Hand Made

As I write this, I am fighting the urge to go back to the kitchen and go get another piece of sourdough.  This is a battle that I will almost certainly lose...

For last week, I had to make something to take to a school "bake off."  I was not especially thrilled; I don't cook much.  It's not that I don't like to cook.  It's more that the trouble is too much to go to just for me.  I begrudgingly broke out the KitchenAid and set to making my go-to cake recipe, a sour cream pound cake in which I can proudly tell you there is not one thing that is healthy.  I think that's when this current trend started.

Saturday, I woke up with the urge to keep making stuff.  I decided to focus all that energy on a small project, one I could actually get to since my larger craft stuff is mostly covered in clutter in my office/craft space.  I embroidered a hankie with my initial and a crown, using some satin stitches to do it all.  I thought of my Nana the whole time I was doing it, of her teaching me how to do satin stitches, leaf stitches, french knots.  I thought of my Granny who taught me to hem by hand, who first started me making handkerchiefs, who cut these very squares of good strong white cotton I'm working now.  There was great satisfaction in both the work and the connection.

I also decided to start another batch of sourdough starter Friday when I made the cake.  I haven't had any sourdough starter in my house in over a year, maybe closer to two now.  I used to make bread every single week.  Suddenly, I just came to a place where I didn't want to do it anymore.  I let the starter die.  I've often thought of getting more going, but I haven't taken the time to do it.  I don't know if it was the "domestic glow" of using the KitchenAid or what, but Friday just seemed like the day for it.  I mixed it and let it start fermenting.  Now, I have three (well, more like two and half now, really) lovely golden loaves of bread again.  It's wonderful.

Today, I went early to my pottery class to have a whole day of work.  I had a couple of pieces in my head, and I managed to make them today.  I made a dish shaped like a giant leaf, and the piece I'm proudest of, a rather cheerful giraffe with wings.  I also threw on the wheel today, which went about like you'd expect for my second first time on it (bad), and managed to get one bowl that didn't suck too badly off it.  I need LOTS more work there.

I'm enjoying making things with my hands.  It's satisfying to get to the end, to look at the results and say, "I did that.  It's the fruit of my labor."  For so long, I haven't been doing anything but surviving.  Lately, I have had some kind of weather change, though.  I have decided that I am going to have things I love and do things I enjoy.  Life is too short for me to work myself into an even earlier grave in misery and woe.  I am going to find a way to enjoy doing these things again.  I have a few more projects that I plan to do here in the next few days.  It's good to use these hands again for something other than grading.