Naomi and Mary Sign Up to a Hunting Course

Naomi will get a mule tag this year because she is a first-time hunter.

And if she goes hunting with a mentor from the association, she gets special privileges – that special privilege will be a mule tag.

If Naomi gets a tag the mentor will take her out hunting at least by Nov 30, but if another adult takes her out before then, and she has already caught one, then she doesn’t need to have that first-time hunter from an association take her out.

There were 3 boys in the class and the teacher will take them out as well.

Mary made friends with some of the other women in the class, some of whom are already experts with hide tanning and were willing to share their knowledge with her.

That was an added bonus to “take-your-daughter-to -learn-how-to-hunt” day.

The Making of the Mask

There’s a leap between buying fabric and sewing fabric.

Most of us have unsewn fabric that equals the height of the fabric we have sewn.

What we intend to sew is not anything we can ever declutter.

Not wanting to begin this exercise again, I decided to get right at making face masks. I cut out the first five panels, pressed, and sewed them.

Got busy on the liner. And finally got one mask finished.

Along the way, I had been shopping at President’s Choice in Vernon and saw a woman with a very ornate rhinestone embedded braid that went across the top of her face mask.

The word belly dance came into my head when I saw her, though that was the only costuming she had on that would make me think that.

I followed the woman around the store for a while until I got up the courage to ask her where she got that mask.

She said Nolan’s Clinic Pharmacy in the middle of town and that they were going fast. That made me laugh.

Into my head popped the idea that I could hang earrings from the ears of the Lady in Red on my new face masks.

I had just the thing.

A pair of earrings that I could dismantle, each into separate parts, each a small hanging gold piece just the size to compliment the ears of Lady in Red.

Bonnie and I had a disagreement. I thought one earing would do. She argued that symmetry might be preferred by the receiver of the gift.

Bonnie added a second earing to my mask, after my project was nearly finished. Then she took it back off, deciding it needed an extra slip ring, so that it would gently sway as earrings do, with a tilt of the head. That earring slipped off, slip ring not tight enough and so off to the garage for a pair of pliers to secure metal to thread, thread to mask.

Discussion ensued about the theory of sewing, and gifting and learning to live together, some things communal and others not. Bonnie explained that the guilt was starting to weigh her down, knowing she had co-opted an aspect of my project.

And she was referencing what she felt was my own co-opting of her “no” quilt, a story for another blog post.

The first face-mask project finished, I needed a picture. I put on the mask, and Bonnie held the camera. I didn’t know how hard she was working at not laughing, but she finally had to put her camera down. She said, “Arta. You take the picture. I’ll wear that mask. That will help you see what I am seeing.”

We have a COVID-19 bubble of one, and though much is shared, we don’t share used masks.

Unbeknownst to me, Bonnie took a deep breath before pulling the mask over her face, with the plan to hold her breath until she could see that I saw what she saw.

She handed me the camera.

When I went in for a closeup, it appeared to me that the earrings were not earrings at all, but enhanced boogers, one hanging from each nostril. 

“Take that off, take that off right now,” I blurted in horror. “I’m getting my seam ripper, and taking those off before sending the mask to Hebe.”

Laughter no longer suppressible, Bonnie’s hilarity burst forth into the mask, capturing aspirants of long suppressed laughter at the difficulties of theory.

Do you know that laughter that starts at the bottom of your spine, tingling intensifies as it heads up towards your throat. It then takes hold in your stomach and the power builds beyond your capacity to sustain your mask of sacred reverence, the mask you wear for others. It is the volcano erupting on the row in front of you in church, a joke you wish you were in on, but know it is impossible to catch on or catch up.

The laugher splits and takes two roads: one down to test the strength of the kegels, and the other road goes upward, suffocation in the lower throat, yielding both a stomach ache and an explosion of wild laughter, almost manic if it were to be measured, or maybe it would be measure in by the number of tears of laughter.

We tested out our theory that those earrings just weren’t going to work on Dave Wood. He could see that they were not well placed – they looked like nose rings to him.

Yup. 

More to do to get that mask looking just right.

Arta

Lady in Red

... panel of Lady in Red fabric ...

Country Fabrics is the name of the store that came up on a Google Search as to where to find fabric in Vernon.

Bonnie was looking for fabric that would be interesting for children to look at as she does speech therapy with them.

I was idly looking through all of the bolts of 100% cotton quilting fabric.

It was arranged in large blocks of colour and then sorted by pattern.

A beautiful shop.

I picked up a red, white, and black panel to see what it looked like and found that it had 15 different squares, each one a different lady in red. 

I wondered what these would look like in face masks, so I took it over to the counter and Bonnie added it to her bill.

This probably means that all of these masks are going to belong to her, all except one. That one is going in the mail today to Hebe Jarvis.

I’m sending it to her because recently Hebe sent me a picture taken by her mother when Hebe came down for breakfast one morning; Hebe’s air was carefully coiffed and her lips had been painted red.

Not just red.

Red, red. 

 I’ve been watching YouTube and Zoom and looking at people’s makeup. There used to be something we used to call, stage make-up. Now I think there is something we would call Zoom makeup. I think what it is, is that there’s makeup for the Opera but now-a-days we can zoom in on the singers and so we notice that extreme makeup. Anyway, Hebe didn’t need a lesson. She’d nailed it.

And I think I had caught the right idea with the fabric.

Arta

Miranda’s Masks

The inside of Betty's masks is a different
pattern than the outside of her mask.

Miranda made face masks for her children to wear at school. 

The masks are a smaller version of an adult mask. 

She tailored some of them so that interesting designs appear across the jaw -- for example, Betty’s has a fox on the left side of her mask.

The bonus of the style of mask that Miranda makes is that it can hang around a child’s neck when it is not in use. 

This means her children can wear the mask in school, have the mask hang from their neck during recess, and easily return to their face when school resumes. 

This is a technique older people use with their glasses, with a cord that clips on the arms of the glasses.

The chord doesn’t always work. 

 For example, Betty found Alice’s mask over by the money bars. 

Apparently, Alice doesn’t like to wear it when swinging her way back and forth on them during recess.  There is a reason that the school asks for all masks to have a child's name on it.

Miranda gave us a pattern for these masks. Miranda also has bundles of fabric, exquisitely patterned, vividly coloured, cut to size, chosen with care for each of her loved ones. Added to this, she gave Bonnie two morning sewing lessons:

You can barely make out the face of the fox
on the right-hand side of the picture.
But so sweet in real life.

Day 1: choose fabric, cut mask, cut liner, copy pattern making adjustments

Day 2: sew darts, press, sew mask to liner, turn, press, add metal nose piece, top stich in nose piece, add cord

And then Bonnie and I returned to the lake ready to buy our own fabric and make enough masks so that she has multiple products to use at work.

Having finished three masks, I would say we are now about 30 masks behind.

Like all sewing projects, so easy to get started and so hard to take to the finish line.

Arta

A Rainbow at the End of September

Photo Credit: Moiya Wood

Moiya sent me these pictures. 

It goes without saying that she has a view of the world that I do not see – in this case she is seeing a rainbow, while I am out walking the gravel roads and taking in the closer view, the slopes of the hills now peppered with white berries.

Inside my house, I had an even closer view of the world. 

My friends, Allison and Dave Williams, came for a socially distant visit, them on one side of the room and Bonnie and I on the other. 

I wonder how long it will take until I don’t have to signal that we are keeping the BC’s Dr. Bonnie Henry’s protocols of keeping bubbles of contact small and social visits few. 

I do notice the movies are now making me uncomfortable when people get too close to each other.

In this case, my peopled world, Allison and Dave brought a welcome visit.

When they were gone, hurrying to pick up a specially ordered pie at Salmon Arm’s Pie Company, I looked at Bonnie and said, “I can’t believe they were just here and we didn’t get a picture of them, I didn’t get to show them my kitchen experiment (albeit an unintentional one), he asked for my blog address and I didn’t think to hand it to him right then, and we didn’t even show him the artisan face masks we have been producing.

Photo Credit: Moiya Wood

While they were here, the four of us talked a bit about near death experiences. 

Dave had his during COVID-times, though unrelated to the virus. 

He had sepsis in his leg and was 3 days unconscious in the hospital and 8 days total there, until he could leave and go back home – not the kind of medical experience he might have wanted. 

Having had my own experience with looking ahead to the future I asked him about his, and his thoughts in case it had turned out to be bleak. 

He said, I now have ephemeral long term plans for the rest of my life, and a short term plan of retiring in 2 years. Two years will make him closing in on 60 – a young retirement, I think to myself, except, knowing Dave there will be no retirement, just a change of plans.

Alison stopped commercial gardening in late August. I say that for she was doing paid work, unlike me whose joy is in the task, though that joy is always greatly enhanced when conjoined with money. She just gets her joy doubled.

Photo Credit: Moiya Wood

She was the one who initiated the visit to Bonnie and me, only looking for information: when would I be back in Calgary so we could take walks together. 

That would be good enough reason to go back home. 

But I am planning on a long fall and a bit of winter here at the Shuswap nand then transferring to Victoria, for late winter here in Annis Bay is early spring with the first flowers blooming on the Island.

So good to have such company drop by – though I can’t figure out why we didn’t visit outside with all four of us way more interested in the larger world than the one of our living room.

Next time – the outside.

Arta

First three chickens, then four chickens

... it is not only the cat that came back the very next day ...

One night when Shauna went to close the chicken coop, only 3 of the 4 chickens made it home to roost. 

I have been reporting this to everyone, so sad, I say, that one chicken got lost to the universe

Bonnie went on a walk a few days ago and down the road from Shauna Pilling's house came 3 chickens and the rooster. 

All of that grieving for nothing. 

Hurray!

The Sewing Machine

I haven’t sewn since 1990. That’s when I began working at the University Library. I no longer had time for a hobby, any kind of hobby, let alone sewing which can take a lot of time.

Instead of sewing, I turned that room into a space for kids going to University.

From my own experience, I need to have a sewing room before I can really sew. I need all those of my tools handy. I need to know that I can reach to my right for a pin cushion and a pair of scissors, or reach to my the left and open a drawer full of many bobbins, a sea of bobbins, and many coloured spools of thread lined up in the door, and seam rippers, and thimbles. I never have just one of anything. For sewing a person needs one of each size or colour or thread gauge.

I asked Greg to bring my sewing machine out to the lake. 

I set it up in a corner of the living room. It’s taken some time for me to remember where to find the back-stich lever, how to thread a bobbin, where that little screwdriver is to tighten the needle. 

I didn’t need think about that until the needle fell out when I was sewing.

My mistakes are what makes me remember that I need certain tools.

At first I couldn’t find a pin cushion. No seamstress reaches the age of eighty without having at least three or four pin cushions.

I was remembering that when I was in high school, I took Sewing 10, 20, and 30. 

When I had a young family I took “stretch and sew” lessons. Before that the regular home sewer not have material that would give and take like those pieces of fabric would. In the following decade, I went over to Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) and took their series of sewing classes.  Once I heard Halley Logan say she had taken the lessons at SAIT. What she learned there is what made it possible for her to run a successful clothing boutique. She could sell clothes because she could show her clients where they might place a hidden zipper if they wanted some kind of detail changed. She could talk the talk of Chanel trim, all the details that don’t come with ready-made clothes.  I didn't want to open a dress shop, but I wanted to know all I could about sewing.

I had taken a few classes at Relief Society as well. Once Dagmar Mollar taught a whole series of tailoring courses after which everyone who joined the class had created a beautiful professional ly tailored suit.

When my new machine came to the lake, it came embedded with all that history. I don’t know how old the machine is. I must have had it in the 1970s. It’s the machine on which all my girls learned to sew. I made bitty ball outfits when Harry Smith was running Bitty Ball for the 6 or 8 Mormon wards. One year I made all the Nativity Costumes for Primary’s Christmas celebration. The machine has surely been worth the price per article if I could measure how many have been produced on it.

And now the machine is back in the service of making face masks.

Hello to an old friend -- my sewing machine. 

Arta