a little story and a new blog

i accidentally stole my bathrobe from a japanese hotel in 2007. i know what you're thinking, "sure it was an accident, you're not fooling us." but really it was. they kept folding it up all perfectly at the foot of my bed and as i was trying to stuff fold carefully all the crap totally necessary items of clothing i bought in the gap into my suitcase, i accidentally scooped up the neatly folded bathrobe as well. i didn't even realize i had it 'til weeks later when i properly unpacked my suitcase at home. it's very simple and plain and really not me, but i love it anyway. it's made of this waffley-woven creamy cotton with a simple brown binding. it wears like iron and despite numerous washings, still has perfect creases down the sleeves, tho' i've never touched an iron to it. those japanese, they know what they're doing.

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i'd like to announce a new project. you can take a peek at it right here. 

my partner on forage: east and west  is amy. we worked together years ago at a newspaper. it was my part-time college job and she was the editorial editor. we had a lot of great times back then, but we lost touch over the years, but thanks to that old frenemy facebook, we got back in touch over the past year. we realized we had even more in common than ever and decided to start a blog together (you should know by now that's my answer to everything). amy lives in colorado and in addition to being a writer is also a chef, so you can expect lots of good recipes on the new blog. we're going to compare what's in season here and there, share recipes and inspiration and hopefully have a whole lot of guest posts/interviews with foragers more experienced than we are. i hope you'll stop by and check it out.

nature has its way

photo credit new york times

you know how i adore photos of ships, but this one made my blood run cold. imagine you were in that building right there beside the bulbous bow and you look out and you see said bulbous bow and it crosses your mind that that's not quite normal and that something must be dreadfully wrong (someone call the P&I club!!). it's clear that this rather large bulk carrier was simply picked up by the tsunami and placed up on the quay at a port in japan. and that's quite chilling.

the whole thing is chilling. and i haven't really found the words to write about it, but that doesn't mean the earthquake tragedy and its aftermath in japan haven't been on my mind. it seems to me a reminder that nature will win out. we may think we control it and order it, but it will have its way. and there won't be anything we can do about it. except maybe hope we'd built our nuclear power plant with different, more tsunami-proof technology. and if anyone would have done that, you would have thought it would be the japanese - they're the very embodiment of technology and order, aren't they? but nature will win out. every time.

and i continue to struggle to find the right words. and i continue to think about the people of japan.

sew challenging

i'm a sucker for a display in a fabric store. they totally work on me. friday night was no exception. sabin and i went to a fabric store and saw a cute outfit all sewn up on a mannequin. we didn't buy exactly the same fabrics, but we bought all three patterns they were selling - for leggings, top and a vest. as you can see, i got the leggings and top done this weekend, but not the vest. i accidentally bought the wrong size in that, so i need to go back and exchange it.

the fabric store is called stof & stil and the patterns are their own line. the styles are cute, but as i found out, the instructions are completely opaque. there are few illustrations - only the pattern layout on two of the patterns. and the rest of the instructions are a numbered list full of insider terminology and confusing directions. they assume a very experienced seamstress. and it's only partially that the instructions are in danish (i turned to the norwegian and swedish when i got stuck and they were no better). steps are left out...steps that a beginner wouldn't know or someone who's not sewn with a pattern for awhile wouldn't remember.

if i'd followed exactly what was written in making the leggings, rather than using the knowledge i already had from making pants previously, they would have fit sabin very strangely indeed. they skipped the part about how you have to tuck one leg inside of the other before you sew the crotch together. if i'd never sewn anything before, i would have been frustrated and bewildered indeed.

the top, with the insets at the top and the gathered sleeves was a series of frustrations. i got so frustrated with the opaque directions last evening that i had to put it completely aside and come back to it this morning. i've been doing that for years with complicated patterns, going away and letting my brain process it in my sleep and then being able to finish when i wake up. there is still one spot (thankfully on the inside) where it's not quite right, but it went together in the end, so i left it, as i couldn't bring myself to rip out another seam.

it is a classic case of instructions written by someone very experienced. you see it a lot with technical instructions of all kinds. engineers who are totally into their topic write for their peers and completely forget their audience and the level they might be on. in this case, a very experienced seamstress wrote down a few instructions, but didn't include everything an inexperienced seamstress would need to know. terminology wasn't explained, much was assumed.

stof & stil could take a lesson from lego. lego instructions are excellent and they don't need to be provided in multiple languages because they're entirely visual. the japanese sewing pattern books do this very well too. i've got several of those and haven't had trouble sewing the patterns because the instructions are all based on illustrations, so i'm not missing out on anything by not being able to read japanese.

but, in the end, i got there. i bought fabric to make one more blouse for sabin in another color, and i should do it soon before i forget how the pattern actually worked.

lesson in this...any pattern writers out there, please remember your audience when you're writing!!

one more note, on the subject of japanese...sabin and i picked up sushi in yutaka in herning on friday evening. if you'd only ever had grocery store sushi, this would have made you long for that. and if you've had real sushi from someone who actually knows how to make it, you would have been sorely and sadly disappointed. we ordered a set of rolls and a few salmon and scallop nigiri. they took pre-made rolls out of a refrigerator - nothing was fresh. the salmon for the nigiri was at least cut before my eyes, but even the little rice balls it was placed on were premade. that meant they were dry and lifeless. the rolls were uninteresting and filled with miracle-whip style mayonnaise (which has no place anywhere near sushi in my opinion).  on top of it, the woman behind the counter was snotty when i asked if they had a children's box - most places have one aimed at kids - with salmon nigiri and a cucumber roll - but she snottily told me that children should eat what the adults eat.  it was, in short, a BIG disappointment and we will not be going back. if you're in herning, steer clear of yutaka.