Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post 3091: Birthday dumplings
Last week I turned 45, and one thing that happened was my friend Aaron came to visit me all the way from New York where he lives. I picked him up at the Nanaimo airport first thing on the morning of my birthday and we got a coffee and then went to Man Lee (the Asian grocery) before coming back to Gabriola.
Since moving here, Brian and I have felt the absence of good Asian cuisine. We are lucky that there are a couple of good restaurants on our island, but it’s just not possible to get good Chinese food here or anywhere close by. In Vancouver – good noodles are served in almost every mall kiosk and you can choose restaurants by very specific region – so that’s been a bit of an adjustment (ie: we were spoiled by delicious and inexpensive food from around the world).
As I’ve posted elsewhere (and perhaps here) – this has forced us to really up our cooking game, and I’ve been seeking out good cookbooks to aid us in not only learning to make specific dishes, but learning about different cuisines as a whole. One of the books which has been instrumental so far is Fuschia Dunlop’s Every Grain of Rice. So far, I have cooked about half the recipes in that book – and I plan to make the other half over the next few months – because every single one is a winner, and I’ve learned so much about cooking techniques by following them.
So, for my birthday I decided that the best way Aaron and I could spend our afternoon was in preparing a feast of recipes I’ve never made before. This included Sichuanese Wontons in Chilli Oil Sauce, Bok Choi with assorted dried fungus (her recipe calls for fresh shiitake, but I wanted a dish with snow and black fungus so I improvised), and Steamed Chicken with Chinese Sausage and Shiitake Mushrooms (wrapped in lotus leaves).
I have to admit that I’ve always been a bit daunted by dumplings – the making of them that is. But with a friend to help, we figured it out and ended up with so many perfect bites! This meal was also my first time steaming food in lotus leaves – which I did using the Instant pot.
I would say that this was the best meal I’ve made from Dunlop’s book – but I’m really not sure – as I’ve made so many great combinations of dishes in the last few months. One thing I know for sure, is that these are restaurant-grade meals – as good as anything I’ve eaten in Vancouver over the years – aided by ingredients that are local and fresh from the island where I live.
Post #3090: In which I catch my breath
Last weekend I finished a new top, pictured above. It’s the Cashmerette Webster top/dress – which I made a muslin of back in early December to see if I would like it better as a dress or a top. Top won – and I made this version out of some stash fabric (Nani Iro double-gauze) that I have been waiting to use for two and a half years! Since making this top, I’ve worn it five times – a clear indicator that I will need to make another top from this pattern.
I’ve got many things cut out at the moment, or ready to be, and I’ve just salvaged two unfinished jackets from the sewing basket where things to go die. If I get myself in the right mode, I will have some new clothes for spring.
At the moment, I’ve got a few days off work – taken in a bit of a fit last week, when I reached the end of a high-pressure project (and ongoing overtime for months), and my brain kind of broke, snapped or whatever. One might call it a nervous breakdown – but given that I seem to be returning to myself rather quickly, I’m going to settle with extreme burnout as a better description. I’ve got until Monday off, and if I’m still feeling foggy, then I’ll take a few more days. At this point the emotional upheaval (crying) has tapered off and I’m just feeling very slow. Not depressed – just as though my brain has come to a bit of a crawl.
I’m taking things easy and trying to figure out what steps I can take to better protect myself, my boundaries, and free time in the future so that I can get the necessary time out that I need to function. Part of the issue is that I have not taken a total break from work and union responsibilities in a year – even when I take time off I check email and often end up working – and while I thought I could get away with that, I realize now that I can’t. Also, I should always schedule a week off in February because I always need one. And I don’t need to hoard work – it is entirely possible to share my workload better with my team.
Anyhow – I’ve returned to zazen after a week without (what a mistake, I always drop it when I most need it), and am focused on going in – in order to get out of this state I’m in. There is nowhere else to go right now I’m afraid – it’s all me, or nothing. Or it’s nothing and all me. Because zen.
So I’m here, and sewing – fixing up this blog to reflect the focus of it a bit better – and packing up for an overnight to Tofino tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll have more things to say on all of these topics shortly.
Post #3089: The next thing
In the world of making stuff, there is always the next thing. And you never know what it’s going to be. What’s the next thing that will capture your interest to the degree required to learn everything about it and dive in to a world of new materials and techniques?
Since I was 31 and started off sewing, small things – sock monkeys and pillows, then quilts – I’ve moved to crochet, then garment sewing, then knitting, now weaving. I’m not an expert in any of these arenas, though I have enough basic knowledge and skill to be relatively successful in my undertakings. (Relative, that is, to the time I’ve spent doing it – weaving is still a mountain I’m climbing).
I recently noticed that I’ve been collecting books on natural dyeing for the last couple of years. It wasn’t something I set out to do – but I’ve managed to make a nice little library for myself in an area of textile work that I have no experience with – which indicates that at the very least, this topic is interesting to me. And suddenly I’m pretty sure that it is the next thing I am setting myself to learn about.
To that end, I’m gathering materials for iron and copper mordants, looking forward to the first crop of rhubarb for the leaves used to set dyes. I’m looking at natural dyes and which can be found in the wild on my island – which ones are exotic but essential (like madder, and indigo) – and which mushrooms and lichens hold the best colour potential.
My studio is well appointed for such an endeavour – with a small fridge, and running water – a big deck for working outside in the sunnier months. And though I want to go straight to hand painting a warp, I’m going to start small with samples for a dye journal in cotton, wool, and mohair (all materials I have onhand). (I want to hand paint a warp this year).
I’m thinking my first project will be a dye book with fabric and yarn samples – different mordants, dyes, fibres. It’s not a one-time project, but something to build on if it turns out that I am as fascinated with this as I have been with other textile experiments. We’ll see.
Post # 3088: What’s on the needles? So much!
I feel like it’s time for a maker update, since I’ve got so many projects on the go at the moment. Even though I don’t have a big goal this year to “make 100 things”, I can’t stop myself from planning and starting one project after another.
So, I’ve just finished an Embark Shawlette, made with some Malabrigo Rios that my step-daughter gave to me last year – that’s the picture you see up above in the featured image spot. That knit was so great, because I finished it over a weekend and it has a lovely shape and feel. This is going into the mail tomorrow to my friend Alanna – because she ooed and ahed over the yarn so much that I felt like she truly needed to own something made of it. I am going to make this again for myself – out of some Sweet George worsted yarn I snagged while in Vancouver last week.
A much longer and more complicated knit on my needles at the moment is this Leaf Lace Scarf which I’m knitting out of some bright Wollemeise that I received in a swap last year around this time:
I love this yarn, but it was hard to figure out what to do with it – a leaf lace feels right and although you can’t tell from the photo because of the scrunchiness of pre-blocked lace – it’s working up very nicely.
Also on the needles right now is the Escarpment cowl, knitted.with some Sugar Bush Motley, an alpaca and yarn blend made in Canada. I wasnt sure how this would knit up and am oh so pleased by the gradient. Thinking the other ball of this (in a different colourway) might get used as some weft in a rigid heddle project, though it knits so nicely!
And finally, here are all the pieces of a cardigan that now need seaming together. Ive been working on this since fall and need to get it done.
In sewing news I have two tops, a Weber tank and a Blackwood cardigan that i cut out before xmas and need sewing. And while in Vancouver I bought fabric for making pants so that will be my next foray. I haven’t sewn many pairs of pants (maybe 2) but it’s time I get more comfotable with their construction.
In general I am so unhappy with garment quality in the rack these days that I am motivated to make more or all of my clothing again. At Atex in Vancouver I spent $70 on enough fabric for three pairs of pants. Good quality denim, linen, and twill. Now I just need the patterns to go with and I’ll be making trousers for spring wear.
Post #3087: Coast Salish textiles
I’ve been taking advantage of my city things this past week, last night’s adventure being a trip with friends to the Museum of Anthropology to see the exhibition of Coast Salish blankets that is currently on display. The feature photo on this post are some modern reproductions of much earlier works which are fragile and under glass.
Since reading the book Salish Blankets: Robes of Protection and Transformation, Symbols of Wealth
For starters, the book and display of Salish blankets have opened my eyes to:
- a diverse colour palette – reproductions of salish artwork are limited to certain a red, white, and black motif for the most part – the textile tradition on display explodes that idea – as is evidenced by the deep blues, bright pinks, and purples on display in some of these woven objects. Lichens, mushrooms, and all varieties of plants were used to dye fabrics, resulting in a rainbow of colour available to the indigenous fibre worker.
- designs and motifs aplenty- again, because Haida art has become the normative coastal artwork ascribed to all indigenous people, I tend to think in certain shapes and motifs. The blankets on display, however, show a variety of artistic interpretations – not at all limited to a single type or motif. It’s also important to remember that only about 200 salish blankets from near or pre contact survive to this day – so as an outsider, I really have a very distorted view as to the traditions as a whole.
- an array of materials – if you learned about First Nations people in BC schools in the 70s and 80s (as I did), you learn about cedar weaving and that’s pretty much it. The textile tradition, of course, had many more materials at hand including dog fur, mountain goat hair, nettle fibre, duck and goose down, strips of hide, Indian hemp, milkweed, and so on. Many of these fibres are on display in the samples at MOA.
Tomorrow I will be returning to the MOA for a one day workshop on the techniques of Coast Salish weaving. This will snug up against what I have learned about the post-colonial knitting tradition which is inspired by the weaving repertoire but not as diverse owing to the fact that knitting was shaped much more by market forces, and less by internal cultural and artistic needs. I’m looking forward to more learning in this rich textile tradition, and continuing my unlearning of a limited vision for the history of this place.
Red Cedar 