- Shark attack

Retrospective (7/3/2016)

Patch #169 (cue theme from Jaws)

Original Post

AKA lemonade and grenadine. A classic Outer Banks kid pleaser ...

Beach Week is now officially launched!

- Urbanna Gothic

Retrospective (7/2/2016)

Patch #168 Urbanna Creek

Original Post

A wonderful interlude with long-time friends at their Urbanna Creek home, leaving us with a new set of memories of mango crab salsa and buttermilk pie ...

you just have to imagine the pitchfork.

- A grand adventure

Retrospective (7/1/2016)

Patch #167 Fly me

Original Post

So it begins ...

With a great end to the flight ...

Just one of many reasons why I love Southwest Airlines ...

The only way to fly!

- The less said the better

Retrospective (6/30/2016)

Patch #166 Texas state flag

It was flag day, but the only flag I was waving at the time was a white one. Hindsight being what it is, I now wonder if I was done in by raw cookie dough.

Original Post

Really, I just didn't feel good. To say anything else would be TMI.

- Small blessings

Retrospective (6/30/2016)

Patch #165 Library

Long ago and far away I was a high school librarian (among other things). I started work at J--- High School in August 1999, four months after Columbine.

The library was located at the top of the stairs on the second floor, directly above the cafeteria. Students didn't use it much as the previous librarian was apparently less than warm and fuzzy. 

The first thing I did was buy two rubber door stops to hold the doors open. Then I went to every single first block class during the first week of school to welcome students and teachers. I told them I wouldn't require passes during lunchtime, but that I would ask each student to sign in. Because Columbine. They understood.

Then I moved out of my office and sat at the computer at the front desk, so I could greet each person who came through the door. I learned their names, helped them find things, and didn't give them a hard time. Usage doubled, then doubled again.

And throughout it all, I felt like I had a target painted on my chest. Because Columbine. But it was worth it.

So when I read the words of the undocumented Texas valedictorian who said her school library made a difference, my throat tightened and tears pricked at my eyes. It made me proud of my profession.

One last thing ... years after I left the high school I ran into a former student when I was going through the grocery store checkout. I didn't recognize her, but she said "Do you remember me? I used to come to the library every day at lunch." Like so many of the students who came through my door, she felt welcome and if that's all I ever accomplished, then I count my time there a success.

Original Post

With so much sadness and negativity in the news, I keep coming back to one of the videos that went viral last week ...

This is a screen shot of one of two Texas valedictorians who revealed their undocumented status at graduation. But the part that made my heart a little lighter was her recognition of the role the school library played in her success. It made me proud of my one-time profession.

And this is a screen shot of something my daughter wrote last night in response to a friend who was hurt by social media insanity following the Orlando shooting ...

This too makes me proud ... and I dare to be hopeful.

- When will they ever learn?

Patch #164 Love is the answer ... 

with thanks to Pete Seeger and Mo for the words.

- Just peachy

Retrospective (6/12/2016)

Patch #163 One way to gray ...

Original Post

I'm practicing for beach week ...

Note to self: Don't let one over-ripe peach fool you into thinking that they're all ripe.

I also had a fantastic thrift shop day: lots of linen finds in bright yellow, clear turquoise, soft gray (which has eluded me), warm rose, pure white with a great print, and an earthy burgundy. Except that I washed them all together. And the burgundy ran. A lot. Now they're mostly shades of peach, with a stormy sea blue for good measure ...

Note to self: Don't let yourself be fooled into thinking the colors in old clothes won't run.

Got this selfie, pretty in peach ...

Note to self: Time flies.

So now I'm stitching the week's weather patches. It's sunny outside, but I won't get fooled again ...

Instead, I think I'll wait for the ill-fated turquoise to dry so I can make Patch #163 Cautionary Tale ...

Last note to self: there's more than one way to gray.

- Something old, something new

I've been reading Terry Tempest Williams recently and the first chapter of her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World really impressed me. Even though it was about historical mosaic making, it had strong parallels with patchwork (and right now I'm grinning to myself knowing some of you have probably seen Hazel Monte's blog post today).

One quote in particular jumped out at me, so much so that I wrote it down on a scrap of paper ...

Then stitched it into a nine-patch ...

Patch #154-156

Patch #157-159

Patch #160-162

which I have a habit of stitching thusly ...

The patches are all linen, created last November during Maura Ambrose's workshop. They were all mordanted with alum and some with tannin ... then dyed with either Old World madder (the four light patches) or New World cochineal (the five dark patches).

In reading Delena Tull's Edible and Useful Plants of the Southwest, I shook my head in wonder that both ancient Native American and Indo-European dyers discovered how to utilize the same mordants (and others as well).

Stitching the patches, I reflected further on the traditional nine-patch quilt block versus my own idiosyncratic method of stringing patches together in strips. 

Quoting again from Finding Beauty ... the words of a modern day mosaicist made sense to me:

"We create the future through a rearrangement of forms, what we have learned from the past."

I'm still learning.

- The makings of a nine patch

- Counting the days

To the beach ...