Throwback Thursday

Throwback to the 1970s.

Can you smell the patchouli

and hear the music?

On my daughter's last visit she tried on some of my clothes from the '70s, and today I dug back into the box for another trip down memory lane.

I made the yellow gauze tunic top when I was in my early 20s and when my embroidery skills were limited. I used a pattern for the top but designed the embroidery motifs myself. I still love tunic tops, since they cover a multitude of aging issues.

And those jeans! I don't remember wearing them when they were that ripped, but I do remember doing all the embroidery to cover worn spots.

Another embroidered denim piece that I saved is this pair of cutoffs. I remember wearing them a lot during summer session at Penn State when we didn't have air conditioning. The patch on the bottom says "Honor Earth." The first Earth Day was in 1970, so I made that a few years later. 

Patches upon patches upon patches.

Do you remember when everyone inserted triangles into their bellbottoms to turn them into long skirts? I wore this skirt a lot at parties in college combined with a purple tube top shot through with metallic silver threads. The good old days!

I still have a piece of that purple fabric in my stash.

Does anyone else out there have a box like this, and what's in it?

Have a colorful day

May color block

April showers brought May flowers in Gig Harbor, so my photographs for the May block are bursting with color, unlike grey April!

I pulled out fabric to match the photos, including plenty of sheer silk, netting and metallic mesh. The sheers help blend the underlying colors together.

My first arrangement, below, was too harsh,

like a stew where the flavors haven't blended.

The second one was better still lacked something:

After I added some cheesecloth and more tulle and cut the long yellow strip of organza into shorter lengths, I liked it:

I quilted it with pink thread in honor of the pink rhododendrons that filled our neighborhood. Now it's on to June!

I linked this to Nina-Marie's Off-the-Wall Fridays: creative-vacations-part-i-off-wall.html

On another note, I did a double take yesterday evening when I walked past my quilted apple placemat and saw how the very low western sun (left side) and shadow from a teapot (right side) made it look like two completely different placemats.

Something to keep in mind when photographing quilts.

Have a colorful day

A colorful Mexican feast!

I showed you the corn and tomatillo sauce yesterday, and here's the full Monty from last night's Mexican feast with good friends Paula and Duane and their son, Nathan. It was the inaugural party for our new house.

Paula brought ample appetizers, including the most delicious roasted nuts and a flavorful cilantro dipping sauce.

Dave made carnitas and I made chicken enchiladas verde for the main dishes. Below, Duane mashes the refried beans and Dave toasts the tortillas.

We rounded it out with guacamole, rice, Mexican corn salad and the usual toppings.

I ate modestly because I wanted to save room for the grand finale, my Texas sheet cake!!! It's from the "Texas Home Cooking" cookbook, and I've been making it for almost 25 years. A friend gave me the book when I moved from Kansas to El Paso back in 1994 and it's one of my favorite go-to cookbooks.

Ole!

Corn and tomatillos

I couldn't resist photographing the lovely yellow and green of grilled corn and tomatillo sauce in my kitchen tonight.

We're having friends over tomorrow for a Mexican feast, and I'm trying out a new Mexican corn salad recipe that uses grilled corn, lime juice, mayo, cotija cheese and cilantro. I also made my own tomatillo sauce for the first time and couldn't believe how easy it was! I'll use it for chicken enchiladas verde.

The colors go with this shot from my work table of hand-woven silk from Cambodia that I'm going to use in the May color block. I bought the silk piece at least 15 years ago and was waiting for just the right project before cutting into it.

Have a colorful day

A few hundred French knots later

I decided that the vines on my wool house would look better with flowers, so I just did a few hundred French knots with Laura Wasilowski's fabulous hand-dyed pearl cotton #5 thread. I love the way the colors in one skein range from warm yellow through peach and a pretty pink.

Here's a pile of her threads, which she sells at www.artfabrik.com. Every few years I order another handful of skeins -- it's like choosing candy at the candy store.

I've been dragging out this block-of-the-month wool applique project for a year and a half, and I've only finished seven blocks. No rush! Here are some more details.

Have a colorful day

Leavenworth wrap-up

Icicle Gorge Trail was the Feet & Forks' destination on Day 3 of our Leavenworth trip. Two rangers recommended it when I asked them for a four- to five-mile trail with not much elevation. They said it was a beautiful hike through the woods along Icicle Creek.

It WAS beautiful, but it was also swarming with mosquitoes. That's Nancy above doing the mosquito slap dance. After about a mile, Kandi said she couldn't go any farther because she was being bitten so much, so we turned back. 

Here are some more photos

from the Icicle Gorge Trail.

Then it was off to play 18 holes of putt putt golf. I've never golfed in my life, but my score was right in with the rest of them! It was blazing hot and we were drenched.

This goat lives on the course, munching on the lush hillside greenery.

Next up was a walk through town, with lunch at a pizza place and then back to the condo until an evening walk on the Wenatchee River Trail. We caught some soft sunset colors before returning to the condo for a rousing game of Catch Phrase and then bed.

On the next, and last, morning we had giant raspberry scones with raspberry butter on the patio. Oh my, were they good! We bought them the day before at the Gingerbread Factory and I wish I had another one right now.

Then it was another stroll on the Wenatchee trail before packing the car and heading for home at 10:30 a.m. Wish we could have stayed longer. Traffic was much better on the way back and we made it in three hours.

Here's our fork shot to commemorate the trip.

Have a colorful day