current events, in the kitchen

Pandemic Bulk Buying

Nothing is different. And yet, everything is different. I’m feeling a lot of gratitude these days. I know that there are many lives that have been deeply, radically, terribly altered by this whole coronavirus pandemic. Anything I might say about how my life is changed has to first be prefaced by an acknowledgement of my personal privilege. I’ve been buying my pantry staples in bulk for years. A year or so ago, I took on the coordinator role for my “drop” with Azure Standard, a company out of Oregon that sells organic food items (think: rice, beans, oats, flour, nuts, …

Art

Unicorn Story

 

The unicorn was working as a circus freak when I met her.  “No one,” she told me in a voice ravaged by theatrics and drink, “believes in innocence anymore.” (A short story and Photoshop project for the 365 art class.)

Making, quilts, sewing

Upcycled denim laptop sleeve: Want one?

 , , ,

When I first started using a laptop, we were living in Hawaii.  I bought a yard and some of denim to wrap around the laptop to keep it safe, figuring someday I’d make a proper case.  “Someday” arrived 5 years later when Caitlyn started attending preschool, and I started carrying the laptop to the local coffee shop 3 days a week. It became clear pretty quickly that a length of fabric wasn’t going to really do the job.  The quilted sleeve I designed and sewed up is still my laptop sleeve.  It’s a little weathered around the corners, but I …

Art

Art Class Update

 

I haven’t abandoned the art class I started back in January, but I’m moving incredibly slowly. This may have been intended as a one-year class, but I expect it’ll be a three or five year class for me, moving at this rate. Nearly 5 months in and I’m not quite to lesson 25. But instead of berating myself for my snail’s pace, I’m trying to focus on the journey. What am I learning?  What am I enjoying?  And from that perspective, I think this has been a success.  I’m trying new things, and I’m discovering that my non-fabric creative activities …

Caitlyn, education, family, field trips, homeschooling

European History & Culture Sampler: An Epic Homeschool Field Trip

 , ,

After talking about it for several years, last fall we finally followed through on one of our parenting goals: international travel with Caitlyn at an age when she’d be old enough to understand and appreciate what she would see and experience but young enough that she’s not too cool to hang around with her parents.   It’s a big world out there (and we only managed to see a small portion of it this time) and getting to see some of it firsthand is good for building empathy, experiencing diversity, and appreciating your own privileges.  It’s harder to “other” people …

Making, quilts

Finally finished: Craftsy BOM, 2012

 ,

Back in 2012-ish, I got started on several Block of the Month projects.  Maybe I was just excited to start things.  Maybe I underestimated how much time I’d need to sew multiple sampler blocks every month and/ or overestimated how much time I had to devote to quilty projects.  Both, probably.  Eventually, I had to focus on working on one at a time, finishing my “Bloggers BOM” in 2013 and the “Half Square Triangle BOM” in 2015 (it looks like I never got around to announcing that finish).  It seems appropriate that the “Craftsy BOM” was finished in 2017.  The …