Spiraling

I couldn’t stitch yesterday … I’d pick up my phone, scroll, put it down, pick it up … so many times.

Bad weather was coming … would the power hold? Would the dripping faucets be enough?

But mostly it was about ICE and Minneapolis and murder. Why? How? And what will end it? Or will it?

Spiraling. 

This morning the sun came up, obscured by clouds but lighting the world nonetheless. The world sheathed in ice.  Today I stitched.

Each stitch over two threads of linen cloth, the curved lines following one after the other, spiraling outward …

Colors breaking through darkness, one after the other …

But even as the spiral pulled the line of stitch inward, the edges of the cloth pulled the line outward … the forces shifting, the gap widening, through no intentional thought, my fingers guided the needle outward sooner than my mind intended, the line wobbling as intention gave out to some other guiding force …

We do not know what drives us, let alone what drives others to do what we do. Stitches can be pulled out and stitched again, lines can be drawn and then erased … but some things can’t be undone and we have to live with the imperfection that was created, whether intentionally or not. And then continue on. It’s what we do next that matters.

How is this possible?

This morning’s online reading brought news of yet another fatality due to ICE in Minnesota. I’ve written to my senators and representative, for all the good that will do in Texas. Thank goodness I read this poem by Karen Salmansohn which was posted by a local friend …

Except even this brings to mind the sweet child in the bunny hat abducted by ICE. And how sad is it that you all know what I mean?

Still, I did receive some treasures in the mail from Fiona. The postcard that inspired my first patch arrived in real life …

To which I’ve circled back and added a patch to match the project title Remember 2026 …

Three books arrived in a separate package from Fiona, about which I’ll write more in a separate post as they deserve extra attention …

 

Meantime, let us pray for the good people of Minnesota. And may you all be safe and warm at home during the storm, wherever you may be.

Scintillating

A week or so ago I experienced a scintillating scotoma during an ocular migraine (which thankfully did not include any pain or headache). Wanting to document the experience in stitch, I began by searching through Hazel’s Instagram posts, as I recalled her having painted and stitched geometric forms that looked  remarkably similar to my experience. I had to dig pretty far back to find this …

Close, but not exactly, so I kept digging until I found this in 2018 …

And yes, that bit above the left side of the roof looked just about right. So I grabbed some Deb threads and free-hand stitched some zigzaggy triangles of light that recalled how my experience began …

But no, that wasn't quite right ... so after looking at it for a couple of days, I tried again ...

 

 

Better, but still not quite right. Honestly, it defies description to explain how tiny shards of light grow into shimmering fields … although some medical journal reportage comes close. I can’t say I look forward to experiencing it all again, but neither do I dread it. Then I can try again to capture it in stitch.

Marching for MLK

San Marcos, Texas has a unique intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Baines Johnson Streets. There a simple structure symbolizes the meeting of MLK and LBJ in the Oval Office. And for the past 24 years, a walk has commenced from that location, through the Dunbar neighborhood, and on to the Hays County Courthouse, where speakers commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.

 

  

2026 was no different, as memorial wreathes were laid, and hundreds of college students and boomers, families and church groups marched in solidarity. I am sorry to say I had never been before ... I'm glad to say I made it this year. 

P.S. I did bring my Hippie Nana for Peace sign and a fellow Boomer asked to take a picture. And here’s a link to the song I mentioned in the comments:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTqCbBNEcZd/?igsh=aGtwZzIyOHU4bXF3

Ametrine?

The ring that Ellis is wearing in my last post was given to me by my Great Aunt Jean ... my mother's mother's sister, who never married. Jean lived with my mom's family, helping to care for my grandmother's three children and my grandparent's house in Rockville Centre on Long Island. When my own parents wanted to get away for a weekend, it was Aunt Jean who came to watch my brother and me. As with my grandmothers, I remember her wearing boxy belted housedresses and black tie shoes with chunky heels. It amuses me that the eyeglasses they all wore are now retro-trendy ... amuses me, but I doubt I'll ever wear them myself. 

 

 

As you can see in the close-up, the stone is chipped and pitted. I've thought about having it polished, but I doubt anyone could guarantee that the stone would survive intact. So I keep it as is. It fits my right ring finger perfectly, and I'm giving serious thought to wearing it again.

I decided it would make a good memory patch for Remember 2026, so I hunted through my Deb Lacativa thread stash, finding these two silk/cotton bits ...

 

 

If you look carefully, you can see the purple flash that appears in the stone when it is turned in the light. I don't know that I ever heard what the stone was, but some quick Google searching leads me to believe it might be ametrine, which is a portmanteau of amethyst and citrine.

As ever, I loved seeing Deb's threads serve up one subtle color after another as I split backstitched a la Jude Hill ...

 

 

And I don't think I've mentioned this, but each patch is my usual 1.75" with the turned-under edges secured with yet another Jude Hill creation, the glue stitch. Really I don't know what I'd be doing if I hadn't encountered her incredible Spirit Cloth blog and classes back in 2014.

If at first you don’t succeed

Try ... and try ... and retry again.

Ellis comes to our house once a week after school to play games, create art, and eat dinner (always followed by  a scoop of ice cream). Her favorite thing recently is to go through my very limited jewelry box to try things on …

Not that there’s a lot to try on, since most of what I had has already been given to our daughters. I did keep this ring, though …

Now let’s see if my workaround with photos sticks 🤞 ... Dang it … obviously not

Okay, maybe the third time's the charm. Yep ... that did it ... for now.

And now this …

 ICE has come to town …

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ZtumarP9q/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Blocked

Well, this is new … Google will not let me add photos to my blog posts unless I turn off my iPhone settings that currently block Google from tracking me and having full access to my photos.

So no. Not doing that.

I am pondering next moves.

Dailyish

The universe has a great sense of humor. Right after I wrote yesterday’s blog post, I picked up a book I’ve been reading titled Meditations for Mortals (which also made a recent appearance in Lyn Belisle’s Shards blog) …

and read a chapter “On doing things dailyish.” Talk about affirmation! I underlined:

“… the obvious that if you want to get good at something, you should do it a lot, preferably more days than not.”

“Deep down you know that doing something twice a week doesn’t qualify as dailyish, which five times a week does, and in busy periods, three or four times per week might get to count.”

“Balance the need for order with the need for individual freedom … [the] need for solitude with the universal human need for a social life.”

“The point isn’t to spend your life serving rules. The point is for the rules to serve life.”

Which leads me to the next two dailyish patches, one which reads “PEACE” in Fiona’s alphabet, the other which will serve to remind me that dailyish is a good enough rule to Remember 2026 …

A plan … sorta

Yesterday I was busy baking cookies and cleaning house. So as I expected, no post was written. And I’m okay with that.

Today I was expecting to be at a reunion (which was part of the reason for the cookies), but last night I had the first recurrence of a retinal/ocular migraine since a year or two ago. No headache, but very unusual visual effects lasting about half an hour. Which is why I’m not going anywhere today as driving didn’t seem like a great idea.

Instead, I’m posting about the tentative beginning of a not-quite-daily stitching project …

The patches to be inspired by whatever catches my interest on any given day. Like Fiona’s postcards on New Year’s Day and the Run Out Soup …

Likewise the fair linen I’m making for St Liz and the starfish that topped our Christmas tree …

There will be more, which I’ll post whenever I have  few to show.  Unlike past birthday patch cloths, I’ve decided to make all the patches the same size and to alternate light and dark patches. Or not … I’ll just see how it goes.

The weight of the world

The news just keeps getting worse … and in spite of completely swearing off television news (local, national, and MSNBC), it’s hard to avoid since I still read the New York Times every day.

Thank goodness for Jon Stewart and the Daily Show … although even they can’t completely gloss the reality.

My personal news is more pedestrian. It was a relief to go to my annual physical and have absolutely no questions or concerns. Although I did ask them to check my height and discovered I’ve shrunk 1.5” from my one-time height of five feet six and a half inches (I always added that half inch, like a proud child announcing their age). My grandkids will likely be delighted that they’re even closer to surpassing me in height.

Sadly, my weight is trending in the opposite direction, necessitating multiple purchases in a new clothing size this past year. But my doctor commended me, saying more weight-bearing is good for my osteoporosis. I’m skeptical, but whatever you say Doc.

In stitching news, I dismantled these two bags, made 8 years ago …

and plan to repurpose them into table placemats …

since the placemats I made 14 years ago are getting threadbare. Nothing is forever, but I do like to keep using and re-using cloth as long as possible. Besides which, I’m over carrying large shoulder bags weighed down with “stuff” now that I’ve converted to a much lighter crossbody bag (a $100 leather bag found at a local antique store for $25). It doesn’t take much to make me happy. 

Kindred Spirits

I began blogging in 2009 when Don and I moved from Williamsburg, Virginia to the Hill Country near Austin, Texas. The early blogging years focused on recipes and learning about the land, but in 2014 I found my way to Jude Hill’s Spirit Cloth blog and thence to a group of like-minded stitchers and creatives. Many of them continue to blog, as evidenced by the Kindred Spirits sidebar to the right (if you’re reading this on a smart phone, scroll down to the bottom and click on “View web version”).

Among them is Mo, who taught me much about blogging and led me in turn to Fiona Dempster and Barry Smith, Australian artist/creators who were (and continue to be) tireless advocates for peace. Over the years they have been a steady presence and have inspired many of my own creations. 

Fiona’s recent post had an intriguing bit at the end about a square alphabet that she created last summer … which I had missed, being otherwise occupied with helping after my daughter’s surgery (from which she has made significant recovery).

Better late than never, I happily took on the challenge of deciphering a bit of text that Fiona had created …

Then pondered stitching a bit of peace of my own.

Morning meditations

 

As I was sitting in my stitching chair, reading and commenting on the Kindred Spirit blogs (see the sidebar to the right), a comment popped in from Beverly. And this is why I do what I do … this sense of community from people I may never meet irl (in real life), but who are nonetheless friends, truly kindred spirits.

Winter, such as it ever is in Texas, has left its mark, graying the vibrant colors of spring, summer, and fall. Happily Don has upscaled the bird bath to make it more visible over his wildly successful garden …

And when there are no true feathered friends about, we have some others that keep the beds company …

The first, a hen from Williamsburg days beneath the prayer wheel for peace, created three … no, four long years ago at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The second, a Williamsburg rooster perched atop a leaning peace pole created by Don. And yes, the dwarf pomegranate was quite fruity this past year.

Last, the pelican painted by our grandkiddos, below which the latest addition to the garden: firefly lights, which gather in the sun and then shine through the night …

May peace abide.

My stitching chair

It’s been over 20 years since we bought a couch and two chairs at Ethan Allen. The couch is long-gone, but we still have the chairs, of which the swivel rocker has always been, and will forever be,“my” chair.

It sits by a southern window, where the Texas sun pours in, bleeding color and life out of its fibers. On the rare chilly days, it is my greatest pleasure to sit in sun. But better yet, on any given day, it’s where I stitch.

I’ve written before about mending my chair, so this is the latest installment of an ongoing saga. The two arms, which get the most abuse from sun and from the friction of my presence, needed some serious attention. So I patched one arm with leftover piecework from the table cloth project …

While the other arm got a log cabin block that I pieced some time back using cloth gifted by Deb Lacativa  and others …

In the background, the other Ethan Allen chair and another fair linen that is my current project for St Liz. My stitching nest is rarely tidy, but there’s always a project or two close at hand … as are my pins and needles.

O Christmas tree

 As usual, I had help decorating the tree …

And what I most notice is the bottom, which is no longer a mass of ornaments. Our grandkids are growing taller (besides which I’m no longer leaning down as far as I used to).

This year’s paper ornaments were inspired by Mood Body Studio on Instagram, thanks to which I got to buy lots of fun new art supplies: tempera paint sticks, washi tape, big hole punches, acrylic paint markers. Such fun (but hard to photograph to show they’re dimensional) …

So today I’ll take all the ornaments down, mentally traveling memory lane from the glittered walnut shells I made in first grade and the blackwork ornaments stitched in college, to the ornaments crafted from outgrown grandkid clothes and those made for us by those same grandkids. Not to mention everything in between. I could write a book (hmmmm … maybe I should write a book).

Run Out Soup

Every so often I’m reminded that this blog began when my newlywed daughters were in the habit of calling for recipes … almost 17 years ago!

The reminders come when I manage to make something that I want to remember, as I did last night. Don was recovering from a routine colonoscopy, so I wanted to make something easy on his stomach using homemade rotisserie chicken broth …

I was of a mind to make Brunswick Stew, but belatedly realized I was out of potatoes. So I thought I’d pivot to tortilla soup, but I was also out of poblano peppers and cilantro (oh the joys of restocking after going out of town).

Then it came to me that I had just bought fresh corn and coconut milk (which is not usual for me, but for some reason I had picked it up at the store). Combined with onions, celery, grape tomatoes, a sweet potato, chipotle powder, salt and pepper, I had just what I needed to create a chicken soup riff on Rundown Chowder. Which turned out pretty darn well …

All that was left to decide was what to call it … Don, wag that he is, suggested Run Out Soup. And so it is. I do think I’ll add some poblanos and thyme for the next go round, but otherwise the “recipe” (sorry, no amounts) should be good to go in the future, whether I’ve “run out” of ingredients or not.

P.S. Fortunately, we did have some tortilla chips in the pantry that added the requisite crunch that I always crave with soups … and salads, and sandwiches. Ha!

Christmas 2025

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then our Christmas held a dictionary’s worth of joy-fullness.

There was art and BBQ, bowling and cookie dough, lights at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, Dave’s Hot Chicken and Top Golf …

But wait, there’s more … pizza and card games, more art and much silliness, along with candlelight and carols …

All of it fleeting, as these two pictures from 2022 and 2025 show …

We are so very rich in love and happiness.

Happy New Year

Ten years ago when I turned 60 I blogged everyday …

Five years later I made it halfway through 2021 (and all the way through turning 65) …

So here I am, contemplating a third try for my 70th after a year when I barely showed up (because 2025 absolutely did not inspire). Which is to say, no promises … but I dare to hope that 2026 could be different.

As always, I find inspiration from Kindred Spirits. Today’s inspiration comes from Fiona Dempster in Australia …

May each and every one of us experience peace, joy, and wellness in the year to come!