- Diversifying ... and revising

For those who might have wondered, I'm still stitching away on my patchplay ...

but it's slow going, with not much new to show. 

At the same time, things are changing by leaps and bounds outside following the five inches of rain that fell a couple of weeks ago. So I've given in to a long-time dream of creating a naturalist journal, which will reside in part on paper as well as on a separate blog entitled One Hill Country Year.

As a result, I suspect my postings on this blog will ratchet down to a weekly basis, while postings on the new blog will be daily (and reachable using the link in the right-hand column under my profile). At least that's the plan ... we'll see how it goes.

- Three times three times three equals ... ?

I have begun to stitch my linen patches into trios ...

for no better reason than it lets me avoid committing to a plan anytime soon. And I don't have to think too hard about being random, which is sometimes hard for me to do.

The patches vary in size and shade and thread count, coming as they do from a variety of old table linens and thrifted shirts. And I'm finally trying visible seams after commenting in this post from Jude one year ago ...

Close up view of 1.5" patches

while pondering how I might make the seams even more obvious. Maybe.

For now, there are many more patches, in widths of one-and-a-quarter, one-and-a-half, and one-and-three-quarters inches (yes Grace, I'm still working at being a piece of work), but all with unmeasured lengths so none of them are exactly square except by chance ...

because I wanted to see where that might take me.

- (What) A little rain will do

We went to a Texas honky tonk last night with free tickets from our favorite radio station KNBT. If you're not familiar with the Americana music genre, the station streams live from this link and from their mobile app ... well worth a listen (although I confess that I prefer the rock end of the spectrum over the country end).

Cody Canada and Reckless Kelly opened for Robert Earl Keen. Sadly, The Departed didn't play one of my favorite songs: A Little Rain Will Do (from This is Indian Land, which usually gets slipped into the CD player when we drive through Oklahoma). But we were consoled when REK brought on longtime friend Lyle Lovett to reminisce in song about The Front Porch.

Fortunately, the weather cooperated. We've had a long, hot dry spell with virtually no rain this summer, following May's string of record-setting downpours. For the Texas Hill Country is a land of drought broken by intermittent flood. True to form, we had over five inches of rain in a couple of hours the other day, transforming the winter-like browns of dormant grasses to spring-like greens overnight.

Rain lilies poked their heads up as the water sank deep enough to wake them from their slumber ...

An unusual color variant on the usual white which, it turns out,
is actually a Rio Grande Copper Lily

Checking the detritus at the end of the driveway for oak galls, I realized for the first time how the marks in this particular piece of limestone were surely casts from shells in the long ago sea that once covered the land ...

And as we sat in the (finally!) cool breezeway, we marked the return of blossoms and butterflies (this one is probably a Gulf Fritillary) ...

Latana protected from the predations of our ever-hungry deer

not to mention the resurgence of Prairie Tea ...

I think I feel a dyein' day comin' on ...

- Random amusements

I don't obsess over horoscopes, but they are fun every so often, especially since Don and I share Gemini birthdays (one day apart). The Austin American Statesman publishes horoscopes by Holiday Mathis and I find hers to be more interesting than most. Take today's reading for Gemini:

The thing you do just to amuse yourself is more special than you know. It may seem random and arbitrary, but that's what's great about it. The importance of small, joyful acts cannot be underestimated. 

We've been amusing ourselves so much recently it's hard to know where to start. So I'm just going to troll through the pictures on my iPhone and comment along the way.

As noted earlier, my daughter and her family have moved into a new house, where almost-three-year-old Griffin is learning the joys of paved driveways and the perils of the streets beyond. So Don fashioned a sign ...

PopPop and G

the better to stop by ...

Our St Louis kin were not left out, as I had traced the outline of Baby Jace's high chair cover ...

when we were there to celebrate his first birthday last month ...

along with big brother Jackson's third ...

The pattern got transferred to an old pillow sham and quick stitched on the machine ...

I took further advantage of the machine being up and running by repurposing this thrifted cotton skirt and some placemats gifted by my mom many years ago ...

After cutting off the placemat borders and edging them in the cotton, I applied a coat of Grace's walnut dye to the center ...

Pre-wash color

I've also been experimenting with different ways of setting colors, having just gotten a set of the much-discussed Inktense pencils.  Thanks to Grace I was convinced the full set of 72 wasn't essential, so I got this set of 48 that came in a nifty wooden box instead (oooo, ahhhh) ...

I created a quick test strip to see how water, aloe vera gel and Golden GAC 900 fabric medium would work ...

Note, when I started stitching on the plain linen, I realized how addicted I've become to layers
so I basted on a backing of harem cloth, which made everything much, much better

then heat-set only half of each section (the left half of WATER, the right half of ALOE VERA, and the left half of MEDIUM) ...

The WATER and MEDIUM bled the most, leaving heat set half of the ALOE VERA (on the right) the clear winner in terms of blending, not bleeding into the white, and not washing out (so far)...

Note: only the ALOE letters were stitched

So now I'm doing a similar test on some patched linen touched up with Grace's walnut dye ...

Before laundering: top half aloe vera, bottom right fabric medium, bottom left untreated

After laundering: hmmmmm

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to accumulate linen patches ...

some of which I randomly laid out upside down, just to imagine how they might go ...

Since they are different heights, I turned the patches upside down to be sure they were oriented correctly

then deciding I needed more white, I pressed up lots more strips, now that I realize how quickly they can be stitched up ...

I daresay I can't wait to take Jude Hill's new workshop in October!

Last, but not least, I concocted a new recipe with the very seasonal Hatch, New Mexico chili peppers I picked up at the store ...

Okay, not the prettiest picture, but "taste over presentation" is my motto

After blessing the Hatch peppers with a little olive oil, Don charred them on the grill along with a sweet yellow onion. I peeled and seeded the peppers, then laid them in the bottom of a Pyrex dish that had been rubbed with olive oil. Leftover rotisserie chicken, grilled onions, and a combination of cheddar, Monterey Jack and Cotija cheeses got layered on. 15-20 minutes in a 350 oven was all it took to reach toothsome goodness. The peppers still had a bit of crunch and weren't overwhelmed by added seasoning, although the dish was definitely enhanced by the addition of tomatillo salsa. Next time I think I'll try it over rice, but tortilla chips served as a welcome accompaniment this time around.

- One of those days

I had plans ... funny, huh? Because nothing happened as planned and it ended up being such a great day.

Originally I expected to spend the morning brush whacking ... but an allergic reaction from yesterday's yard work put me under the weather. Worse yet, my iron died, effectively shutting down my patchplay ... 

So I reorganized my fabric stash instead ...

and then, since I was on a roll, I tidied up my flosses ...

Last, but not least, I headed out after lunch to splurge on a new iron ...

So my plan for tomorrow? Who needs plans?

- Rust happens

Don just finished another assemblage in the Porch Series ... 

Then we went in search of new/old stuff at a neighborhood moving sale, which yielded some wonderful rust ...

and better yet, my copy of Alice Fox's new book arrived ...

After a first pass, I have no doubt that both Don and I will find much of value to use in our own creative endeavors ... not to mention the pleasure of seeing the wide range of works beautifully captured in its pages.

- Spin cycle

I honestly didn't realize how well my thrift store collection of linen was doing until I cut some scraps for a walnut dye test ...

Thrifted linen

As usual, the persimmon served as my drying rack ...

But I brought them in still wet and therefore darker than they will eventually be after washing since we were headed out of town ...

And in return for Grace's wonderful gift, here is a picture of our newest neighbor, a writing spider, also known as a golden silk orb spider ...

The body is about one inch long, the legs considerably longer ....

which I first learned about here.

Addendum:

Results after dipping the lower right corner of each patch in plain water ...

Now to the washer to see what happens.

- More nuts than usual

A week of playing with our grandsons (1 and 3 years old) in St Louis and reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer was a wonderful blog and stitch-free interlude (although my fingers did itch from time to time).

I came home refreshed, restocked the fridge, and got back to brush and cactus whacking to work off some of my daughter's great home cooking ... which included my first (but not last) taste of Pozole from Blue Apron.

When I picked up our bundled mail, it included a package full of black walnuts from Grace at Windthread. Having never made walnut dye before, I consulted with Grace and Marti, watched a few videos on YouTube, then plunked half of the walnuts into a thrift store coffee pot with some water ...

and soon had an inky brew ...

This quill pen was my first attempt using one of the many turkey feathers gifted by our Rio Grande neighbors this summer ...

The ink got darker by the hour ...

Where would I be without how-to videos like this one?

I also restocked my supply of Nana's Nuts, a double entendre that I came up with as I shared my stash last week with 3 year old Jackson, sprinkling them over our granola and yogurt each morning ... 

Pistachios, almonds and cashews
coated with maple syrup, coconut oil, brown sugar, salt and vanilla
then oven roasted for two and a half hours at 225 degrees

Last, but not least, I tried out a new idea. While I was away, I read blog posts about two patchwork quilts in progress made by Jude Hill and Judy Martin's daughter. Inspired, I started making some paperless patches following Jude's method, but it just didn't make my heart sing as I ironed one small patch after another. Beside the near-scorching of my fingertips, I itched to break beyond squares.

After sleeping on my dilemma, I woke up with the idea to cut a long strip of paper, tear strips of linen to a width slightly larger, then finger press the edges over the paper ...

iron them down ...

remove the paper ...

then fold the edges on one end ...

and cut off individual patches to be basted ...

The result was a series of patches all the same width, but with variable lengths ...

I'll have to make quite a few more before I have enough to start piecing them together, but I must say I'm having a lot more fun! And yes, there are two different linens pictured above: tan and lichen-overdyed orange.