Daryl and Kevin’s excellent California adventure, Part 1…

We started our California adventure a couple of weeks ago, seems like a dream now.  Since I had had a couple of scattered teaching engagements, and since I haven’t spent much quality time with my husband since 2010, we opted to combine the business with the personal and take an extended trip to the west coast.

We started in San Diego, where we have friends, really good fiber friends.  Amy and Bill have a lovely home there and Bill and Kevin had met on the Ghost Ranch tour in New Mexico during the 2010 Convergence/Albuquerque.  We did what any self respecting visitor to southern California does, we dined al fresco…

And we went to the zoo.

Actually we spent the whole day at Balboa park, the zoo is part of that, but there is also the San Diego Museum of Art, where Amy is a member, we ditched the men, and Amy and I scampered off to see a glorious exhibit of the Pastrana Tapestries, which are among the finest surviving Gothic tapestries, recently restored set of four monumental tapestries that commemorate the deeds of Afonso V, King of Portugal.

These tapestries were woven in the late 1400’s and are probably contemporaries of the Unicorn Tapestries.  There were similar floral designs in one of the set of four.  And they were huge.  They are 36 feet across.  This is the first time all four have traveled to the US, and it was definitely worth the trip.  The restoration is excellent, and the detail incredible.

There was a kid’s room where I got to try on a medieval hat and snap a photo with a lesser tapestry.

We dined at the Prada, and went on to the Botanical Gardens in Balboa park, where we watched in fascination a horde of caterpillars devour a crown plant.  They were munching on what few leaves were left, and on some of the long leafless branches hung beautiful chrysalides, and occasionally a lovely monarch butterfly would lit on some of the remaining flower buds.  It was a fantastic study of the life cycle of the monarch.  Who knew?

The Botanical Garden’s were full of inspiration, orchids, bromeliads, and other flowering succulents, including one called the flamingo plant, different than the glass houses at botanical gardens here in the northeast.  My husband shot a few hundred photos.  Here are some of my favorites, with a little help from Photoshop, (I love that Poster edges filter…)

One of the bromeliads had leaves that I’d swear had been woven.  I can see this reproduced using some of the fine Habu yarns…

And then there were the leaves that looked like someone tripped with a dyepot.  Loved the begonia escargo…

And of course, we ended up at the zoo, walking through a couple of aviaries, and enjoying the colorful birds, and of course my favorite was

Sociable Weavers are champions at getting along with others.  Their large nests are built by many weavers, and are used from one generation to the next…  Does this sound like anyone we know?

We saw a tree with gorgeous bark, and spent time to find someone who could identify it, turns out it is a gum tree, relative of the eucalyptus.

And of course the highlight of the day was dining in front of the waterfall at Albert’s restaurant in the zoo.  Thanks Amy and Bill for a great time…

We headed off to Long Beach on Tuesday morning, so I could assist my guild mate and head of the yardage exhibit Catherine Marchant in hanging the exhibit.  I was glad to help, I adore working with Catherine, everything slides off of her, especially when the amount of hanging space she had originally planned for the display was cut in half at the last minute because another conference group was using the other half of the convention center.  It did look lovely when it was all finished, and my yardage hung fourth from the right, I pointed it out with a red arrow.

I taught my class at Convergence, an easy in and out, especially with my husband and a rental car in tow, to drop me off outside the Renaissance Hotel, where my class was being held, and he accompanied me to the dinner and fashion show later that night.  My second place win was covered in my previous post, but I can assure you it was a special night, and I was glad to have my husband there to see a little of my world, and meet some of the weavers in the fiber community, even if I did mess up a couple of names (missing name badges, my worst nightmare), sorry Tracy!

Stay tuned for part two of Daryl and Kevin’s excellent California adventure…