What I did on my summer vacation

I can't recall whether I loved or hated the classic Back to School essay, but these days I am more than happy to show and tell.

The new Moon Myth patches made before our departure to the Outer Banks of North Carolina were stitched together ...

accompanied by the warm sun and gentle surf sounds of our rental house deck. Likewise, Deb Lacativa's dyed threads took in the beach air ...

And if I didn't get a whole lot done, there were no regrets for time well-spent with our loved ones ...

Likewise, our return to Texas was eased by my attendance at a Wax & Words workshop conducted by Lyn Belisle 

http://earthshards.com/shards/2018/06/it-looks-like-writing-but-we-cant-quite-read-it/

(whose SHARDS blog can be found amongst the Kindred Spirits in the sidebar)

It was definitely out of my comfort zone, this venture into mixed media, but Lyn made it safe and I ended up with several pages of "stuff" ...

from which this piece emerged ...

though I'm still not sure how best to orient it ...

or ...

or ...

Any thoughts?

How time flies

The sock puppets were a wonderful diversion, if not exactly as I had imagined they might be ...

Boys will be boys ...

And if the weather wasn't as sunny as usual, still there is nothing better than a walk on the beach ...

Unless maybe it's a bonfire with s'mores ...

or a trip to the aquarium ...

or a dip in the pool ...

or making cookie dough (with some baked cookie dough for those who prefer such things) ...

There was even some stitching on a family sampler long in the making, now nearing its end ...

All our grandchildren together for one last picture ...

until next year.

Whimsy

Last year I decided to make sock puppets at the beach with the grandkids, after which they could put on "shows."

Logan (then 12) helped me shop for supplies: feathers, colorful foam shapes, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, glue dots, and socks (some gently used).

Unfortunately, the boys were only 3-going-on-4 years old ... too young to visualize how to put puppets together, let alone put on "shows." So this year, I decided to make the puppets myself ...

then see where G and J's 4-going-on-5 imaginations might take them.  And I don't doubt that 2-going-on-3 Jace will get in on the action, too.

Even if the whole idea goes nowhere, I must say I had a lot of fun making sea gulls ...

pelicans ...

jellyfish, rainbow sharks ...

sea horses, coquina clams ...

turtles, blue crabs ...

and whales ...

However, with any luck, there will be pictures of the puppets in action to share next week. We'll see.

- Dye-hard

Retrospective (11/30)

Patch #302 Peaceful paisley redux

Original Post 

Two summers ago, Logan and I gathered blanket flowers on the beach in Avon and dyed cloth

http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2015/06/red-yellow-purple.html

getting an amazing purple ...

which faded to a less-remarkable purple-gray over time ...

Except, when washed it turned yellow-green ...

perfect for labeling the pink and green batik bag for Logan that is one day from done. Especially since the wood block paisley stamp was one of our Seagreen Gallery finds. 

- Ill-booten gotty

Retrospective (11/27)

Patch #300 Flounder gig

Original Post 

Between beachcombing, the Seagreen Gallery, and the KDH Art Cooperative, we came home with our usual assortment of stuff ...

Is it any wonder the TSA always searches our bags?

- Monday, Monday

Retrospective (11/27)

Patch #298 Dolphin day

Original Post 

What could be better than yesterday? Waking to see dolphins swimming in the surf ...

We unashamedly contributed to the delinquency of a minor ...

and her teacher mom ...

spending a blissful Monday of beach combing as the surf gentled down to the point of crystal clarity ...

Then listened to the Wilders playing our long-time favorite tunes ...

while eating steamed Carolina shrimp enough to tide us over until the next visit.

All too soon it was time to hug and say good-bye ...

Always too soon ...

- OBX Day 2

Retrospective (11/22)

Patch #297 How peeps might be paisley

Original Post

It's kinda fun when you realize you've passed on the "office supply store" gene. Seriously, our first stop after lunch yesterday was a trip to Staples!

As we awaited a healthier (than yesterday's) breakfast at Waveriders, Lo tried out the new markers ...

While we ate bagels, Don indulged in crumb cake and reminisced about having Entenmann's with his grandparents 50 years ago ...

"Just think Lo," I interjected, "50 years from now you could be eating crumb cake with your grandchild reminiscing about this moment."

Mind blown ...

The rest of the day was spent beach shop hopping in search of cloth so I could make a bag for Logan's book and markers to match the bag I made recently. We started at Jockey's Ridge ...

and were happy-beyond-words to find Seagreen Gallery open ...

after the hurricane two weeks ago ...

Of course we also spent a little time hangin' out with the peeps on the beach ...

And as the sun set in the west, it burnished the eastern horizon ...

Really, it just doesn't get much better than this.

- A lot to remember

Retrospective (7/24/2016)

Patch #199 Quail

There's lot of room for growth, but I'm happy to document where I am in the journey.

Original Post 

A new trio of patches for July 4-6 fell from my fingers today ...

And, as you can see, Don has been working with much the same palette in his latest assemblage ...

I'm finally comfortable with the process that has evolved of blogging every day, sometimes with a patch, sometimes not. When I get around to working on patches for the days I've skipped, the blog posts trigger the ideas that end up in stitch.  

It was the beach towels that I blogged about on July 4th that got re-imagined with my latest thrift store linen find ...

Then the safety pin on the July 5th post caught my eye. I sketched one, but it turned out to be a bit too big. Rather than try to redraw it, I reduced the image to 75% on my copier, pricked the outline, and marked it into cloth ...

I've learned that I trust my eye more with needle than with pen in hand, so I just followed the general direction of the dots using Jude's split backstitch, finessing the single strand of floss as needed ...

My last patch for the day involved the picture-book quilt in the July 6th post. When I brought it up on my iPhone, it occurred to me that I could enlarge the picture to fit a 1 3/4" patch and lay it on my copier to get a perfect-sized image to work from ...

Then I once again pricked holes in photocopied image ...

and used water-erasable marker to convey the design to cloth ...

A bit of practice with two-strands of floss convinced me that the marker dots were too hard to follow, so I sketched in blocks with my XS Pitt pen ...

with a very satisfactory end-result.

And just so I have something to work with for today's patch (whenever I get around to it), I took a picture of our first-ever pair of quail, spotted by Don just as we were sitting down to lunch ...

If you squint, you can just make out the male sitting on a rock directly above the airplane on the left (and no, Don didn't make the mobile, though I'm sure he could) ...

The quail are well worth remembering, but I'm not yet sure if this is how it will go ...

I'll let you know what I come up with ... eventually.