- One of those days

I had plans ... funny, huh? Because nothing happened as planned and it ended up being such a great day.

Originally I expected to spend the morning brush whacking ... but an allergic reaction from yesterday's yard work put me under the weather. Worse yet, my iron died, effectively shutting down my patchplay ... 

So I reorganized my fabric stash instead ...

and then, since I was on a roll, I tidied up my flosses ...

Last, but not least, I headed out after lunch to splurge on a new iron ...

So my plan for tomorrow? Who needs plans?

- Rust happens

Don just finished another assemblage in the Porch Series ... 

Then we went in search of new/old stuff at a neighborhood moving sale, which yielded some wonderful rust ...

and better yet, my copy of Alice Fox's new book arrived ...

After a first pass, I have no doubt that both Don and I will find much of value to use in our own creative endeavors ... not to mention the pleasure of seeing the wide range of works beautifully captured in its pages.

- Spin cycle

I honestly didn't realize how well my thrift store collection of linen was doing until I cut some scraps for a walnut dye test ...

Thrifted linen

As usual, the persimmon served as my drying rack ...

But I brought them in still wet and therefore darker than they will eventually be after washing since we were headed out of town ...

And in return for Grace's wonderful gift, here is a picture of our newest neighbor, a writing spider, also known as a golden silk orb spider ...

The body is about one inch long, the legs considerably longer ....

which I first learned about here.

Addendum:

Results after dipping the lower right corner of each patch in plain water ...

Now to the washer to see what happens.

- More nuts than usual

A week of playing with our grandsons (1 and 3 years old) in St Louis and reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer was a wonderful blog and stitch-free interlude (although my fingers did itch from time to time).

I came home refreshed, restocked the fridge, and got back to brush and cactus whacking to work off some of my daughter's great home cooking ... which included my first (but not last) taste of Pozole from Blue Apron.

When I picked up our bundled mail, it included a package full of black walnuts from Grace at Windthread. Having never made walnut dye before, I consulted with Grace and Marti, watched a few videos on YouTube, then plunked half of the walnuts into a thrift store coffee pot with some water ...

and soon had an inky brew ...

This quill pen was my first attempt using one of the many turkey feathers gifted by our Rio Grande neighbors this summer ...

The ink got darker by the hour ...

Where would I be without how-to videos like this one?

I also restocked my supply of Nana's Nuts, a double entendre that I came up with as I shared my stash last week with 3 year old Jackson, sprinkling them over our granola and yogurt each morning ... 

Pistachios, almonds and cashews
coated with maple syrup, coconut oil, brown sugar, salt and vanilla
then oven roasted for two and a half hours at 225 degrees

Last, but not least, I tried out a new idea. While I was away, I read blog posts about two patchwork quilts in progress made by Jude Hill and Judy Martin's daughter. Inspired, I started making some paperless patches following Jude's method, but it just didn't make my heart sing as I ironed one small patch after another. Beside the near-scorching of my fingertips, I itched to break beyond squares.

After sleeping on my dilemma, I woke up with the idea to cut a long strip of paper, tear strips of linen to a width slightly larger, then finger press the edges over the paper ...

iron them down ...

remove the paper ...

then fold the edges on one end ...

and cut off individual patches to be basted ...

The result was a series of patches all the same width, but with variable lengths ...

I'll have to make quite a few more before I have enough to start piecing them together, but I must say I'm having a lot more fun! And yes, there are two different linens pictured above: tan and lichen-overdyed orange.

- Works in progress

So, Armadillo Road won out over Georgia's Window (see Thursday's post for more on that) ...

I'm backstitching the rusted bottle caps between layers of linen and muslin that I first prepped for a kitchen towel here.  The channels in the cloth turned out to be the perfect width for the bottle caps, which is more apparent on the b-side ...

I'm now contemplating several options for the bottom half of the cloth, which I want to echo the bands of triangular plates on the armadillo skin.

I also finished multiple passes with the windfall lichen dye, all the while thinking "I'm going in the polar opposite direction of Amy Meissner's Girl Story series"  ...

To no avail, as the color washed out significantly ...

Now I have some thinking to do about what comes next ...

B-side

But first things first ... there's a new home for Griffin to move in to this weekend!

Which means we get to return some boxes stored at our house for the past few months and finally deliver this housewarming present.

- Inspirations and considering what's next

I found this when we were picking up trash along Ranch Road 12 a couple of years ago ...

It's a chunk of armadillo road kill and I love it ... Don, not so much. I keep trying to convince him it should go into one of his assemblages, to no avail.

So today I had a brainstorm. I've been combing parking lots ever since reading bottle tops and stitches on Alice Fox's blog (and yes, I already have her new book on order). Not wanting to be imitative, it's been a puzzle how best to use them. Now I'm thinking I may combine them into a rust and stitch reprise of my beloved armadillo relic ...

My current bottle top collection

But then again, I've had another project cooking on my mental back burner for months. There was a painting titled Door through Window that I photographed at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe last October (and yes, I did ask first if I could). I couldn't get enough of it, especially after realizing it was painted the year I was born ...

In my mind it has become"Georgia's Window" and I've been searching out (and dyeing) linen in order to make a stitched impression ...

Thank goodness for thrift stores ...

So now that I've gathered my thoughts and my stuff, what remains to be seen is which project will come next.

- On edge: Wood, metal and cloth assemblages

Don has been working on a series of assemblages made from repurposed wood and metal, of which this is the most recent ...

Wood from Junkology

This angle view shows off his edge work, as well as the dimensionality of the clockwork spring found during last summer's junk haul at the Outer Banks ...

This, in addition to last week's assemblage, made his original moon phase assemblage look washed out. Since the plan is to hang them all together, he made the edge of the moon assemblage a bit darker (dare I say edgier?) ...

Meanwhile, I finished stitching together four layers of linen with coral cotton strips woven in ...

a much more substantial piece to give the wood table protection from serving dishes ...

Close-up view showing the variation in cloth weaves

I dipped one edge into a simmered brew of windfall lichen ...

letting the color wick up close to the first row of cloth weaving ...

then hung it out to dry, during which time the color continued to migrate upward ...

This persimmon has become my de facto cloth-hanger

A second dip, a-side ...

and b-side, shows how much the color on the side softened after drying compared to the wet bottom edge ...

Two more cycles of dipping and drying remain to be done on the other two edges. At that point I'll consider whether to stitch along the boundaries created by the wicking, then put it all in the washing machine to see how the color will stand up.

I think I could get used to living on the edge ...

- Almost too busy to post: Updates on assemblages

Summer days are full ... yard work all morning (before triple digit heat sets in), tending dye pots (they're not trials anymore), helping the Austin crew pack for their upcoming move, and just plain keeping the homestead running.

Nonetheless, there are some project completions to report: the most recent table mat a-side ...

and b-side ...

Since I couldn't decide between a ragged edge or a bound edge, I did both ...

Plus Don's latest New Mexico assemblage ...

Turkey feathers courtesy of our neighborhood Rio Grandes

which joins an earlier work on the wall ...

And having completed those, we are both in-process with the next creative round. 

Mine inspired by a re-visit to Jude Hill's Cloth-to-cloth ...

soon to be dipped in windfall lichen ...

Double, double, toil and trouble ...

as were these thrifted cloths, which have been laundered and dried following Prairie Tea and lichen dunkings ...

and Don's inspired by a sign at the Red Sky Cafe in Duck, NC ...

Oh yes, Don also got a new toy ... the better to make some wooden nine-patches, he says.

Now that should be interesting!