake in them. There were so many things to choose from that after a while I was on sensory overload and couldn't even choose anymore.

We then headed over to the City Hall Atrium where they held the Chocolate Challenge competition, chocolate cakes and sculptures with categories for professionals as well as amateurs. I really loved this cute purse with the lipstick.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Okay, I don't know for sure that that is how you say "Happy New Year" in Chinese, but I learned that a long time ago and it has stuck. It certainly doesn't look Chinese, maybe it's phonetical? Anyway, Chinese New Year was on January 26th which fell on a Monday. This year is the Year of the Ox.

Rich and I went to the Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown on Saturday, February 1st. Because, you know, I love parades. It was a pretty short "neighborhood" kind of parade. The dragons are always fun to watch.

The highlight was supposed to be a giant firecracker. See the long, red ribbon in the picture? That's a string of firecrackers! I don't know exactly how long it was, but they lifted it up about five stories on a crane and about half of it still snaked around on the ground. The time that it was supposed to be lit came and went. Hazmat was called in. Don't know what the problem was, but it was called off due to "safety concerns." So very disappointing.

Bonnie... and a milestone of sorts

I mentioned a couple of posts back, that there was no way that I'd miss the inauguration. There was a bit of a conflict though. You see, the quilt guild that I joined booked Bonnie Hunter to give a lecture and trunkshow on Inauguration Day.

I first found Bonnie's website about 3-1/2 years ago when I was finally able to devote a little more time to quilting. I love scrap quilts and she just made it all seem so simple. She has dozens of free patterns for scrap quilts up on her website. Even though I didn't have much in the way of scraps, I started following her Scrap User's System to better organize my scraps as I accumulated them. I also started using Leaders and Enders the way she did. I subscribed to her blog. I was so excited when she started giving lectures even though I knew that she probably wouldn't be traveling to New Mexico any time soon. I really hoped that I'd get to see her in person.

So, you can imagine how disappointed I was when I realized that I wasn't going to get to see her on Inauguration Day. Imagine the sigh of relief when I looked at her calendar and saw that she was going to be at another local guild two days later!

I was so excited to see her! I got there a little late because I took a wrong turn, but I don't think I missed much. Most of what was in her lecture I'd read either in her blog or on her website, but it was so great to hear her say these things instead of reading them. I'd seen all the quilts on the website, but pictures rarely do a quilt justice and to get to see them all up close was wonderful.

I bought her new book which I've been wanting since it came out last October. And, she even signed it for me.

Oh, the milestone? This is my 100th post!!