Raven and Sparrow

Finish and start

My computer problems in January prevented my posting of Lisa's finished autumn runner. It is hard to capture its golden shimmer in a photograph. (Click on it to see the whole thing.) It is also proving to be hard to find accessories that work well with it. It is so low contrast that most of the vases and candles that I have tried have been too harsh. I am stalled at the moment while I look for what I need, online of course, and who can really tell that way?  

I was making good progress on cleaning up my studio when Jude's large cloth musings struck a chord. I decided suddenly to make a runner from my scraps (of which I have many, mostly heavy linen in solid colors) based on the comforting light shining from the house to those coming home on a winter evening. That is all I know right now. I usually plan my projects way more thoroughly than this, but I have decided just to start and go where I am led. I turned all my scraps out onto my recently emptied table and picked out everything blue, black, gray or purple. I have cut out some squares and that's where I am.

Ironing out the wrinkles

Finally, finally I have finished the gold under cloth for Lisa's autumn table. I have been experimenting with quilted tablecloths to try to make them easier to handle and to iron. The first one I had quilted by long arm machine and I thought it turned out well, so I tried to quilt this one myself. To keep everything very simple, I just sewed line after line to make a checkerboard. It took forever and I found it pretty tedious. My sewing is wobbly and I think the final result is more like alligator skin, but it will be okay. Once it was finished, I had to wash the quilt. Taking it out of the dryer damp, this is how it looked.

It is very knobbly, but it lays well. It could be used this way. However, I wanted to see how hard it was to iron and how it would look if I did. It took quite a while and some pressure to flatten it, but it did become more smooth. Once ironed it was much easier to handle without re-wrinkling it than an unquilted cloth but I am not sure if the quilting is worth the effort. Even ironed it retains some texture...that alligator sensibility.

Laying the finished runner on top shows that the color of the under cloth may be a little too strong. Even though it matches the thread of the embroidery, the dimensionality and glossiness of the floss reflects the light differently and makes the wheat et al look lighter. 

Over time the quilt will lighten and probably become more integrated with the runner, but this is what I have now. The next step will be to decide what centerpiece, napkins etc. will be the best to take this table to a finish. 

 

Winter's end

And now for something completely different....from last week's colorful birthday to the final table of winter. Outside the naked branches in the underbrush are starting to sport beads of green as leaves swell along the stems. The native red currant bushes are showing hints of the dangling pink flowers to come and the daylight increases everyday. Still, it is gray and chilly and the mournful rain splats against the windows. I decided to respond to persistent winter and set a monochromatic table for a dinner with friends. I used Mike's mom's vintage cut work tablecloth over a natural linen under cloth, with white flowers and gray banded plates. The selection of white flowers was disappointing at the store. Baby's breath was the right color and I thought it would look kind of snowy, but now I think lichen-y branches would have telegraphed winter more clearly without the bridal overtones. Oh well. 

The simplicity and calmness of the setting evoked the austerity of winter to me, but I can feel the "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower" getting ready to ignite. Spring is coming.

Birthday 70

One of the table setting holes that one can topple into is the development of themes. Birthdays, holidays and special interests of all kinds (literary references for book clubs, cowboy decor for barbeques, etc. etc.) can suggest tables that bring a sense of uniqueness and fun to a gathering. I usually stick to seasonal themes because I am trying to tap into something universal with my settings, and evoke, however subliminally, connections that are deeper than decoration. Also, the expense of chasing theme after theme can be daunting. However, sometimes a theme just reaches out and bites you, so what can you do?  I was wondering what to do for Mike's 70th birthday dinner when I realized that a number of recent gifts to me had a common thematic thread. Mom gave me a filigree gold hurricane style candle holder for Christmas that reminded me of India, and for my birthday my sister Erin gave me little jewel and gold votive holders that had the same feeling. Then Erin reminded me of a shawl that Mom gave me a couple of years ago that also has an Indian design and the table came together. 

The colors were different for me, but the warmth of the combinations made a pleasant bright spot for a winter celebration. Threads of turquoise in the shawl brought out the Fiesta plates and the wineglasses that don't get much use. Added to the new candle holders and some orange roses and alstroemeria, the effect was convivial and inviting. We had a great family party and dragged Mike into his seventies in style. Thanks to Mom and Erin for the elements that made this table happen. 

Whew

December. Always a marathon of shopping, wrapping, visiting, cooking, clean-up and hugging. This month seemed especially full. Every weekend entailed a two-hour trip to Seattle for one gathering or another (all wonderful in their own ways), ending with four days of guests here including Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas breakfast, and Christmas dinner. I'm not complaining about this...it is always a great blessing to gather our family together and I am anxious to make a memorable holiday for everyone. I get lots of help, too, so it wasn't just me, but I'll admit that I am tired now. It is pleasant to collapse into the quiet darkness of this time and let a few things slide.

This was our granddaughter's first Christmas, so we had the added joy of a baby in the house. She is already an excellent present opener, which is good because between Christmas and Hanukkah she got quite a few.

For the table this year I returned to my green and gold color scheme, partly because I scored the warm white poinsettias that make it work easily. They are not always available in our little town. We had nine people at the table for Christmas dinner, which was pretty tasty if I do say so myself: beef tenderloin with shitake cream sauce was the main course, with fruit and green salads, Brussels sprouts  and rolls, and chocolate pie and ginger cake for dessert. (I'm full again, just thinking about it.)

Now that it is over I have finally got the time to hope that your celebrations were as warm and pleasant as mine were, and wish you all the best for 2020. I think it will be a big year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Back to the fifties

This weekend an interesting article rolled up on my news feed from Vox: Millennials have dinner parties, they just don't call them that by Nisha Chittal.     

The premise of the piece is that young people no longer have the money, space or interest in "entertaining" like people used to do, but still like getting together with their friends and sharing meals. The article shows pictures like the one above and sneers a little at the social climbing pretensions of the time:

   " All of this is to say that as the dinner party evolved over modern history, the ability to throw a dinner party became a signifier of class status. Hosting a dinner party required having a home big enough to host gatherings and comfortably seat people at a dinner table, the money to supply guests with several courses of food and alcohol, the time to prepare elaborate meals, and the disposable income to furnish your home with sets of formal dinnerware, stemware, candles, table decor, and all the other trappings of formal dinner parties. Having a dinner party was a way to show off your extensive social connections, your wealth, your place in society. It was a sign of having good taste - which is ultimately about class anxiety."

In some ways the author is right about the social background she is describing, but I think it is funny that this article is using the tables of the fifties as a counterpoint to the new "nothing fancy" aesthetic of now. Unlike the author (probably, if she is a millennial) I remember the fifties, although the sixties are a little more clear. I read Emily Post and saw pictures in magazines and yes, felt social and class anxiety because my family was hanging on to the middle class by its fingernails, but a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. The fifties were a time of expansion and possibility still anchored by stable institutions and norms, so I understand the nostalgia they engender, but the monumental changes that bring us to the present day left that old dinner party behind long ago. 

My experience with dinner parties started just the way the author says people do it now. Like us, our neighbors and friends had children that we didn't want (or couldn't afford) to leave with babysitters, so we saw each other en masse, children in tow, in each other's houses for dinner. There was a lot of pot-luck...indeed we never showed up at someone's house without a contribution to the meal. I had a table and a dining room, so that was lucky, but only one set of dishes, the everyday stainless steel flatware I got when I married (I never even bothered to register for sterling) and glassware from the drugstore. It was enough, although sometimes I had to hurriedly wash forks and plates before dessert. Those evenings were so much fun! I had the long-time family experience of gathering for meals around the table, but these friend-centered occasions took the practice to a new level of enjoyment and connectedness. I looked forward to them and began to wonder how I could improve my cooking and make my table prettier. It was not about social climbing or class anxiety, it was about encouraging the sense of togetherness, affection, and just plain hilarity that those dinners produced. They showed me a way to be with the people I care about intensely and authentically. I am still grateful to my friends for helping me to see them and myself that way.

 

 

Lucky star

Making a set of green linen napkins should have been a straightforward sewing task, including the formation of mitered corners. When one corner on one napkin got clipped incorrectly I ended up with a slanted corner instead. My first feeling was one of dismay and disappointment....my napkin set was compromised. I didn't have enough fabric for another napkin; I didn't feel like seven constituted a proper set; there was nothing about the corner that made the napkin less useful, so leaving it out would just waste it....these were the thoughts that ran through my head, and that's what I posted about. One bad corner. The post before it was about seeing things from a different angle, but I did not see this mistake from a different angle. It was Mo (itscrowtime.wordpress.com) who pointed out that I could regard the napkin not as compromised, but special. Duh. Sometimes it feels like my brain is made of rust, although I also credit Mo in general with particularly nimble and creative thinking. In honor of her I decided to embellish my special napkin with a star because of the skyfull of stars she regularly produces. It turned out a little wonky, but now it says "lucky" instead of "mistake". Thanks Mo!

One bad corner

Although there hasn't been too much to show, I have continued to work on Lisa's table settings. The embroidery on her autumn runner is extensive, but getting close to being finished. In the meanwhile I have been making the quilted undercloth for her spring setting. Actually, I'm not quilting it myself....I made the top by adding bands to a square of linen to increase its size to 63 inches, organized a backing (muslin) and batting (flannel) and sent it to our local long-arm quilting lady. I'll get it back in a couple of weeks. This adds quite a bit of expense to the project, but I couldn't face the effort of teaching myself to machine quilt (hand quilting is out of the question with all the embroidery I have undertaken) without knowing if this experiment will work. I'll get the square back and will be able then to judge its drape and ease of care and see if it is worth it to quilt tablecloths. If it is suitable I will have to get serious about doing it myself.

Making the undercloth this way has used much less of the six yards of linen I always buy for large tablecloths, so I have turned the surplus into napkins. I was able to get eight  twenty-three inch square napkins (twenty inches finished) out of the scraps, which means thirty-two mitered corners. Practice has made me quite nonchalant about making mitered corners, so I was irritated to find that I had mis-sewn and then clipped one before realizing that there was a problem. Grrr.... way to keep myself humble. Now one of the set of eight will be the poor step-child, only used when numbers require it, and probably by Lisa herself if she follows my practice of reserving the stained or worn bits for me or Mike when setting our tables. Nothing is ever perfect, but the project soldiers on.

Nourishment

I was listening to Seth Godin's podcast Akimbo this morning and he was saying that the point of school should be to teach children to solve interesting problems. It got me thinking about what problems I am trying to solve with my efforts in tablesetting. I started with the superficial issues I wrestle with as I make my seasonal cloths, but kind of quickly got down to the question: "Why does it matter?" Am I doing it to satisfy and justify my own predilections.... I like setting tables, therefore it must be important and useful? Is my work actually as shallow and ego-driven as that? What is the real underlying problem I am addressing? The answer is lurking in the depths like the Loch Ness monster, large and mythical, but hard to see.

I think that the most important thing to me is my own connections to the web of life. Being part of, taking part in, doing my part to contribute to the swirl of Being Alive. It is what I am here for. Like everyone else, I experience that connection through the people I know, the places I inhabit and the experiences those things bring to me. I am part of many interlocking systems (familial, social, political, and ecological) that range from extremely intimate to universal. Some of those systems are breaking down and that is a Big Problem. Religion is a glue that is losing its stick, government is mistrusted, bowling leagues are out of fashion. Our cultural insistence on the primacy of the individual has left us alone and lonely amid the sweep of events too large to control or even understand. (The move toward individual autonomy was a needed part of our evolution, but we have come as far as that road will take us and now what?) Our natural urge in times of trouble is to turn to those around us and join together to face the danger, but what if we no longer know where to turn? We are confronted with threats to our existence without the framework of support we need to address them.

I started out speaking about myself and then moved to a larger view, which illustrates the many levels on which we are affected by the world around us. I guess this is another way of saying that the personal is political. We are each enmeshed in our own lives, together with everyone else. We need to find some rocks to stand on as the river of change sweeps relentlessly onward. What actions can we take as individuals that will gather, re-form and strengthen our communities? There are tons of ways we can reach out to others, but joining our friends and families for meals seems archetypal in its simplicity, and symbolic power. Sitting down face to face with those we know, or would like to know better, sharing the nourishment of the earth that we all require, is bedrock human interaction in which everyone can participate on some level or other. Fancy tables are not necessary at all, but it is our instinct and offering to embellish that which we think is important and I think the small, ordinary act of eating together is of utmost importance. The interesting problem I seek to solve is how to encourage and increase our connections with each other and the world; tablecloths are my medium.

 

On re-reading my post, I realize that I have said this over and over here, through the years. I am moved to say it again. Since repeating oneself is a sign of age does this mean that I am getting old?

Capturing the sacred

Asked to describe the religious background of his childhood, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie* told a story of helping his mother set the table every Friday for Shabbat. He would use her best dishes and scour the neighborhood for flowers to make it pretty. That he, the latest in a long line of famous rabbis, would choose to characterize his spiritual upbringing in this simple way testifies to the connection between our aesthetic sensibilities and our awareness of that-which-is-greater than our material, surface lives. The presence of the sacred is a will o' the wisp in everyday existence, easily missed, but always profound when noticed. Beauty is one of its markers, so we seek and make beauty to place ourselves into the larger, deeper flow of life coursing through and beyond our immediate moment. By cleaning, decorating and "making special" we point to and enhance the elusive spirit that animates our lives.

"Setting the table" is a metaphor for creating context. As he literally set his mother's table Rabbi Lau-Lavie made a place for his family to celebrate their religious beliefs through time-honored ritual. By taking care and exercising his creativity he upheld and burnished the importance of Shabbat, but it is the actual acts of care-taking and beautifying themselves that he remembers most clearly and connects to his spiritual heritage. This shows the power hiding in the mundane, daily maintenance of our world....the repetitive, lowly tasks of cleaning and creating the atmosphere in which we exist. Mending, dusting, polishing and arranging are the unappreciated activities that keep our surroundings linked to the beauty of the sacred and create the context that helps us see it.

 

* From an On Being interview with Krista Tippett, of course.