Nature | Madeline Ruth Walker

About a week ago, on our morning dog walk, we stood waiting for the traffic light to change and a young girl, perhaps nine, long dark hair, hooded coat and wearing a backpack, approached and stood near us. She looked over at us a couple of times. When the light turned green, she walked in front of us a few metres, but she kept turning back, peering around her big hood to look at me. And at one point, as we crossed the bridge over the Gorge, I decided to say something. “Do you like dogs?” I thought perhaps she was looking at us because of Marvin, our goldendoodle, who trundled along beside us, at the end of his purple leash. Lots of times kids want to pet him, but they’re too shy to ask.

“Yes, I like all animals,” she said. And then she spoke, in the most serious way, a line I will not soon forget: “I’m a big fan of nature.” I moved ahead of Michael and she and I walked together for a minute, discussing how we were both big fans of nature. Then we were at the school crosswalk where we parted ways.

We laughed affectionately about what she’d said—what a great line! “I’m a big fan of nature,” we kept saying to each other throughout the day, and then “I’m a big fan of ____” and we filled in the blank with whatever…fizzy water, sunsets, Marvin, taking out the garbage.

I’ve thought about that delightful exchange many times this week. The girl’s innocent enthusiasm for nature. A simple trust in the goodness of the natural world and people. Her approach wasn’t naïve; rather, it seemed wise. We spoke so briefly, but what she said made me want to adopt her attitude of fandom.

I am a big fan of hand sewing

When we went to NYC in December, I heard about Tatter, a Brooklyn-based textile organization that is “committed to preserving skills of the hand.” They promise a lot:

“We work with makers, archivists, and anthropologists to develop extended courses that use textiles as a portal to reclaim history, cultural encounter, indigenous practices, a harmonious relation to the natural world, and making as a tactic of collective liberation.”

I didn’t have a chance to visit Tatter. However, in February, I took one of their classes on Zoom with Karen Stevens. We learned to hand-sew zippered pouches. Through this class, I rediscovered the enjoyment of hand sewing. The whole-body rhythm of a slow, contemplative backstitch and the satisfying emergence of a line of running stitches along a zipper‘s edge or around an appliqué. There is no rush with hand sewing, no urgency like I feel sometimes when I am at the machine. Hand sewing is portable and calming.

I learned some tips from Karen that I’ll share with you. Perhaps you already know this stuff, but for me, the following was revelatory information.

Don’t thread the needle, needle the thread. This practice makes so much sense, after years of trying to poke three saliva-soaked strands of embroidery thread into a tiny hole. Hold the very end of the thread(s) between index finger and thumb in your non-dominant hand while you angle the needle over the thread. Much easier to get eye over thread than thread into eye.
You don’t need knots. You can just sew one straight stitch several times over to start and end your length of thread. I think of it as akin to building a house with joinery rather than nails or glue.
Basting is a very useful practice. Sure, pins hold things together, but if you baste with big loopy stitches—it doesn’t take long—your fabric stays in place until you’re ready to anchor it with backstitches. I used to think of basting as a waste of time, but what is time for?

I am a big fan of upcycling stores

I happen to volunteer at one of those stores, Women in Need Upcycle and Craft, so I am biased. We just expanded to double the space, and every week I open boxes of fresh treasures to line our shelves. Some weeks it’s skeins of merino wool and tiny wooden canoes. Other times it might be a kit to make a paper lamp and bags of beautiful retro fabrics and lace.

I appreciate all of our sister upcycling stores as well. The Green Thimble‘s name is alluring to eco-conscious sewists. Today, March 4, they are moving from their Quadra Street location to 2950 Douglas St. #400. At Green Thimble, I filled a small paper bag with scraps and loose buttons for only five dollars. I admired the refurbished sewing machines for sale and the bolts of fabric at bargain prices. Supply Creative Reuse Centre on lower Douglas is a finely curated collection of paper, books, cloth, yarn, buttons, ribbons, and more. I was impressed by their sliding scale prices. At Supply, I found a scrap of pink sheepskin for $1.50 that features as the centre of my wall hanging work-in-progress. Thrift/Craft in Market Square is a huge space filled with unusual items and hosted by a devoted proprietress. One of my favourite things there is the weird stuff housed in tiny drawers, for example, Catholic paraphernalia. In each of these places I encounter interesting people who like to chat about making things.

I am a big fan of creative immersion

Immersing yourself in a creative project can lift your mood, and we could all use some mood uplift now. Am I right? I am presently working on “Ten Thousand Joys,” a large wall hanging in oranges, pinks, reds, and purples. At its centre is a fabric circle I created using a ten-degree wedge. I cut and sewed three alternating brightly-patterned fabrics together to make this 45-inch mandala. I cut an old blanket into cascading circles to lay under the mandala to create a three-dimensional effect. At the centre, the bit of pink sheepskin peeps through. I basted the padding onto a big piece of orange burlap I found at Value Village and then basted the circle onto the padding. Now I am in the process of using embroidery thread to sew the circle onto its backing at the circumference. I’ll add lots of embroidery stitches in bright colours, zig-zagging up and down the long wedges. The hanging will be finished by sewing on, not ten thousand, but dozens of pink, red, and purple buttons around the central circle. It feels inevitable that I will make a “Ten Thousand Sorrows” wall hanging next.

“When you open your heart, you get life's ten thousand joys, and ten thousand sorrows.” Chuang Tzu

And what, may I ask, are you a big fan of?

We moved to a new house at the end of June. We’ve slowly started to hang pictures on the walls. My new favourite spot to sit is at one end of the blue couch, feet up on the old footstool that used to belong to my mother-in-law. I can see the Olympic Mountains from where I sit, through the big sliding doors to the balcony. The mountains are sharp snowy peaks one day, and ghostly shapes draped by veils of cloud the next. Today, the smoke from the Sooke fire smudges the place between land and sky. I like this view. It feels very expansive, big sky all around us hosting clouds and sun, mountains there like a mirage, a faraway dream. Just imagine it…my photos don’t do justice.

I sit on the couch and gaze at the interior view. High on the wall above the plant table we hung Portrait of Marion (1946), an oil painting by Irish American painter Luke Edmond Gibney who lived in the San Francisco Bay area (1904–1960). My mother loved many California artists, particularly those from the Bay area, where she lived for many years and where I and my sisters were born. She collected paintings by Joe Tanous, Robert Moesle, Emmy Lou Packard, Lou Gibney, and Geneve Rixford Sargeant as well as plenty of jewelry designed and made by Peter Macchiarini (jeweler and sculptor).

I grew up with Portrait of Marion in our houses, and as a child, I pretended the woman in the painting was my mother. I both loved and was slightly scared of her—beautiful, aloof, pale, mysterious. And there is a ghost of a resemblance to my mother in Marion—the straight, very dark brown—almost black—hair. The remote, unreadable expression. Because I couldn’t see her eyes, I felt nervous. What was she thinking? Feeling? The piece unsettled me as a child, but I can be unsettled by a piece of art, yet still feel very close to it.

The year after my mother died, I precipitously arranged an online auction to sell off most of her art collection, including Portrait of Marion. I am grateful now that only a few pieces sold, and Marion remained in our family for me to reclaim. Sometimes you can be in too big a hurry to get rid of stuff.

These days, I feel great affection for this dignified, unknowable woman.

Another lovely spot in our new house is to sit at the dining room table, where I have views of the water and the edges of Portage Park. The park is both meadow and forest bordering Thetis Cove on Esquimalt Harbour and is named for an old portage route between the harbour and Gorge waterway.

The view from the window invites us outside, across the railroad tracks to the park trails. Trees, plants, birds, and rabbits abound. Fennel towers scent the air liquorice as I pass. Tall meadow grasses and salal, furry thimbleberries, prickly thistles, Oregon grape, Queen Anne’s Lace. Apple trees and blackberry bushes along the trails will yield sweet fruit, free for the picking, by August and September.

When we walk for five minutes through the forest, we reach the pebbly shores of the cove. Richards Island is before us, with Fisgard Lighthouse to the right. We stand on the beach in the mornings, entering the peace and quiet of this land. At low tide a few leggy herons feed in the shallows and eagles spin overhead. I am privileged to live here, lək̓ʷəŋən Traditional Territory, home of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.

The name of our new road is Hallowell, which makes me think of hallowed or holy ground, All Hallows Eve (Halloween, my birthday), and being well. I like these word associations.

It took us weeks to get around to smudging our house, but finally, we did. We lit the sage stick and walked from room to room, fanning the sweet smoke, repeating these words:

May this space be a place of love, peace, and joy.
Let this smoke cleanse away any lingering negativity from the past.
May all who enter here feel welcome and blessed.
With the healing power within, I cleanse and purify my body, mind, and spirit.

We like it here.