US II

I'm calling it done, with thanks to Don for touching up the frame ...

the cloth now named US II, a tribute to our 40 years together.

It was originally imagined in a much simpler form, but after the spare outlines were stitched, it began to tell its own story of the places we have called home.

First in Virginia, where we raised our kids ... rivers running through it ...

but a faded outline compared to the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras ...

long my heart's home ... where I've walked many miles by the sea, watched storms roll in, and caught the last rays of sunlight to the west where sea oats bend in the unceasing wind ...

And "can't you just feel the moonshine?"

How perfect then, that we found kindred grasses growing a thousand feet above sea level in the Texas Hill Country ...

prairie grasses that sink deep roots into limestone bedrock formed millions of years ago at the bottom of another, more ancient sea.

We share our Edwards Plateau home with abundant wildflowers ... bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and countless little yellow ones... all interlaced with timeless rivers ...

And I dare to say the stars at night are big and bright, here inspired by Hazel and stitched on cloth from a long-worn nightshirt ...

Lastly the sun ... on a bit of Jude Hill indigo (as are the other two) ... a smoldering memory of the 2017 eclipse as seen in St Louis ...

because our hearts live there, too.