Making Things

Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

            Over the last several years I’ve moved toward making more and more of the things we regularly use.  We now grow our own vegetables – this year using a cold frame outdoors and a small “greenhouse” bookcase indoors in the winter to keep that going—and use them regularly in our cooking.  We make our own compost, both in outside bins and in an inside worm-bin. We hot-water can tomatoes, ketchup and jellies—and hope to start pressure canning next year so that we can do a wider variety of food.  We make our own bread and use very little prepared foods in any of our meals these days.             I also knit and am currently working on a scarf for my youngest and a throw for the living room sofa.

            What I’d like to make and have actually gathered the material for, though I haven’t had the time to work on it, are two quilts.  One would be a more traditional “country quilt.”  The other would be a quilt make out of favorite old tee-shirts of the middle child that I’ve intentionally saved over the years for this purpose.   I’ve never quilted though, so it’d be a long process learning step-by-step learning to make the quilts I’ve got in mind.  I’d have to set aside lots and lots of blocks of time to make it actually happen, time that at the moment I don’t think I can clear.