Our hometown

~ Liz A ~ 27 Comments

We’ve moved around a bit since coming to Texas in 2009 … from Wimberley to San Marcos to Buda. And while we miss our five-acre Hill Country homestead, there’s a lot to love about our newest hometown just south of Austin (or as some say, just south of weird).

This weekend we wandered through the Inspired Minds Gallery to take a second look at some of the paintings created during the recent Plein Air competition …

Then headed over to the opening of Amado Peña’s opening at the Assemblage gallery …

followed by dinner at Mudbugs Cajun restaurant, where we indulged in deconstructed clam chowder and andouille crusted red fish with risotto …

topped off the next morning by an hour-long conversation with Amado Peña, who is 80 years young (check out those sneaks!) …

All just a mile-or-so from our house. And speaking of our house, here’s the newest resident: a Buda roadrunner, Geococcyx gardentoolensis …

Meep meep!

Here comes the sun

~ Liz A ~ 13 Comments

Yesterday we watched the annular eclipse, which was 98% complete in Austin, Texas (which is to say, we got a crescent, not a ring) … still, it was magical …

The first image is an enlarged screen shot of an iPhone video made with an eclipse viewer held over the lens. We also delighted in the multiple crescents projected from a simple colander, wondered at the magic of sunlight projected through tree leaves, showed the grandkiddos how to use a pinhole viewer that Don made, and watched the moon slide over the sun with ISO-rated viewers purchased direct from a recommended company (which included a printed caution not to use the viewers for more than three minutes at a time).

What stirred me was the coppery light of the occluded sun … different from the silver light of a total eclipse, but eerie just the same. I say that as I recall being in St Louis six years ago when a total eclipse occurred, although we didn’t have safe viewers at hand back then. For sure we will cross our fingers for clear skies and keep our viewers handy for a total eclipse in Texas next April.

In any case, I count myself beyond fortunate to have the potential for three experiences of solar eclipse within a seven year period. A gift from the universe.

On a more prosaic note, I also got to play Jenga with Parker and Ellis after the eclipse had passed …

and got a smile from seeing pictures of Ellis wearing clip-on earrings at show and tell on “E” day (how lucky her shy self is to have such a loving pre-school teacher) …

Finally, I took a couple of pictures of the tablecloth in progress to get some perspective on how far I have to go …

the table top is about 8’ x 3’ (currently one of the 18” leaves is taken out) … the cloth itself is 120” x 60” … definitely a long-term project!!

P.S. I can’t tell you how great it feels to wear a long-sleeve shirt again …

On a tear

~ Liz A ~ 15 Comments

I hate cutting cloth almost as much as I hate measuring cloth. I much prefer to tear it, even though linen can be, quite literally, a pain to tear.

Anyway, I had pulled together a bunch of Connie’s cloth for our recent trip to Missouri, thinking I could just tear strips and make some wonky log cabins for my tablecloth project. What I forgot to factor in was Augie and Scribbles …

So yeah, no cloth tearing was accomplished until we returned to Texas. At which point I managed to create 9 cabins in less than 24 hours …

to which I added strips of blue/grey/green Belgian linen …

now being attached to the tablecloth, using my old standby stitching, the Texas Two-step (aka combination back and running stitch) …

And since I have tons more cloth to cover, I’m considering some Josef Albers-inspired blocks once I get these 9 blocks done.

P.S. The triple-digit heat has finally broken in Texas, so we are now enjoying more “seasonable” temperatures. Gotta love this recent El Arroyo sign that says it all …