Couplets

~ Liz A ~ 12 Comments
March 15, 2021 – Peppermint Patties — March 16, 2021 – Garden glove

Working two patches at a time seems to be the modus operandi for now. At this rate I might get caught up sometime in May … ha!

Anyway, the first patch harkens back to my airport indulgence in York Peppermint Patties, first mentioned here …

As I ate the last one, I recalled many trips along the East Coast from Williamsburg, Virginia to Shelter Island, New York. The almost-500 mile drive was pretty miserable, but made more bearable by stopping for lunch at the Fisherman’s Inn …

where they had, bar none, the best cream of crab soup on the planet …

followed, of course, with a York Peppermint Pattie for dessert (I know you were wondering where I was going with this).

Ah well … memories.

Anyway, the next day we headed to Meg’s to volunteer our landscaping services (something we also used to do for Meliss in St Louis, but Covid …)

I pulled on my nitrile-dipped garden gloves …

wondering why the right hand glove was doubled, making for a pretty tight fit.

Maybe one of the fingers was worn out on the inner glove?

Nope … hmmm …

So I tossed the extra glove aside. That is, until I started pulling up dewberry vines. Then I remembered: a doubled glove prevents the briar-y stems from breaking through.

Well, most of them anyway 😉

Not-so-simple geometry + Addendum

~ Liz A ~ 16 Comments
March 13, 2021 – Heading for The Hill — March 14, 2021 – Right on Target

And so we come at last to the end of the St Louis patches. This has been a drawn out Birthday Season in the truest sense of the word.

On Saturday the 13th, we shopped in an enclosed mall (masked of course, and glad to be out of the wet weather). Then we headed out to dinner at Charlie Gitto’s On The Hill. More on that later, but we had to get there first.

As we drove past winter-bare trees under grey skies, I kept an eye out for the St Louis Gateway Arch, which Heather and Logan had never seen.

“There it is,” I called out as the top half came into sight. “And there it goes,” I sighed mere moments later. Honestly, it wasn’t very impressive at 60+ mph and five miles away.

No matter … we were bound for The Hill, which is the St Louis version of Little Italy …

where we all shared toasted rav (a St Louis specialty, breaded and deep fried with marinara on the side), amazingly good calamari, and the best creme brûlée I’ve had for dessert in a long long time.

The entrées were likewise decadent …

especially the fettuccine Alfredo with shrimp that wasn’t on the menu, but was happily whipped up in the kitchen with an obscene amount of butter and cream …

In the end, there was enough leftover lobster ravioli, lobster spaghetti, eggplant Napoleon, and fettuccine to make a second complete dinner for five.

But before we ever got to dinner on Sunday, there was more shopping to be done …

I mean, where else would five women on a wild weekend getaway go? We circled the whole store, with many an individual side trip along the way. And not a single person got lost.

Imagine!

Process note: the dense stitching on the Target logo got way too dimensional, after which I smooshed it with the iron. I’m now even more in awe of this Instagram post from last month …

And I almost forgot: the second week in March is finally done …

Addendum: with thanks to Jude for the comment/suggestion …

Making his marks

~ Liz A ~ 16 Comments
March 12, 2021 – Jace’s horse

When I arrived at Melissa’s house in St Louis, one of the first things she did was hand me this, saying “Jace wanted you to have it” …

“This” was Jace’s art project, which was put on display at a local restaurant a month or so ago. I guess I made a bit of a fuss when I first saw it …

I mean, who wouldn’t?

Not surprisingly, his art teacher is impressed that Jace goes way beyond the assignments … adding detail after detail. He also loves to draw on his own at home … Sharpies are his jam right now, but he’s also done some awesome watercolors (and yes, I love to buy him “real” half pans and 140 weight paper).

So Jace’s horse was the memory I wanted to keep. After painstakingly appliqueing a bit of linen to a Deb-dyed blue damask (shown here about half-done so I will remember how I did an all-round tacking before filling in the satin stitches) …

I was tempted to stop … then considered that certainly wasn’t what Jace would have done. So I threaded up some white floss and made a stab at some of his marks …

And he’s right … mark-making is a lot of fun!