Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Autumn walking.
- An east van street
I can’t ever remember having such a warm and sunny autumn in all my years of living in Vancouver (this fall marks fifteen such autumns), but it really has been lovely to come home to this brilliant colour up and down my street rather than sodden masses of rotting leaves. I mean, there’s still the raking to do (thanks Brian!) but it is much nicer than relentless rain.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love my neighbourhood? Well, I do. And I’m glad that despite my crazy schedule lately I have still had lots of time at home to enjoy it.
This weekend B & I decided that getting out for a bit of a walk would be good for all three of us and the dog – and so we decided to check out Colony Farm Regional Park in Coquitlam. Mostly because everytime I take the Lougheed Highway for any reason I see the sign for the park and wonder what exactly is there. I figured it was time to find out!
Turns out that there is lots there – amazing flat trails across meadows and marsh (for cycling and walking), wildlife research stations, birds of all varieties, and a giant community garden right near the parking area. Despite being an urban park surrounded by housing and cut through by powerlines, it still manages to be an important recreation and habitat space – as evidenced by all the people who come out to enjoy it on a sunny weekend. I would note for all you dog-walkers that there is *no* off-leash area at Colony Farm and because of the sensitive nature of the area (bird-nesting habitat) it would be really frowned upon if you were to let your dogs go off-leash.
Fortunately, the rain forecast for the weekend didn’t come until evening-time so we were blessed with the kind of muted sky that makes for brilliant photo-taking conditions.
Otherwise it was a weekend of sewing (check out my posts at http://amongtheweeds.ca for fabric and sewing blogging), wine-making, reading, and movie-watching. Our whole household has been sick in the past few weeks, and only on Sunday did B. feel well enough to actually get out and do something…. which made for a restful couple of days as I am also on the tail-end of recovery from my multiple illnesses of late.
Back to work today of course, but super-glad for the day off mid-week. We’re hoping to get some painting started in our front hallway!
Paint and fabric. Paint and fabric.
It must be the transition from outside to inside, but I’ve recently become obsessed with textile projects again. For the first time since… well…. last winter I guess. Something about the summer and I really have no desire to be toiling away at the sewing machine, but come fall and I’m stitching and plotting new projects all over again. Besides the napkins I posted yesterday, I’ve got a couple other immediate projects I’d like to get to.
Brian and I have decided to redo our front hallway because it is a small, dark and disorganized space that is visible from our living room. For some reason the previous owners painted it a coal-blue colour, and all we’ve done since moving in is throw some hooks up on the wall for our jackets which doesn’t quite cut it for our needs. So we’re repainting and re-organizing starting with a coast of bright yellow (think Mexican yellow) paint that compliments the Mexican tin mirror we have hanging in the entryway.
And then I’m building some functional shelving for boots & shoes, plus installing a clothing bar to hang coats and jackets on, and a shelf above which will hold three boxes made from fabric – one for each of our mittens, hats and scarves.
But the real piece de resistance? Well that’s where the gorgeous fabric at the start of this post comes in. Viva La Frida in turqouise….. Because the front entryhall is visible to people sitting in the living room, I want to be able to pull a curtain over the coats and shoes when we have company. And this is the fabric we have chosen! Brian found it online earlier today and in an email flurry we have agreed that this is exactly what we want – bold and bright, plus an homage to one of our favourite artists and activists. What do you think?
I promise some before and after pictures of the entryhall when we are all finished up. With the sewing involved I think it will be a month or so before we’re all done – but I’m pretty excited to get started with it because we have worked out all sorts of lovely small details that will make it an inviting entrance as well as practical for our storage needs.
Oh and while I’m at it – I might as well show you this fabric that I’ve chosen to make some living room throw pillows out of. So amazing!
Scrap-bustin'
After spending the weekend doing many things – wine-making, cooking, watching movies, going for walks and sewing – I’ve got some bragging rights on this cool scrap-busting project. Fancy cloth dinner napkins! I wish I could claim the design as well, but truth be told I got it over at Sew Mama Sew a few weeks ago and have been waiting for time to make it happen. I’ve managed to make the better part of three sets (of four), but ran out of thread this evening before I could get the finishing top-stitches on the last few – and I’ve got four more sets half cut out. At least eight of these napkins are for our dinner table (we only use cloth napkins and I never have enough), but the rest of them are heading out as holiday gifts. Each set is unique, of course, because they are all made with different combinations of scraps.
Even though my corners aren’t perfect and my lines aren’t always straight, these still turned out beautifully and feel rich with their cotton tops and muslin backing. B likes them so much he wants me to make a table-cloth to match ’em for dinner parties – which I agree would make a quick but stylish project to tie it all together.
Thinking ahead to Christmas cheer.
(I am not at all religious, but I absolutely love the Advent Conspiracy videos for their message of simplicity, love and joyful tradition over consumerism and stress.)
It may seem a little early to talk about Christmas, but really if you’re going to opt out of the shopping it’s better to think about this earlier rather than later. In my family, we started the discussion about not shopping for Christmas in August, because my mother sometimes starts that early! But Brian and I decided some time ago (last year in fact) that we wanted to start winding down the commecial Christmas in our life and this year we are seeing that happen – which I am really excited about!
Excited why? Because for me the worst part about Christmas is the shopping, the fretting about the right gift, the money put on credit cards that we spend months paying off. And that worst part taints all the other good parts (family, eating, bright holiday lights, parties, friends, festive drinks) so that I end up feeling less than celebratory about it all. So I put it to my family (my parents, brother and sister-in-law) who we spend Christmas Day with every year: How do we all feel about not exchanging gifts? How about we just give each other nothing, or handmade gifts instead?
And surprisingly the overwhelming response I got was — relief. Relief rather than resistance. Because probably for most people the most stressful thing about the holidays is the last minute fit of gift-buying, or guilt about not gift buying, and the attendant debt that goes with it forever after. So I’m not alone.
Of course Brian and I aren’t able to go without giving anything, because we like to share things with the people we love and care about – and so this year we are working on a series of gifts for the people in our lives which include some baking, sewing, and canning that we’ve been working on since September. The sewing is what I’m least sure about at the moment because I’m really just a beginner-level sewer – but over at Sew Mama Sew, they have started their annual Handmade Holidays month which includes fabulous tutorials for all of November. I am making at least one project off a previous year’s Handmade Holidays and another from their scrap-busters month earlier this year.
Additionally if you are stuck for ideas about what to make – over at the New American Dream they have loads of ideas under Simplify the Holidays – along with an Alternative Gift Registry which I think is such an awesome idea for those of you planning weddings or other events (some of the most treasured gifts from our wedding were in fact the harvest boxes that came from our friends’ gardens!)
So I say – for the first time in years – I am excited about Christmas again! And I encourage all of you to consider a Christmas without commercialism, because I promise it will be a lot less stressful for everyone. (I just hope I can get these damned sewing projects finished on time).
Red Cedar 