- Show Your (needle)Work

Austin Kleon gave a great keynote at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin last week, much of it focused on his newly published book entitled Show Your Work. He said, among many other things, that it can be as important to share the creative process as the end product. Well, I've been taking up the challenge ever since by posting new/old material to the blog and pinning pictures onto Pinterest.

Since the post on my family sampler (A Closer Look) has been getting a fair number of hits, I thought it might be a good idea to look back on my needlework roots, which have been growing for 50 years. Sadly, much of my work has been lost, having been given as gifts or simply worn out. But there's enough to make a go of it.

My mother and grandmother used to make tablecloths and pillowcases from kits with large blue cross stitches printed on them. At age 7 or 8, I got my first kit: a whaling picture, which I completed and gave to my godmother. All I remember of the details is thinking it was incredibly cool to combine two colors of floss to make the crests of the waves in the picture.

At the same time, my more fortunate cousins were being introduced to counted stitch embroidery. Their father was Norwegian and so they learned much in their travels, eventually gifting my mother with this piece.

But needlework options were limited in the American market (at least at the stores I went to), so I continued on to crewel embroidery and began a long association with Elsa Williams kits.

Dated 1968, when I was 12

It wasn't until I went to college in the 1970s that counted cross stitch made a splash in the states. I duly made a replica of the Wren Building at the College of William and Mary ...

Dated 1976, when the Bicentennial helped renew interest in needlework

and began the "Chase Sampler" which was based on a piece in the holdings at Colonial Williamsburg (it also became my wedding gift to Don, albeit in somewhat incomplete form).

When I graduated from William and Mary, I got a job in a local needlework shop, then moved on to a library assistant position at Colonial Williamsburg. That's when my work life truly got interesting. I'll conclude with a Colonial Williamsburg News article published in 1981 and leave for another day my more recent adventures in needlework.

- Williamsburg Memoir: Mixed Media Collage

In the thirty-some years that we were in Williamsburg, we lived in four different houses. This mixed-media collage entitled Williamsburg began with a wonderful ramble through the hundreds of (unorganized) pictures we have taken. I created two piles of potential images: exterior shots and pictures that evoked the years we spent in each home.  As I worked, Don would look in from time to time, shaking his head trying to figure out where I was headed. Me, too. But as so often happens when I'm writing, the project began to direct itself.

I began by making the houses using some pretty unorthodox processes. Since I didn't have any "perfect" exteriors to work with, I scanned pictures of the roofs, doors, windows, and siding for each house.

110A Harrison Avenue where we spent our first years as newlyweds

Then I cropped and scaled the various elements until I had fairly compatible images to work with. The end results were printed onto matte photo paper using an inkjet printer, then coated back and front with matte acrylic medium (which is more transparent than Mod Podge).

127 Wilson Circle where we became a family when Meghan and Melissa were born

Next I cut out roofs, windows, doors, and siding with an Exacto knife, inserted the chosen photographs behind each window, and gingerly tacked everything together with small bits of tape.

260 Nina Lane where the girls spent their school years & home to epic Christmas trees

Finally, I machine-sewed each house onto repurposed white cotton quilt pieces (not a real quilt, a store bought, machine-made quilt ... which is why it was in play for repurposing). I trimmed away the excess quilt material, edged the top, sides, and bottom of each house with permanent charcoal gray marker, and sealed each piece with another coat of acrylic matte medium.

303 Hempstead Road where we survived the teen years
and finally wrote GTT (Gone to Texas) on the door after retiring

After which I confronted a very large (16" x 20"), very white piece of foam core board. Talk about a blank page! A new search ensued for imagery to place behind and alongside the houses. Eventually I came up with a map of the Williamsburg area from a Colonial Williamsburg Journal to serve as the base. Because it wasn't quite large enough, I added dictionary pages with the words "Williamsburg" ...

 and "Virginia," a hand-drawn map to our house at Wilson Circle ...

a garden plan and "Home of the Month" sign from Nina Lane with a description written when Meg was in elementary school ...

"You'll know it's my house when you see it
because on the front of my house there is a big garden. It has lots of
flowers and has little and big plants. There are also vegetables and fruits."

and a key from I-don't-know-where with moth wings from our Texas garage (a metaphor for flying away from Virginia?) completed the stash ... most of which was liberally dabbled with thinned-out acrylic paint to unify the background.

In the end, I called it a success when Don said the collage brought tears to his eyes. It's a wonderful life we've led ... with the promise of much more to come.

Postscript: After reading this post Don asked, "Why didn't you include the thing under the Wilson Circle house?" My response was, "The keyhole? I didn't include it since it was one of those craft store things that I kinda regretted adding after the fact."  But then I thought about it and remembered I tucked something behind the keyhole: a tiny picture of the dollhouse made by Don's Dad when the girls were little.

So here it is, with thanks to my favorite editor for saving me from myself ... as always.

- Stumbling on Happiness: Altered Book Collage

Altered books and mixed-media collage have fascinated me to the point of buying numerous books and browsing through countless Pinterest pins. Two books have been particularly useful: Altered Book Collage by Barbara Matthiessen and Mixed Media Collage by Holly Harrison.

Trying my hand at creating my own collages has been gratifying and humbling by turns. I've decided to blog about two of them that made it to completion ... others have had less fortunate outcomes.

Stumbling on Happiness was created using a book I gave to my Mom the year before she died. I began the collage after we moved to Texas, so the title seemed apt. It has two sides representing the two places I most love: the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the Hill Country near Austin. The flags of each state informed the background colors for the two sides of the book. After priming the book with gesso, I used Mod Podge to attach a page of "joy" from the Library of Congress Subject Headings and the title of the book onto the spine.

 

I began with the North Carolina cover, weaving strips of blue handmade paper, lyrics from James Taylor's "Carolina In My Mind," and red paper from old book covers (one of the perks of being a former librarian).  I added a sea star from Melissa's wedding, sand and shell from Avon, a sprig of dried grass, a tag stamped with the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and a bit of needlework that I made many years before of an architectural element found at the apex of many OBX beach cottage rooflines.

The Texas cover featured the same blue handmade paper and strips of red, with lyrics from Walt Wilkins' "Trains I Missed," which became my driving-through-the-Hill-Country-to-work anthem. The rusted star was clipped from a garland I purchased in Gruene, the flowers were picked and pressed at our first (rental) home in Wimberley, the scissortail flycatcher was cut from a Melanie Fain notecard (see below for more on her artwork), and the needlework was from the same long-ago piece with stylized Galliarda (aka Blanket Flower), a wildflower found in both Texas and North Carolina. 

However, I have no illusions about the final product: while it gives me great pleasure, it also makes me appreciate how much time and practice goes into truly accomplished mixed-media collage ... or any  artwork, for that matter.

Now this is art: a hand-painted etching of a roadrunner by Melanie Fain. She has a wonderful link on her website about her etching process, which makes me appreciate her artistry all the more.

- Rock On: Gardening in the Hill Country

When we first looked at our soon-to-be new home in 2010, the owners had amazing container plants on the front porch, but the ground in front was just grass. Of course, they took their plants with them, so we pondered how best to add visual interest to the front yard using what we had at hand.

What we had in abundance, especially on the floodplain at the back of the property, was rock ... lots and lots of rock. The soil profile for our land is called Rumple-Comfort, which is dominated by clay, brown cobbles of chert, and grey limestone. Don proceeded to create a ground cover of brown stone (after laying down landscaping cloth), finishing the first leg of the project late in 2011.

Realizing that we needed a way to walk from the front to the back of the yard without cutting across the porch, Don started moving around the brown stones, adding large limestone rocks for height, then creating a path with a "Texas Mix" of smaller stones from Gardenville ... one five-gallon bag at a time. Visual interest was provided by driftwood found on the nature trail that runs behind our property. A funky bench, some copper buckets, and a copper bird bath rounded out the second stage of the project in 2012.

The most recent (but certainly not the the last) phase involved putting in plants. Most are agaves and Spanish daggers grown from pups harvested from other parts of the yard, but this year's live Christmas tree also made the cut. In spite of my assurances that they looked fine, Don restained the cedar columns on the front porch ... a subtle but significant improvement.

Note the rain chain to the right ... now weathered to a brown patina.

The path has been extended around the west side of the house, winding past a small rock cairn and the HVAC system to the back of the house, where it now connects to the limestone rock garden, but that's a post for another day ... once the wildflowers are in bloom.

The reddish grass clumps are Little Blue Stem, a successful part of our effort to return much of the
property to prairie grass cover. The green clumps are sedges, which do particularly well under the live oaks.

- Rock 'n' Roll: Digging the Driveway

The Halloween flood in the Austin area was bad news for a lot of folks, some of whom got as much as 12 inches of rain. We were fortunate to only get 7 inches with no damage to the house.

The driveway, on the other hand, didn't fare too well. It was already in need of regrading and more gravel, so the flood made a bad situation even worse.

The gravel was scoured down to the bedrock in some places and much of it ended up in the field behind the house.

The good news is my daughter and son-in-law recommended CSK Pavers in Dripping Springs. CSK regraded the driveway and added 36 cubic yards of road base to fill in the low spots. They also moved some large rocks from the front and side yards, creating a rockwall to dam the end of the driveway. 

If it floods in the future, the dam should slow down the runoff enough to drop the gravel out of suspension. We've already had a dry-run of sorts (sorry, bad choice of words) when it rained 1.75 inches in two hours just a couple of days after work was completed ... everything stayed where it belonged.

Of course, if we have a true gully washer there will be a fair bit of gravel to relocate and a heckuva good opportunity for a workout.

- Sailing Down This Golden River: Our mixed media sailboat collaboration

As I tried to come up with a title for this post, an Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger song came to mind. If you've never heard them do "Sailing Down This Golden River" (or even if you have) then click this link and let it play in the background while you read the rest of this post.

Sailing is a perfect metaphor for journeying through life, letting the current and the breeze take you where they will. We're glad we've drifted our way into the Hill Country, but we're equally glad we started our journey together in Virginia.

Sadly, when we left the Eastern Seaboard (we've learned not to call it the East Coast since that refers to Galveston, Corpus Christi, Mustang Island, etc. in Texas), we left some very good friends behind. While that was the hardest part of leaving, we go to see them every year and they have traveled to Texas as well. In 2012 they sent us the perfect Christmas gift: a photo montage from both the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the Texas Hill Country:

In addition to the ACKERT photo montage, the picture includes a driftwood birdhouse sent by friends from
the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The swan was carved many years ago by Don's Dad ... we are fortunate indeed!

This Christmas we tried to return the favor by making a sailboat for their cottage on Urbanna Creek. Don shaped some reclaimed wood from Junkology into a hull skimming over the waves, then carved a mast and bowsprit from cedar driftwood found on our floodplain, while I fashioned canvas sails loosely based on the skipjacks that ply the waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

It's one-of-a-kind ... as are our friends. Don't you love metaphor?

- A closer look: Cross stitch family sampler

When I realized how many folks were coming to the blog to take a look at the rain chain, I figured I'd better spruce things up a bit.  That included putting an addendum on the original rain chain post, updating my profile, doing some editorial clean up, and making a commitment to resume posting on a more regular basis. I also changed my profile picture to a recent piece of needlework, only to find that the resolution left a lot to be desired ... then changed it again to a recent family picture (which also leaves something to be desired).

In any case, here's a better view of my newest family sampler (the top half only since the piece is too long to photograph effectively as a whole ... for more detail click this link), worked in silk on linen. Note that the second alphabet is in reverse as I'm fond of singing backward ABCs to my grandsons. The random letters at the end of the 4th line are variants on letters that I wasn't entirely happy with the first time around, since this sampler was worked without planning every stitch in advance (much as they did in the 18th century ... but more on my 18th-century needlework adventures in a future post or two).

For those who are interested, the buildings are iconic references to where each of us got married and/or honeymooned: Montauk Lighthouse, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and the University of Texas Tower. And no, I'm afraid the buildings aren't to scale ... sorry UT.

- Eating Texican

Wow ... I haven't posted in forever and now come to find out there have been over 5000 views of the rain chain post.  So, I've put an addendum on the post and belatedly answered those who were kind enough to leave a comment.

Now back to why we're here: a new recipe.  The back story is that we had some pork loin chops in the freezer and I wasn't quite sure what to do with them because they looked really lean (I usually get pork sirloin). After a fair bit of Googling on "green chile pork loin" (which is what I had in mind), I discovered a dichotomy of opinion on how long to braise pork loin.

So, nothing ventured, etc etc ... I cut the meat into cubes, salted and seared it in olive oil two minutes to a side and dumped it into a Pyrex dish.  Then I diced and sauteed some sweet onion, deglazed the pan with a slug of Lobo Negro beer, poured it all over the meat along with a pack of Rick Bayless' Frontera Green Chile Enchilada sauce (I don't usually go for packaged stuff, but this is pretty "clean" with tomatillos, poblano chiles, and no chemicals), a spoonful of cumin, and cup of homemade chicken stock.

After 45 minutes with the lid on at 325 (the time many recipes recommended as an end point), I opened up the door of a fragrant oven only to find very unappealing stew ... the meat was tough beyond prodding and there was a gumbo-like oil slick floating on top. Yuck.

I took off the lid and let it go for another hour ... which made for some significant improvement.  Good thing, as the only other realistic option for dinner was pancakes.  So I put the lid back on, stuck the dish back in the oven to cook some more, and started researching Mexican rice.

Rice Select Royal Blend is a standard in my pantry ... which isn't exactly what you find in most Tex-Mex joints. But I took a chance, sauteed some onion in olive oil, then added in the rice as one would for a pileau. After a couple of minutes, I stirred in some chicken stock, chopped grape tomatoes and finely diced jalapeno, slapped a lid on the pan and left it to simmer. After 15 minutes, I removed the lid and raised the heat, stirring until the excess liquid evaporated.

The stew came out of the oven after about 2.5 hours at 325.  It still wasn't pretty, but the meat fell apart at the nudge of a spoon.  I raided the fridge for some avocado, cilantro, sour cream, and lime ... then pulled a handful of good tortilla chips from the pantry.

A bed of rice, stew on top, liberally dosed with the aforementioned condiments made for a great meal. No picture ... honestly, it didn't look like much.  But with Shiner Bock to help it down, we agreed that it was worth recording ... for the next time.

- Rain chain (revised)

Note: This post was moved to a new URL on August 26, 2015
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I fell in love with a copper rain chain that I saw at an ceramic artist's house, but the price was too dear.  So I started looking at all the silverplate flatware we've inherited over the years and decided to repurpose it (after checking to be sure I wasn't ruining something valuable).  The end result has been more decorative than functional, but then again, it doesn't rain all that much in our neck of the Texas Hill Country.

Addendum (March 9, 2014): 
With apologies for not responding sooner, here's how the rain chain was made. After doing some Googling for ideas on how to bend silver, I used pliers while holding the silverware in chamois cloth in order to twist the fork tines into interesting shapes ... it would have been much easier with sterling silver, but there's no way I would use sterling for this project.

Then I bent the handles of the forks and spoons, once again using heavy pliers for leverage and the chamois to protect the silver (I wore gloves, too) ... this definitely took some experimenting to figure out the ideal flex points and I broke several pieces. Once I had a pile of bent forks and spoons, I played around with how best to arrange them before putting the whole thing together.

The top of the rain chain is a copper funnel I found at our local antique store (By the Bridge in Wimberley, Texas). I punched a couple of holes in the funnel with a hammer and nail, then ran a crab pick through the holes (with fond memories blue crab picking on the Eastern Seaboard). The first piece of silverware hooked over the crab pick. After that it was a simple matter of hanging one piece of silverware after the other. Gravity is the only thing holding the chain together and except for the bottom piece or two it has yet to come apart, even on the windiest days.

I'm not a metal-smith and had never done a project like this before (or since), so there may be other/better/safer ways of doing it. If you like what you see, I encourage you to experiment, carefully. Please note that the chain has since weathered to the color of dark copper pennies ... there's no practical way to keep it silvery that I can think of. However, since I'm very much into natural patinas, it suits me.

- Easing the pain

Originally posted in On the Trail ... something for our two toddler grandsons:

One little monkey jumpin' on the bed

He fell off and bumped his head

Momma called the doctor & the doctor said

"Put an All Better Bag right on his head"

All Better Bag - A soft linen and flannel bag filled with rice and stitched with an x (mwah!) in the center. Keep in the freezer to put on bumped heads or warm gently in the microwave for earaches.

Coming soon to a Mom near you.