Back to the Texas Hill Country

A while back I promised to show a picture of the quilt I made for one of the other screened cabins at our little lake place.  The girls call it the Jelly Bean Quilt, I suppose because the colors are so scrumptiously like those of jelly beans.

 

When I took out the quilt for photographs I found my crocheted afghan that has also become part of cabin III's linens.  I didn't intentionally match the afghan to the quilt, or even make it specifically for this cabin, but it was obvious once it was finished that the two belong together.  I guess at the time I just really liked this color palette.

In the background of the next photo you can just see a sliver of what currently passes for Lake Travis.  We are in the midst of a severe multi-year drought and the top of the lake is about fifty feet below where it is when full.

Given the gentle slope of the lake bed on the opposite shore from our place, fifty feet of water translates into a huge increase in the surface area of the lake and so makes an enormous difference in the view.  The sunrises and sunsets are still beautiful though.  Perhaps they subconsciously inspired my color choices for the quilt and afghan.

In case anyone is wondering about the colors in these photos, they are true representations of what I saw.  I only made minor tweaks to the RAW files using Lightroom -- and didn't touch the saturation slider.

Evenings at Home

Winter in Austin is pretty short so I particularly enjoy the few evenings when it is chilly enough to have a fire.  The cats enjoy it too and make for a very cosy scene.

It is also a good time for hand quilting and knitting. I work away while Steve reads to me.  Thankfully once he finished "The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751" he turned to biographies of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and has even been persuaded to slip in a little of "The Hobbit" here and there.

I have been working on my Antarctica piece and expect to finish it right about when Bilbo makes it back to his snug little hobbit hole.

Reminiscing in New York City

We went to New York the week before Christmas to hear the girls sing Christmas vespers with their school choir.  I had a day to myself before meeting up with them and took the opportunity to wander around Chelsea, the neighborhood in which we stayed, and to reminisce about the New York of my childhood.

Inside Chelsea Market

Several times a year my mother and I would walk to the end of our block in Queens, climb the stairs up to the El (the elevated) and board a train. A few stations along my grandmother would join us and we would travel together into the city (Manhattan). Our destination was always the same:  Macy's, Herald Square.

We would take the wooden escalators (dating to 1902) all the way up to the 8th floor.

The fabric department, of course, was located on the 8th floor.  I have a vague recollection that it took up the entire floor of the west (7th Avenue) building. In any case, it was vast. Alas, it is no longer there, having been replaced by ready to wear clothing.

First, we would sit down with the Vogue, McCall's and Butterick books to choose patterns for dresses, blouses, suits, or whatever garments we needed. Then came the really fun part of selecting fabrics: calicos, cotton shirtings, silks, wools, corduroys. You name it, Macy's had it. By the time we had made our choices and had the appropriate yardage cut it was well past noon and we were eager for lunch.  Chock Full O'Nuts was our go-to place, I suppose because the price was right, and it was fun to sit at the counter to eat.  After lunch we would stop in one of the little nearby shops specializing in notions to pick out buttons, fasteners, ribbons, etc. Although Macy's no longer sells fabric, the notion shops seem to have grown quite a bit. Home-sewn clothing may not be popular, but other crafts certainly are. The Martha Stewart effect, perhaps.

It is certainly easier, quicker and cheaper to buy ready made clothing, but I am glad that wasn't the case when I was a child. I would not trade all those trips into the city with my mother and grandmother for anything. The days we spent together, and the hours subsequently spent making up the clothes, are so much a part of the special relationship I share with my mother. She taught me to sew, and that is no small thing, but along the way I learned many other things of even greater value.

Here is a vest that I made for myself when I was in high school.  It is perfect for Austin's winter weather when a shirt alone is not enough, but a sweater is too much.

Skiing In The New Year

We are taking advantage of the girls being in Vermont for pre-season nordic and alpine ski camps to do a bit of skiing ourselves.  We spent a few hours this afternoon at Middlebury College's Rikert Nordic Center and are hoping for some snow overnight to improve the conditions for downhill skiing tomorrow.  It's a great way to greet the new year.

This winter visit to Vermont reminds me of my college years spent in upstate New York where I always admired the colors of the landscape.  On overcast days it is painted in shades of white and steel grey and silver, except for the distant tree-covered hillsides which under thick low clouds look almost purple.

Post-skiing, I have found a nice seat by the inn's fire where I can enjoy a glass of wine and work on my little Antarctic-inspired quilt.

A Warm Welcome Home

This post is dreadfully late, but at least it is appropriate to the season.  When we returned home from our sojourn to Antarctica last winter I was greeted with an unexpected, but most welcome, package from my aunt.

I delight in the sentiment itself and in its simple, elegant presentation.  In a minimum of words it conveys so much.  If all you had to go on was the piece itself you would know the maker's age and her name and, more importantly, you would know of the existence of a warm relationship between an aunt and her niece or nephew.  You would also be able to guess that the maker possesses vigor, given the energy it takes to stitch such a piece, and that she has a fine sense of humor, because she has included her age as though in a wink to the girls, some as young as five, in centuries past who stitched their ages into the designs of their samplers.

I have now hung this sampler in my little hallway gallery of cherished cross stitch samplers, a fitting place since it is now a neighbor of my own first sampler, which I completed as a girl in 1975 from a kit that Auntie Lu gave to me as a Christmas gift.

These two pieces together illustrate to me how lives are intertwined and how our actions can be sources of unexpected inspiration.  When Auntie Lu gave me that little kit so many Christmases ago she couldn't know that it would lead to many hours of creative pleasure and to my ongoing and wide-ranging interest in textiles and needlework.  Likewise, I doubt that she realized that this new sampler would go beyond bringing "peace to this house," but would be a constant reminder to me to act with thoughtfulness and kindness because it does make a difference, if not today, then surely another day.  

Thank you, dear Auntie Lu, for all of your gifts.

Thanksgiving in the Texas Hill Country

It's not a long trip from Austin to our little weekend house on the north shore of Lake Travis - less than an hour's drive - but it seems a world away:  big skies, long views, and oak woods interspersed with open fields which are filled with wildflowers in the spring and summer.

Springtime flowers

Lake Travis sunset

We spend most of our time there outdoors, walking, running, biking, swimming, bird-watching, and clearing the land of all the spiny and prickly plants that took hold in the years when the native grasses were depleted by over-grazing.  Our work boots get a lot of wear!

We also frequently cook and sleep outdoors, the latter either on the sleeping porch or in a screened cabin, and this Thanksgiving was no exception.  As usual, we put the turkey - plus a  brisket and some sausages for good measure - on the smoker.  That yielded a deliciously smoky flavored turkey and left the oven available for all the yummy side dishes.

In spite of the generally mild central Texas climate, it can get quite chilly sleeping outside, and a good pile of warm bedding is called for.  Right now we rely on a rather rag-tag collection of blankets and old sleeping bags so I am working, slowly, on making quilts for each of the beds.  Here is one I just finished hand-quilting for Cabin II.  The wool batting I used to make it extra cozy shrunk quite a bit in the wash so the overall texture is very crinkly, but I think will age nicely.

Steve's mother, Winifred, hand-stitched the flowered whole-cloth quilt at the bottom of the bed.  I am guessing it is from some time during the 1960s.

This little butterfly kept Steve and me company while we were clearing some brush the other day and is a perfect color match for the new quilt.  Maybe someone can help me to identify it.  A clouded sulphur, perhaps?

Back to New England

Last weekend I made another trip to New England to visit the girls at school.  It was still fall-like in Connecticut with lots of brilliantly colored trees, but bare trees and snow flurries made New Hampshire and Vermont feel like winter.

In need of new quilting needles, I stopped at Pickering Farm Quilt Shop, housed in a restored 18th century barn in Richmond, New Hampshire.

It is right next to a lovely little apple orchard.

Their wonderful collection of traditional and reproduction fabrics were just too temptingly displayed for me to resist picking out some things for my stash.

The girls had classes on Monday so I ventured down the road to Turners Falls where I caught a stunning sunrise at the Gill-Montague Bridge along the Connecticut River.  Turners Falls, developed as a planned industrial community in the 1800s, retains many of its original brick structures which can be seen by strolling through town and along the canal's pedestrian and bike path.

Below the Gill-Montague Bridge

In the afternoon, frustratingly side-lined by a nagging injury, I watched, rather than ran, the Bemis-Forslund Pie Race and had to enjoy the fresh-baked apple pie prizes vicariously.

The 4.3 mile cross-country race is claimed to be the oldest foot race in the country, older even than the Boston Marathon. This year's winner, Mohamed Hussein, bested the previous course record by nine seconds -- two days after having won the New England prep school cross-country championship in a record-setting time.  Clearly  he is a runner to watch. 

Mohamed Hussein

Just as the last runners were finishing, the previously solid grey sky gave way to a bit of sun and a dramatic sunset.  A nice way to end the day.

Memorial Chapel