- What a character: Pirate assemblage

Our minds are much on the Outer Banks (OBX) as we get ready for our annual migration to Avon. Don channeled his inner sea captain/pirate ...

Assemblage components: cork fishing bobber from Urbanna Creek (head), wood scrap (nose),
rusted sheet metal (hat), bent nail (pipe), milk paint stained chamois cloth (head scarf),
twisted metal wire (hair), rusted doorknob plate (neck) and milk painted wood baluster scrap

while I tried to narrow down a selection of cloth to bring to the beach ...

As if I'm actually going to have time to stitch while surrounded by grandchildren ... but hey, you never know.

I also did some selective laundering of my dye trials, ultimately discovering that I was primarily sensitive to the blue dye from the Mexican hat petals. Fortunately, after washing the cloths in hot water and detergent the allergic reaction receded while the color (mostly) remained. So I'm now moving on from a quick stitch sample (below right) to the main event: a piece of repurposed linen tablecloth backed with harem cloth to which I've pinned the first building of my take on the Austin skyline ...

Last, but not least, at Grace's request I turned a recent piece of dyed cloth upside down to consider the possibility of using it as a base for a landscape ...

99% sure this was dyed with Mountain Pinks

And just as she suggested, it definitely has potential ...

- What's next: Step one of the Austin Skyline

Recent dye trials ...

overlaid with an Austin city skyline printed on vellum

- Always learning: The latest lessons in the Kitchen Towel Series

I just completed the kitchen towel housewarming gift for my daughter's soon-to-be new house ...

A-side overview

You'll notice that the top half, which will hang over the back-side of the towel bar, has been left unembellished. And while the color is not obvious in the first picture, somehow this b-side close-up almost captured the blue/green/gray-ness that attracted me to this linen ...

B-side detail

I am beyond happy with my decision to use a second layer of harem cloth as the backing, as it protects the house plan stitching while still letting it show through ...

B-side overview

Likewise, the ladder stitch worked very effectively for attaching the harem cloth along the edge of the hemstitching and if you squint you can also see the vertical lines of invisible baste attaching the backing layer to the middle layer of harem cloth  ...

Of course, the A-side is the main attraction and I'm very pleased with the way the backstitching (a single strand of DMC floss, with each stitch worked over two or three strands of the linen) captured the lettering and house plan details ...

A-side detail
Note: horizontal lines of combination stitch run north/south, vertical lines run east/west

However, you've probably noticed that I didn't iron the cloth, which is my wont. I find pressing linen flattens and distorts the stitches. Besides, I truly believe that linen is most absorbent when air-dried and left unironed ... with the added benefit that said belief enables me to let the iron gather dust. Some old lessons are well worth remembering.

- June: Thimble flower dye trials

Well, after twenty inches of rain in May, I'm glad it's June ...

The view from the breezeway

Blue skies and sunshine also make it much more fun to gather dyestuffs for a quick trial or two ...

- And still it rains: Gully washers in the Hill Country

It began with the hail, clattering down off the roof. Then thunder and lightning cracking overhead, over and over. Three and one-half inches of rain in a couple of hours ... again. The rain falling harder than we've ever seen it, flowing straight toward the house, then parting at the last second ...

After the deluge

going northeast to the left or northwest to the right through some unseen agency. 

We ventured out after the thunder finally receded into the east, the sun glinting out in the west. Having seen the floodplain roil with water from the distant safety of the house, we sloshed through still-moving water ...

to find Sink Creek twice the width of the last storm, already receding ...

Looking upstream to the west

Debris hanging in the bushes told the tale of the water's passage ...

Let the record show that the water was at least two feet deeper at some point

Then we went down to the low water crossing two houses away ... it is ten feet below street level and usually bone dry. There we found Sink Creek raging through the storm pipes, just a few feet below street level, a dead tree wedged above the water, testimony to a higher cresting point ...

more water still flowing down the street ...

Sink Creek looking downstream

headed for the Blanco River.

Our house is 1000' above sea level, just 100' from the highest point in our neighborhood and a mere 3.5 inches of rain created this roaring stream. I try to imagine the Blanco, at 800' of elevation and five miles away, receiving this much water in multiples beyond my reckoning. And I am once again humbled by the immensity of it all.

Addendum:

Our neighbors headed out to the low water crossing during the final minutes of the storm ...

 and captured this image of Sink Creek at road level, with a wave obscuring the 1' mark ...

- Blue sky and sunshine: Dyeing with thimble flowers and mountain pinks

Yes, that really is blue sky peeking through the leaves of the persimmon ...

Dark maroon Thimble Flower petals wrapped in cotton muslin with copper wire
Pre-mordanted with soy milk, steeped overnight in a copper pot with alum, vinegar and water

and sunshine dancing on the cloth ...

Mountain pink flowers, stems and leaves wrapped in cotton muslin with copper wire
Pre-mordanted with soy milk, steeped overnight in a copper pot with alum, vinegar and water

Addendum (for Patricia):

Rusted metal roadrunner in one of Don's rock gardens (definitely not a chicken)

For those who are interested: Austin American Statesman coverage of the Memorial Day flooding

- Just be(e)ing: Exploring the Art.Science.Gallery in East Austin

Another gray day ... hot and humid ... no rain the the forecast, but raining nonetheless.

More sadness in the papers, more tragedy born of flood.

And in the midst of it all, we found art. More specifically Art.Science.Gallery ... on the east side of Austin, it turned out to be one of many galleries and studios in The Canopy, to which we will surely return.

The Buzz Stops Here was in its last week. Having read that the exhibit was focused on encaustic and bees, I figured it would be worth a look. I figured rightly.

Most of the pieces took full advantage of the soft golden hues of beeswax and honey. Two in particular made me reach for my camera (after ascertaining that photography was permitted, of course). 

The Dead Bee Scrolls by Harriette Tsosie...

from which hexagonal cells of waxen kozo paper ...

fell to the floor like so many dead bees ...

And Golden Harmony by Diane Kleiss ---

with finely wrought dimensionality ...

Note the fine golden thread in the center of the flower

and detail ...

All more artfully photographed and described in this online catalog, but there's something about trying to capture images for oneself that helps recall the quietude of moments spent just looking, appreciating the gift of be(e)ing ...

- Safe: Memorial Day flooding in Wimberley

Note: this post was written on Sunday, May 24. Details on the flood have since been updated in the local news and broadcast media.

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It's never good when your hometown makes national weather news, as we did today in the NY Times ...

Our home, located on high ground midway between Wimberley and San Marcos, is fine. However, flooding downstream has knocked out our internet, leaving us with limited news access. We did drive down Ranch Road 12 toward Wimberley, but were turned back at the bridge ...

The river crested over 40' last night, covering the bridge with water and debris, stripping away guard rails and doing who knows what structural damage.

Standing 40 yards from the still-roaring Blanco River, we looked around us and realized there was debris caught in the tree branches over our heads ...

bark had been flayed from wood ...

cloth hung suspended ...

a house was torn from its foundations ...

just one of 350 many homes swept away. Three Wimberley residents are still missing. Twelve people died.

We are humbled by this incredible show of nature's force ... and thankful to be safe.

- Only one out of eleven, but no complaints: Wildflower dye trials

Well, the re-dye trial results were pretty disappointing overall. The steel wrapped cloths were gray-day sad and most of the copper wraps were ho-hum yellows.

But there was one happy exception: the burgundy and gold petals from the Mexican hats ... 

So the new plan is to wash out the steel wraps ...

and the copper wraps ...

then over-dye them all with as many Mexican hat petals as I can harvest before the flowering season ends. Shouldn't be too hard to do ...

- In a pickle: Taking a second pass at the dye trials

I decided to do some re-dyeing using cloth from the less-than-wonderful results of my earlier dye trials (I did keep all six of the lichen and onion trials, along with one alum-mordanted Salvia amistad), So seven new bundles for good luck: 

• Mountain pinks (I think) from the floodplain
• Twin-leaf senna ditto
• Mexican hats aka Thimbleflowers with dark burgundy and yellow petals from the side yard (bundled in what I think was the alum-mordanted red cabbage cloth from the previous trial)
• A second Mexican hats bundle with yellow petals only
• Lantana and Indian blankets from the floodplain and garden (mixed together)
• Arugula stems with coffee grounds (fished out of the compost bowl)
• Mealy blue sage (reapplied to the previous alum-mordanted mealy blue trial)

All wrapped in copper wire and steeped in a copper pot for half an hour with alum, vinegar and water (aka pickle juice) ...

Then, four more bundles added later, because there were still some other pieces of cloth that weren't all that great ...

• Dried rosemary (from a spice jar that I think came with us from Virginia six years ago)
• An unidentified woody floodplain herb (probably a weed, but I love the resinous scent ... later identified as Prairie Tea)
• One whole prickly pear flower (which I discovered has spines ... ouch)
• And uh ... something else ... oh, now I remember ... large pieces of windfall lichen (I've used smaller bits in the past, but the recent rains have gifted me with several lichens over 1" in diameter)

All four were re-bundled in the bungled steel wire dye trials, re-wrapped in steel wire and put in the copper pot, which was then rewarmed on a hot plate for 20 minutes or so. A few hours later, because I couldn't leave well enough alone, I tipped all the bundles upright, left them overnight, then found them looking like this in the morning ...

Most (but not all) were labelled with a sepia Pitt pen before being rolled up ... it should be interesting to see if it survives the dye pot. Also, all the dyestuffs were laid out and folded as they were here, but at right angles to the previous dye trials, fold lines from which were still visible in varying degrees of faded-ness. I was hoping to get a nine-patch effect, but at this point I'm sort of disappointed to see that there isn't much happening along the fold lines.

Now the question is, how long to wait ...