greenclogs

focus: on the kitchen table

It's time for the second installment of focus, a little photo project that Larissa and I are collaborating on.

Each week we hope to take time to Focus ourselves and to Focus our cameras.

To Focus on looking and seeing,

to Focus on how we spend our time,

to Focus on friends and family and what's important,

to Focus on what's been there all the along but we just didn't take the time to look.

This week our Focus is on 'the kitchen table.

I discovered a few things about my kitchen table this week. First is that I cannot keep the tablecloth clean. It's dirty within seconds of being put on the table. So, I need more tablecloths. 

I love our kitchen table (really it's the dining room table). It's a 54" round oak pedestal table that's nearly 100 years old. The table is in constant use - as a landing pad for stuff, as a place for crafting or studying, and of course as the spot where we take our meals together. 

For some reason, the cat also loves the table. He's always up there to see if something good is there for him. Usually there is, since there are people in this house who think that clearing the table is for the birds. Or at least for the mama. 

The kitchen table is the center of our family life. I was grateful this week to really pay attention to how we use the table. And to putting more effort into keeping it clear and ready for meals and projects and family time. I'd call it a microcosm of our home and our life - if the table is in order then I feel like everything else is too. I don't know that I had connected the dots on that until this week. I guess that's what this Focus thing is all about - gaining a better understanding of myself and my life. That's a good thing, indeed. 

Happy Wednesday, friends. 

Focus

I am excited today to begin a little collaboration photography project with Larissa from Stitches in Play.  We are working together, pushing one another just a bit to not only stop and notice but to truly Focus. 

Each week we hope to take time to Focus ourselves and to Focus our cameras.

To Focus on looking and seeing,

to Focus on how we spend our time,

to Focus on friends and family and what's important,

to Focus on what's been there all the along but we just didn't take the time to look.

This week we're focusing on the garden, and boy does my garden need some focus. 

It all looked so sweet and tiny and orderly when I left for the beach. Now, not so much. This bed is a hodgepodge of garlic, carrots, beets, dill, mustard greens, and volunteer tomato plants. I have decided to just go with it by thinning out everything and letting it grow. 

This bed is far more orderly. Kale, chard and edamame. Easy peasy. I pulled the garlic from the other half of the bed and now it's ready to replant with more carrots, peas, lettuce, and beets. 

Some of our strawberries are everbearing, so there are flowers and little berries still. Hopefully we'll get them before the squirrels do. 

Oregano is flowering, as is cilantro. I'm okay with that since they keep reseeding themselves. My herbs are flourishing - they love our temperate climate. 

The volunteer tomato plants are huge and flowering. I have very little hope for tomatoes, however. We were going to plant starts when it warmed up, and we didn't. When these sprouted on their own, I decided to just see what happened. It was warm so late that I think a harvest is pretty unlikely. I'll be buying crates of tomatoes for canning anyway, so if we do get a few then it'll be a happy bonus. 

It makes me sad to thin carrots, but it has to happen. At least Kit was able to get a tasty bite from this one. 

And some harvesting! We have been eating chard, kale, carrots and beets since we got back. So, so good. Kale chips are on the agenda tonight. Or maybe a kale salad. Yum.

Lastly, my chickens seem to have gotten over their horror at the 90 degree temps of 2 weeks ago and started laying eggs again. That was one lean week - We really depend on those eggs to round out our garden bounty. 

Now that I have taken the time to see what's in the garden, harvest what was ready, and thin out the rest, I can focus on where it's going. We want to try and have a year round garden this year. This evening my focus will be on garden books, graph paper, and planning. The more work I can put into it now, the more it will pay off later in terms of food for our family. 

Thanks, Larissa for suggesting this collaboration. It's just what I need right now. 

lately

We went back to the beach for the day on Thursday. Gunnar had some work to do. Also, after being there for a few weeks, it feels weird to just be home. I need a transition back to here - an easing in. 

He's turning his sand dollar art into a floor mural of sorts for our favorite shop at the beach. There's a ramp that takes you from one room to another, and this will grace the ramp. His smaller versions are conveniently for sale right there in the shop. 

Also, he looks very grown here. Very young man. I'm not sure how i feel about this. 

We're dogsitting the sweetest little dog on the planet. I think she has even mellowed my dogs out. I love her. Maybe her mama won't notice if we just keep her. 

I made a mini quilt. Or a giant trivet. Or whatever you want to call it. I know I said I was moving on with my color scheme, but when I asked the bride what colors she wanted in her dining room, she said "yellow, light blue, red." What's a girl supposed to do? But really. I'm moving on now. (thanks to Beki for the reminder about how much I love the wonky maverick star)

Next time I'll draw the heart before I stitch it. However, I love the echo quilting pretty fiercely. I may want one of these for me. In a different color scheme. Really.

I started a part time work at home job today. It feels really good to be working again - this is the longest I've ever gone without a job. I know that doing what I do at home is of tremendous value, but so is bringing in a financial contribution again. We need it. 

I have a new little project/collaboration to talk about tomorrow. I'm excited. 

I'm going to sit outside and knit for a while and enjoy the cooler day. I hope you're doing the same. The enjoying, if not the knitting. 

a graduation quilt

There's a stack of quilt tops and blocks in my studio that I'm slowly plowing through. I finished this one at the beginning of May right before I left for Lindsay's graduation. Well, finished except for handsewing down the binding. I nearly machine stitched it on so I could bring it with me and give it to her when I was there, but I didn't. She is in the middle of such a huge transition that I figured that she didn't need another thing to pack as she moves to a new apartment. Plus, it's not like she needs a quilt during the summer in LA. Lastly, I wanted to bind it properly and that just wasn't happening in the 15 hours that remained before getting in the car. So, it stayed home and waited patiently for me to pull it back out and finish that binding. 

When we go to the beach in June, I pack a few projects - one knitting, one crochet, one handstitching. I also had a sewing machine down there *just in case* I needed it (which I did). I have gotten much better about not bringing too much now that the beach is closer to home, which means that I've also gotten better at working on most of what I bring. This quilt was packed into the bin and it sat there for over a week while I sewed baby bibs for some friends and knit 1/3 of a sweater and crocheted a bunch of granny squares. Near the end of the trip, I pulled it out and started stitching down that binding. 

I know a lot of people who love the hand stitching down of binding. I am not one of them. I have probably mentioned this before. For me, it's a real labor of love. With each stitch, I thought about my girl and about her life that lies in front of her. In those stitches, I put my hopes and my love. I see her snuggled up under it with her love, or someday (in many years) her babies. I hope it sees her through many years of laughter and love and happiness and that it helps comfort her through the bad times. All those thoughts carry me through to the last stitch. I put it in the wash and the dryer, and I was amazed yet again at how beautifully it all comes together even though it's not perfect. Just like life. 

Quilt details:

Inspired by the Moda Positively Perfect quilt but heavily modified. I made my blocks (and the quilt) much bigger and I kept to a symmetrical order. The finished size is 75x75". She wanted it nice and big.

All of the fabric came from stash. The backing is primarily what remains of a Merimekko duvet cover that I found at the Crate & Barrel outlet for $10. Love it. 

The quilting is in a big X pattern that is a counterpoint to the square patterning and accentuates the fabric placement. I could have done a better job of lining up the squares on the quilt back, but that skill eludes me. 

I quilted it on my new sewing machine, which was lovely. Having a larger throat space and built in dual feed made all the difference on a quilt this big. 

As a side note, I think it's time to move on to a new color palette after the last two quilts, much as I love this one. I think I'll play with some pink and green. 

I hope she loves it. I sure do.

re-entry

We're back from the beach. Our suitcases are full of sand.

There is a mountain of laundry.

We have sunkissed faces and filled up hearts.

There's also some new (and fantastic) art by Gunnar, a blocked shawl, a completed book by me and 5 by Annika, a bound quilt, a 1/3 complete sweater, and 372 tiny quilt pieces cut out.

But for now, we're still thinking about the sun and the sand and the surf. We're reliving those perfect moments with friends who are like family. We're grateful for the gift that is living near the ocean. 

Now it's time to send the sand outside, settle in, and focus on the rest of summer at home.