black white red

The September moon cloth was finished just in time for today's new moon in Libra. It's the tenth little full moon cloth in a series of 13 full moons, my sewing ritual for this year. Each cloth has a full moon, a house with an eye, and a calendar cloth component -- to be completed by the following new moon. Sometimes I barely make my own deadline. This piece kept getting complicated, there was a lot of tearing out and a lot of sighing. Finally I decided to not worry about adding components, to just let the background cloth be the focus. Simple does not always mean easy.

I'm envisioning the wheat bundle from my birth state, North Dakota, as the Goddess Demeter's wand but probably not many farmers would think of it quite like that.

The fermented cayenne peppers for hot pepper sauce that I started a few weeks ago were blended and strained this morning. One half-cup was all I got from a whole pint jar stuffed with peppers because there was mold on the very top so half the jar had to be pitched. From what I've read, if you remove the moldy parts and the remainder doesn't taste or smell bad, it's okay. Really, really hot stuff -- I named it cha-cha sauce -- so a half-cup will be plenty. Chop-chop sauce would be a good name, too, because it makes you run for milk or water.

More cayenne peppers -- deciding what to do with them. I think I have plenty drying for homemade cayenne powder already. Any ideas? Pickled? 

This time of year, beautiful red is everywhere. Those four tomatoes ripening on the kitchen windowsill are probably the last beefsteak tomatoes we'll have -- I had to pick them early because we're expecting a freeze tonight. There's lots more to do in the garden before nightfall.

Happy weekending and good gardening to you, whether you're harvesting, planting, or in-between. xo