something good

I'm remembering this, these days:

a peek in Aunt Sarah's garden

Last weekend, Mark and I headed up to Binghamton for a family visit.  Mark had concert tickets to see Ani DiFranco and Martin Sexton with his dad.  I opted not to go to the concert, since I had seen both artists in the last year or so and thought Mark might enjoy the time with just his dad.  I ended up the lucky one, however, because while they were at the concert, I got to go to a garden party!

Mark's Aunt Sarah and her husband Keefe live near the New York/Pennsylvania border and have a beautiful home and property there.  Mark has told me they built the house themselves, after they were married on the land (which I think is a beautiful story-and talk about 'handmade something'!).  The house itself is also beautiful and customized to their needs.  The kitchen counter tops are 4" taller than standard to accommodate their tall height!  I felt a little like a dwarf in the kitchen.  But, the best part is their back patio. Raised high on stilts with stairs to the side, their patio allows them to look over an enormous back yard and eight (8!) gardens that Aunt Sarah has planted around the property.  It was an incredible view!

Leslie, Ashlinn, Josh and I got to tour each one.  The variety and beauty of all of her flowers is astounding.  I've never seen such colors before!  None of my photographs have been edited.  I metered for light and snapped and what you see is a depiction of the what I saw with my eyes.

It's clear that these gardens are Aunt Sarah's peace.  A literal piece of land and a tangible peace felt amidst them.  The largest of the gardens is gated and has a grape arbor, too!

 

Sarah and Keefe have started a considerable garden.  They've got 24 tomato plants growing in a raised bed and more strawberry plants than you can count!  We got to sample the strawberries, mounded atop Keefe's homemade ice cream.  That was a real treat!  I'm so mad I didn't snap a picture... I was too busy eating.

Seeing so much growth was very encouraging for me to get out in my garden and do.  It's been awhile since Mark and I did any weeding in our own veggie plot.  I appreciate the lives Sarah and Keefe have carved for themselves, out in the country, away from the city.  I feel that I could live that way. With internet everywhere these days, there's no need to feel remote or disconnected (although if you wanted that, you could have it in the country!).  Since Indonesia, I feel like I've been on a quest to discover how things are done; how tortillas and tomato sauce are made instead of bought, how veggies and herbs are grown, how clothing and housewares are sewn.  Indonesia would be an entirely different experience for me than it was six years ago.
 

The more I learn and experience a handmade life, the more I want to get away from the commercial life where handmade things are passed over in favor of those that are commercially produced.  I much prefer Aunt Sarah's rambling flower garden than the strategically spaced pansies planted in the parking lots of office buildings.  I'm trying to do a little of this where I am, right in the city.  I guess this is the major appeal of urban homesteading.  My garden will grow this summer, but it's got nothing on Aunt Sarah's garden!

a fresh start for spring

starts are acquired and ready to be planted!

The interspersed cooler weather and rain remind me that while my Texas roots make me think it should be summer already, in the land of four seasons, we are still experiencing spring.  And a good thing, too, because Spring is all about new life and fresh starts after the death of winter.

african blue basil

regular reliable sweet basil

purple ruffles basil

Although it now feels like late spring, it's never too late for a fresh start, so I'm going to be giving myself a month-long fresh start through the fruits of my kitchen!  I am participating in Heather Brueggeman's 30 Day Vegan workshop which begins today.  While I can't claim to be adhering to a vegan diet perfectly, I am trying!  And, I fully anticipate that I will not only learn a lot about redesigning our dinner plate through this workshop, but also that the emphasis on whole foods and plants will help me reset my palate.  The sweets have been a little much for me these past few weeks (although I am happy to report that while I have not made any further progress on my weight loss, I have also maintained the weight I had already lost)!

Today's diet consisted of homemade granola and fresh fruit/veggie juice from the juicer for breakfast, Italian Pane bread from Trader Joe's with some mashed avocado and homemade pesto for lunch, snacks of pistachios and pear sauce, and an awesome version of skinny Thai eggplant curry with jasmine rice.  My vegan slips include honey in the granola (although the next time I make it I will substitute agave nectar), a little parmesan in the pesto, and fish sauce in the curry.  It's not perfect, but it's a much modified diet for a regular meat-eater!  The granola and the pesto were made before the workshop and so we are finishing those up (the pesto was homemade and frozen late last summer- this is the last of it).  The fish sauce was a choice, because I really feel like it makes this curry what it is.

we made this over the weekend from this recipe.  we modified the recipe - no chicken, and a few other things. we did leave in the parmesan :)

I suppose I have high hopes for these 30 days, particularly because I am also still counting my WW points.  Heather's blog has been a delight to follow over the past several years, and I have long admired and been curious about her way of life.  I'm excited to insert a little introspection and further consideration not only in what we eat but how we live our days.  This pairs well with the start of our summer garden-- we've got so many good things going in the ground it deserves it's own post.  We are planting at least three types of basil (so far. I'm still looking for Thai basil).  Here's to the vegan challenge and focusing on sustenance from the ground!

vegan lunch: avocado on bread, sauteed mushrooms, broiled tomatoes and roasted green beans with garlic tahini dressing.

do you know the value of avocado on toast with kosher salt and fresh black pepper? yum. yum.

resurrection

This week, I am remembering what it means to be resurrected in Christ and grateful for second, third, thirtieth chances to live a life with meaning. I'm basking in remembered knowledge of what it means to be a child of God and the calling to live simply.

what does victory look like?

Sometimes, victory looks like this:

 

Mark's. (Sealants won him a 50 point advantage- I never caught up).

Or this:

 

Mine. (Hexagon, Tread, Greedy, Grimy, Tinkers, Blonde, Forceps, Bulemic, Bile)

 But SOMETIMES... victory looks like this:

#26, folks. the big one!

1. bathroom medicine cabinet
2. underneath the bathroom sink
3. Moses' toys & treats
4. tea 
5. cloth napkins
6. cookbooks 
7. media cabinet 
8. DVDs
9. important papers drawer 
10. magazines 
11. tanktops
12. pajamas
13. T-shirts
14. fabric... dun Dun DUN
15. silverware drawer
16. notepads/journals/notecards
17. under the kitchen sink
18. unfinished projects
19. sweaters
20. books
21. dishes/kitchen cabinets/above the fridge
22. pantry
23. socks/underwear
24. paperwork: filebox
25. shoes
26. the massive mound of sewing stuff eating our loveseat
27. holiday decorations
28. camping gear
29. patterns
30. ribbon
31. sand
32. spices
33. our cars
34. jewelry
35. Mark's music folder
36. medicine drawer
37. towels
38. tool box
39. china hutch
40. freezer

 I also bought these lovelies last week, finally spending money that was given to me at Christmas time:

fuschia. matches nothing... or matches everything?

This means I will be simplifying my shoes by saying a final goodbye to these guys:

very, very old and cheap flats with an assortment of maladies (general wear and tear, holes in the soles and odor issues!)

Easter is practically tomorrow, so it couldn't be a moment sooner!

just to feel productive

When I'm in the midst of big projects, or I've got little time but so. many. ideas, sometimes I'll whip up something easy to finish for that "winning!" feeling. Well, I'm working on a big quilting project right now (back-logged from Christmas 2010, ahem), and I'm not going to finish in a day or two.  So today, I decided to whip up some cloth napkins (I've been thinking of them since my friend Diana and I had a conversation about cloth napkins two weeks ago!).

Part of our Lenten purge included paring down on our cloth napkin collection.  I started buying cloth napkins when I started thrifting, when I starting thinking (ironically) about simple living and the virtues of shunning paper napkins (and paper towels)*. Any time I saw a nice or cute set, I'd pick them up, rationalizing, there are only four (six) here. Well, four (six) adds up, and before you know it, there's a drawer full of mismatched hodge-podgy napkins.  So we donated about 85% back to the thrift store for someone else to enjoy, keeping only a few, and now I'd like to have one big, semi-matching set for eventual holidays and group get-togethers. Kind of like my version of holiday linens? Originally, I would have already had this in the napkins I made for my wedding, but a friend who did a lot of work on my wedding for me asked if she could have them, and so I want her to.

four cloth napkins.

straight and even stitching! no tension problems here!

two-ply. both sides are vintage thrifted bedsheets. I love those polka dots!

just cheers a place setting right up, doesn't it? plus, our dinnerware is all white, so it matches everything.

In any case, they are also easy to sew up and I've got vintage sheets everywhere, so why not? So I end this day feeling successful because of cloth napkins. Don't be surprised if there are more posts like this in the future. I am a creature of habit, after all.

*Also, just as a point of clarification, we don't buy paper napkins at home, but we still do for work, and we still buy paper towels, but we just take months to go through one roll.

playing catch up

"Economy," block #29, redone. My current favorite!

I'm playing catch up with the rest of my Farmer's Wife blocks this week, and I'm so close to being all caught up I can taste it! Or maybe that’s just delusion, caused by lack of sleep. Playing catch up comes with a price, one that I forget every time I stay up late sewing. I don’t know what it is about the quiet of night that makes me feel like I’m in my zone. But once the world is sleeping I just go, go, go. I think, too, if it didn’t take me so long to ‘set up’—gather all my supplies, try to make room for a pressing board and a cutting mat and my machine—I might be able to do more without dipping into sleeping time.

"Friendship," the original first block #39, redone.

In any case, I’ve redone 12 of my blocks now (and apparently I threw some new ones in there, too!) and I am so. thrilled. that they are finally coming out 6.5” square, as intended. I’m also really enjoying getting to re-match some of my fabrics, and I love how they all look together. I find myself stacking them up neatly one minute, then paging through them all to admire my work, then stacking them neatly again.

Neatly stacked.

A few things I’ve realized in making a bunch of blocks in succession that I might not have realized if I’d continued to do them one by one: starch before you cut and sew. I had been using spray starch to get a good finished look, but in one of the blocks I completed on my way to the right size, the final block was not square and had to be cut down even further. Because most vintage sheets are not 100% cotton but a 50%/50% cotton poly blend, there is a lot of risk of pulling and general wonkiness.  Starching before cutting helps keep the shape while sewing, especially for all those little pieces. I am sure this is going to help me out when Leslie and I get to the blocks with super tiny pieces.

Another word on starching. I began using spray starch in the can, like you buy at Target. But Monday night I ran out of that stuff around 11pm and Mark looked at me like I was crazy when I voiced the temptation to run out to Safeway to buy more. So I checked myself, then did a quick little search to see if there was a DIY approach—and there was! I had no idea that it was so easy (not to mention way more green) to make your own spray starch. You need only a spray bottle, water, and cornstarch- who knew? I also added a drop of peppermint oil, which we only had because we make our own laundry detergent. Works like a charm, I don’t have to worry about recycling the can, and bonus: I get to smell peppermint as I iron.

Handmade spray starch!

The method I chose for cutting out my pieces (because I wanted them to be perfect—even though, of course, they were not) was to iron on a freezer paper template, then to rotary cut with a ruler around the template. I’m glad I worked my way out of that craziness. When I re-printed all of my templates, I just wanted to go and I didn’t want to cut them all out with the rotary cutter and ruler. Halfway through cutting with scissors I realized that I’m pretty good at cutting a straight line. Now, some of the blocks, that require so. many. duplicate pieces are still best cut out with a rotary cutter and ruler, cause you can stack ‘em and do many at once. But the patterns that don’t require multiple pieces, and the ones that are really small I now iron on (after I starch!) and cut by hand. That has definitely sped up the process.

“Checkerboard,” block #19, redone. This is one for the rotary cutter, folks.

The quarter/eighths foot has also helped. The ¼” quilting foot with the guide was allowing a much larger than ¼” edge. Not sure why. Maybe I bent the guide somehow? I love that foot for projects where the size of the seam doesn’t matter, like a cloth napkin. It just helps guide me to sew cleaner and faster than a regular foot. But the quarter/eighths foot is perfect for my Farmer’s Wife blocks. I love that I’m getting to know my sewing machine and its attachments better as a result of this project! (Would you believe last night I also checked the manual on how to wind the bobbin, too, just in case my tension issues were related to a wonkily-wound bobbin? Luckily I have been doing that right…)

"Broken Dishes," block #11, redone.

"Friendship Star," block #41, redone.

I’m sure that I’ll continue to learn as a result of this project and I’m glad that the end is nowhere in sight (though that WILL be an exciting day, when all 111 blocks are done)! Mostly, I’m just loving that I finally get to make. It reminds me that creating fulfills me in a way that I’m not sure other things can. Putting thought into creating something helps me understand how things work and value craftsmanship on a general level. It helps me to appreciate things that I might otherwise take for granted. Have you ever considered something as regular as pair of blue jeans? There is so much that has to be done to get a pair of jeans sewn right. I know I’m not at that skill level. But when I sew, I remember that every stitch counts towards the completion of the project. Each seam has to be considered, even to the point that you make a decision of which way to iron them. All the tiny decisions that go into the final product have an eventual effect—and they pile up. Suddenly, a pair of blue jeans is more than just something comfortable to clothe your body—they are a work of art. Blue jeans!

"Windmill," block #108, redone.

"Box," block #9

"Snowball," block #81, redone many times. This was the block I finally decided I was going to sew until it was the right size!

This line of thought always gets me contemplating God’s creation and how creating is an integral part of my happiness. Makes me think of inheriting my father’s eyes or my mother’s common sense. I wonder if the original Farmer’s Wives contemplated things like this when they sewed on the farm back in the day?