Tag: grandmother

Springing and travelling and gathering myself

Folks, it’s spring, I smell it. I saw a Robin. I heard a Robin. I saw heaps of Crocuses. Rudi picked one, stopped the stroller of his own volition and worked it into Gene’s sleeping hand today. Is there anything better than dimpled fingers on the first crocus of spring?

My blog was quieter than usual last week because I was away from my desk and my everyday life. I took a trip across the country to Victoria with my wee-man Gene to stay with one of my best friends in the world, commencing a 3-day “vagilogue” as my husband so tactfully put it. My heart and mind got filled up with the true solid, friendship, the kind you can slip into easily, years folding up on one another, marrying now and “the last time.” I feel super buoyed up even if I’m physically exhausted from solo travel with a baby and too many time zones!

At 6-months Gene was a spectacular traveller. He happily boarded 4 planes in 5 days, did a lot of sleeping, nursing, watching airport lights, and peek-a-booing with friendly dudes behind us. He even met his uncle Dave for the first time on a strategically planned layover and he snuggled his Alberta Gran-E (obviously that’s her rapper name. She’s a granny + her name’s Elaine … you see where I’m going with this, my mom is so cool!). I also ran into 3 friends from my teenage life in Alberta 17 years ago — how nice for that to happen in real-alive-life rather than on social media, as much as I truly do love the book of faces and the twits.

And now I’m excited to be getting back into the groove of my life, surrendering happily to this utterly moment-to-moment existence as a full-time mom on maternity leave with 2 wee ones who’s also trying to get ready to hit the ground running with her own work — sewing, editing, choreographing — when the formal mat leave is up. I am working hard and gaining at my practice of simplicity in a moment, being present right where I am, which, to be totally honest, is usually: feeding, doing dishes, thinking about sweeping up the dust bunnies, reading (to clarify: not my own popular novel or work of complex theory but more of a librarian-reading-to-the-poo-joke-loving-masses), cooking, thinking that 5 months is too long to wait for a hair cut, walking to the park, colouring, thinking about blogging, playing, getting vomited and/or pooed on, thinking how long is it since I washed my hair, huh, and so on, you get the picture.

But I’m also keenly aware of the things I want and need to do to keep my adult self and creativity sharp. I keep them tucked in a brain-drawer during most of this extravaganza that is the current norm and at the end of the day, I take time to weigh what’s really necessary for the coming one, and to be reasonable with myself in order to have the personal wherewithal to meet the necessary and leave a little for the desired. Thus not a lot of action on my sewing-work front, but good plans for when the time arrives to make it all happen for reals. I live in hope good people, keep the faith!

Rearview Fridays: rug hooking

On Fridays I dig up an old project, craft or choreography or costume, and feature it here. However I am not the star of today’s Rearview Friday. My Nana is. But my humble contribution is pictured, circa 1989. Hers is just a “hare” younger than I am because she made it for my toddler self. Read on …

I love rug hooking. And I don’t mean that awful, fluffy polyester latch hooking stuff from the 80s, though that has it’s place I’m sure, I mean traditional hooked rugs. Practical art made from wool on a burlap backing. My grandmother spent her retired years rug hooking and I knew implicitly that she loved it. As I write this post I realize I have no idea how she found rug hooking [note to self: check with auntie about that]. She and her group of “hooker” friends (my 6 year old self did not get the joke) made the most lovely, textured pieces. I think they even had lacquered, handmade wood name badges that said “happy hookers” on them. I remember watching her cut wool on her cutting tool, dust motes swirling, she leaning back and looking down her nose through bifocals then leaning back into her work. And I would hang about near her work table fingering the stripes of dyed wool, loving the texture, the variation in the dye and contrast in colours.

My Nana taught me how to hook rugs when I was a tween. She was both smart and kind enough to have me work on coloured burlap so that I didn’t have to fill in the background. The hoop still has my name written on it in her handwriting.

Thinking about Nana and her rugs has me waxing nostalgic. I feel a deep yearning for her and Edmonton, my home city of big sky and crisp cold. Thinking about this post also made me curious, prompted me to look for Ontario hookers — and it seems there’s a lot of action up North (that sounds so wrong, I’ll give you a moment to collect yourself, but I really am taking burlap and wool here ladies and gents) and I am sure that at some point, even if it takes me umpteen years, I’ll find my way into this art. It’s a meeting of painting and craft. I won’t be able to resist. But for now I should really stay on sewing and parenting task, plenty at hand. So many things to do with my hands and so little time.

My Nana bunnies:

I am so happy that I carry a piece by Nan. She made this one as a chair back cushion and my tiny self did sit against this lovely rug on my tiny rocking chair. As you can see, she wielded wool like paint. She also used a very fine grade or cut of wool that yielded finely detailed rugs. Her initials sit in the bottom right, RK, Ruth Kendal. My father’s mother. For her I am thankful in ways impossible to articulate in words, but I know her art and vivaciousness permeate my life and work inextricably. Happy, inspired Friday folks!