reading challenge #4

A simple truth about my book reviews: besides their brevity, they will all be positive. This is because my reading time is too precious to waste on a book I am not enjoying. Mostly I read before bed, borrowing time from my dreams, closing the book around 1am (which really isn't smart considering when I get up and how packed each day is). And I never have regrets if and when I abandon a novel.

The Tree Tattoo by Karen Rivers is an unusual exception. I would struggle to continue and then find myself giving it one more chance. This actually happened five times in total - and I even had another BC author ready to go - but on the fifth try I stayed with it, and I'm still surprised I got through it.

The prose is very poetic, which I usually love, but in the beginning I was too distracted by it. I imagine it must have been the story that brought me back each time, or how the story might resolve itself. In a nutshell, a 50-something family man and an alarmingly haunted 23 year old have a sexually charged affair. Unique? Yes. Hard to imagine? Yes. Worth the read? Undecided, but there were certainly notable phrases, and striking passages. For instance:

Marriage is so many unasked, unanswered questions, a tidal wave of unsaid words - do they ever crash down? Can people be crushed under that kind of weight?

The characters wrestle with familiar demons but the language doesn't soften the carnage, and this I did appreciate. As for the knitting comparison: The Tree Tatoo is like a pair of socks, in particular a pair I referred to as the "Forever Socks" because they took so long to knit and yet I never gave up on them. Socks are a unique knit anyway, and magical at moments - like when you turn the heel - but in the end you don't wear them often and you have to remind yourself that at least they got finished. Next time I knit socks, perhaps I'll call them The Tree Tatoo socks...that sounds much better.

the view from here

There are only 15 minutes before I take Sadie up to bed, and I'm sitting at the computer eating pizza that was just delivered. Something about the scene beside me - a moment in time and a perfect Sunday night - made me laugh. It must be the mixture of furniture chaos, fort building on the couch and Jay's knees poking out from behind as he watches basketball a little too close to the television.

I finally took the plunge with red paint. It was too much debate and not enough action, so a good friend offered to come play with Sadie while I started the edging. I don't tape and count on a steady hand for edging so it takes me time. I'll roll the first coat once Sadie's in bed and cross my fingers that I only need one more. I am still fighting the decision; ten years of working for HGTV promoting designers like Sarah Richardson has really affected me. We had a perfectly neutral house and the colour flow was good, but suddenly we have a grey kitchen and now a red TV room. I should be completely disowned by the network.

But in the next minute I realize I don't care. I heart red and already the room is warming up. The precious moments spent knitting in here at night will now be colourful and cosy. Design rules, schmesign rules.

And now, it's Sadie's bedtime.

a girl and her paint

If only the rest of the house was as fun to decorate as Sadie's room is. Last weekend I finally got her one wall painted raspberry, and both Sadie and I love it. She hung out with me while I painted each of the three coats (and actually, I could have done a fourth) constantly exclaiming, "it's purple!". Our cat Glen Miller also joined the painting party and it was a complete miracle that raspberry paint didn't get spilled, touched or tracked anywhere. I've always found painting very relaxing, which explains why every wall in our house has been painted two to three times (it happened in our apartment too, and Jay teases me every time I bring up repainting). But gone are the days of throwing on painting clothes and knowing I had hours of quiet contemplation ahead - nope, now I have a cat and a preschooler determined to be part of the experience. Oh well.

Last weekend I also finished this pillow for Sadie's bed. The cat embroidery is from a drawing we did together using different colour crayons so I repeated the effect with thread. I didn't plan the design much, just started pulling fabrics together and balancing out the colours on the ironing board. It was pretty fun and I'm wondering if I can use the same approach to make a quilt for the sofa. I like that it isn't symmetrical - I can't be as colourful in the TV room, but at least I could aim for the same sense of play. I still haven't painted the TV room red; there are squares of "Hadley Red" on each wall (thank you tester pot) but I'm scared about making the plunge. For all my talk about Jay not liking red, it's actually me who is having a problem. But if raspberry makes me smile every time I see it, surely red will do the same? Or maybe I should just stick to sewing. Fabric is much easier to change when you get it wrong.

love = cookies

Love also equals Sadie, my favourite little Valentine. It's been a busy, stressful, snow-pounded week and all I wanted to do tonight was skip yoga class and bake cookies with my girl. Unfortunately, the man in my life got no special Valentine love, but as luck would have it, he is officially anti-holiday. Therefore, he will appreciate a reminder of his wife's love for him on a more average, unexpected day. And anyway, he got to eat these yummy cookies right out of the oven.

Nothing says Happy Valentine's Day like hands covered in chocolate dough. Simply delightful.

reading challenge #3

I didn't want to turn over the last page of Joan Clark's An Audience of Chairs, it was just too good to end.

"The weather was a dark, smudgy grey and the wind blowing off the Firth brought wintery rain and sleet. The flat was cold, and as she lay in bed trying to stay warm, she saw no reason why she should get up. Moranna often mistook self-absorption for independence and was unaware that without her husband she had lost her sense of direction."

There is something about East Coast stories that hook me, and after finding the hardcover of this novel for $4.99 I started reading it right away (knocking two other Canadian books I had been reading into the dustbunnies on my bedroom floor). I fell for Moranna's character immediately, even though she did unforgiveable things. Without judgement, Clark crafts Moranna's character so that you see how she is compelled by her mental illness to act inappropriately. Even in her darkest hour you cannot help but empathize, and you root for her to overcome her own demons when she is finally on her own.

As a mother, I was torn by the loss of her young children and I shared the helplessness of knowing they were out there - somewhere. But Clark gave so many perfect insights, such as the excerpt above, which lifted the blame just enough so that you could see the story unfold without prejudice. I remember being particularly touched by the insight that Moranna couldn't look into the future enough to realize that the dependence her infant and toddler daughters had on her was fleeting, that in a few short years they wouldn't need her to do everything for them. It is an overwhelming time, and I can all too easily imagine how this could unravel your world, especially when mental illness exists just below the surface.

This is a book I will be passing around, and it will have lasting influence on me. The prose is crisp and forgiving, the story touching and profound. I simply can't say enough about it.

The knitting comparison: Definitely this is like the perfect shawl, a garment particularly for women, intricate in its' lace pattern but absolutely practical in its' use. The knitting is methodical and you have to be totally dedicated, but the final product is too beautiful for words. See what I mean?

snow thrift

When it snows, at least there are thrift shops within walking distance. Many times during my maternity leave this saved my sanity, especially in the seven months (yes, seven) before I had a stroller. I learned to love my nieghbourhood quickly - almost everything we need is a short walk away. And there is just something romantic about walking around in the fresh snow, especially when it's still falling and you're wrapped up in scarves and hats wearing big boots. These days, I think it's my favourite time to be alone.

But let me get to the pattern I found. It's so 1970's and unfortunately a little big (although a size 12 back then isn't far off from my measurements now) but I think I can modify it enough to make it work. The square neckline is the best feature and coincedentally this pattern is exactly like a shirt I saw in Banana Republic a month ago, but it was screaming for better fabric. So next up - choosing a fabric, and if it's anything like choosing red paint, I can count on it taking me a few months to decide. A quick look at Superbuzzy has given me a few options already, like this, and this, and this. Though I'm tempted to not act my age and try something more like this.

Of course, I'm still dreaming about linen too, and the more I think of it, a gauzy linen would give the blouse a great contemporary feel. Hmm. Too many choices, never enough strength to decide.

linen amour

There is just something about linen.

I think this post at 6.5 stitches inspired the apron, though I suspect visiting Angry Chicken may have had something to do with it too. Whatever it was, last weekend I imagined an apron, pulled out an "S" transfer that Julia had sent me a while back and started embroidering. On the day I got married my mom gave me an "S" embroidered handkerchief that had belonged to my great grandmother Sarah Lamb. Old linens are wonderful to begin with, but having a piece of family handed to me was even better. My mother is also an "S" - Sandra - and the handkerchief was given to her on her wedding day by my father's mother (my grandma May). My brother is also an "S", and of course, so is Sadie. So although I felt a little vain embroidering my own initial onto an apron, my hope is that someday Sadie might take it with her as her own piece of family. And somehow I think a linen apron will stand the test of time (and get better looking with age). The style is simple, a basic rectangle with ties. I always wear my other aprons folded down around my waist so this seemed like an obvious choice.

To further the linen love, I followed a link to this online shop - Linnet - and I am positively smitten by their wares. The link came from 6.5 stitches and I don't even know where to begin. Linen ribbon? French lace? This wonderful mulberry colour? Really, I need discipline. As it is, I ordered the Shinzi Katoh fabric and it should be on its way, so for now I should keep my linen dreams on hold. Really. Unless weathering the awful "takeover transition" last week at work deserves some kind of reward? Ahh justification - it's a slippery, slippery slope.

P.S. The not-so-good photos of the apron are from today's baking-with-Sadie event; we made Chocolate Jam Thumprints from my newest, favourite cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance (thank you Mom!). We took the yummy treats over to a perfectly girly visit with Ragdoll, Nadine and baby Lucine. I love Sundays.

winged thing

For the last LONG while I've been forgetting to check the Month of Softies theme, but I'm pretty glad I did for January. As soon as I read "Winged Things" I was in, especially since birds have quietly made their way into all of my work lately. I've been trying to figure out ways of capturing the silent words and messages of women - the ones kept hidden and unspoken as we face our daily struggle with multiple (and demanding) roles. The bird, graceful and delicate, just seems like a suitable choice to carry away these words of weight.

Which leaves me to explain this bird in particular; made of linen, he is based on a simple Swallow shape. He carries the message "Hear Me" in his belly, one word on either side, the embroidered line running over his beak connecting the two. And yes, sometimes I admit to being terribly obvious - I mean, I've got him swallowing words and he's a Swallow...but I'm okay with that for now. The words are stamped on pages from a book because I've also been using common stationary materials to work these ideas out with.

In the category of inspiring embroidery, check out this work. What a great idea, and I can't wait to see more. Plus, this may not be embroidery, and I'm not sure who the artist is, but I could look at this cut paper piece for hours.

the other me

Once upon a time, I went to art school. Moved to the city, spent hours in a rundown studio space, had a few exhibitions. Then I made a responsible decision: pay off my enormous student loan by taking a creative job in television. That was in 1998, and it sounds totally old-school to say, but I still work for the same company now.

Of course, throw paying off said student loan, buying a house, getting married and having a kid into that same decade. What gets completely lost in the shuffle? That would be the other me, the one I once (though somewhat hesitantly) called the artist. It's not that I gave up making, it's just that in the little time I had, most of my energy went into more functional, purposeful making. Here and there I would find the effort to travel out of my comfort zone and start on something with no end goal in sight, and truthfully over the ten years I have created some work I'm happy with. It's just the quantity - or lack thereof - that is significant.

So what am I trying to say? Not much, and I certainly know I'm not alone in this situation. To be a woman in my thirties, with a family counting on my income it's just the way things are. I always tell myself there's time later, that I've never fully walked away, that I'm just taking a break from being focused on the world of exhibiting (or perhaps, being beside Jay while he travels that road is experience enough). But I am starting to find more time these days, and the ideas and desires are falling into place, and the moments I have spent on that "other" work is satisfying me on quite a deep level. And so, to keep this momentum going, I had two pieces framed last week; the first one (shown above) is from a few years ago, but has been tucked in a portfolio for far too long, and the second, a recently finished piece which was chosen for the Framework Foundation Timeraiser event.

Seeing your work presented always makes a difference, and it's the kind of perspective I needed to keep going. I'm not sure how much of this work I'll share here - it never photographs as well as my knitting and sewn stuff, and the details are quite subtle (capturing an ivory stitched line on ivory paper through the lens is a lesson in frustration) but I just thought I'd start with a peek.

And here I said I would write less about me this year. Oops.

reading challenge #2

Same photo, second book. Though, to be honest, this is the first book I read, and since time has passed I'm a little foggy about it. But here goes, Consumption by Kevin Patterson. An excerpt:

"You act as if you've never had an unfortunate outcome before."
"No. I'm not inexperienced in losing patients. Especially Victoria's family members. I don't know what's got into me."
The priest smiled ruefully. "If you had faith, I could prescribe a penance."
"You make it sound tempting, somehow."
The priest looked at the kettle. "It is a kind of egotism, self-flagellation such as this. The time for fervour is in the approach to God, not in response to his reversals."

It's hard to know where to begin. The characters? The relationships? The tragedies? The landscape? There is so much to sink into with this novel - as long as you can keep your head above the tragic waters. One thing is for sure: the story is epic, but that's why it is so hard to describe.

Consumption is such a wonderful title, and the lingering thread of this insidious disease is clever. I read somewhere that TB could be characterized by "long, relentless wasting" and in many ways this description fits certain characters and storylines perfectly. And I don't mean to make the novel sound relentless, quite the opposite - the story is riveting, sweeping and tragic in all the right ways.

The relationships, brought out through dialogue and key character insights, were powerful. The excerpt above is between two of my favourite characters, the doctor and priest of the remote Nunavut town the entire novel stems from. Their exchanges over the years while listening to jazz recordings were always profound, opening a window into the growth of friendship between an unlikely pair. But even small characters have intriguing relationships, such as the high school teacher and her estranged husband, whose infrequent phone calls spoke volumes, not to mention their ravenous sex scene that left me, quite frankly, breathless. I could go on and on, because there is no shortage of compelling characters and I never once tired of their stories, even as the novel spanned decades.

As for the knitting equivalent: Consumption is like a pieced and cabled sweater, something I have never knit but know would take commitment. Every new stitch would excite and engage on a deep level and there is no easy finish to the sweater - just as much effort would go into seaming the pieces together. In the end, it would be wholly satisfying, as both an experience and for its' lasting usefulness.

And come on, the first line is "Storms are sex." Bring on the tundra! (and thanks to Ragdoll for the recommendation).