- Backlit

Retrospective (7/18/2016)

Patch #197 Georgia's Window Scraps II

Original Post

How Georgia's Window will look once it's hemmed and hung ...

and another look at the original ...

- Learning as I go (it's all about process)

Retrospective (7/20/2016) 

Patch #196 A patch of blue sky

An early piece of embroidery from the 1960s, when I was on the first of many learning curves.

Original Post

Georgia's Window is coming together slowly, but surely ...

The sash bars of the window surrounding each pane proved to be the biggest challenge, requiring front seams to be sewn on both sides of a very narrow strip of maroon linen ...

created by overcast stitching each seam (14-18 stitches per inch) with the front sides facing out ...

After which the inside edges are trimmed ...

leaving the lower-most edge twice the width of the other three interior edges ...

Finger-pressing the top two interior edges downward first ...

the wider of the lower interior edges is then folded over the narrower edge ...

so the sandwiched lower edges can be folded over the top edges ...

pinned in place ...

and stitched over the upper edges (which I believe to be akin to French or felled seaming) ...

All that so that the front can continue to look exactly the same as it did before ..

while the back goes from looking like this ...

to a much tidier finish ....

This reimagining of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting Door through Window (1956) was influenced by looking at pictures and videos about Pojagi, a form of two-sided quilting used to make wrapping cloths in Korea. Any wonkiness introduced by my idiosyncratic methodology leads me to categorize this as "Pojagi-influenced" in my blog index (with an additional entry for "Bojagi" as there are those who use an alternate spelling).

- Grandparenting 101 (things to do)

Retrospective (7/18/2016)

Patch #195 Amy's Ice Cream

Original Post

Go out for ice cream (but not too often, or it's not special) ...

Make something (homemade strawberry jam, anyone?) ...

and play outside (tennis being the latest of many sports) ...

There's also FaceTime with cousins (in St Louis), make a ramp (out of blocks), go swimming (at the neighborhood pool), help Nana (unload dishwasher, put away clothes, pick up toys), make lunch with Pop Pop (PBJ on tortillas), read books (from the library), play cards (war, go fish), and take a nap (not limited to those under the age of five).

- B-day

Patch #194 was made in honor of Bridget's birthday ...

B is my best friend's daughter, born 4 1/2 months before my daughter Meg (no coincidence). They have been life-long friends, along with our younger daughter Meliss. All three have stood together as each was wed ... and all three have become moms, reminding Barb and me of our younger selves. 

I knew I wanted to make a special patch for Bridget, but it came with a little extra pressure as she is an extremely talented artist and gainfully employed graphic designer (gulp).

So I dialed my memory back to her childhood birthdays, which were grand extravaganzas of kid-friendly fun planned down to the last detail by Barb (who is pictured in the recently-posted Urbanna Creek abode).

And always there was crab picking for kids and parents alike. Dozens of Chesapeake Bay blue claw crabs (jimmies of course), liberally dosed with Old Bay seasoning and accompanied by vats of melted butter and tubs of cold beer.  

There was, therefore, no question about the color scheme for this patch: crab claw blue, steamed shell red, and Old Bay orange.

All that remained was the design, which I kept simple. What else but the Zodiac symbol for Bridget's birthday: Cancer, The Crab.

- Dress for the weather

Patch #193 Dress for the weather

I splurged on a linen dress at the thrift store ... 

Three whole dollars!

"It'll look great on you," said the cashier.

"Oh, I'm not going to wear it," I replied. "It's going to be part of a quilt" (which is what I say when I don't have time to explain slow cloth).

When I got it home, I was beyond happy to find it really was a perfect match for my weather patch cloth ...

Imagine a sun shower ...

a foggy morning followed by a sunny afternoon ...

or a white hot Texas summer day ...

which I suppose, if you turned it 90 degrees, could have been a snow flurry in another life.

- New to us

Retrospective (7/18/2016)

Patch #192 Riley's Tavern

Original Post

It's been a while since we went out to listen to some live music (in Texas, that is). So we made our first venture to Riley's Tavern ...

which recently began a singer/songwriter concert series on Sundays from 4-7. How civilized.

One of our local favorites, Jamie Lin Wilson, was at the mic ...

and she played more than a few of my favorites: John Wayne Cowboy (about her stoic father-in-law) ... Seven Year Drought (which was released four days before the epic Memorial Day flood in Wimberley) ... and Old Oldsmobile (which we first heard in Gruene Hall as she announced the news that she was expecting her third child, due at the end of a long, hot Texas summer).

She's a great lyricist and storyteller, with a strong voice, smooth fingerpicking, and a wicked harmonica. Sadly, she needed to call out a table-full of clueless rowdies ... to the relief of all of us who really wanted to see them leave (fortunately they did) so we could better hear what she had to sing.

But you've gotta wonder when a joint posts signs like this ...

Only in Texas.

- Georgia's Window reimagined

Retrospective (7/18/2016)

Patch #191 Georgia's Window Scraps I

Original Post

When we went to Santa Fe in 2014, one of my must-see spots was the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

Granted it was small, but I give a lot of credit to the guards who let me stand, hands behind my back, close enough for my nearsighted eyes to truly appreciate each piece. Which was close indeed.

The painting that really grabbed me was Door Through Window ...

That it was done in 1956, the year I was born, seemed as good a reason as any to reprise its patchiness in cloth. I started on a version last year, but my supply of linen colors was less than robust and dyeing colors to match using local flora didn't go too well. So I stopped.

My recent discovery of pojagi rekindled the idea and I was delighted to find that my thrift store finds had improved the range of colors I had on hand.

So I broke the original down into component parts ...

selected a range of colors ...

and totally surprised myself at how quickly it started to come together ...

Granted, my lack of quilting and patchwork experience have left the back looking a bit worse than I'd like ...

but I'm thinking by tomorrow I'll be seeing some improvement as I get the hang of it.

- Why?

Retrospective (7/19/2016)

Patch #190 Mountains or Beach?

Original Post

I had such a deep sense of ennui, feeling incapable of doing anything after learning of the latest shootings in Louisiana, Minnesota and Dallas. And those were just the ones that made the news. I fear it will all get worse before it gets better.

My back hurt ... the hot water heater died ... the bill came in for my new medication ... the Texas heat ticked up another notch ... social media, newspapers, and radio all spewed fear and hatred, finger-pointing and self-righteousness. 

Really, why do anything? So I sat and looked at the wall. On which was Don's first assemblage ...

and felt quiet joy in that.

Then I stood up and got my sorry self in gear ... went to the thrift store ... did the food shopping ... and stitched patches for July 1-3 ...

Because.

- Newcomb College revisited

Retrospective (7/18/2016)

Patch #189 Newcomb Tulip

From:

Original Post

I was tickled when the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane announced a Newcomb coloring book ...

It arrived at the end of June, but sadly it wasn't quite what I had hoped for. So I went back to the larger tome that we got in May and started paging through, trying to find the perfect piece to work.

What I found instead was a sense of what I most enjoy about Newcomb pottery. Strong vertical elements ...

organic forms in soft blues and greens ...

many accented with a curry gold ...

So I made a tiny sampler patch to tuck into my post for June 30th ...

A more considered take is yet to come.

- Q is for quilt

Retrospective (7/17/2016)

Patch #188 Quilt-work patch

Original Post

This has long been a favorite read-aloud ...

and this is becoming my favorite page ...

A companion patch is pending.