- On edge

Retrospective (10/13)

Patch #277 Pomegranate-dyed linen

Original Post

I realized it after stitching on the new row of black and white patches: the cloth was flaring outward ...

My "fault" for working without measuring.  There's no going back, though. The cloth is what it is.

I guess I'm moving away from perfection ...

Jude Hill's September Window on the armrest

Letting things be, not worrying so much (but still worrying some, I confess).

Lately I've taken to piecing some things from the front ...

This was destined to be a take-off on G's tic-tac-toe board from September 22 

(http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2016_09_22_archive.html), 

so I kept cutting ...

and piecing ...

cutting ...

and piecing ...

until I realized that the seams made it too bulky to use as a patch ...

This became a tattered name tag for FASA meetings

So I backtracked and made a second version in woven cloth and decided to stitch an acorn freehand ...

then the resulting bit ...

got cut and stitched down to patch size ...

As for the patched piece, I suspect it will make an appearance elsewhere someday (Addendum: it did ... as a nametag for WVAL and FASA)

And I know I promised some dyeing news, but for now I'll leave it at this ...

The weather patches are once again a lighter pomegranate yellow, after the hot yellow days of summer. There's nothing like running out of cloth of a needed color to get one motivated to dye more.

- How I cook

Retrospective (10/14)

Patch #276 Where in the world

Unmentioned in my original post was the behind-the-scenes reality of rebuilding the Kindred Spirits list that disappeared at the end of September. In so doing, I realized how far-flung my blog contacts were/are. At the same time, I read this article, 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/insider/the-texas-shaped-world.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&referer=

which explained how large Texas is compared to entire countries in Europe. So I made my own map with A=Amsterdam, B=Berlin, V=Vienna, R=Rome, and P=Paris based on this ...

Original Post 

First off, I never follow recipes exactly. So after G helped me cut up strawberries last night (a fork was added to the task right after this picture was taken) ...

I put them in a pan, threw some sugar at them, cooked them awhile, mashed them a bit, then cooked them a little longer. Consequently, we had some wonderfully fresh strawberry jam to put on our French toast this morning.

Late this afternoon, I realized I hadn't defrosted anything for dinner. I did have some leftover grilled veggies (onion, poblano pepper and potato), perfect for an omelet. But there was no bread left in the house for toast, said bread having given its all for breakfast.

So. English muffins? I love English muffins. But I didn't want to drive to the store. How hard could they be to make?

I trolled the Internet for recipes and came up with this one by Alton Brown (interesting side note: did you know you can't copyright recipes?) ...

found in its entirety here:

https://www.google.com/amp/www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/english-muffins-recipe.amp.html?

Except I didn't exactly follow it. Because I didn't want ten muffins and I didn't have non-fat powdered milk and there was at least one other recipe that called for bread flour, which made more sense to me.

Instead, I nuked half a cup of milk, stirred in a shy tablespoon of butter, eyeballed a half teaspoon of salt and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Then I put a half tablespoon of yeast in some warm water with a sprinkling of sugar and let it work for ten minutes. By then, the milk mixture was cooled down enough to stir it, the yeast, and one cup of bread flour together. 

I did follow Alton's instructions to leave the dough alone for thirty minutes. After which I fired up a griddle pan with some butter, put an assortment of biscuit cutters in the middle, sprayed them with Baker's Joy, plopped in the dough, and covered the whole thing with a cookie sheet. Here's what they looked like after five minutes ...

I sprinkled a little semolina on top, flipped them, and cooked them another five minutes, resulting in this ...

Split in half with a fork and toasted it wasn't bad. Although next time (oh yes, there will be a next time) I'll probably add a bit more flour and cook the muffins six minutes to a side to make them a bit less doughy.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, if you're still with me at this point, it's mostly so I don't forget what I learned by doing. Which is pretty much my MO. Tomorrow I'll show you the linen dye I cooked up this weekend. I didn't follow that recipe either.

- Reveries

Patch #275 Mooning

As in daydreaming ...

Stitching one of nine planets that arrived from Jude Hill via EXOT Blue ...

Hearing my mom singing Shine on Harvest Moon in my mind. She loved to sing.

Thinking about four years ago in Eastern Long Island Hospital where a full moon shone in the window of my father's room. He died just before Hurricane Sandy.

Wondering whether October is the Harvest Moon or not. Well yes and no, depending on which web link I clicked. Could be Harvest Moon, or Hunter's Moon, or even Falling Leaf Moon ... which I particularly liked.

Checking to see when the next full moon will be. Right in the middle of the month, when we'll be in St Louis with my littlest moon child. Perfect.

Deciding the grid on the patch echoes the calendar patches of past months, but no longer numbering the days.

And considering orange ... today we'll see G. I think he'll like this one.

- Holes in the story

Patch #274 September

Somehow it seemed appropriate to make a September calendar that was one big hole ... sorta how I feel about trying to keep up with patches this month.

Fortunately, I got myself in gear ...

catching up on patches for the previous week. 

- What the heck?

Retrospective (9/30)

Patch #273 Where'd they go?

Original Post

My Kindred Spirits disappeared. Just looked at my Blogger layout page. Nada.

Wow. Just wow.

And yikes ... the Artist links have also vanished.

-------------

Okay, movin' on. Back on September 18, Grace posted some pictures of a doorknob (http://windthread.typepad.com/windthread/2016/09/a-feeling.html). 

As with so many things I see over at Kindred Spirit blogs, I really liked it. So today I made a patch ...

which is now over at my original September 18 post (http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2016/09/4-3-first-week-of-september.html), even though it wasn't mentioned at the time.

- In the bag

Retrospective (9/30)

Patch #272 Wannabe hippie

Original Post

I'm always looking for a better bag. In stores they're always too expensive, too big, too heavy, too small. Or they're the wrong color, wrong style, wrong material, wrong strap length.

And I've looked online for patterns, over and over. Same issues.

So I took an old cottony, India print bedspread and tore it into two strips. One 8.5" wide, the other 25" wide. Then I seamed the strips to form tubes and turned them right-side out, making a 4" wide strap and a 12" wide "body."  Crossed them, sewed them together to form a base. The strap tube formed the sides. The wider tube got turned in on itself to form pockets ...

Then I took some tucks at the top to give it some shape.

Half a day and done ...

I'm thinking the central motif looks an awful lot like a clock ... or an astrological wheel. Just in time for Jude's SunMoonStars. 

Now all I need is an indigo vat to dip it in ...  or not.

- Keeping it simple

Retrospective (9/30)

Patch #271 Two of us

Original Post

Today it was cool outside for the first time in months. So I got out and weeded and cut back agaves and trimmed spent yucca stalks. Then we walked out on the floodplain and wondered at all the new grasses that are coming up.

This afternoon was spent running errands after a wonderful lunch at the Leaning Pear.

And not a single picture to show for it all.

So it goes.

- Rain again

Retrospective (9/30)

Patch #270 Best of friends 

Belated birthday wishes to my sister-by-choice, who happily celebrated with her grandkids ...

and a birthday donut!

Original Post

It's been raining quite a bit over the past two days ...

giving me an opportunity to use my new Pitt pens. Although I have to edit the second patch, which should read a mere 5.3" rather than 5.7".

Fortunately, we got FEMA flood insurance last week, which was relatively reasonable seeing as our property is in the flood zone, but not our house ...

Still, the insurance doesn't take effect for 30 days, so we were a bit edgy as the water level rose a bit more than we would have liked. 

It's gone back down, but the steady rain gave me an opportunity to do some catch-up patches.

September 15 http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2016/09/thanks-to-dana.html ...

September 16 http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2016/09/playin-around.html ...

and September 17 http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2016/09/strolling-down-memory-lane.html ...

I also sent an order for some Spirit Cloth planet patches. Can't wait to add one of them here!

- Run, run, run

Retrospective (9/30)

Patch #268 5K Flyer

Patch #269 Pride of Wentzville

Original Post

It's really fun having two grandsons about the same age (4 and almost-4). This weekend J played his first t-ball game ...

and G ran his first 5K (with his mom) ...

Looks like a yellow memory patch (or two) is in order.

In the meantime, I completed another row of checkered patches ...

although I'm woefully behind on September's patches. No worries, I spent today playing with tea bags for my Deb Sposa assignment. One sea shell version done with Inktense pencils ...

and one done on a tea bag that was nested in red onion skins as it dried ...

Both were "filled" with a layer of tea-dyed flannel. And I'm still learning what works: how much stitch the tea bags can take (a lot, it turns out, including taking stitches out), and which stitches best accomplish the ridges I'm after on the shells ...

Stacked running stitch wins over backstitch ...

but you probably knew that.

- Ripples on the pond of memory

I had fun putting together the patches for September 13th (http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2016_09_13_archive.html) and 14th (http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2016/09/life-x-3.html) ...

because they reminded me of this ...

Howard Johnson's was my mom's favorite place to go when my dad was out of town on business. Since he ate out a lot at work, he wasn't much for eating out when he got home. Not surprising since mom was a pretty good cook, but she appreciated having a break every so often, even if it meant bringing my younger brother and me along.

As I recall, my meal of choice was fried flounder and my brother's was fried clams. Sadly, I can't recall what my mom used to order, although I do remember her favorite ice cream was HoJo's chocolate chip because it was smooth rather than chunky. My favorite treat was getting to cadge sugar cubes to nibble on later. As skinny as I was back then, mom probably thought the extra calories would do me good.

-----------------

After stitching on the latest patches, I looked over where the cloth is going ...

and my eye caught on the 9/11 patch followed by Mo's heart ...

making me think yet again of what Mo so often writes:

       "Love is the answer."