Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post #1968: Canada is making me unhappy, so….. Soup!
Because I am downhearted about the Canadian news in the last week – the shooting, the scandal, the tawdriness of the responses to both – I’m setting up a new little project for myself this morning. One that involves nutritious, healing food – and canning! For the months of November and December, I am aiming to make one batch of soup per week – which will be one of our weekly dinners – but additionally, I plan to make enough so that a few jars can be pressure-canned for future eating also. This fundamentally means the soups have to be free of grain starches (flour, barley, rice) and dairy – but pressure canning does allow me to use meat ingredients. I also have a hankering to make some fresh batches of stock and to pressure can those also as it’s much more convenient than freezing (we are running out of freezer space in our house).
I am currently using my social network and the NY Times Recipe Box to compile my list of upcoming soup projects – and will post here when I have determined and idea/theme and recipe for each week. We’ll see how far I get with this – but as it meets two needs – immediate dinner satisfaction and food preserving for dinners/lunches in the future – I feel like it’s something I can do for the next several weeks. Also, I made an absolutely, incredible chili recently, and will include that in one of my upcoming weeks as a thing to can so I can share the recipe.
Stay tuned people! I’m about to use a food project to get happy…… (I loves me a project!)… and I’ll share the process and results with you!
Post #1967: Adams River Sockeye
September was a bit crazy on the work front, but I’m making up for it this week by working on the banks of the Adams River this week – taking pictures and video of the spawning sockeye and the activities at the festival for our web and social media presence. It’s one of the few perks I get – and it’s a pretty decent one.
Post #1966: Taking myself seriously enough to make art.
After years of indulging in craft, I feel like I am ready to make art – though the distinction has always been a problematic one for me because I recognize how it’s used to minimize the artwork of women, of indigenous people, of “folklorists” from various ethnicities and so forth. So what I mean really is that I feel a growing curiosity about taking all the skills I have learned in the process of making beautiful but utilitarian objects (bedding, clothing, linens & home decor objects) – and turning them towards a different type of inquiry. Taking myself seriously is part of this process. At the moment that means engaging in ideas about textile arts, looking at textile and other found objects differently, and thinking of the narratives that most interest me (family, words and language, tactile histories). It also means setting intention to find the time for textile “sketches” and technique work in the nooks of my days, given the absence of large blocks of time/energy available at the moment. I feel like I am at one of those junctures where I can see all that I have done up until now as the jumping off point for the next thing I want to explore.
Post #1965: How the weeks flow by.
Last weekend was a road trip that included a visit to the cabin and a funeral. This week has been a litany of communications products, lectures, and small snatches of time for handwork – I’ve finished a cowl and started a sweater. I look forward to a weekend of small errands, friends, philosophy and music – though mostly what I want is to sleep in and catch up with Brian. I feel good today, as though I’ve been pushing through all week and finally come to a slow down. A rolling stop, as it were.
I’m going to a lecture tonight on using stitching as illustration. It all feels pretty good right now.
Post #1964: The hands and the heart are always connected.
Whenever I experience stress or confusion in my life, I crave comforting words from my partner, sleep, and then craft – in that order. Locking myself in the sewing room to either start a new project or reorganize old ones has the same effect. The point is to be alone and imagining the making of the new. This weekend I did both – reorganized my sewing room, and made a new skirt. (That was followed by making a second skirt last night, which I am wearing at work today.)
The picture on this post is of a quilt that I made for some friends who got married this summer. Whenever I give a quilt I think of it as giving someone a hug that doesn’t end. For what else is it to wrap oneself in the hard work and time of another – than a multi-faceted embrace?
Sitting down at the sewing machine is often daunting, sometimes frustrating – but almost always I am rewarded by the small accomplishment found in the work of the hands.
Red Cedar 