Hello dearest readers. These days, sometimes just showing up in the kitchen can feel like sanctuary. Pulling ingredients out of the fridge, prepping vegetables, waiting for the oven to heat up, tossing a salad, filling the water glasses…appreciating our abundance and being grateful for good, simple work to do…then the washing up and putting leftovers in the fridge and “closing” the kitchen until the next meal…quiet moments carved out of chaos. I found myself pulling our Tassajara cookbooks off the shelf, refreshing my memory of Edward Espe Brown’s kitchen wisdom. I also sat again with a cup of tea and The Sacred Kitchen, by Robin and Jon Robertson. Time well spent.
I heard a great piece on NPR’s A-1 broadcast the other day. “Finding your agency in the chaos of the world” One of the guests was Margaret Renkl, who you may remember as the author of “The Comfort of Crows:A Backyard Year.” You can listen to the 34 minute story here.
Have you read A Season for That: Lost and Found in the Other Southern France, by Steve Hoffman? I listened to it last week in my studio and had mixed feelings about it. Read by the author, I was disappointed that he tended to drop the end of his sentences, which got on my nerves. Some of his narrative was blah, but some of it took my breath away. I am such a fan of writing that describes a deep sense of place, and when Mr Hoffman got it right it was so, so lovely. As the story unfolded I realized I know the work of his wife, Mary Jo, who has a blog, and now a book called, Still, filled with spectacular photos of gathered natural objects found on her daily walks.
Happy spring! It’s official, but fleeting here in Vermont. A bright splash of red flew in front of my car on the way up the hill the other day, I slowed down to see a pileated woodpecker swoop into a hollowed out tree. He’ll soon have that tree ready to fall across the road it’s been so ravaged!
The snowdrops have been blooming for about a week, surviving a fresh coating of snow the other day, which has since melted. What’s helping you feel hopeful that spring is here/coming soon?
Did you see the eclipse of the moon last week? We’ve been disappointed several times recently, that cloud cover prevented us from seeing night sky events, but we woke up in the middle of the night to see a gorgeous eclipse! Then we were treated to the brilliant full moon setting over the mountains first thing the next morning. Artist Hannah Nunn, who lives in Hebden Bridge, UK wrote a lovely blog post about the full moon, check it out here.
Buggy backing.
Here’s another UFO, begun in 2019, that came out of the cupboard last summer. I’ve hand quilted with pearl cotton and “big stitches”.
As per Suzy Quilts, I pressed the quilt before I trimmed it. I had not done that before. You can see how rumpled it was when I spread it out on the kitchen island…after ironing it, trimming the quilt edges was so much easier! Learning each day! That’s my goal!
Last summer I found this amazing frond fabric and knew it was perfect for the binding. I’m finally in the home stretch on this one, and can’t wait to get it into the hands of my brother Nelson, who has claimed it as his own.
I’ve fallen a bit behind in my 100 days of stitching. I’m not sure how I got off track with such a beloved practice, but I did. And when I came back to it, my needle traced the confusion and mixed-up-ed-ness of these times. Interesting how our feelings can spill right out into our hands…My volunteer responsibilities have been distressingly impacted by what Bernie, OAC and I call “the oligarchs”. I have a few things to say about all that, but that is not why you stop by sewandsowlife, so I will spare you.
I found this blueberry fabric on Spoonflower years ago, pulled it out of my stash, and thought it would go well with three different bits of my homegrown, hand dyed indigo swatches. Golden thread found its way into both of these pages, love to Pete Seeger. And of course, I thought of Blueberries For Sal while I stitched this one.
The comfort of Wilma and Cora, snuggled on our bed at night, the ordinary pleasure of my mug of tea in the morning, the birds gathering at the feeder (before we have to take them down as the bears wake up from their hibernation), a precious “FaceTime” with any of the grandkids, the stars in the sky at night…these are the simplest of things that get me through the days. As Batman says, “We’re just putting our pants on one leg at a time”. What about you, dearest readers? Share in the comments?
Sending you hugs of encouragement, and light and hope.
~me