- Random amusements

I don't obsess over horoscopes, but they are fun every so often, especially since Don and I share Gemini birthdays (one day apart). The Austin American Statesman publishes horoscopes by Holiday Mathis and I find hers to be more interesting than most. Take today's reading for Gemini:

The thing you do just to amuse yourself is more special than you know. It may seem random and arbitrary, but that's what's great about it. The importance of small, joyful acts cannot be underestimated. 

We've been amusing ourselves so much recently it's hard to know where to start. So I'm just going to troll through the pictures on my iPhone and comment along the way.

As noted earlier, my daughter and her family have moved into a new house, where almost-three-year-old Griffin is learning the joys of paved driveways and the perils of the streets beyond. So Don fashioned a sign ...

PopPop and G

the better to stop by ...

Our St Louis kin were not left out, as I had traced the outline of Baby Jace's high chair cover ...

when we were there to celebrate his first birthday last month ...

along with big brother Jackson's third ...

The pattern got transferred to an old pillow sham and quick stitched on the machine ...

I took further advantage of the machine being up and running by repurposing this thrifted cotton skirt and some placemats gifted by my mom many years ago ...

After cutting off the placemat borders and edging them in the cotton, I applied a coat of Grace's walnut dye to the center ...

Pre-wash color

I've also been experimenting with different ways of setting colors, having just gotten a set of the much-discussed Inktense pencils.  Thanks to Grace I was convinced the full set of 72 wasn't essential, so I got this set of 48 that came in a nifty wooden box instead (oooo, ahhhh) ...

I created a quick test strip to see how water, aloe vera gel and Golden GAC 900 fabric medium would work ...

Note, when I started stitching on the plain linen, I realized how addicted I've become to layers
so I basted on a backing of harem cloth, which made everything much, much better

then heat-set only half of each section (the left half of WATER, the right half of ALOE VERA, and the left half of MEDIUM) ...

The WATER and MEDIUM bled the most, leaving heat set half of the ALOE VERA (on the right) the clear winner in terms of blending, not bleeding into the white, and not washing out (so far)...

Note: only the ALOE letters were stitched

So now I'm doing a similar test on some patched linen touched up with Grace's walnut dye ...

Before laundering: top half aloe vera, bottom right fabric medium, bottom left untreated

After laundering: hmmmmm

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to accumulate linen patches ...

some of which I randomly laid out upside down, just to imagine how they might go ...

Since they are different heights, I turned the patches upside down to be sure they were oriented correctly

then deciding I needed more white, I pressed up lots more strips, now that I realize how quickly they can be stitched up ...

I daresay I can't wait to take Jude Hill's new workshop in October!

Last, but not least, I concocted a new recipe with the very seasonal Hatch, New Mexico chili peppers I picked up at the store ...

Okay, not the prettiest picture, but "taste over presentation" is my motto

After blessing the Hatch peppers with a little olive oil, Don charred them on the grill along with a sweet yellow onion. I peeled and seeded the peppers, then laid them in the bottom of a Pyrex dish that had been rubbed with olive oil. Leftover rotisserie chicken, grilled onions, and a combination of cheddar, Monterey Jack and Cotija cheeses got layered on. 15-20 minutes in a 350 oven was all it took to reach toothsome goodness. The peppers still had a bit of crunch and weren't overwhelmed by added seasoning, although the dish was definitely enhanced by the addition of tomatillo salsa. Next time I think I'll try it over rice, but tortilla chips served as a welcome accompaniment this time around.

- 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.