Giving it up

April 2, 2021April 2, 2021 ~ Liz A ~ 16 Comments

As we worked in Meg and Paul’s yard, removing the dead and dying plants that didn’t make it through the week-long freeze, we debated about the thorn-crested agaves (which we mistakenly called Spanish daggers back in the day) …

We had transplanted them a few years back from our Hill Country house, where we had more than a few to spare …

In fact, if you look closely at left side of the first picture, you can see some of the “pups” that made them so prolific. So yeah, they were sentimental favorites for sure.

But when I tried to cut off the freeze-dried blades at Meg’s, the results were far from eye-pleasing. Besides, I rationalized, they’re kinda dangerous around little ones, given the barbed nature of the edges, which hook back and can do some serious damage …

So the decision was made to pull them out. Although I didn’t have the heart to photograph them at the time, I wished I had. That’s when I got the idea to make a memory patch of a single blade.

I found some pale green silk and a scrap of hand-dyed cotton with a mottled color that reminded me of damaged foliage.

I folded and pressed the silk and “pinned” it to the cotton with my finest needles. Then I worked out a funky kind of blanket stitch that reminded me of the barbed agave spines …

So while I guess I’m glad the agaves are gone for now, I suspect there may be some pups hidden in the soil that may yet come up … ya never know.

It’s a stretch

April 1, 2021 ~ Liz A ~ 14 Comments

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.

Couplets

March 31, 2021March 31, 2021 ~ 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 😉