Hmmm ... did I ever post this?

So I was scrolling back through my pictures looking for something else when I stumbled across this ...

It was a Christmas 2016 gift, the quote taken from a t-shirt much admired (and aspired to) by its recipient. I think I held off posting until it was received ... ah well, better late than never.

So, a bit of recycled patchplay for your viewing pleasure and mine as we are soon headed to the island alluded to in the quote. I'm counting the days ...

And a note for Blogger users:

For reasons unknown, Blogger is no longer sending email notifications of new comments. 

So, if you are a Blogger author, you might want to check the Comments section of your dashboard. I've added that to my daily email checking routine.

If you are a Blogger reader, you might want to send an email with this info if you have commented on a Blogger post in the past week and it has yet to receive a response from the author.

This is just a test ... eeeeeeeeeeee

I hesitated to use Grace's trademark "eeeeeeeee" but it was just too perfect for how things have progressed to this first test page for Moon Myth ...

There are many editorial tweaks to come on text, format, margins, font, etc etc etc ... but it has already come a long way. And it is here that I must acknowledge the incredible wealth of knowledge I have gained from my recent revisiting of Jude Hill's Spirit Cloth classes. Time to send another donation in appreciation of her incredible teaching.

To recap how I got to this test page, I took my cloudy patches from this post

http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2018/05/stepping-out-of-my-comfort-zone.html

after agonizing about which Deb Lacativa threads to  use, which was pointless worry as any of her threads would have worked. From there I decided to use her thread magic on my base cloth seams, seen best here ...

The stitches are like an endlessly fascinating string of jewels popping into view, turning an otherwise repetitive task into true patchplay.

I had originally trialed an intricately paperless patched base for each page of Moon Myth ...

but it was too fussy and felt "tight" somehow. So a consult with my fellow artist in residence led to stitching the patches onto a simpler base ...

which also felt a bit "tight" until I watched one of the Spirit Cloth videos on managing layers and realized there was a simple solution to be found in cutting through the back of the base thus easing the patches into it ...

Then I basted some harem cloth on to anchor the base seams and provide a friendly ground for future stitching ...

because my ultimate goal is to create a cloth for each page of the book ...

then scan each cloth ...

and superimpose text using Word. From there I'll be able to make "camera ready" PDF pages and print multiple copies of the book.

But then I'll have all these (hopefully) beautiful little cloths with large blank spaces. Hand stitching all the text into those spaces isn't realistic, so the plan is to stitch selected words from the text on to each cloth page and then join all the cloths together into a large story cloth.

At least that's the plan for now. 

Stay tuned ...

A recipe (ish)

I had some fresh eggs and rainbow chard from Back to the Garden

https://www.backtothegardenamr.com/

And I had a Native Plant Society of Texas potluck to go to.

Not being one to follow recipes, I'm equally lame about recording them. My usual MO is look up an ingredient, survey a few recipes and get an idea of where to go with it. So, in hopes that my Potato Pancake with Bacon and Swiss Chard Frittata is actually good, here's a record of what I did to end up with this ...

Cook up 1/4 lb of bacon and set aside to cool.

Grate one yellow onion and 4-5 new potatoes. Squeeze out excess liquid, beat in two of the aforementioned farm fresh eggs, a healthy dash (or two or three) of Montreal steak seasoning, and some Bisquick (1/4 cup maybe?). 

Fry potato pancakes in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil on high, 2-3 minutes per side. It will probably take two batches, which should nicely cover the bottom of a casserole (I pre-treated mine with some baking spray just in case, but it probably wasn't necessary which turned out to be a good idea).

Cover potato pancakes with a layer of sliced Swiss cheese (feel free to substitute ... chorizo and Manchego would be a good alternative, for example).

Thinly slice one smallish red onion and sauté in olive oil for a few minutes while you chop up a bunch of chard (I removed the stems first). When onions are translucent, add the chard and a sprinkle of salt. Sauté for another 3-4 minutes. Taste to see if chard is al dente and adjust seasoning as needed.

Beat 4-5 eggs  (maybe more) in a large bowl and crumble in bacon. Add a slug of heavy cream ... never hurts. Fold in chard and onions. Spread on top of potato pancakes and cheese.

Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes until eggs are set and edges are bubbling. 

Cross fingers and head out to NPSOT meeting (optional).

Final verdict: this one's a keeper ... although I'm sure I'll tweak it some more.

Note to self: Next time, halve the potato pancake mixture, put in a smaller casserole dish and top with a bit more cheese. Leave chard, egg, cream and bacon quantities the same to create a thicker top layer. May require some time adjustment.

Stepping it up

I was originally going to title this post "Pieces of sky" ...

for the patches I made as a start to Moon Myth.

I even looked on Google to see if there were any songs titled Pieces of Sky. And there were (are), with lyrics and videos and everything ... but they also weren't (aren't) my creations, so the links got left on the cutting room floor. 

And then somehow along the way things got a little crazy ...

because an inadvertent blort of Soft Scrub on purple cloth led me to try tidying up the mess with a Q-tip which led to me realizing I could make clouds ...

on all those pieces of sky ...

which then had to be put into some kind of order ...

to make sense of them all ...

which wasn't easy, because ...

ALL of Deb Lacativa's threads are cosmic. But really, that's a good thing, because that means they all work ...

But then I realized some of the pieces weren't quite right. So I'm making more, stepping out of my comfort zone, trying to turn cloth into story in a new (to me) way.

Taking a risk ... 

it's how we learn to walk ...

how we learn to dance ...

how we learn to step it up a notch ...

Addendum:

About that learning thing ... you can't believe everything you read on the Internet. Like vinegar to neutralize bleach ... Not!

According to Deb Lacativa, who I trust absolutely, one way to neutralize bleach discharged cloth is to add 1 Tbs of Aquasafe to the rinse water (found in the pet aisle of the grocery store with aquarium supplies).

Always I am learning ...

Slow down ...

How has it already been a week since I posted? And I have so many pictures, so many thoughts to share, some from last month! So maybe this: several shorter posts, starting with this one. 

We wandered through one of our junking haunts, Broadway Paul's in Wimberley ...

but it was closed. One week later, it was still closed, so I texted this picture to the phone number on the sign ...

How much? And the deal was done by sliding some cash under the door.

It has been morphing since then ...

Don getting his milk paint on ...

ideas ebbing and flowing ...

Meantime, as I was looking through the accumulated pantry of rust, I noticed a clock work that had sprung its spring ...

I mean, I just love this ...

escapement.

Trompe l'oeil

What we see versus what we perceive has been much on my mind this week. First, after hearing a talk at the Wimberley Valley Art League during which Texas State University art professor Jeffrey Dell described his use of maquettes to inform his choices of color, light, and shadow in printmaking. And then again while looking at the sphere and cone shadow studies by Deb Sposa's students over at Artisun.

And so, after some pondering, I decided to revise (re-envision) Southbound 35 Oklahoma Spring to more closely match what I saw versus what my brain wanted to depict (and yes, I know I didn't see square clouds, but Anna Lisa's comment yesterday made me realize each square is like a snapshot impression of the things I wanted to remember) ...

Many stitches were removed and replaced with more lightly stitched overhead power lines, this time guided by a French curve (which I serendipitously found while looking for something else) ...

And still more stitches were removed from the road, although my latest impression will probably require another reworking to get the perspective right before all is said and done ...

But wait, there's more! I also started testing out ideas for Moon Myth in the form of an appliqué sun and a reverse appliqué moon ...

As always, I'm tempted to use the back instead, at least in the case of the moon ...

but it's still way too early in the process to make any hard and fast decisions.

And looking at the magical bit of Deb Lacativa cloth on the dark side of the moon reminded me of the colors we encountered on our journey through the lunaresque landscape of the Meramec Caverns last week ...

dark beauty ...

a false sense of great depth created by the high cave ceiling reflected on perfectly still water ...

and a new appreciation for the limestone structures that may (probably) lie hidden beneath our own home in the hills ...

All this was in my mind as we had our well tested by representatives from the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District a few days ago.  Before they arrived, I dug out the original well drilling records from the first owner of our property ...

I always knew our well was over 900' deep, which in my mind had translated into an imagined weeks-long drilling process. But  informed by our recent travels and thinking of this recent cave discovery in a nearby north Austin neighborhood ...

along with listening as the education coordinator explained the average water level in our neighborhood is 350' below ground, I began to look more closely at the drilling record and started to reconsider. Apparently, after 42' of drilling, there was a free-fall through about 300' of open space and then another 600' of water before the end of the drill touched down on solid rock. So the drilling only took one day.   

Which leads me to believe that our little piece of heaven may actually be perched atop a vast cavern, the likes of which boggles my mind. Could this be? 

Gulp ...

Not my usual style

This one was a quickie, tentatively titled Southbound 35 Oklahoma Spring ...

which is a lot of title for a little piece.

It has a backstory of course ...

so settle in ... this one's a real shaggy dog (as my mom used to call my ramblings).

Just before we headed to St Louis a couple of weeks ago, my eye caught on this illustration in a New York Times article ... 

which led to a Google search for information ...

and more images ...

planting a seed in my mind.

While in St Louis, I jotted ideas down for a new Triangulation piece (the original Triangulation project can be viewed at  

http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/search/label/TRIANGULATION)

in anticipation of our planned summer road trip to Taos, New Mexico and Glenwood Springs, Colorado with a quick hop over to St Louis before heading home ...

Now I've mentioned before how much I love driving through Oklahoma

http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2016/04/take-to-highway.html

as memorialized in this Remember 2016 patch (which also brings me back to Girl Scout days) ...

But I wasn't always a fan of road trips, as noted in a 2009 blog post entitled Crazy Country: A Little Farther West, which was about our original journey from Virginia to Texas ...

http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2009/09/crazy-country.html

Thankfully, I've learned that driving in the Southwest and Midwest is nothing like East Coast driving.

Anyway, it was with Triangulation II in mind that I decided to create a test piece. During the drive down I-35 from Oklahoma City to the Texas state line I made careful mental notes of the sights along the way and mused over which bits of thrift store linen might stand in for them. 

Once we got home, I quickly sketched out some possibilities ...

In truth, I almost abandoned the project as the colors were so vastly different from my usual comfort zone, but decided to soldier on, trying to be true to what I recalled seeing.

The fresh green of spring grass and the clear blue of cloud dotted sky ...

splashes of Indian paintbrush orange and masses of little yellow flowers ...

the dusky purple of wildflowers along the edge of a red dirt infused stock tank ...

and above all, incredibly dense patches of pink primrose ...

And the highway, in grey patches that I almost stitched together, but ultimately left apart to recall my less-than-steady attentions, the left slightly wider to denote my preference for taking the fast lane ...

I made sure to note the striping, how white precedes black with long intervals between both, here still tinged with the vestiges of water-erasable marker ...

Last, but not least, the power line ...

one of many that sailed overhead as my inner soundtrack played "oh what a beautiful morning ..."

And if some of the clouds are a bit scawumpus and the power line not quite the right arc, still I'm OK with it (now humming "LA HO MA ... Oklahoma!")