Quilting and other Things

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...

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...

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...

I went into the museum today to see the items on display from the ROM episode of Museum Secrets. There were two curators available for Q&A sessions this afternoon. One for the head dress and one for the baby mummies. ROM Museum Secrets Originally uploaded by imhalca This is a sandstone formation. Its in the ROM's mineral collection. I think I'll be going back to see it again soon. ROM: Gogotte Originally uploaded by imhalca

The sign and two images are from the ROMs Egypt collection. This is the photo the tools came from.  The photo the head comes from is rather shaky I haven't added it here.

I had a chance to go through the terracotta warriors exhibit at ROM twice.  I'd seen a exhibit in London a few years ago during a visit with Karen.  The nice thing was the exhibit was different and focused on other aspects. There were other emperors after the First Emperor who also had warriors buried with them but no where near the scale of the First Emperor.  These are some of the motifs that caught my eye during the first visit. These are some of the warriors that caught me eye during the second visit.

I had a ticket for the symphony on the 13th so went to the ROM for a few hours and visited sections 301 - 303 which covers Africa, the Americas and Asia-Pacific; the Middle East and South Asia.  Most of these pictures are from section 301-- Africa, the Americas and Asia-Pacific.  The descriptions are generally summarized from the tags that appear with the items. Wayu culture, Kashure, Colombia c 1965 The size of the pompom varies with the social status of the wearer.  The pompoms protect the feet from prickly pears.  The big pompon requires a very slow, straight step which helps the women walk with dignity, "as a woman should" Wuramon (soul canoe) Asmat culture, West Papua Province, Indonesia, mid 20th century.  The wuramon combines death and rebirth.  The wuramon represents the great voyage to the land of the dead in a bottomless canoe. Double jar in the Carretas polychrom style.  The shape of this reminds me of the binocular-like object tha...

Yesterday I had two hours at the ROM on my way to the symphony. Since it was the day before Hallowe'en I went back up to the textile area on the fourth floor as I guessed the other areas would be very busy with families (lots of activities at ROM this weekend for families). Also I'm very fond of the textile area. The first set of displays was about different types of fabrics used for clothing. This is a katanga (sp?) from Kenya titled Ancestral Proverb. The words translate to "He who likes doesn't care" meaning don't see the bad in someone or something. Karen has brought us back some Salvation Army katanga's from her travels so it was fun to see some other ones on display. I like the umbrellas which are also to help protect you from seeing the bad. This beaded basket was to commemorate the birth of a child. There's a band around the bottom that reads WHERE VERTUE IS THE CAUSE OF LOVE NOTHING BUT DEATH CAN IT REMOVE. ANNE ROUNDELL ANNO 1656 ...

On June 6, I went into the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) to see a presentation about the creation of the Terracotta warriors exhibit that is opening June 26th.  So far they have identified more than 80 artists who made the warriors.  I thought this would be a repeat of the exhibit we saw in London a few years ago but it turns out that its a made for Canada exhibit.  I'm looking forward to heading in later this summer to see it. After the lecture I spent some time wandering through an exhibit about Canada. There were tools and molds used by the Indians and the pioneers to make maple syrup. In the first picture, there is a bucket for collecting the sap, then two molds -- a house and a prayer book. The second picture shows several molds. The third picture shows a skimmer used to clean the foam and debris from the surface of the sap as it boiled. Another section showed powder horns from the 1800's. This one is from Quebec. In the middle of the exhibit was a group o...