Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, part one

I didn't take a whole lot of photos as I did my first year, but it wasn't because the quilts weren't impressive. One, I had my large camera (my small one is currently not working), and two, the exhibits were quite crowded. And as my collection of quilt photos have grown, I've not felt the need to photograph quilts that are great as much, but now just try to capture the ones that have things I'd like to learn or try.

 



 From a distance, this quilt/wall hanging looked just like a piece of art.

 An up close of the man's sleeve. You know how they always tell you to press you fabric flat before quilting? Not here! The wrinkles, quilted into the backing, give dimension and texture to the man's jacket, and the offset lines create the look of a bended arm.

 How do you make a napkin pop when it's simply white fabric on white fabric? Not only wrinkle the napkin fabric, but quilt two different layers of gray see-through material underneath to create a shadow.  And no...NO finished edges!

 Wine glasses?  More sheer fabric, quilted one on top fo the other to create the shadows of drink and the illumination in the glass. Not sure whether or not they used paint sticks on the yellow, but either way, the glasses, their contents, and the glas stems were quite impressive.

 And the bottom of the wine bottle...more layered fabric with no finished edges but lots of up and down stitching for texture.

And the artist quilter who made this outstanding piece. I hope to google her when life slows down a little to find out more about her and her work.

Cold Harbor, VA

Tonight as the wind blows, I'm reminded of the bitter cold wind and the snow flurries the days we were in Richmond, VA.  The last day of our history part of the trip, we drove to Cold Harbor. Bobby's great-grandfather had six older brothers who fought in the Civil War. Three of them never came home, and one of them died at the Battle of the Cold Harbor. Below he's braving the elements to read one of the signs. You can tell by the grimace on his face that he is VERY cold.

By this point in the war, soldiers have learned a little more about fighting, and have ceased some of their face to face combat and have started digging trenches with wood supports. In the pictures above and below, you can see the remains of the CSA trenches. Whether the farmers were unable to remove them or decided it wasn't worth the time and effort is unknown, but this area was not farmed again. Nearby farms that did not have trenches on them found that if they ever dug too deep, they'd encounter skeletons.

The trenches were built into T shapes.  I was amazed at how intact some of them still were, at least 36" high. Excerpts from letters and diaries were included on signage throughout the driving trail. Some soldiers recounted how the creek ran red as they had no other cover than the creek's brushes as they unexpectedly encountered an entrenched unit.  One of the three houses, still standing in the nearby vicinity told how the family was traumatized as they hid in the cellar, hoping to be undiscovered and the troops would leave, only to realize their home was being turned into a field hospital, and they had to sit in the corner and watch the blood drop through the floor boards from above. I cannot imagine. I think this site more than any other helped portray the horrors of war, and its cost to the people who lived through it. And that was one thing that I was impressed with the Confederate Museum...all the quotes from soldiers on both side telling how sick they were of "soldiering" and how they had witnessed more death and evil than any person should ever have to see in a lifetime in just one month. 

I have to admit, while I would highly recommend doing this trip in much warmer weather, I did enjoy it. And hopefully tomorrow I can post our last day, my day, when we headed home via Hampton, VA and the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Conference.

taking a pause

I still have two more Richmond posts to write, but today my heart and thoughts are in Asia. I guess by now everyone has seen the reports on social media coming from North and South Korea.

Sometimes it seems that I focus on trivial matters in the Christian world - how to get silly boys to listen in class at church, how to respond lovingly but truthfully to hostile comments on FB, how to find balance between people always needing/wanting something and living my own life...and these 33 people are facing the ends of their lives just for living out their faith. What would be the first thoughts on my mind in the morning if I lived in North Korea?  Would I wrestle with the reality of never getting a break from being a caregiver the first 1.5 hours of every morning, or would I wrestle more with whether or not my husband and I should continue having devotions (even owning a Bible in NK is grounds for a lifetime of imprisonment, if not execution)?  A simple act that I take for granted every single morning in North Korea is an act of defiance and a blatant declaration that Jesus is more than their Savior but their Soveriegn LORD...higher than even Kim Jung Un.

I spend my days wondering how and what I can fit in my schedule (and some days like last week dealing with unexpected surprises from UPS that Buster dismantled into the mud while we were gone and I missed church cleaning up those medical supplies) while these people are probably wondering if and how they'll get the chance to say good-bye to their loved ones.

It really puts things into perspective.  My prayer is that every soul who heard the Gospel from these 33 believers will allow the seed to take root, and that King Jong Un will find the execution spark he has ignited will start a fire he cannot quench. I pray their families will find comfort during this time of grief, when they cannot openly grieve for their "criminal" family members, and that neighbors will not socially ostracize them but will support and encourage them during the difficult months ahead.  And may I be grateful for the freedoms that I truly have.

St. John's in Richmond, VA

Briefly changing time periods, we stopped visiting Civil War Era sites, and switched to the Revolutionary War. When Patrick Henry and others were trying what to do with ongoing issues with England, their group was dismissed, making it treason for them to meet and discuss political matters without being called back into session. Richmond was the nearest location to Williamsburg (the then capitol) that had a place big enough for everyone to meet. The Pastor of St. John's Episcopal church agreed to let them use their building for the meeting.  It was here where self-trained lawyer Patrick Henry ended his speech with "Give me liberty or give me death."

Our tour guide in the church that has been expanded three times from the original building.

 I found some of the original pews most interesting.  All the newer pews are built to match, though not as tall as these. The doors were placed around each seating area as there was no heat in the day. Families brought heating stones and bricks to place around their feet, and the doors kept the draft away, enabling a little bit of warmth for each section during the sermon.

 As the church has been expanded, there was nowhere to go in the already full cemetery but over graves. Here is a marker in the nave, showing where a former minister is buried underneath the church in that spot. I personally found this a little disturbing.

 Loved the carpet...we saw carpet like this in many places throughout Richmond. Can you imagine having to sweep/brush this clean?

I hope to research this phrase later. The symbol in this window can also be found on tombs throughout the graveyard. Our tour guide told us it stood for "In His Service"...the I, H, and S are intertwined in the more "modern" symbols.

 We saw arched tombs like this in Beaufort, NC, and the tour guide there said it was to keep tombs from washing away during floods. The James River is nearby here, but the church is on such high ground I can't imagine water ever getting this high. It was so cold that day that no one was hanging around outside to ask about these two very different tombs.

 And an older example of the "In His Service" symbol.

 Never seen a tombstone quite like this one. The shame is traditional, but the engraved urn is unlike anything I've seen (not that I've visited a whole lot of graveyards).

 The front of St. Henry's church.

 More tombs that are almost underneath the church.

And here are some on the other side of the building that are also against the church, and you can see what appears to be others up under the building itself.

If you ever visit Richmond, this is a must on your list of places to do. It's not a free tour, unlike other museums, but it is educational in a great way, the tour guide is open to questions of any kind, and the elevator from the street (entrance from the street to the visitor's center is not accessible and we had to enter on the other side of the block) takes you directly into the cemetery. I must say, I was not prepared for the door to open and immediately be facing tombstones. I almost felt like we were in a movie. But the cemetery itself is fairly accessible, as is their brick rampway to the visitor's center, and the tour guide easily adjusted the tour entrance to make it work for us.  An incredibly awesome place that will make even lukewarm history learners interested. And I must say, I learned quite a bit.

One quick note, the walkways around the church block are accessible, though there are a few spots around trees where the roots have buckled the bricks or the sidewalk and it take a little maneuvering.

Richmond historic homes

Richmond homes, their styles, closeness in proximity, and constructional materials, reminded me a lot of Washington, DC. It was too cold to walk the streets and enjoy the views, but I did manage to snap a few pictures from the van window.

 One of the things I love about old homes is the turrets, as pictured above. When I was a  child, my younger sister and I used to say we wanted to live in a house that had one so we could have a round bedroom. Now, I realize how impractical that would be, but I would love to actually go inside a house that had one just to see how they decorate the rooms.

 Old churches, especially those with bell towers, are also a fascination for me. Most of the old churches in downtown Richmond were stone with gorgeous stained glass windows. If I had to live in a city, I'd like to live across the street from an old beautiful church.

This is not a great shot, as I was trying to capture the different styles on the same street (at least 4 grouped here) and how close the houses were to each other. Some houses a person literally could not walk between them, others had enough room for a heating/air unit, or a small gate, but that was it. And this also captures a difficulty I would have living in the city: parallel parking. It's a feature I never mastered when learning to drive, despite my Dad's most valiant teaching efforts, and throughout the years I've always found a parking deck or somewhere else to park that didn't require it. So far, it really has been that simple. But here?  There's no other option.

I'd like to visit Richmond in the springtime when it's warmer and walking weather.

Richmond, VA

The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA will be moving its artifacts into a new museum (combining with another group). The White House of the Confederacy, as seen below, and ten steps away from the museum will remain open. After visiting, we understood the need to relocate. You can see Virginia's Commonwealth University surrounding the location. Since the university has expanded it's medical center, dwarfing the museum and historical house, visitors to the site have dropped more than 50%.

For history lovers, it was a great place to visit. Displays were organized by time, but also included a lot of personal information, including excerpts from diaries and letters.

Another museum that medical history lovers would enjoy is on Broad Street, shown below. We visited there on our last day. While cold and windy, there wasn't snow flurries that morning, and the sun was shining. 2/3 of the way up the elevator/stair lift, it started smoking and then quit. Bobby was stuck, unable to get out (you now, the safety mechanisms that keep wheelchairs from rolling that also trap you in when the things malfunction) and the VERY kind and professional park rangers called the fire department to get him out, while also bringing him their personal blankets and offering their own jackets to keep him warm. The firemen were nice, considerate, helpful, and they got him out of the lift, as well as down the ten cement steps, after carrying his heavy chair down the steps. They more than earned their pay that day.  As I've told him more than once in the last 15 years of marriage: Life with you is never dull.

While waiting for the firemen, I did quickly walk around the display room, saw the bone shattered by a bullet and how it was amputated (and the soldier from NC died while in the Union hospital), and spent even more time in the gift shop, quickly checked out my "girly" Civil War book that Bobby would have never ever picked out, then joined the excitement on the porch as they removed him from the lift.

I have to say, US Park Rangers and Richmond's firefighters, specifically Truck 1 Engine 1 Team, are the best in the world. I so wanted to pull out camera and start snapping pictures, but the rangers were already embarrassed and horrified by the incident, and I now most public officials aren't overly thrilled about photos of them in action, so I didn't even ask. They were hauling very precious cargo, after all, and I wanted their focus to stay on him. But I would recommend both of these museums to history aficionados (along with the Tredegar Museum, which will also be the new location of the joint museum).

gazillionth try

Well, I wrote two posts, complete with pictures, and attempted to post them last week, but either the hotel wifi wasn't strong enough or google was having problems...neither posted and neither saved as a draft.  And today, after I don't know how many attempts, I've only been able to load one photo.


So...here's the first photo from a VA welcome center.  I think this is the first time I've ever seen a playground at a rest area, much less a welcome center. We both thought it was great.  Kids need to be able to play and stretch while traveling.  I know I certainly would have enjoyed this as a child during a stop. So hat's off to Virginia for providing a quality rest area (including a family bathroom).