US II

I’m calling it done, with thanks to Don for touching up the frame …

the cloth now named US II, a tribute to our 40 years together.
It was originally imagined in a much simpler form, but after the spare outlines were stitched, it began to tell its own story of the places we have called home.

First in Virginia, where we raised our kids … rivers running through it …

but a faded outline compared to the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras …

long my heart’s home … where I’ve walked many miles by the sea, watched storms roll in, and caught the last rays of sunlight to the west where sea oats bend in the unceasing wind …

And “can’t you just feel the moonshine?”

How perfect then, that we found kindred grasses growing a thousand feet above sea level in the Texas Hill Country …

prairie grasses that sink deep roots into limestone bedrock formed millions of years ago at the bottom of another, more ancient sea.
We share our Edwards Plateau home with abundant wildflowers … bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and countless little yellow ones… all interlaced with timeless rivers …

And I dare to say the stars at night are big and bright, here inspired by Hazel and stitched on cloth from a long-worn nightshirt …

Lastly the sun … on a bit of Jude Hill indigo (as are the other two) … a smoldering memory of the 2017 eclipse as seen in St Louis …

because our hearts live there, too.

The cloth with no name

This is where I am today with the (still unnamed) cloth I began last month as a 40th anniversary commemorative …

It’s been a journey from my original plan, which was to make a new-fangled sampler …

I even got so far as to stitch the lettering on the bottom half, seen here photographed with one of my new clip-on iPhone camera lenses …

But even though I was happy with the clouds, created by loosely backstitching marks on the hand-dyed cloth …

the lettering just didn’t feel right, so I tore it out. 
Then, while looking for something else entirely, I came across a long-lost envelope of Jude Hill’s indigo-dyed “planets,” which sent me running off in an entirely new direction …

I’m still not 100% sure about the frame, but considering how the size seems near-perfect, I’m thinking it’s meant to be.
Addendum: As I waited for this post to load, it occurred to me that the cloth has become an un-sampler … US 

Baby it’s cold outside

It’s a good day for wearing warm socks whilst mending …

I do love patching jeans, especially those with holes worn into the knees by our grandkids, imagining the stitches inside absorbing future falls, like a hand slipped out just in the nick of time …

Fortunately, padding shouldn’t be needed today as everyone’s safe inside …

while everything outside is being slowly encased in ice …

Don said he saw a local news report last night on how to use an ice scraper (if you had one) and cautioning against pouring hot water on car windshields. Good advice under the circumstances …
Addendum:
No hole yet, so (sew) a bit of preventive maintenance …