My patches are getting longer as I realized the patches for the first half of the month of March came up short. It will all balance out at the end, I’m sure.
The waxing crescent moonrise was spotted in a beautiful blue sky trimmed out in green, although this photo was taken later, so there is no moon in sight …
The lit edge of the moon was turned toward the sun, which had risen a few hours earlier.
I’m continuing to play with different ways to represent the moon phases, and can see some potential with this attempt that features a continuous outer edge and a discontinuous inner edge …
As always, Deb Lacativa’s dyed cloth was just what I needed.
The inspiration for the second patch was two-fold: the arrival of some Dharma Trading quilter’s cotton sateen and a post over at Deb Gorr’s blog that put the idea of Braille into my head.
I actually had some tangential experience with Braille when I worked in the Government Documents department of the Texas State University library. I was always fascinated by how supple the pages were and how inscrutable the dots seemed. I never failed to run my fingertips over them each time a new Braille publication arrived.
I pieced together two pieces of sateen, using both sides of the cloth to compare the “right” and “wrong” sides (both equally usable in my opinion) …
As you can see, I stitched the Braille dots with French knots, but not before doing some research on how close together the dots and cells needed to be spaced …
marking out 36 cells of six dots each (although I only used 30) …
I stitched the Braille alphabet from A-Z followed by LIZ (and no, I didn’t use an upper case indicator, so it’s probably a-z followed by liz) …
seen here before removing the water-erasable marker …
One final note: I’m amazed at how different the white cloth photographed as the light changed over the course of the day!
And in case you were wondering, the stitched dots feel awesome to the touch.
I'm Going to Texas (version 2.0) 
Liz~ A beautiful fingernail moon. The Braille ABC’s are great and I’m laughing because it never even occurred to me to measure/know how much space should be in between. Period and even when I made Jude a feather with Braille on it (for the Magic Feather Project). Never entered my mind! lol I have a Braille card on my fridge that I’ve had since I was a child. Wondering why I’m so attached to it?
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my life as a librarian was filled with questions from patrons that I never would have thought to ask myself … answering questions is my jam (and yes, I just checked the Urban Dictionary to see if “that’s my jam” can refer to more than just music) … and stitching life raises lots of interesting questions
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LA – it never ceases to amaze me how artist test and experiment with ideas, light, layers and textures and your patches have it all. Go well and hope you have a relaxing and refreshing Easter. b
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I started out my stitching life making samplers … these days it is the sense of questioning and experimentation that keeps it all fresh …
and peaceful Easter wishes to you, too
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such a beautiful moon, love the loose edge of your abstracted tree & the braille ABC is purrfect!
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that tree “wants” some more stitch, but I’m letting my mind ponder it for a bit longer
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Its a combination of delicate and tempting…
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hmmm … this brought to mind dotted swiss … I’m pretty sure Jude did a post on making your own long ago and far away … I’ll have to see if I can find it
in any case, it’s great to see you back in the blog world …
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This is so great! So nice to see how ideas jump.
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thank you for the inspiration … I also learned about Moon writing along the way … watch this space
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Your French knots are SO GOOD! I still struggle a bit with them. The weave in the sateen is fascinating. What marker brand/style do you use? I did a quick search through your blog and could not find it. Blessings.
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I bought it here:
https://www.dharmatrading.com/fabric/cotton/quilters-cotton-sateen-45-inch.html
it has a very faint yellow-ish tint (which I rather like), but it doesn’t hold a good ironed crease (which I don’t like, but suspect that’s the weave structure “talking”)
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Don’t know how I missed this one along the way -as you say letters and words are my jam! The moon is exquisite and its delicacy is held well by that continuous line plus the intermittent…good design discovery! And the braille. I had an old fashioned braille maker which was a thing of beauty and practicality as well. I wonder if it stayed with us in the move or itself, was moved along? I shall check!
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A Braille maker … fascinating! I do hope you locate it.
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