Standing here with hands stained and blistered from processing chokecherries … all of this is sounding a deep, satisfying internal gong! (Also very much resisting taking up a hobby I won’t have the time for for many, many years, but your fabrics always look so enticing.)
Chokecherries -- oh my, they are everywhere around here right now and now that the plums are safely dry and put away, my antennae are now alert. Long ago I made wine with them (25 gallons at a time in a garbage can in the corner of the kitchen--crazy), but that's not a thing I want to do now, so am curious about options. Jelly?
I make jelly. I did just meet a woman who used the pulp after getting the juice out to make fruit leather. It was pretty good but didn't have the unique intense flavor of jelly juice, or even chokecherries themselves.
Our local plums aren't even close to ripe. I'm looking forward to it because there were none last year. Late-June snow got them. In the meantime, checking out the peaches situation at the produce stand that gets them from Washington ...
Good to know! The chokecherries are so ripe right now that I'm actually eating them fresh, mouth pucker and all, as I walk around town. This might be the week for jelly. Thanks for the inspiration. Oh, and my plums are an extra early variety. All the prune plums have a long way to go....
I had no idea there was such a thing as yellow plums. What I learn from you is diverse and vast. I admit to some amount of jealousy when I saw all that linen. What a lovely gift! Though I do feel some sadness that the person who parted with it did so because they can no longer do their work. I know, it will happen to all of us at some point but still, it is uncomfortably unimaginable. I think I will enjoy this moment and the next. Thank you for that reminder.
That's just it isn't it -- so sad to imagine all the love and care someone put into her materials and equipment and work, and also so good to be able to give some of it another chance to become something -- enjoying each moment we get and honoring the lineage somehow. A tricky thing to do, eh? But worth pursuing I hope.
poignant story, but you're honoring all that linen, lovely linen...and this week again, after the two plus weeks of vision/sinus mayhem, i will pulp lovely fine cut belgian flax into sheets of delicious paper. possibly. unless the indigo or something other demands attention. but you understand that.
I adore the Rough Copy tapestries; they were my first introduction to your work, and I was enchanted. I spent an unreasonable amount of time at the Prichard Gallery exploring them all. ;-)
I did not know they accompanied a novel, though. Is it available?
PS -- As a side note, last week I received an email from a dear friend of mine (and evidently a friend of yours, too) with a link to The Gusset and strict instructions that I *must* subscribe. It was delightful to tell her that I'd already done so long ago.
ha! that is hilarious and delicious (at least to me), to be bossed around in the particular way. So flattering...
And as to the Rough Copy tapestries, I never published the novel (in the conventional sense), as ultimately I found that I didn't want to get on that train. Instead I went for the "self publishing for tapestry weavers" option, which resulted in Rough Copy. Somehow more my style though, alas, only one person gets to own each little piece and the rest of the novel still languishes in a file somewhere. Maybe I"ll revisit it some day? When I'm not otherwise engrossed ? (ha ha!)
I love you sharing Beryl with us. I adopting Brother, a retired Alaskan Husky sled dog in April and so enjoy having another companion around. Dogs are amazing story tellers, even though they don't speak, their actions give us so much to contemplate and make up stories about what they are thinking. Love the summer and thinking of this time of year through your comics and sketches. Thanks so much for sharing Sarah!
Oh my -- a retired sled dog! What stories he must have. And now I wonder how he is coping with the hot days we've been having this summer. Shedding like mad (like Beryl who doesn't look like she has much to shed but.....)
I somehow guessed Yellow Plums before I saw that you named them under the picture! I knew it had to be plums, but didn’t know if they come yellow.🤣 I grew up with a purple plum tree down along the pasture fence row. Sarah, I love your memory lane travels. It’s good to remind ourselves where we started, and how far we’ve come. It gives us hope that we can get to where we want in our future. I so enjoy every Tuesday’s installment of the Gusset! Thank you!
It's so true -- the helpfulness of memory lane--the paths that one's brain chooses to revisit and noting where it meanders. Filled with clues about what choices gal might make now as you so wisely point out.
And the Purple plums ripen later so are still waiting --that is, if I can get to them before the bear, who has had first dibs the last few years (cuz they're at my cabin and I don't get there that often so the bear has local rights....)
The box of apples off my sister's tree is waiting for attention in my fridge. But for now I need the solace of knitting since my son and girlfriend went back to Seattle today after a visit. They told me they may move to New England (!) She's from there. The gauge for an Aran sweater I am inventing for my son is right on, so, maybe wool can come to my emotional rescue and I can express love for him by casting on the real deal. Isn't it wonderful how one's creativity can provide grounding beneath one's feet when support is needed? Your artistic life inspires mine. A bucket of avocado pits is waiting to turn some fleece pink (hopefully)! Back to my studio where I feel stronger! XOXOXO Lynn
Would you prewash commercial linen before using it for tapestry warp? ... Beryl seems pretty wary of those little waves lapping at the shore of Palouse by the Sea! Maybe she needs one of those little round boats, a coracle is it? ... Thanks for making Tuesdays special.
You know, I never have before --washed linen warp before putting it on the loom, but maybe I would now that I know how grubby it is? I guess it would depend on the size and how much I'd have to wind off the cone and onto skeins. A BIG JOB if I did decide that. No problem for little ones.
And YES -- a coracle for Beryl. Great idea. Just the thing. Maybe I'll put her in one in a comic first though, just to check out the idea.
It never ceases to amaze me that all the pickling and jam making is done during the hottest time of the year. And you go from glut to glut! Throw on top, dying yarn and it makes for a horrid hot day!
A couple years back I tried solar dying. I was so amazed at how successful it was so I have my glass coffee jars lined up, waiting for the hot weather.
Bravo for you remembering then living the next page of your book. Sometimes we need to focus on the past, even if it is just to realize how far we have come. Huzzah!
So true -- the sweating over a hot stove and boiling kettles just when you want to be eating salad.
And then add the dying with the plants that are ready NOW. years ago I got a plug in dye pot so I could put it outside to avoid just this problem, though Solar dying is a GREAT alternative. Thanks for the thought.
Your exploration of the past hit a cord with me. As my life becomes more and more centered around nature, I too see more of a pattern in my journals. Commenting on the same days that peaches are at the market, or that it's time to plant my coreopsis, or that my bees swarmed, or that the last of the sparrows fledged and it's time to clean out the bird houses. Thank you for reminding me how centering this life choice is.
And thank you for noticing it and reminding me back. So easy to skip over the little things and focus on big events, but it is the tiny things that make up our days and years is it not-- and I do think that continuity is lovely -- individually, as connections to each other, and as a way to remember that we're part of a lineage of humans who have noticed and cared and done the same seasonal things for millennia.
Standing here with hands stained and blistered from processing chokecherries … all of this is sounding a deep, satisfying internal gong! (Also very much resisting taking up a hobby I won’t have the time for for many, many years, but your fabrics always look so enticing.)
Chokecherries -- oh my, they are everywhere around here right now and now that the plums are safely dry and put away, my antennae are now alert. Long ago I made wine with them (25 gallons at a time in a garbage can in the corner of the kitchen--crazy), but that's not a thing I want to do now, so am curious about options. Jelly?
25 GALLONS OF WINE!!!! that's amazing.
I make jelly. I did just meet a woman who used the pulp after getting the juice out to make fruit leather. It was pretty good but didn't have the unique intense flavor of jelly juice, or even chokecherries themselves.
Our local plums aren't even close to ripe. I'm looking forward to it because there were none last year. Late-June snow got them. In the meantime, checking out the peaches situation at the produce stand that gets them from Washington ...
Good to know! The chokecherries are so ripe right now that I'm actually eating them fresh, mouth pucker and all, as I walk around town. This might be the week for jelly. Thanks for the inspiration. Oh, and my plums are an extra early variety. All the prune plums have a long way to go....
I had no idea there was such a thing as yellow plums. What I learn from you is diverse and vast. I admit to some amount of jealousy when I saw all that linen. What a lovely gift! Though I do feel some sadness that the person who parted with it did so because they can no longer do their work. I know, it will happen to all of us at some point but still, it is uncomfortably unimaginable. I think I will enjoy this moment and the next. Thank you for that reminder.
That's just it isn't it -- so sad to imagine all the love and care someone put into her materials and equipment and work, and also so good to be able to give some of it another chance to become something -- enjoying each moment we get and honoring the lineage somehow. A tricky thing to do, eh? But worth pursuing I hope.
poignant story, but you're honoring all that linen, lovely linen...and this week again, after the two plus weeks of vision/sinus mayhem, i will pulp lovely fine cut belgian flax into sheets of delicious paper. possibly. unless the indigo or something other demands attention. but you understand that.
HA! yes to indigo and linen distractions -- which happily came together for me this week. More on that later. HOPE the eyes are better?
I adore the Rough Copy tapestries; they were my first introduction to your work, and I was enchanted. I spent an unreasonable amount of time at the Prichard Gallery exploring them all. ;-)
I did not know they accompanied a novel, though. Is it available?
PS -- As a side note, last week I received an email from a dear friend of mine (and evidently a friend of yours, too) with a link to The Gusset and strict instructions that I *must* subscribe. It was delightful to tell her that I'd already done so long ago.
ha! that is hilarious and delicious (at least to me), to be bossed around in the particular way. So flattering...
And as to the Rough Copy tapestries, I never published the novel (in the conventional sense), as ultimately I found that I didn't want to get on that train. Instead I went for the "self publishing for tapestry weavers" option, which resulted in Rough Copy. Somehow more my style though, alas, only one person gets to own each little piece and the rest of the novel still languishes in a file somewhere. Maybe I"ll revisit it some day? When I'm not otherwise engrossed ? (ha ha!)
Linen thread is always dirtier than you think it ought to be. And I adore watching dogs play with waves. Go Beryl!
Aren't yellow plums a type of greengage?
Gosh, I'm not sure about the yellow plum/greengage connection. This variety is called Shiro and somehow I think it originated in Japan.
I love you sharing Beryl with us. I adopting Brother, a retired Alaskan Husky sled dog in April and so enjoy having another companion around. Dogs are amazing story tellers, even though they don't speak, their actions give us so much to contemplate and make up stories about what they are thinking. Love the summer and thinking of this time of year through your comics and sketches. Thanks so much for sharing Sarah!
Oh my -- a retired sled dog! What stories he must have. And now I wonder how he is coping with the hot days we've been having this summer. Shedding like mad (like Beryl who doesn't look like she has much to shed but.....)
I somehow guessed Yellow Plums before I saw that you named them under the picture! I knew it had to be plums, but didn’t know if they come yellow.🤣 I grew up with a purple plum tree down along the pasture fence row. Sarah, I love your memory lane travels. It’s good to remind ourselves where we started, and how far we’ve come. It gives us hope that we can get to where we want in our future. I so enjoy every Tuesday’s installment of the Gusset! Thank you!
It's so true -- the helpfulness of memory lane--the paths that one's brain chooses to revisit and noting where it meanders. Filled with clues about what choices gal might make now as you so wisely point out.
And the Purple plums ripen later so are still waiting --that is, if I can get to them before the bear, who has had first dibs the last few years (cuz they're at my cabin and I don't get there that often so the bear has local rights....)
The box of apples off my sister's tree is waiting for attention in my fridge. But for now I need the solace of knitting since my son and girlfriend went back to Seattle today after a visit. They told me they may move to New England (!) She's from there. The gauge for an Aran sweater I am inventing for my son is right on, so, maybe wool can come to my emotional rescue and I can express love for him by casting on the real deal. Isn't it wonderful how one's creativity can provide grounding beneath one's feet when support is needed? Your artistic life inspires mine. A bucket of avocado pits is waiting to turn some fleece pink (hopefully)! Back to my studio where I feel stronger! XOXOXO Lynn
Nothing like the love knit into a sweater for an adored one, is there? I'm just about to cast on for a winter sweater for my granddaughter!
BTW: Lovely to run into you the other day! I'd just had a massage so was probably a little out of it and hope I didn't appear too vague...
Hope the apples are yum.
Would you prewash commercial linen before using it for tapestry warp? ... Beryl seems pretty wary of those little waves lapping at the shore of Palouse by the Sea! Maybe she needs one of those little round boats, a coracle is it? ... Thanks for making Tuesdays special.
You know, I never have before --washed linen warp before putting it on the loom, but maybe I would now that I know how grubby it is? I guess it would depend on the size and how much I'd have to wind off the cone and onto skeins. A BIG JOB if I did decide that. No problem for little ones.
And YES -- a coracle for Beryl. Great idea. Just the thing. Maybe I'll put her in one in a comic first though, just to check out the idea.
Hahahahaha you crack me up.
The Gusset is always such a sweet interlude. Beryl made me laugh with alternating bouts of joy & terror in the water.
It never ceases to amaze me that all the pickling and jam making is done during the hottest time of the year. And you go from glut to glut! Throw on top, dying yarn and it makes for a horrid hot day!
A couple years back I tried solar dying. I was so amazed at how successful it was so I have my glass coffee jars lined up, waiting for the hot weather.
Bravo for you remembering then living the next page of your book. Sometimes we need to focus on the past, even if it is just to realize how far we have come. Huzzah!
So true -- the sweating over a hot stove and boiling kettles just when you want to be eating salad.
And then add the dying with the plants that are ready NOW. years ago I got a plug in dye pot so I could put it outside to avoid just this problem, though Solar dying is a GREAT alternative. Thanks for the thought.
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for sharing your beautiful (he)art-filled day!
Love to read these!
Your exploration of the past hit a cord with me. As my life becomes more and more centered around nature, I too see more of a pattern in my journals. Commenting on the same days that peaches are at the market, or that it's time to plant my coreopsis, or that my bees swarmed, or that the last of the sparrows fledged and it's time to clean out the bird houses. Thank you for reminding me how centering this life choice is.
And thank you for noticing it and reminding me back. So easy to skip over the little things and focus on big events, but it is the tiny things that make up our days and years is it not-- and I do think that continuity is lovely -- individually, as connections to each other, and as a way to remember that we're part of a lineage of humans who have noticed and cared and done the same seasonal things for millennia.
I like the idea of giving myself emotional options! I also like the idea of combining those options into something new and now:).