- Degrees of separation

This isn't exactly right, but it's as close as I could get ...

Patch #37 ... sadly the subtle yellow/blue/green color of the
over-dyed linen has been totally lost in the process of photographing it

Walking out a half hour before sunrise, the stars had fled from the sky ... even Venus was fading. But the crescent moon revealed its shadowed side as a mercury glass mirror of Earth's reflected light. And below the moon, a tiny glint ... at last, the planet Mercury. Between them, the orbs described a classic Pythagorean triangle: three lengths from the moon to Mercury, four lengths from the moon to Venus, and five lengths from Venus to Mercury.

The horizon was golden below a sky that rose above it from green to blue to grey  ... colors shifting like the sea.

Coming back into the house, I grabbed a pen and scribbled ...

Then, after breakfast, hunted down a yellow linen shirt over-dyed with Aquarelle Saxon Blue extract ...

and on a scrap of that cloth, I took the finest stitches I could manage to describe my recollection ...

But time and cloth and camera each imposed a degree of separation from what my eyes first perceived. The patch as memory ended up as most memories do: an imperfect reflection of the infinite subtlety that is first-hand experience.

Likewise, as another week passes by, the weather patches are the merest shorthand ...

for golden days of sunlit dryness broken only by the heavy fog that ushered in February ...

- Rockin' it

A bit of lichen-dyed muslin ...

Patch #36

because it reminds me of Don's rock gardens ...

Kinda cool that a local lichen makes cloth the color of local rock.

Mostly though, I've been working on Melissa's birthday present. Here's another sneak peek ...

Time's slipping away ... here's hoping I make the deadline.

- Remembering High's

Another simple patch, this time intentionally ...

Patch #35 from a lime green linen top which I intended to overdye
... but sometimes brighter is better

because what the February patches remind me of is rainbow sherbet ...

Patches 32-35

Raspberry, lemon, orange and lime ... right? And therein lies a story.

Back in the days before we had kids, Don and I loved to play tennis. Honestly, it was the only sport I could play well enough to enjoy and trust me, early on Don tried to get me interested in outdoor activities, mostly to no avail. Golf? Couldn't hit the ball. Running? Shin splints. Shooting baskets? Ha! Camping? Mosquitos! But tennis I could do.

Sad to say, tennis now seems like a sport in decline, at least in the United States. But 30-40 years ago it could be hard to find an open court, especially after the major tournaments which inspired duffers like us to get back into the game.

My point in telling you this? Well, our after-game beverage of choice was a sherbet freeze from the High's Ice Cream shop. Basically a thick shake made with lemon-lime soda and sherbet in your favorite flavor, it never failed to satisfy.

Of course there was that one night when I made one serve too many and threw my arm right out of its socket. That resulted in us heading to the ER rather than High's and ended with my arm in a sling with orders to lay off tennis for a bit. Then Don took me to a GLM skiing seminar  ... that same evening as I recall.

Somehow I was convinced that short skis would be manageable, leading to our one and only trip to Wintergreen. I got the shortest skis they had, and to be honest I did sorta enjoy myself. That is until a hotshot skier who was half my age (ten), caused me to veer into the trees where I made a very undignified three point landing. Later I discovered a two inch tear in my brand new Levi 505s (which is to say, heavy denim jeans), most likely caused by the aforementioned touchdown. I took it as a sign that there would be no need to move up to the next ski length ... once was enough.

Anyway, High's is long gone, but I actually found an article that brought it all back. Just look at the poster in the upper middle-right of the photograph. Darned if I'm not craving a sherbet freeze right now.

- Making time

Another simple patch ...

Patch #34

but that's okay, because I have an idea for combining the past two days' patches into one.

Most of the day was spent tree trimming (as in removing dead wood) and making Valentine cards with G. I started with some hearts rough cut out of a styrofoam meat tray and glued onto wooden blocks ...

Then G and I scribbled over the hearts and a commercial "G" stamp with pink, red and orange markers (washable of course) ...

The purple was abandoned early on as it muddied the other colors

Then we stamped them on orange cover stock (G's favorite color) ...

With thanks to Pop Pop, who took pictures
and got us over the finish line as G's enthusiasm began to wane

- A whole lotta not much ...

So, Patch #33 doesn't have much to it yet ...

But I'm thinking about how to interpret this lovely in Don's rock garden ...

There's gotta be a way, right?

But in the meantime, there are leaves to toss ...

Did you know they float?

And stones to throw ...

Did you know they don't?

And shadows to catch while you can ...

Because time flows by like water ...

don't take anything for granted ...

- It's not all about me

Since I expect to stitch my monthly rows of patches together, I've decided to end the odd numbered months (January, March, May, etc.) with a named calendar patch as I did yesterday.

Even months (February, April, etc.) will begin with a named patch, as I did today ...

Patch #32
Rose pink linen from a thrifted blouse fussy stitched with one strand of DMC

I confess that I've been planning this patch for a while as a way to begin celebrating Melissa's 30th birthday on the 14th. Please note: in our family we do not use the V-word when talking about a certain mid-February holiday ... at least not in front of Melissa.

As I stitched, I thought ...

Thought that the color of the linen looked just like the foam my mom used to skim off the top of her strawberry jam ... spread on the heel of a freshly baked loaf of bread it was ambrosia.

Thought how it's a leap year, so there are 29 days in February ... that Melissa will not be 29 years old much longer ... and how I was 29 myself when she was born in 1986.

Thought how the red thread just didn't look right on the numbers and letters, so I tore it out. And in the gray light of a foggy morning, what I thought was variegated gray thread turned out to be variegated teal ... which was perfect, since teal is currently a favorite color of Melissa's.

Thought how Melissa returned with a zebra print cowboy hat on her 16th birthday trip to Ft. Worth with Don (who was consulting with the Fort Worth schools at the time) ... how much has changed since then ... 

And then I was done.

The sun broke through and I decided it was high time to photograph Don's assemblage of assemblages ...

aka the Front Porch Series. One piece has yet to be shown here ...

Another was only shown in process ...

And because they're hard to photograph, even in panorama ...

here they are in three takes from left to right ...

- Slip sliding away

So goes January ...

Patch #31
I'm calling this obsessively small stuff "fussy stitching"

one last patch, stitched in the 80 degree sun ...

then joining the flowers in the warmth close to the house ...

keeping good company ...

Addendum:

Backlighting was too fierce earlier, but now I have a picture of January hanging between my stitching windows ...

- Learn by playing

It was a proud day when Jude Hill gifted me with the moniker "Learn by Playing" on her Place Keeping page. Today's patch is a memory-holder for that ...

Patch #30

Today's cloth-woven nine-patch is juxtaposed with my first piece of paperless patchwork, recorded in a post on October 9, 2014.

That tan and brown nine-patch has been sitting on the arm of my stitching chair for over a year. The other arm holds Jude's September Window ...

Jude's original post appeared on September 11, 2014

And now I'm well on my merry way: one day short of a whole month of patching and posting, each day marked by two patches, one of whimsy and one of weather ...

1" by 1" patches of January weather (1/31 patch pending)

After looking again at Judy Martin's inspirational quilt top, I am considering more nine patches like the first one ... but this time in combinations of brown (tree trunks) and beige (limestone), joined by all the other colors outside my window as the seasons slip by. It's just a notion right now, but I expect to make some trial pieces soon. After I finish this most likely ...

Another sneak peek ...
Left side of applique stitched down (one strand of DMC)
Right side edged with the addition of split back stitch (two strands of DMC)

- Blue skies for B

Texas is a land of amazing extremes. Whereas yesterday I was depicting ice (which I photographed while wearing shirt sleeves in 28 degree frostiness), today I'm sitting outside stitching in the sun ...

Patch #28 torn shred of white linen napkin on grey-green linen  from an old shirt dress
and Patch #29 indigo-dyed shibori cotton and pomegranate dyed linen

Once upon a time, I decided Virginia was destined to be my home because I was smitten with the ability to walk barefoot in January (admittedly a stretch, but I was only 18 at the time). Well, Virginia is currently digging out from 1-2 feet of snow, while the Texas Hill Country is enjoying temperatures in the mid-70s ...

The view from the breezeway

Now this is my kinda barefoot.

We were delighted to show off our weather to daughter Meg's friend Bridget, who was in town for a conference. We ate lunch al fresco at the Leaning Pear. The smiles say it all ...

Austin daughter Meg with her life-long friend Bridget
(aka B and daughter of my longtime best friend from Virginia)

- Not done yet

Today's patch has been added, but there's still some stitching to do ...

Patch #28

That's actually a grey-green linen, but the light has already drained from the sky, taking with it any chance of capturing subtle color. Likewise, I'm out of light for stitching. So tomorrow.

I'm shooting for an impression of this ...

Know what it is? Frostweed. Even though we've already had freezing weather here, for some reason they waited until last night to pop. Lucky for me, Don spotted them before the sun melted the ice crystals away.  You can read more about how they form here.

And take a closer look ...

Like something out of a fairy garden, don't you think?