Weekend Walk

This weekend, Jesse's cousin and wife stopped in to visit on the way up to their new home in Seattle, WA. It was great having them all to ourselves, since our visits are usually confined to a couple of hours during a quick visit to California. They arrived around dinner time on Friday and stayed until the late afternoon on Saturday. Since they had been in the car for hours on end, all they wanted to do was walk around and explore.

Friday afternoon, we walked around the Pearl and grabbed dinner at Bridgeport Brewery. After a hearty breakfast at Biscuits Cafe, we headed up to Washington Park and the Rose Garden. This weekend happened to be the Portland Rose Festival, so there were large groups of rose admirers milling around. All of the flowers were in bloom and fragrant, so I was incredibly excited to go row by row and smell each variety. I found a plant that I thought might be perfect for Jesse's mom's garden, but when I pulled out my camera, I found that I had left the memory card at home in my laptop. Sadly, I managed to go on another outing without taking a single photo.

After the Rose Garden, we walked up the hill to the Japanese Garden where I found a spectacular exhibit on textiles of the Aniu of Hokkaido, Japan and the Tlingit of the Pacific Northwest. Due to my lack of memory card, I'm borrowing images from the Japanese Garden's online exhibit, Parallel Worlds. I'd really like to go back before the end of the month to take a little more time to read through all of the exhibit and maybe snap a few photos of the textiles that are not featured online. However, I don't think a photo could do justice to the real thing. They are truly works of art.

The exhibit did an interesting job of examining the handmade ceremonial robes of two native cultures on both sides of the northern Pacific Ocean. Each piece displayed beautiful, rich colors applied in distinctive geometric patterns, yet called to mind similar motifs. The Japanese textiles were intricately appliqued with hand embroidery, while the Pacific Northwest textiles were primarily woven. I think I was most taken with the Aniu ceremonial robes because the technique used is most familiar to me. I was able to fully appreciate the time and skill it takes to hand applique and embroider.

Of course, anytime I see a beautiful fabric creation the wheels in my head start turning. I'm currently scheming to find a way to take some inspiration from these ceremonial robes and apply it to quilting. I got the graph paper out this morning and doodled a bit. It might take a while to plan, but I think it could be really beautiful!