zines

This weekend Unity and I were able to help my friend Megan work on assembling her zine. I haven't made a zine in a long time but it's still fun to fold and staple and sew together a collection of inspiring words and photos.

As Megan would say, whatever saves.

August Appreciations part 4

12. Blueberry cornbread muffins. So yum, especially with the tons of sweet juicy berries that are at the farmers market right now.

13. Chris's ability to look at our old doors (that he took off the formerly dank basement closet) and envision a work table. Now he can putter with his scooter parts in ergonomic peace. Gotta love living with an engineer.

14. Unity has branched out with the pattern blocks, and decided she doesn't need patterns. She'll make her own. Love that girl's creativity.

15. Brixton reading to Papa. "and den da wabit, he goed to da house."

16. The gorgeous weather we've been having. Hot,sunny, beachy summer weather. Of course the weather report did say that Seattle summer has now peaked. But we have been soaking it up.

Chicken Scratches

I've decided this summer I want to work on my sewing skills. I do enjoy it, I think, but I don't do it very often and I am such a beginner that every time I do, it's reinventing the wheel. This counts for any and all kinds of sewing, machine and hand.

So I have a goal that I will work on some sort of sewing project at least once a week over the summer. (Summer starts in June via the calendar, not based on the weather of course. I might be waiting a while for that.)

I have a couple of easy machine sewing projects lined up, I have the fabric and everything. I also am interested in embroidery and I have a cool alphabet sampler and every so often I try to teach myself the stitches.

I forgot how learning things is hard. I get all excited in my head, with visions of samplers hanging in Unity's bedroom and me running around town in hand-made outfits that both flatter and fit me. "Oh this?" I could say. "I made it."

But I forget how dreaming up an idea is one tiny piece of creating something. The rest of it is doing the work. And making the mistakes. And throwing it down in frustration and consulting the internet and friends and deciding to wait until tomorrow. While I lay on the bed and dream up more ideas.

Chris keeps reminding me that knitting was like this for me when I first started. And that wasn't really that long ago. Two or three years? I had a pair of hot pink plastic size 17 needles and some extra bulky wool yarn and a copy of Stitch and Bitch and I puzzled my way through a scarf. And I love it now and I knit on the bus and while watching BBC dramas. Which is not to say I am an expert at all, but I have come a long way since the size 17s.

But to get from here to there is the work. The commitment. The coming back to it and trying again even when I'm frustrated, trying to find that place where my brain opens to the skill and my body understands what I'm supposed to do. I have to pick it up again.