Around DC with Grandma and Grandpa

We enjoyed wonderful visits with both sets of grandparents over the past week or so. Jeff's parents came to visit the week before Thanksgiving. This was their first trip to our new home. They visited Annapolis many times when Jeff was a Midshipman, so it's pretty cool to be back 20 years later and visit his office now that he is on the faculty.

Here is Claire studying one of the many many amazing doors at the National Cathedral.
Here's Benjamin running through the hall to the bookstore/gift shop.
We stopped by one of our favorite monuments. Here's Albert Einstein in front of the National Science Foundation.

Claire and Benjamin enjoyed studying the star map on the floor at the base of the statue. It marks the stars as they were on the day of Albert's birth. Very cool.
We had a lovely brunch just down the street from the cathedral.
There were crayons on the table, so I did my lines for the day.
We also enjoyed a great day watching Navy football!
Pictures from the visit with the other grandparents coming soon!

Houston Randoms -- and some lines

Continuing with Melly's line challenge. Circles and crosses. It looks somewhat planetary, doesn't it? That wasn't intentional.More circles. I like the effect of the ink skipping. This wouldn't always be desirable, but it's kind of cool. Oh, hello, Lincoln!

A few more snapshots from my Houston trip.

Purchases! Clockwise starting at the scissors: applique scissors from Famore. Lovely weight and blades. Perfect for cutting away layers of tulle or other sheer fabrics in my newest pieces. In the box: stack of 2x2 hand-dyed fabrics. Lots of Janome bobbins. Two sets of fat quarters from Marcia Derse's new fabric lines. I'm completely in love with these fabrics. Old keys. A small hand carved hedgehog and dragon for Claire and Benjamin.

Sarah and I had a delicious dinner at Ninfa's!
The Beneath the Surface artists enjoyed this dessert-apoolza! Yum!
I had salmon before the dessert. We all brought our Beneath the Surface books and passed them around the table for signatures.
Here is the fabulous Marcia Derse. Seriously. I'm gobsmacked!

More Lines

Continuing with Melly's challenge...

Here are the last two days. Actually the one on the right was Sunday and the one of the left was Monday.

I really am entranced by handwriting. Not the words. Just the writing. The muscle memory of years of writing is full of beautiful loops, humps, crosses and dots. Sometimes I think I can't create a graceful curve, then I think about it as the loop on a letter and it comes through just fine.

The trouble with handwriting is that the viewer wants to read it as a word. The lines on the left could be "mej" or "wey" -- but I just want them to be curves and shapes. I could continue this concept and try to explore ways to further deconstruct the handwriting, but keep the lovely lines.

I do like the lines hugging the edges of the curves. I'll return to that, I'm sure.