Blogger Does DC

Yep, been traveling. DC was great fun, good food was had by all, and I can highly recommend the Metro. Not much fiber happened, but I did manage to visit a Mecca of sorts:



The Textile Museum. Be still my heart. The two exhibits currently running are textiles from Insular Southeast Asia (resist dyed, both before and after weaving) and Beyond the Bag: Textiles as Containers. Dyeing and Bags. Too much fun. My patient husband wandered through the exhibits valiantly, then I had him go find a seat while I went into the library (!) and the bookstore. Oh my.

I would show you what I bought, but I could not carry them out. I had them shipped home. Books. Periodicals. Journals. I am a member, so I receive a discount. You'd have thought it was Filene's Basement. I actually pushed someone aside (I apologized, really. I didn't see him! I was intent).

Send them money. Become a member. They will send you a cool Journal. I love this place. It all started when George Hewitt Myer bought an Oriental carpet for his dorm room at Yale (puhleeze!). He became a collector of Textiles, bought the building next door, to house his collections, then donated both buildings and the collection to start the Museum. They have a World Class collection of rugs, some of which were on display, and textiles of all sorts. I'm wracking my brain to try to think of some sort of scholarly reason to go back, and ask for tours of the collections.

I did take a few photos of DC buildings which had great textile potential:


(I'm hoping the security cameras were not on me as I was taking photos of the Treasury Building. Heh. I'm probably in some file now.)


This maze design as from the Department of Agriculture, but it showed up in the positive and negative versions in the Museum of Natural History too. This was one of my favorites.


And then the ubiquitous *S* shape, this from in front of the Bead Museum.

I will stop, you get the idea: design ideas are everywhere, and certainly aplenty in DC.