Full to overflowing

August 23, 2022August 30, 2022 ~ Liz A ~ 29 Comments

I remember when school began after Labor Day, but nowadays, things get started mid-August …

P started Kindergarten and how did I get old enough to have a grandchild in college?! Not to mention, how did our littlest get to be three already? It all goes too fast …

As for stitching, I finished Abiquiu Autumn …

which is on the other side of the petroglyph cloth I made in June …

Together they will now be called The New Mexico Pillow, and spend time next to Triangulation, the first of my Jude-inspired clothworks.

Backing up a bit, here’s what I thought about as I stitched Abiquiu Autumn …

The solid rust-colored cloth, dyed by Malka Dubrawsky at A Stitch in Dye, recalled the layers of rock towering over the road from Santa Fe to Ghost Ranch … rock that slowly becomes the sand of the high desert and the mud-coating of adobes … and every so often, the spires of rock would be topped with crowns of golden stone, the roadways rimmed with chamisa in bloom, and the Chama River bottom lined with golden cottonwood leaves … rarest and best were the glimpses of a thin layer of rock in the hills echoing the blue-green of desert sage. Southwest colors all.

The striped cloth, from sweet linen dresses outgrown by Parker and Ellis, triggered memories of human-wrought works … the etched and painted lines of Native American pottery … the woven stripes of baskets and blankets … the verticality of coyote fences … and vigas, the rough-hewn timbers jutting from the rooflines of adobe abodes.

Through it all, the colors recalled the desert air 6000 feet above sea level … and as I “quilted” the pieced cloth to the backing with Deb Lacativa’s magic threads, I thought of the Zia sun that graces the New Mexico State flag, emblem of the Land of Enchantment …

Don has been in a similar state of mind, having just completed another New Mexico inspired assemblage and a painting of an adobe …

Finally, I did re-hem the linen shirt that supplied me with the rock/chamisa/cottonwood gold, as well as stitching up some linen napkins to practice my hem stitching …

I’ve just started using Bohin needles, recommended by Sarah Woodyard of Sewn Company, which led me to try size 10 sharps and size 11 appliqué needles …

And since Jude is taking a break in September, I’ve decided to sign on to Sarah’s Patreon Workshop subscription to see what else I can learn from her.

Always I am learning …

Wait … wait … I almost forgot the garden pictures that Nancy requested! See if you can pick out the child’s eye views …

It’s about time

July 18, 2022September 14, 2022 ~ Liz A ~ 25 Comments

It started out carefully, small spirals that gradually got larger …

But the thought occurred to me that if a spiral represented time, as it did in Moon Myth …

then it might make sense to show how time varies, sometimes flying by and other times slowing to a crawl. At which point my spirals got wonkier …

I worked them in Jude’s split backstitch using 4-ply silk/cotton floss gifted by Deb, a perfect match for the colors of the beach …

And when it was finished, I was in a rush to remove the erasable marker, so I used just enough water to soak it out.

But … I didn’t rinse it thoroughly, nor did I use a dye catching cloth. And I knew better, but all I could think about was seeing the cloth dry.

Dry it was soon enough, which is when I realized the error of my ways …

Fortunately, this turned out to be a happy accident, one that was meant to be.

I dug through the pictures I took at the beach, looking for two that made absolutely no sense at the time I took them … pictures of rusted nails in the siding of the house we rented, a perfect match for the dye stained linen …

So I took one last picture of the other side …

and finally stitched together the two pillow tops, The Edge of Heaven and The Golden Hours …

making them The Beach Pillow …

just in time for a nap 😉

Good news, bad news

June 28, 2022September 14, 2022 ~ Liz A ~ 26 Comments

Bad news first: we played Travel Roulette one time too many and both came down with mild cases of Covid (thank goodness for being fully vaxxed and boosted).

Fortunately, it didn’t happen until after Logan’s graduation and our week at the beach … once we were safe in Missouri in the capable hands of our newly minted RN daughter, who passed her boards on the first try.

So we extended our stay in St Louis (thank you to Southwest for no-fee rescheduling), while quarantining in the guest room. And are now back in Texas, where I’m impatiently waiting for my sense of taste and smell to recover.

More good news: my daughters know how much I love books, especially books about stitch and dye …