Trip to Ottawa – Part 3
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Author Archives: Norma Hanson
Trip to Ottawa – Part 2
Trip to Ottawa – Part 1
I haven’t been posting for a while. Things have been very busy here. On May 25th, my DH and I headed to Ottawa, Ontario, our nation’s capital. I had to attend 3 days of meetings in GatineAu, Quebec, just across the river from Ottawa. My husband and I decided to stay on in Ottawa after the meetings were over and have a little bit of a holiday. We had a great time exploring Ottawa and returned home on June 1.
These were the last of the tulips in Ottawa when we were there. The Canadian Tulip Festival was hosted by the city of Ottawa from May 1 to 18 so we just missed the height of the blooms. http://www.tulipfestival.ca/en/index.html
While I was attending meetings during the day, my DH was busy exploring the city. He visited the Canadian Museum of Nature. http://nature.ca/nature_e.cfm
The “castle” that houses the Canadian Museum of Nature was built in 1905. The building was intended to mirror the Centre Block of Canada’s Parliament Buildings.
These dinosaurs guard the entrance to the Talisman Fossil Gallery.
This Polar Bear is housed in the Mammal Gallery.
These two birds are located in the Bird Gallery.
This large turtle hangs in the Talisman Energey Fossil Gallery.
These were the last of the tulips in Ottawa when we were there. The Canadian Tulip Festival was hosted by the city of Ottawa from May 1 to 18 so we just missed the height of the blooms. http://www.tulipfestival.ca/en/index.html
While I was attending meetings during the day, my DH was busy exploring the city. He visited the Canadian Museum of Nature. http://nature.ca/nature_e.cfm
The “castle” that houses the Canadian Museum of Nature was built in 1905. The building was intended to mirror the Centre Block of Canada’s Parliament Buildings.
These dinosaurs guard the entrance to the Talisman Fossil Gallery.
This Polar Bear is housed in the Mammal Gallery.
These two birds are located in the Bird Gallery.
This large turtle hangs in the Talisman Energey Fossil Gallery.
Many houses were the home to small businessess like this dumpling shop.
Two more shots from Chinatown.
This is a photo of the Canadian War Museum. http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/home
The building expresses the message of the museum with small windows spaced high along the protruding copper fin that spell, “Lest we forget” in both English and French in Morse code.
The Canadian War Museum has the largest green roof–at 10,684 square metres, of its kind in North America. The roof is covered in the same tall-grass species that grow along the Ottawa River. The roof is actually a self-sustaining ecosystem that requires minimal maintenance. The plants help “clean” the air of smog and air pollution. The roof includes a 300 millimetre mix of soil and retention board that can hold up to 720,000 litres of storm water.
This photo has been reproduced life size within the museum. It was known as the shot seen around the world. This was the famous photograph shot by Claude Dettloff, a Province newspaper photographer in New Westminster during an October day in 1940. Jack Bernard was another soldier in a parade of enlisted men marching down Eighth Street and off to the Second World War. Just as the march crossed Columbia Street, Jack’s five-year-old son Warren bolted from the crowd waving farewell from the sidewalk. Warren’s mom, Bernice, reached out to grab him, just as his father reached back to touch him. Dettloff captured had only one shot left in his camera.When The photograph ran the next day, Oct. 2, 1940, on the front page of The Province. Then Life Magazine named the photograph its “photo of the week.” Soon other newspapers and magazines were featuring the photograph. By war’s end, it was the Canadian equivalent of the famous V-Day shot of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York’s Times Square.
Two more shots from Chinatown.
This is a photo of the Canadian War Museum. http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/home On Thursday nights admission to museums in Ottawa is free. Since the Canadian War Museum was within walking distance of our hotel, we visited there on Thursday night.
The building expresses the message of the museum with small windows spaced high along the protruding copper fin that spell, “Lest we forget” in both English and French in Morse code.
The Canadian War Museum has the largest green roof–at 10,684 square metres, of its kind in North America. The roof is covered in the same tall-grass species that grow along the Ottawa River. The roof is actually a self-sustaining ecosystem that requires minimal maintenance. The plants help “clean” the air of smog and air pollution. The roof includes a 300 millimetre mix of soil and retention board that can hold up to 720,000 litres of storm water.
This photo has been reproduced life size within the museum. It was known as the shot seen around the world. This was the famous photograph shot by Claude Dettloff, a Province newspaper photographer in New Westminster during an October day in 1940. Jack Bernard was another soldier in a parade of enlisted men marching down Eighth Street and off to the Second World War. Just as the march crossed Columbia Street, Jack’s five-year-old son Warren bolted from the crowd waving farewell from the sidewalk. Warren’s mom, Bernice, reached out to grab him, just as his father reached back to touch him. Dettloff captured had only one shot left in his camera.When The photograph ran the next day, Oct. 2, 1940, on the front page of The Province. Then Life Magazine named the photograph its “photo of the week.” Soon other newspapers and magazines were featuring the photograph. By war’s end, it was the Canadian equivalent of the famous V-Day shot of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York’s Times Square. The Canadian War Museum is Canada’s national museum of military history and focuses on military conflicts that occurred on Canadian soil, involved Canadian forces, or had a significant effect on the country and its people.
Fraser Valley Quilters’ Guild – Quiltafair
Since my sewing machine is still in the shop, I was free to attend the Fraser Valley Quilters’ Guild biennial quilt show, called Quiltafair, last Friday.
This was a cute flower arrangement on the registration desk. See the cute “button” flowers.
The guild had sponsored the traditional quilt challenge and an additional challenge that you don’t see at every show–a pin cushion challenge. I had a hard time voting for my favorite pin cushion.
I have seen this quilt pattern several times before. However, this is the first time I have seen it made up as an “I Spy”. What a great idea.
One of the features of this show was the Hungarian Canadian quilt display. “In 2006, Iren Szabo and Sue Dobray initiated a Hungarian/Canadian quilt exchange. All participants created a twelve inch quilt block – the Hungarian blocks were sent to Canada to be matched up with a Canadian participant who in turn sent their blocks to Hungary. All participants added 4 1/2″ around their exchange block or brought the size up to 21″ and that piece was returned to the original block creator to increase the size to an approximately 45″ quilt top. All quilts (21 Hungarian and 21 Canadian) were finished by the original block creator and the completed Canadian quilts were sent back to Hungary to join the Hungarian quilts…this collection of 42 quilts was displayed in the capital city of Budapest in November 2006. This is the first time they have been hung as a group show in Canada” (taken from the FVQG’s show brochure) The next 5 pictures are some of those fabulous quilts.
This next quilt featured incredibly small squares in the 25 patch blocks.
Because it is hard to imagine just how small those squares were, I took a picture of one of the blocks next to my hand so you can see the perspective.
This next hexagon quilt belongs to Val Smith. I met up with two other quilters from Agassiz at the show and I was introduced to Val. The four of us enjoyed a wonderful boxed lunch outside in the sun at lunchtime. Be sure to visit Val’s web page to see some of her other fabulous work. http://web.me.com/myraottewell/Vals_Quilts/Welcome.html
Val used 5 different sizes of hexagons in this quilt.
The next two shots feature some great cat quilts.
This next quilt really interested me. All it said on the note that was hanging next to the quilt was, “I made this quilt from a napkin”.
This next Canadiana quilt was for sale for $800. It features some fabulous cross stitch pieces and the most interesting maple leaf block in the center of the quilt.
This maple leaf block was a cross between a poppy and a maple leaf-very interesting.
This quilt featured a farm in Swift Current, Saskatchewan.
I have always admired this quilt pattern. I believe the pattern is called, “All Lit Up” and is intended as a Christmas quilt. This quilter said the trees reminded her of the forests around Harrison and so she hangs this quilt all year round in her house, not just at Christmas.
I have seen this quilt pattern before many times. I still love it! The expressions on the faces of these birds are priceless.
This was a cute quilt. The workmanship was perfect! Despite the use of triangles, this quilt hung perfectly flat–no friendly borders here!
These next two quilts featured a unique curved and dimensional half square triangle block.
Sometimes a quilt just makes you smile, this was one of those.
This is a two colour BQ.
This quilt was cute.
The quilting design featured chocolates and really made the quilt.
This was a great show. Moving Projects Forward Has Come to an Abrupt Hault
Thursday night, I was making great progress on another UFO. I was busy adding the sashing strips to my dryer sheet diamond string blocks. I even got one full row of blocks sewn together and I was ready to put the last seam in the second row when it happened.
I had pinned my blocks together and I was busy pulling out the pins just before the presser foot reached them. I missed pulling out a pin, but my machine hit it dead on.
So now sadly, my DSM is in the hospital awaiting the technician’s attention. The needle remained intact in the accident, but the pin was split in two and was jammed into the machine knocking my machine out of time.
So now, there is just a hole in my work table where Heidi would normally sit. I can tell you that I am really missing her. We have been together since 1999. My husband bought Heidi for me when I graduated from my professional accounting designation courses. It had been a long haul–10 years of study and work experience and my husband felt I deserved something very special.
This is not my Heidi, but a machine very similar to her. (I pulled this picture off the Internet.)
Prior to Heidi, I had a Kenmore that I named Zip. This machine had two speeds–super fast and stop. I had to sew with a slipper shoved into the presser foot to help slow Zip down. You always had to be ready to grab the fly wheel when Zip would get into one of his moods and take off at top speed. If Zip was happy and sewing at a comfortable speed, he would make a sound like an Austrailian diggorie-do. Zip still lives at my house, taking up space in the cupboard. My daughter has used Zip on occasion but I have not sewn on Zip since Heidi came to live with me. The only other machine that I have is an antique Singer treadle machine that was given to me years ago by my grandmother. I posted about that Singer machine back in July 2006: http://silverthimblequilting.blogspot.com/2006/07/singer.html This machine does not have a 1/4″ foot for piecing or a walking foot.
The Bernina dealer has said that Heidi will be out of commission for at least two weeks so I may have to bring either Zip or the Singer back into service