Heat Setting Fabric Ink, and “Green” Printing

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Tasha

Heat setting is the last step for a lot of fabric inks, including the ones I used for stamping (Speedball Fabric Screen Printing Ink). The heat bonds the ink permanently to the fabric, so you can wash it and your design won’t come off.

So, how to do it. The most foolproof method is what the manufacturer recommends: ironing.

After the fabric ink dries on the fabric, set a household iron at the highest dry heat (no steam) that will not scorch the fabric and with a cloth or paper between the iron and printed material, iron on each side for 3 – 5 minutes. This will make the ink withstand repeated washings.

from speedballart.com

The first time that I did screen printing and stamping, I decided to look for alternatives, since I wasn’t too excited about ironing each part of the skirt I had stamped as directed above. I emailed the company to ask about other methods, and just how hot the ink needs to get. I got a helpful answer back, including the answer, 350-375° F, and the suggestion that I could try heating my items in the oven.

My oven set method: Preheat your oven to 400 with an extra metal pan inside to pour water into. Boil some water. Fold your printed piece and wrap in scrap cloth or place inside an old T-shirt, so that any scorching or oven gunk goes on that and not your creation. You can also put old fabric or paper between items if you are worried about transfer of ink. Don’t make your fabric bundle so dense that it will take too long for heat to reach all of it. Place your bundle on a cookie sheet. When the oven gets up to temperature, turn it off. Open the door and pour a cup or two of boiling water into the extra pan. Quickly pop in your cookie sheet and shut the door again. Leave everything inside with the door shut for 10 minutes. If you have an oven thermometer and a window in your oven, you should be able to check that the temperature stays above 350° for at least a few minutes. Common sense note, this method will not work for synthetics (although I did a partly polyester apron and it seems fine) or anything that will melt at those temps. If you have a piece with meltable parts, like nylon bag handles, you will need to iron the design/printed part only.

I have had good success with this oven method, I did the skirt below this way, without a steam pan, and it has survived years of washing and wearing without any noticeable fading in the design whatsoever. In fact, I remember that I washed it before reading the manufacturer recommendation that you wait a week before washing the first time, and as I said it still looks great! Some other folks that I shared the oven method with (and even myself once, when I didn’t turn off the oven – not a good experiment) have had some problems with fabric scorching around the edges. I came up with adding the steam pan, since fabric can usually take practically any heat without scorching as long as the heat is wet. I heat set a big batch of dish towels this way with my friend Megan a couple years ago, I checked in with her and she said that those designs have held up to lots of use and washing as well.

A couple of things that didn’t work: as extra insurance against scorching I tried wetting the old towel that I wrapped my last piece in before putting it in the oven. Everything smelled like warm steamy fabric, but I don’t think it got hot enough inside. I have also heard that some people use a commercial dryer, so I snuck into the laundromat with a couple of samples from my latest stamping day with friends. I put all these test pieces though the wash 6 times, as I was doing laundry between then and now, and hung them on the line to dry. They all show significant fading and some of the motifs are totally gone. So for now my best suggestions are the ironing and oven methods above, I will of course post an update if I come up with a new and better way!

One more thing I’d like to talk about, and this seems as good a place as any, eco-friendly printing! Part of what I love about DIY is the ability to turn something you wouldn’t use into something you will, and save resources and cash. I hate it when I realize that I’m wasting supplies, or sending lots of extra stuff to the landfill when I’m crafting.

My tips for “green” fabric stamping are: for clean up, you only need a cup’s worth of water and an old toothbrush, and a rag. When your hands or tools get messy, rinse them in the water, then wipe them on the rag. Heat set the rag when you’re done to use again (it looks cool). Reuse paint mixing cups by pouring out excess paint (into the trash, or onto something else?) and letting them dry before putting them away. I use one plastic spoon to scoop paint for each primary color, and one to mix each new color. I let all the spoons dry at the end and save them for next time. The foam brushes I rinse in the clean-up cup, then a final time in the sink, and again let dry. If you use something that’s still useful with paint on it, like a mailing box, under your paint jars to protect the table, the total waste is down to a little unused paint!

Well, that’s about it for this project, please feel free to add comments if you try printing, how does it work for you? I’d love to hear more ideas for heat setting as well! Stay tuned for more DIY . . .

Stamping on Fabric – With Hand Carved Stamps and Household Objects

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Tasha

Ok, so now you have a hand carved stamp. Or, maybe you don’t yet. How about stamping with something you already have around your house? And, what gets me excited about either of these options: being able to use them on fabric and clothing.

Before we discuss fabric ink and stamping, let me talk briefly about how I set up these buttons as stamps. I got this idea from a really creative slideshow (on Martha Stewart of all places) which illustrates using all kinds of things you might find around your house to make some interesting designs. My favorite was the buttons. Some things already have an easy point to grab them by without getting your fingers covered in ink (like long pieces of wood, which you can see printed in the top photo), but buttons, not so much. I cut some pieces from a leftover dowel and a small wood block, just using a clamp and a handsaw, they don’t have to be perfect in any way. I did some quick online research and a couple of sources suggested using some kind of foam to back your stamps, to give them a little more give for even printing. This seemed like a good idea since buttons are pretty much hard to begin with. I used tiny pieces of dish packing type foam (we get it as packing material with some supplies) glued to the back of each button and its piece of wood with ATG, which once again I borrowed from the photo studio. You can use any type of glue as long as it will hold the object and be water-resistant enough to be rinsed after you stamp. And, you could use just about anything squishy for the foam, just cut the pieces smaller than your object, otherwise the edges of the foam may print.

Ok, time to stamp! For ink, I used Speedball Water-Based Textile Screen Printing Ink. I have gotten it from Blick, local art stores, and chain stores. On the jar, it just says FABRIC Screen Printing Ink, but if you look on the side it also says water based and non-toxic. I really like that you can thin this ink as much as you want with water, and you don’t have to worry about it if you get it on your hands, which is pretty much inevitable. Plus it is permanent on fabric with heat setting. It comes in lots of colors. I like to mix my own using the three primary colors; the “process” cyan, magenta, and yellow will give truer mixing results than the regular red blue and yellow. You’ll also need white and black. A tip I learned from Lena Corwin’s book Printing by Hand (I highly recommend this book if you are interested in more about printing!) is that mixing in a little of both white and black will give you a more subtle color (less screaming bright) and I love subtle colors.

To set up for printing, you’ll need ink, a little water for mixing, and more for washing things off (a big cup full with an old toothbrush for scrubbing is perfect) and a wet rag to wipe your hands and tools on after you rinse. It’s easier to print on thin fabrics if you put down an old towel underneath to give the surface a little more give, which can allow more details of the stamp to print. Putting all this on a big table you can wipe off is ideal, and it’s nice to have something under the messy ink part to catch drips. I used a box since I figured it would still be good for shipping with ink on it. I used one spoon to get out each color, one to mix my color with, and a small foam brush to hold the ink for stamping. I let the spoons dry when I’m done, and wash the foam brushes to save for the next time.

When mixing ink colors, start with as little ink as you can, you’ll add more as you decide what to add to get the color you’re looking for (a color wheel can help here), plus you’ll be adding water, and stamping doesn’t take very much ink in any case. Keep in mind that the ink will dry slightly darker in color than it looks wet.

Having scrap fabric to test on is essential! The closer the fabric is in type, weight and color to your intended project, the better you’ll be able to see how the stamps are coming out. For this project, I just used a small section on the edge of my fabric for testing, changing the color or the dilution of the ink a little bit at a time and waiting a couple of minutes to see how the results looked as they dried.

I like the ink to be absorbed into the fabric so that it doesn’t leave a hard or crunchy surface, but looks more like a dye. To get this effect, I add water until the ink slowly drips from the foam brush when I lift it up. The consistency you want may vary with your fabric, again, testing is key!

Here is my best fabric stamping tip: squeeze the ink out of the foam brush until it’s not dripping, and only releases ink when you press on it, like a stamp pad. Then, gently press your stamp or object against the sponge to get a coat of paint. You can see which parts are going to print by where the ink is on the stamp or object.

Keep the foam brush in one hand, and bring your stamp back to it for a fresh coat each time you print it. The sponge will hold enough ink for a bunch of stamps before it needs more from the cup.

I found that a light coating of ink, and a soft rolling motion against the fabric with each stamping helped the full possible detail of the buttons to print.

That’s about it! I place my stamps pretty much randomly, alternating whichever ones I am working with until I get a design density that I like. It helps to step back and take a look, especially if you are printing something big that you can’t work on all at once.

For troubleshooting, take a look at the very top photo (click to enlarge it). If you have too much ink on the stamp or the ink is too watery, it will spread out all around your stamp and the detail of the design will be lost. Clean the stamp off, squeeze more ink out of your sponge, press it gently on just the surface of the stamp and try again. If it’s still too flowy, add more ink to your color to reduce the water content. If you don’t have enough ink on the stamp, you’ll get a pale ghost of an image. If the ink is thick, like it comes out of the jar, it will dry harder and raised on the surface of your fabric, which you may want, depending on your design. If your fabric is wrinkled, iron it before you start. Soft wrinkles won’t get in the way too much, but if you stamp over a crease, you can see it when the crease opens up.

One last troubleshooting thing: some objects print better than others. Some of the buttons I tried had details too fine to print, but this will depend a lot on what fabric and how much ink you use, so test it out!

Here’s my finished button printed fabric. I think it may become a skirt.

Stamping is also awesome for reviving finished clothes or linens that are a little too plain. I used some of my aunt Barb’s hand made stamps to decorate this previously just beige thrift store skirt.

While your stamped fabric is drying, it’s worthwhile to clean off your tools, since this ink can eventually clog your stamps if left to dry. Using the old toothbrush and a little water from your clean-up cup works great.

Next time, I’ll post about heat setting the ink, lots of options for this important step that makes the finished product washable! Plus, a little bit about “green” crafting and less waste from what we make.

In the meantime, have you tried something similar? I’d love to know what you did and how it came out!

Carving a Handmade Rubber Stamp

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Tasha

This will be the first post of a couple about making stamps and using handmade stamps and objects to print on fabric. For some reason, once you add the words “on fabric” to any art technique, I am suddenly interested . . . but of course you can also use hand carved stamps on paper, and even clay! My aunt Barb taught me to make stamps, she uses hers to make beautiful collage-type art, in her handmade books (where I found this design which she let me use in an earlier post), and in her pottery work. We talked about a feature of her art to go along with this how-to, but it’s a busy season for both of us, so we’ll save that to look forward to later.

For today, how to carve a stamp! You will need a tool called a linoleum cutter (seen in the second picture), which you can get at most art stores, and some kind of block to carve. Lately I’ve used two kinds, pink stuff called “Speedy-Carve” from Speedball, which I got at the chain art and crap store here, and brown “Eco Karve Printing Plate” from Inovart (made of recycled material!), which I ordered from Blick along with the paint. The pink kind is a little softer, slightly easier to carve, and much easier to see to see your pencil designs on because of the lighter color. It’s a little thin for bigger stamps, which can get floppy if you don’t attach them to anything. I liked carving and printing with the brown stuff, and it’s thicker, and easier to see what you have carved out than the pink, but it can be hard to see your transfer design on the darker surface. When I started making stamps we used a whitish carving block, which as far as I can tell from the scraps was also made by Speedball. It’s not my favorite, little bits of it can crumble away while you’re carving, where you’d rather they didn’t (you can kind of see this in the inside corners of the star stamp). In any case, you can probably find a material near you to try it out.

Now that you have your materials, you need a design. I have been into five-petaled flower designs lately, and I liked the artwork on the posters for the cherry blossom festival we saw in DC earlier this year, so I decided on a cherry blossom stamp. You can draw on the rubber carving stuff, but I find it easier to draw on paper and transfer the design. It’s easier to erase your mistakes or start over, and the design when you stamp it will be the same as you drew it, instead of a mirror image (because it’s flipped once when you transfer it and again when you stamp).

It helps to use a soft pencil and make thick lines. You can get a fair amount of detail in your stamps, but don’t go crazy with fine lines for the first one you make! Once you have a design you like, flip the paper over onto the carving block, hold it still, and rub it with something hard and flattish, like a spoon or a bone folder, to transfer the design onto the rubber. You’ll get more out of your carving blocks if you place the design on a corner instead of right in the middle.

Time to carve it out! I think it’s easier to cut out the section of rubber around your design with a razor knife before you carve it.

The idea is to cut out everything that you don’t want to print, from around the design that you do.

Loosen the head of the linoleum cutter and put the smallest carving tip (sharp side goes out – watch out, it’s sharp!) in the curved slot that opens on one side of the ball as you loosen. The previous sentence probably makes zero sense unless you are looking at the tool, but that’s Ok. Start carving; each one of the tips for this tool acts like a sharp scoop, use them point or scoop down to carve out pieces of rubber that you don’t want. I like to start with the smallest tip and go carefully around the edges of the design, it helps keep me from accidentally slicing through it with the bigger cutters.

Cut away from inside corners to both sides. It’s helpful to turn the block, as well as the tool, while carving around curves.

Once you get the design outlined, switch to the larger V shape tip, and use it to cut around your outlines, making a deeper channel. Then, use the scoop to carve out large sections that you don’t need. Cut away from your design at a steep slope on the edges of your stamp, to keep them from printing. Then go back with the smallest V tip and clean up any leftovers. You can see this process progressing clockwise around my flower stamp above.

Try out your stamp with an ink pad and paper, you’ll get to see how it’s coming out, and any areas you don’t like will be helpfully colored with ink, so you can see where to carve them off. Some little bits of messiness are part of the charm of a handmade stamp, but you can decide how much of that you want.

You can carve just about anything into a stamp! I made the one above while hanging out with a friend, to stamp on the re-used boxes and envelopes that I send orders in (it also appeared on KP’s blog as part of her recycle package challenge).

If you’d like to jump- start your handmade stamp collection, talktothesun on Etsy sells some great-looking ones (not my shop, I just like it)!

Have a question? A stamp carving tip? A material you like? Leave it in the comments, I’d love to hear what you think!

Next time: use your stamps (and other stuff) to print on fabric.

Storing Herbs in the Fridge

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Tasha

Ok, one more thing related to our super haul from the last farmers’ market last week. It’s also related to a big bag of assorted herbs that some visiting relatives left at our house this summer. They were from the garden, and I made it my “herb challenge” to use every one, and in some cases to figure out what they were. After having fresh oregano in pasta sauce, rosemary potatoes, lemongrass syrup for soda, and tarragon butter – the finale – I decided this was way too much fun to stop just because we got to the bottom of the bag, and I’ve been buying more fresh herbs ever since. They just add such a punch of round, fresh flavor.

This tip for storing them is something we figured out last fall while visiting friends in Bend, OR. You know how basil wilts in the fridge pretty much immediately? Well, the farmer at one stall told us to try putting the stems in a jar with water in the refrigerator, which we did – and it wilted immediately, maybe even faster than in a bag. I was telling this story to another farmer the next week and he said, “But, did you put a plastic bag over the top?”

Aha! This works amazingly well, like some kind of magical super-cold greenhouse. Put the bag loosely over the herbs, and then use a rubber band to keep it tight to the base of the jar. For basil, I also trim the stems just a bit like I would cut flowers. The basil in this picture is already a few days old, it will stay fresh for about a solid week. The other herbs have so far all been eaten before they show signs of wilting.

Hope this inspires you to add some fresh herbs to your fridge!

Update: If your basil stems aren’t long enough for a jar of water, I’ve had good success keeping them sealed tight in a plastic bag in the fridge, with just a little moisture inside. If it seems dry in the bag, I sprinkle in a little water and distribute it by gently mixing the leaves around, then seal the bag again. This works in a cooler too, as long as the leaves don’t touch the ice.

A Good Way to Open a Pomegranate

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Tasha

Sunday was the last farmers’ market of the year here. Bryan and I went together, and pretty much went nuts (pun intended?) on all the fruit and veggies we could buy. “Hon,” I said, “That’s a lot of tomatoes.”

“Well,” he said, “I don’t think we’ll have a problem eating extra tomatoes!” You know the produce is beautiful when it’s not just me taking pictures of it, the professional photographer in my house is getting into the act as well, and buying extra tomatoes for the purpose.

Anyway, our fridge and pantry are pretty much stuffed, and we have a whole tray of pomegranates. I love pomegranates. I like the whole idea of them, like hidden treasure. And, of course the taste! Luckily, they grow in the valley not too far from here.

Especially with this method, the lovely seeds are not too hard to get at. The idea of soaking them in water came from The Joy of Cooking, source of much good kitchen knowledge.

Step 1: slice off just the tops. If you hit a few seeds don’t worry. Score around the sides to the bottom in sections. You’ll cut fewer seeds if you use the naturally more indented places as a guide for where to score. Go all the way through the peel.

Step 2: drop the scored pomegranates into a bowl of water. Leave them alone for about 15 minutes, or longer if they have been sitting around for a while and the skins are dried out.

Step 3: pull one out of the water, and gently break it open. When you come back, the skins should have softened, and the whole thing will feel more elastic when you attempt to pull it open. It may help to use a knife or your fingernail to break the connection at the top center. Then, just tug on a section until it breaks loose. Pomegranates respond better to a steady pull than to a hard yank.

Once the fruit cracks open, whole flanks of seeds are exposed. Rock and push them gently with your thumb, sections of seeds will loosen and break off at once. Any that are shriveled or cloudy are not as good, just leave them on the peel.

The red seeds (from the pinkish fruit) are the classic pomegranate tart with a little sweetness. The pink seeds (from the yellow fruit) are much milder and sweeter if you can find them. For eating out of hand, I think a mix of about half and half is ideal.

They also make a lovely treat with desserts, or on my morning fruit and yogurt. If you need another excuse to get one, try this salad, really unusual flavors, but we and our friends quickly grew to love it. Equally good with butter lettuce, and either honey mustard as suggested, or good quality balsamic and olive oil. And, we subbed a small kabocha squash the first time we made it, with good results.

Really, have you ever seen anything so lovely as a plate of pomegranate seeds? I could have easily spent the whole day photographing fruit . . .

It’s the Colors . . .

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Tasha

Right now it’s the time of year for big orders from the shops that sell my little fuzzy hats. After 400 or so of these suckers all told so far, you’d think I would be sick of them. I still like this design (if I only I could come up with a few more that were as cute and efficient!) but mostly, what keeps me coming back is:

I love picking colors that don’t just go together, they make each other sing. These remind me of a dusky southwest sunset. This is what I do when I’m making the hats, I stare at the colors. Luckily, using recycled materials means there are new colors every time, new ones to find and play with.

As a kid, I would spend hours looking through my mom’s embroidery floss, not really wanting to make anything, just enjoying the colors, they each seemed so vivid and lovely, they lived grouped together in their families in neatly numbered plastic bags. I remember wishing there was fabric, or something I wanted to use, in all those colors, but not knowing what I would do with it if there was. I’m still figuring that out . . .

Half My Wardrobe in Detroit, and What I Did About It

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Tasha

Not as much as I would have liked. But, contrary to the impression you may have gotten from this space, I did squeeze in a little sewing for myself the last time we were home. When we leave the truck somewhere in art show land (otherwise known as the Midwest) and fly back home to get some r&r (or maybe embark on some crazy giant new project) I leave a bunch of my summer wardrobe out there. This last time, I kind of did it to myself on purpose, packing even fewer of my summer tops than I reasonably could have fit in my luggage, hoping that it would motivate me to sew some new ones.

First, I finished a top I had been working on during the visit home before this one. I wear a lot of tank tops in the summer, and I have been thinking about how to make some woven ones as well as the usual knits. This one is a copy of a silk top, the cups of which I found flattering and comfortable. During Me Made May, I fell in love with linen all over again, specifically this one mm green linen skirt, which is getting to the super soft and drapey stage of life. I had this natural linen leftover from a long-ago project and thought I would try it out.

I lined only the cups, with thin soft cotton, catching them in the midriff seam and folding under and hand sewing the other sides, I like how it came out. The original top has a scalloped satin stitch on the edges, and I decided to try something similar. I also had some thick linen thread which I loved with the fabric, but no amount of coaxing and bigger needles would convince my machine this was a reasonable thing to work with, so I ended up using a narrow zigzag to hold in on the surface. Both of the edge treatments are softer and more subtle after a few washings. I made the straps using a thin piece of fabric from the selvage edge, wrapping it around a thin ribbon.

I wanted to make sure it came out long enough, and I may have overdone it, but the tunic length is working alright so far. Funny how I don’t notice things in the original (like the back riding up) until I copy it. Sigh. I’ll also check out the front wrinkles before I make another one.

Next, I pulled out some pink knit leftover from another top to make a tank for yoga, of which I desperately needed more. I had some narrow fold over elastic in my stash which should have been perfect, but for some reason every step of this project fought me tooth and nail and used up WAY more of my precious sewing time than was reasonable for something so simple and small! I ripped a lot of seams. I tried adding a self-fabric section for the hem which absolutely refused to look decent with any type of stitching. Plus, when I tried the top on it seemed too tight and clingy, and I already have one round of tops made from this pattern (a heavily modified Kwik Sew 3524) which are NOT too tight and clingy! Finally I realized that if I ripped the stitching from the little bit of elastic I had used as a test, I would have just enough to put around the bottom as well. Which I did, and without even trying it on again, put it in my closet and wore it to yoga the next day (keep reading for a picture). The top stitching on the elastic is beyond wonky. But I needed it, I made it, and I was wearing it, and some days that just has to be enough.

After that, I made a pair of dainties, partly because I didn’t have much time left and they were cut out already, and partly to prove that my beloved Bernina and I do actually have a good relationship with knits. Which in fact we do.

On our “real” return home for the fall a couple of weeks ago, I decided to make one more tank top before moving on to fall/winter sewing. I had a tee shirt with a hole in it that I had been meaning to convert into a wearable top for ages. Unfortunately, it was cut so far off the grain of the knit that I couldn’t just use the the original hem, as Zoe suggests, and I had to cut the back and front shelf liner in two pieces each to get them to fit. But I did use white top stitching, which I liked on the original shirt.

I liked this picot edge elastic, but it was not exactly soft, so I sandwiched it between the layers, sewing it to the liner first with a zigzag, and then the top layer with a twin needle. For the straps I used a similar idea to the ribbon wrapping, but using plain elastic, zigzag, and the twin needle again. This time everything went smoother, and start to finish, including experiments, took less than three hours. That’s more like it!

See me being all zen about the pink top. See how much clingier AND drapier it is than the blue one? Crazy fabric difference. I checked and the previous versions have stretched out with wear as well. I might make the next one just slightly wider to start with.

Next up for my sewing, pants! What are you making for the coming season? How do you figure out what fabric will do before you sew it? I’m, um, still figuring that part out apparently. . .

Chile Freezing Time

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Tasha

This topic is a bit specific to my home place, the Southwestern USA, at least I think it is – let me know if you live elsewhere and you can get fresh roasted chiles! Around here, roasters set up outside at the farmers’ market or in a parking lot this time of year, and fill the air with the most incredible smell, a smoky autumn aroma that draws me like a magnet and reminds me of all the best things about crisp fall days and warm New Mexico comfort food.

This is what’s called “green” chile, fresh rather than dried, and usually green colored too, although as you can see I like to wait until they start turning red and ripe to buy mine. My absolute, all-time favorite are these “sugar” chiles from Whipstone Farm. Sweet and hot at the same time, they have just the most amazing flavor, especially the red ones.

Whatever kind you can find, I like to freeze them whole, spaced out on a cookie sheet or broiler pan. When they’re solid, I get them out and pop them off with a spatula (it helps to wait just a minute out of the freezer), and put them in plastic bags. Back into the freezer they go, to last me all year. I got this idea from freezing blueberries on a sheet, so that you can get out just as many as you need. I love pulling out a chile or three, and this way once they thaw, they are still intact enough for stuffing with cheese or other goodies. And, I don’t have to worry about pulling out all the tops and seeds before freezing, I just process them as I thaw and use them.

This is the first and probably easiest, possibly most rewarding, food stocking up/saving/preserving I have done so far! I highly recommend it.

Body and Earth, Home Territory

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Tasha

I’m pleased to report we’re home at last! At last – without a crazy amount to do, with all my beautiful supplies and tools right in front of me, in my studio, in the kitchen! Bliss. We got back late Wednesday night (the same day I took these pictures), and the last thing I did before falling asleep was read the last chapter of a really interesting book I’ve been working my way through, Body and Earth by Andrea Olsen. It was the textbook to a class one of my cousins took at Middlebury College. My aunt read it too, she kept talking about how much she liked it, and finally they let me borrow a copy.

To be honest, it starts off a little bit, umm, out in left field for me – talking about our evolutionary history and how that relates to the way our bodies move. But, it moves on pretty quickly into more concrete territory, talking about body processes, earth systems, and ways we can affect both, in a really integrative way that I loved. I have been working on posture and healthy ways to work with my body a lot lately, and there are a lot of exercises and ideas in this book that I found really interesting and helpful. But as far as just things to think about, the end of the book may be the best part. There are a few chapters about connections between earth, body and society, again talking about how everything is related rather than each part on its own. There are a couple of quotes in this part that speak to what I’m trying to say here.

Our culture breeds dissatisfaction in order to sell products . . . As we realize that we are sensual beings, living as part of a world that delights the senses, we can distance ourselves from the cultural baggage of dissatisfaction. We need less, not more, to experience a full life.

As we commodify art and creativity, we see art as other and creativity as foreign, rather than familiar. In the process, we risk losing access to our deepest visions and our intuitive resources. Conversely, as we reclaim creativity, we engage the unknown on a daily basis and listen for truth.

We have grown accustomed to high-end art: perfect recordings, museum paintings, and multimillion-dollar films. But creativity is personal. As we participate in the process, we recognize that it is not just about observing, not just about buying and consuming, alienating ourselves from our own creativity. It is about participating in the creative universe we live in.

It seemed fitting somehow that as I finished this book, we came back into the landscape of my childhood, the places I feel the most connected to. When we started into the plains and mountains of southwest Colorado, I felt such a tug on my heart, it’s not just that this place is beautiful (spectacular this time of year as the leaves change), it’s that I love it and I feel rooted here. The desert, so close and yet so different, I love it too, even though I hated it driving across it as a kid, it seemed so empty. It still seems stark, but so open, so subtle, so much a part of my home.

Just the clouds are amazing. I’ll be back soon with more on participating in our creative universe!

Kent State Museum and Ohio Food Finds

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Tasha

I feel like it took me a while to figure out that if I saw, for example, a cool exhibit was happening at a museum somewhere, especially in the Midwest, chances are we could go there at some point during the year. That’s how we ended up at the Kent State Museum. What I didn’t realize was that in addition to the resist dye exhibit I read about, the whole museum (ok it’s small, but still) is costume and textiles, and they have a permanent hall of historical fashion!! For any of you who don’t already know, I’ve been obsessed with historical clothing for the longest time.

Everything is presented in the best possible way for close-up viewing, with no glass between you and the textiles. My feet were demurely (ok barely) outside the barriers, but my head was basically in the exhibits, soaking up tiny hand stitching. Things made before the sewing machine I find extra fascinating, I’m always wondering how my stitching would stack up in those days. And how did they make those tiny perfect gathers?

As you may have guessed from the lack of detailed images of all this amazing clothing so far, this museum has a strict no photography policy. And I have a “do unto others” policy when it comes to photos and copyright. And any iPhone photos I could have snuck in on the sly would in no way capture the level of detail that you can really see. If we’re going to the area next year I may try to get advance permission to take some photos, or bring a sketchbook. But really, the only way to see this is for yourself.

We stumbled on a couple of notable food finds in Ohio as well, namely Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream. Splendid is the right word! We tried four flavors, all of which were spectacular – tart cherry sorbet made with lambic, pear sorbet with Riesling, blackberry and sweet corn, and brown butter almond brittle, and there were about 50 more that looked amazing. Well worth going out of your way for, in Columbus, Cleveland and Nashville TN, plus available in groceries around the area.

That’s actually how we found out about it, while shopping for bread and cheese to go with a free tomato. One of my goals for this trip was to snag some maple syrup local to somewhere we passed through, since we’re all out at home. On a byroad we passed a maple syrup sign at a place that mostly sells small storage buildings (I am not making this up) and stopped to get some. The man working there kindly also gave us a large tomato. So anyway, as we were picking out cognac fig goat cheese (from Mackenzie Creamery) Bryan spotted a sign, “Did you know that cognac fig is also a flavor of Jeni’s Ice Cream?”