A Colorful Thread: January 2022
Weaving together my life as a maker and other spheres of life.
Best of Stitched in Color {January}
On My Mind
Experimenting:: with macrame! In our living room there is a big, beautiful yellow wall behind our sofa. It’s totally empty. I like the paint color sooooo much, that I’ve been in no rush to put anything up. Well, I’ve finally realized what I’d like to add there! I have in mind a cream macrame wall hanging, something like this:
by Let Be
I love that such a wall-hanging is soft and tactile, rather than glossy like a photo or metal art piece. Yes, of course, a quilt on the wall would also be nice, but my husband is not fond of that look. I content myself with having quilts already as throws, plus patchwork dining chairs, pillows, cloth napkins, stretched art - well, suffice it to say, there is already patchwork.
Anyway, there is a free video tutorial for the macrame beauty above, right here. My version will need to be bigger to suit the space, and I want to incorporate some symmetrical knots as well. The first step? Make a smaller piece, to learn the basics.
I’ve been making a mustard-yellow sampler piece from a DIY kit. And guess what I found? Macrame is SO easy. This is the easiest craft I have ever tried and super fast too!
I’ve already finished my sampler. The kit wasn’t the best as far as directions and didn’t include entry level tips. For example, I learned via internet research that one can use tape as shown here, to neatly set the distance between rows of knots. But even with some missing info, the project was quick and fun.
I promise to report back when I’m working on the big piece for our living room!
Reading:: Bewilderment by Richard Powers. One thing that’s great about book club is that you read books you might never have picked up before. Bewilderment is technically sci-fi, which is not my genre, but the themes are totally right for me. It’s about a father raising his son alone, during those difficult pre-adolescent years. It’s about a son grieving for his mother. It’s about the beauty and fragility of our world and why we look for life beyond. It’s about healing, hope and loss, all together. The novel is certainly moving and certainly unique. I recommend it.
Celebrating:: Sabine’s bright and beautiful Pas de Deux blocks! Sabine of @la_boite_a_couleur is a talented quilter who knows that in my class you never get in trouble for working ahead! She’s diving right in with her Pas de Deux blocks, making them up without directions. What a star! I love what she’s doing with her Charley Harper scraps, don’t you?
Anticipating:: My next delivery of Pieter Pot! Don’t get too excited, it’s just groceries - - - but I truthfully am anticipating it. Haha! This month we began buying our pantry goods via a Dutch company called Pieter Pot. Everything arrives in glass jars with attached, hinged lids (called a weckpot in Dutch). When the jars are empty, you return them to Pieter Pot when they arrive to deliver your next order. The jars are then washed and refilled with bulk groceries, so that the process is circular, with zero plastic waste.
image and Pieter Pot review from this Dutch blogger
I’m happy to generate less plastic waste as a family. I’m also amusingly happy with all those glass jars. They’re just so pretty! The teeny little spice jars really do me in.
If you’re interested, do a search for zero-waste groceries in your region. It zounds like Zero Grocery offers something very similar in California, and I hear that Loop is going into Kroger grocery stores and Walgreens. The initial purchase will cost more than normal because you’re paying a deposit for the reusable packaging, but that money comes back to you eventually and, in the meantime, it goes toward a good cause.
January has been an exciting month for me! Your response to the Pas de Deux block-of-the-month has exceeded my hopes. I’m so very honored that so many of you are in for this scrappy, asymmetrical sampler this year. Each time I see your progress shots via the #PasdeDeuxQuilt hashtag, it puts a smile on my face and a skip in my step. There are so many lovely versions in the works! In fact, I shall probably soon prepare a blog post all about your January blocks, just to share the fun here.
On the other hand, corona has kept us on our toes this January. It seems that many countries are taking different paths at this juncture of the corona story. It makes me very curious about where they all lead. Here in The Netherlands we’ve been coming gradually out of the mid-December hard lockdown. At the same time, infections are skyrocketing and hospitalizations have just started ticking back up. It seems like everyone I know is getting corona this January. At this very moment, my son is positive. He is doing okay (he was vaccinated), but it leads to stress at home, of course, trying to keep the infection isolated. So far the rest of us seem to be corona-free. Fingers crossed.
Wishing you a safe and cozy February!
xoxo,
Rachel
