Washington DC Trip with my Triplets!

The public school system here now has “Fall Break”. When I was a girl we only got “Spring Break” so this long weekend they get now in October is a real treat. This year we decided to go to Washington, DC to visit my BFF, her awesome husband and her itty bitty cutie pie baby boy who I’d never met. They’d been living in Tokyo the past few years so it has been a while since I’d seen them.

Her son is adorable with these beautiful blue eyes and shiny blonde hair. He is just adorable and is learning two languages to boot, Danish and English. My kidlets were very impressed at his ability to soak in both languages so easily. They also got to learn the Danish word for “pee” and “diaper”. Ahhh… multiculturalism.

We did the standard touristy thing but no quilter can just be a tourist. 🙂

My eye kept wandering to all the quilting designs I saw shouting out at me from the architecture surrounding me.  Like this incredible floor mosaic.

Or this simple border design found on the ceiling in Union Station.

I absolutely loved this quilt pattern on the floor too!

I find inspiration in so many places and it all comes back to quilting for me. I guess if I was into cake decorating, it would all reflect back to piping designs, or if I loved to make wrought iron I’d start imagining gates and staircase railings.

Quilting for me satisfies so many creative urges. But what I’ve found recently is that I haven’t had time to just quilt for me. I’m so busy meeting my client’s deadlines that I’ve lost the personal spark of my own designs. I need to carve out time just for me and my own work. I guess that knowledge is the first sign post out on how to avoid burnout. Now I just have to put my words into action.

We did spend a day in Mount Vernon and I’m so glad we made the journey. It was a beautiful, breezy fall day and it was so relaxing to just hang out with one of my favorite women in the world.

The kidlets wanted me to take this before and after photo of them on a bench. They thought this was super silly.

Surprisingly, one of the favorite places for my kidlets was the Botanical Gardens. We got to see some really beautiful plants and I took tons of inspirational shots. I’ll post more of those in my next update.

Have a wonderful week and if you are lucky enough to be going to the Houston show, drool on some quilts for me!