- Reworking a cotton blouse boro-style

I bought not one, but two cotton gauze blouses last year ...

the green one because I loved the color even though it didn't quite fit (they only had a large) and the coral one because I loved the color and it was the right size.

Unfortunately, when I washed them the edges sort of collapsed on themselves (see the collar of the coral blouse) and the sleeves on the green shirt were so long and loose that I constantly had to re-roll them up. As a result, they spent more time in my closet than out of it.

The good news is that I made the online acquaintance of Saskia during Considering Weave and got inspired by her creative reworking of blouses (you can also link to her blog "Tales from the birdhut" in the KINDRED SPIRITS list to the right).

So I cut the collar off the green blouse, removed the buttons (I always wore it open, so the buttons were pointless), permanently rolled up the cuffs, and worked Kantha stitch on all the edges I could find. 

There now, much better!

- On re-naming things: Now "its only RAIN"

After finishing my linen top called RAIN, I decided to contact Jimmy Davis and ask his permission to use the title of his song "It's only rain" since it had inspired the discontinuous rows of stitches that looked (to me) like streaks of rain on an old window screen. Permission granted ... thanks Jimmy!

- It was 40 years ago today ...

40 years ... 2080 weeks ... 14570 days ... a blink of the eye.

Oh but we were young on October 5, 1974, which I wrote about here. But some photos recently came to light that flesh out the story ...

A yearbook photo taken a few hours before our first date ...

Yorktown beach before I went home to New York for the summer in 1975 ...

And our last "date" after our wedding rehearsal on December 29, 1977 ...

- Compost (like Grace) Happens

It's amazing how my attitudes have changed over the past five years ... from "Five acres? No way!" to "Well okay, but I'm only going in the high grass when it's cold enough for the snakes to be hibernating" to cactus whacking all summer long (albeit in full-length pants, socks and shoes).

What with all the leaves and garden debris, we've had three compost piles for a while now:

In fact, the first one has been emptied and restarted a couple of times. The second one is also our kitchen compost (aka critter feeding station) which is a favorite with the deer, the turkeys, and nighttime visitors (skunk, armadillo, and raccoon are all possible candidates). The night visitors are especially helpful as they like to dig through the pile (for grubs?), which turns everything over. The third pile is on its second go-round and has a long way to go.

But as we began clearing prickly pear cactus in earnest, we realized we needed more compost piles, so we moved out to an open area by the flood plain, creating the fourth pile, currently capped with grass and leaves from this spring ... so we won't peek for another six months. I know you're supposed to turn compost, but if you wait long enough, compost happens.

Then things got a little crazy ... I started two more piles and ended up falling into one of them whilst trying to dump a load of prickly pear (see my May 29 post "On pins and needles"). That was when I realized I needed to go out rather than up and our compost piles became compost rows ... four of them at present, each ranging from 15 to 25 feet long.

I'm in the process of putting a layer of "bad" grasses over the cactus ... except for the last row, which I'll leave exposed.

That way when we burn brush and tree limbs out on the flood plain, the cactus pads can be used to cover up the embers when we're done. Since they're full of water, they pretty much put the fire out. Amazingly, some of the cactus actually survives and begins to sprout ... forming a great fire break (or is that "brake") for the next burn.

But before we burn again, I have some harvesting to do ...

because those little white spots are making me see red ... yep, cochineal red.

To be continued ...

- The kitchen towel series: Lessons in slow cloth

I love to hang stuff out to dry. Aside from the eco-friendliness (and thrift) of it, there's nothing to match the thirstiness of terry cloth towels or the crackly crispness of sheets and napkins set out in the hot Texas sun. Better yet, linen rarely needs ironing when it air dries.

Indeed, this is one of two drying racks that we put on the moving van before traveling the 1500 miles from Virginia to Texas back in 2009 (the wooden rack to the left is a quilt stand that my dad made years ago). When we arrived, I remember being absolutely giddy when the bath towels I put outside dried before the next wash load was done.

So yesterday I washed the four kitchen towels made over the past several months of slow cloth study and hung them out to dry so I could photograph them in their un-ironed glory. Then I recalled the lessons learned as I made them (you can also look back on the original posts by clicking "KitchenTowel" in the index to the right).

Why kitchen towels? Because they're a good size for trying new stuff out, for testing how the results stand up to machine washing, and for getting to feel the results in-hand, day in and day out.

Kitchen Towel 1 (front view of running stitch)

I started my study of slow cloth (a concept first encountered on Pinterest) by doing some simple running stitch (aka Kantha) with a single strand of floss on a pre-made linen/cotton napkin. As each strand ran out, I chose one subtle color after another.

Lesson 1: If you want your stitches to show, 

be sure to pick colors that contrast with the ground cloth.

Kitchen Towel 2 (front view of running stitch)

Because the lines of stitching on Kitchen Towel 1 did not run parallel to the machine-hemmed napkin, Kitchen Towel 2 was done on a piece of linen cut from an old table cloth and hemstitched to ensure perfect margins (a lesson learned back in the days when I was obsessively making altar linens at Hickory Neck church). Notice how the closely stitched area is far smoother than the unstitched area. And since I knew both sides would be visible, I chose not to use knots.

Kitchen Towel 2 (back view of backstitched thread ends)

Lesson 2: Backstitching anchors thread ends as well (or better) than knots,

looks pretty good from both sides, and stands up to repeated laundering.

Kitchen Towel 3: Spirit Stitch Sampler (front view of stitches and quilting)

About this time, I stumbled onto Jude Hill's Spirit Cloth blog and decided to do her online self-study class Spirit Cloth 101. Wanting to remember the stitches she presented, I went back to my cotton/linen napkin supply and doodled a random path for Kitchen Towel 3: Spirit Stitch Sampler ... without any backing. 

Spirit Stitch Sampler (back view of quilting on muslin layer)

Lesson 3: It's much easier to layer cloth from the outset 

than to apply layers later.

Lesson 4: This isn't my mother's quilting ... it's fun!

Kitchen Towel 4: The Homestead aka The Golf Course
(front view with quilting aligned north/south and east/west)

Unfortunately, I started Kitchen Towel 4: The Homestead before learning Lesson 3. 

The Homestead (back view of quilting on harem cloth)

Fortunately, an order from Dharma Trading arrived in time for me to learn ...

Lesson 5: Harem cloth is amazing stuff.

The Homestead (front stitch detail)

I played around with surface stitching, appliqué and quilting. And even though the appliquéd patches of trees came out looking more like a map of a golf course, I learned ...

Lesson 6: Ragged edge appliqué does not fall apart,
even after repeated washing and handling.

The Homestead (front lettering detail)

Finally, even though I loved the look of the stitches made over rubber-stamped lettering on The Homestead, I now choose to hand-letter my needlework.

Lesson 7: Be true to yourself ... it's way more fun.

- On naming things: A linen shirt called RAIN

My mom passed away in 2008 ... the same year that my daughters Meg and Meliss got married ... so much happiness and sadness ... beyond words to tell.

I went to Shelter Island that summer to help my dad go through Mom's clothes and crafting supplies ... this linen top is one of the things I brought home (also her quilting pins, which sit on the table next to my coffee cup in this post). 

I wore it often, and the hem began to fray.

The facings were loose from the get go ...

As I stitched them down, I found myself humming the Jimmy Davis song "It's only rain" ...

and so it became "RAIN" ...

N.B. Giving credit where credit is due: the idea of naming and labeling Boro-style clothing came from Jude Hill. 

- Making do: Weaving a Boro-style solution

This is where I ended up, but the story starts here:

I bought a pair of Capri pants earlier this summer ... on sale of course. Unfortunately, I soon discovered why they were marked down: the decorative zippers were incredibly uncomfortable whenever I crossed my legs, which was often. 

So, having taken an online study with Jude Hill on Considering Weave, I decided to try weaving on cloth to make sturdy strips in place of the zippers.

On my first couple of tries, I set up a bead loom with a crochet cotton warp, then randomly wove linen cloth into it. Two strands of cotton floss then got stitched through the fabric and between the warp threads as a kind of weft.

But the resulting strips were too heavy, so I went back to the drawing board.

I used a lighter warp (20/2 linen thread that I've had for decades), a scrap of green table cloth linen (from the kitchen towel series ... which reminds me, I need to write a summary post on that), and cotton/linen thread unraveled from a sweater that my daughter was sending to Goodwill.

The more I worked, the less sure I was whether I was weaving ...

or stitching ...

And in my mind I began to word play ... Was I steaving or witching? No matter. The resulting strips were the perfect weight to sew into the pants ...

I even used the holes from the torn out zippers as a stitch guide.

Field testing remains to be done, but I'm pretty sure it was time well spent. And if nothing else, I now have an intriguing new technique in my stitch repertoire.

- Touchstone: Jude Hill's September Window

When Jude Hill posted this piece on September 11, it touched my heart. And though I don't (yet?) know the story it tells from Jude's perspective, for me it spoke of the towers, their fall, and the rising of souls on a ribbon of fire. 

My brother Art, a lieutenant in the FDNY, fought the fire and lived. My husband's Uncle Chuck went to work in the World Trade Center that day and never came home.

Jude kindly reserved September Window for me in her shop and it arrived in Texas yesterday. 

"Are you going to frame it?" Don asked.

"I can't," I said, "it's a touchstone so I want to keep it close by. Besides, even the back tells a story."

So here it will stay, for now anyway ... on my chair, where I sit in the sun, looking out on our front yard ...

my works in progress piled on the ottoman in front of me ...

morning coffee close at hand ...

So fortunate, in so many ways.

Thank you Jude ...

[Note: This post was made with permission from Jude Hill]

- A new addition to the family sampler