Quilting and other Things

I’ve had a membership at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) for almost 10 years.  Each season, they offer a free exchange weekend with other museums and galleries which don’t have exchange privileges with the ROM.  A few years ago, I took advantage of those to visit the Aga Khan Museum and the Bata Shoe Museum  (both are well worth a visit if you are in Toronto).  I did blog about the shoe museum here  but apparently not about the Aga Khan. A few weekends ago I took advantage of another exchange.  It was a visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).  When the ROM announced the date earlier this fall, I added the date to my calendar, so I’d remember this time.  Saturday morning I met Karen at the Gallery and we spent about 4 hours roaming around.  The first stop was downstairs to visit the model ships gallery.  The first thing to catch my eye was a shadow.  It’s cast by a tiller from a Viking Ship which hangs nea...

Last month I quilted a guild mystery quilt from 2005/6.  I have material to make the binding but want a bias binding as its a stripe and I like the look of a bias binding for stripes.  The quilt is very bright and the round dots are all clock faces. I think the mystery was designed by Billie Lauder.  The printouts I have don't have the designer name but they are labelled as clue #1,2,3 etc and the components are called Suspects which I think is how Billie's instructions are written.  This year I've been doing the 365 Challenge quilt. The current lot of dark blocks should be finishing shortly. Then there are a number of lighter blocks. The other choice for a goal this month is to take the dark blocks and start assembling the dark pieces. They cannot be joined to the center of the quilt yet as I'll need the light blocks to make the row tall enough to match with the large corner blocks but getting the 3.5 blocks turned into 6.5 inch blocks and then jo...

On Father's Day we went to visit the Ontario Regiment Museum in Oshawa, Ontario. It is a very interesting museum and well worth a visit. The regiment dates back to the early 1800's. Ontario refers to Ontario County which was part of Upper Canada prior to confederation. This sign explains the Regiment's history. The museum has the largest collection of operational historical military vehicles in Canada. We arrived at the museum just as a group of vehicles were returning from a parade in Oshawa. Rather than visiting the inside displays, we were taken through to the back so we could see the vehicles being put away. We explored the collection outside. Dad is a Bob so a photo with the tank Bobby seemed appropriate. Dad is watching more vehicles come into the compound. Karen is checking out the driver's seat in this vehicle. None of them are spacious and none looked comfortable. Inside, there are displays that trace the history of th...

On Saturday the museum was closed so they arranged for members to get free admission to two other local museums.  We decided to go to the Bata Shoe Museum for the first time. At first I didn't see the shoes in the display window, just lots of colours.  It was a really interesting visit.  There was information about making shoes and different types of shoes people have worn over the years. The earliest was a replica of the shoe worn by the Ice Man.  There were shoes for many cultures.  These four were some of my favorites.  Each has some very intricate designs which I liked. These are Nalins (Turkish bathhouse sandles) from Ottoman Turkey in the 19th century These are mojaris worn by a temple dancer in Rajasthan, India c 1840 These are children's booties from early 20th Century China These are from Jaipur, India and are Paduka from the 18th century.  They would have been for an important occasion like a wedding. There ...

The Royal Ontario Museum is celebrating their 100th anniversary this year.  Today (and tomorrow), they are offering free admission and two behind the scenes tours -- a chance to go into where the collections are stored and cared for and see some of the work.  It felt like the behind section was bigger than the front section.  In some places they had 10,000's or 100,000's object in the collection.  It was interesting to see the way some of the things were stored -- surround by acid free paper, cushioned by foam, flat in drawers, carefully wrapped up or hung from shelves.  I didn't click the members link soon enough so all the advanced member tickets were gone and I had to line up in the non-ticket holders line.  The line started at the main doors and went along Bloor to University, turned the corner and went to the old main entrance -- or at least that's where I joined it at 9:30.  I think it ended up down by the Planetarium before the doors opened...

At the beginning of June, Karen and I went to two quilt shows one Saturday.  The second was held in the Sharon Temple in Sharon Ontario near Newmarket.  The temple and out buildings are a National Historic Site and one of those hidden treasures that are close to home that we often don't see.  I loved seeing the quilts that were on display but I need to make another trip back to see the temple without the quilts.  The stairway up to the loft really caught my attention.  The temple was built in 1832 and used by the Children of Peace (broke away from the Quakers).  Interestingly it was not used every Sunday.  The times it was used were in conjunction with fund raising to support their work with the poor. The website is  http://www.sharontemple.ca/ Also on the site are some other buildings including the home of the Architect, a study and a cook house.  The Architects home was open for a visit and had some quilts on beds that belong...

On Saturday we spent the afternoon at the ROM before heading down to Roy Thomson for a TSO concert.  We started off upstairs in the Fashion Gallery to see the BIG display. There were some really interesting pieces there.  This Dior Coat dress took 500 hours and 166.5 meters of fabric.  There were some shoes from the era of foot binding in China, a mens dress trousers from Nigeria.  The photo shoes one half of the trousers.  After exploring the 4th floor, we went down to the second floor and had a good look at the rocks and minerals. Neither of us knows anything about rocks so we had enjoyed looking at the textures, colours and finding samples of Mom's (Beryl) rocks. Rocks come smooth, fuzzy, looking like pipettes, fragmented and lumpy. One looked like a map of England, Scotland and Wales. Another reminded us of a baked potato with Lobster Sauce on top.   I know that many paint colours originate by grinding minerals into t...

During the trip to the UK last year, I made a very brief visit to the British Museum to see a six of the History of World in 100 Objects.  All of these are very creative objects -- the details in the reindeer using stone tools, the ornamentation and similarity in patterns across the backgrounds.  I see lots of quilting patterns in those details. The first on my list was a pair of swimming reindeer carved from mammoth tusks during the last ice age. The next was to see the Benin Plaques .  The museum has a wonderful collection of these.  The one in the History of the world shows the King of Benin in Nigeria with some Europeans in the background. TVO showed a series last year about the Lost Kingdoms of Africa and one of them was about the Benin Plaques. The third was the Lewis Chessmen  carved from Walrus Ivory and Whale bones.  The fourth was the Chinese Bronze Bells  called a Bo Bell.  The fifth was ...