barn nostalgia

This might seem like cheating, but a lot of people have recently asked me about the barn I grew up in, because I wrote about it in Weekend Handmade. I also talked about it a little in the NPR interview.

So what does this barn look like, people ask? Well, here is a post I wrote a while back in March 2009.

When I had Heather Ross here the other week talking about growing up in Vermont, I got to thinking about my own childhood in Virginia, and asked my mom to send me some photos.

I actually got teary when I saw them. I’m not sure why, because this barn is as familiar to me as my own face. When I’m at home in Virginia and come across old pictures, they’re all in the context of this crazy family adventure that resulted in an amazing house and really special childhood. But when I see them on my computer in my perfectly normal apartment in San Francisco, the imagination and perseverance that it required of my parents comes into clearer focus. They decided to move out of the city, buy a 200-year-old hay barn, move it piece by piece to some land they bought, and re-assemble it into a home. They did this without much money, largely on their own (helped plenty by a volunteer crew of friends and family), so big wheels lived side-by-side with cement mixers.

This next one (below) is my favorite. At some point, the saw in the background moved upstairs, outside of my parents bedroom. Where it stayed until I was in high school. The barn was always a work-in-progress, and I guess that's the thing about childhoods. You don't know that it isn't exactly normal to play with dolls in the middle of a building site until you get a little older.

I love the barn like she is a person. We spent my whole childhood growing up together and uncovering who we always were. In some ways, I’d like to be more like her: a purposeful old soul with a big heart in a simple setting, who can weather any transformations that come her way.

oh virginia

image from etsy's dearpumpernickelJust back from a long weekend at the barn with my two sisters to celebrate my parent’s 40^th wedding anniversary. When I walked out of the airport, it was 80 degrees and pouring that warm spring rain that smells so good. It almost felt like my cells recognized it.

I know that sounds woo-woo, but I think once that weather is in your bones, it’s there forever. Back soon with more details.

elastic thread and marbles

A few of your asked some follow-up questions to the barn Easter photos. Like, how did the elastic thread sewing go? And what’s going on in the photo with marbles and swirled paint?

Well, the dress turned out fantastically, and all the more so for sewing it on an old machine that my dad and I pulled out of the loft. The old Singer hummed along with a heaviness and authority that my newer machine lacks. And the elastic thread was dreamy. I followed the pattern from Heather's awesome book. It was as easy as promised, and the finished smocking gave me one of those little thrills, like, did I really just do that?

As for what’s going on with the marbles, my sister Brooke teaches music to kids in Vermont, and has also worked at a preschool, so every time we get together she comes with nifty projects like this one.

She cut a bunch of paper into egg shapes and put one at a time into a tin container that has a tight fitting lid. Then she squeezed a few little dollops of paint on the paper, added a few marbes, and put the lid on. The little niece took over shaking it, and didn’t want to stop because it makes a really fantastic, happy percussion sound. Then, you open it up and have these beautifully swirled paper eggs.

Brooke customized this for Easter, but you can obviously do this anytime and on different kinds of paper for a range of rad, marbelized effects.

barn easter

Virginia this time of year smells like hyacinths and new onion grass, backed by a loud chorus of peepers. There were new daffodils, chilly evening cocktails, egg hunts, walks in the woods, and long, laughing dinners.

spring in virginia

Here's a big foreword to this post. I got this ready and thought I posted it last Friday, before leaving for Virginia. Turns out I didn't, and I failed to notice because I blissfully ignored the computer at the barn. Here it is, belatedly. The follow-up will post tomorrow. Unless I mess up again.

I love this holiday, I love my family, and I love Virginia at any time of year. So this weekend should be a good one. Here are some things in my suitcase that are making me happy that I wanted to let you know about: a hand-wound bobbin of elastic thread. I’m hoping to borrow a neighbor’s sewing machine and whip up this dress for my little niece. It's the Smocked Sundress from Heather Ross' new book.

Also, a recipe for mint jelly. And a poem that I read every year on Easter. I feel compelled to say here that I don't love Easter or this poem for the traditionally religious parts, but because spring and family and eggs are their own kind of religion for me.

Religious Leanings,
e.e. cummings

i thank You God for this most amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubly unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

barnlife

When I had Heather Ross here the other week talking about growing up in Vermont, I got to thinking about my own childhood in Virginia, and asked my mom to send me some photos.

I actually got teary when I saw them. I’m not sure why, because this barn is as familiar to me as my own face. When I’m at home in Virginia and come across old pictures, they’re all in the context of this crazy family adventure that resulted in an amazing house and really special childhood. But when I see them on my computer in my perfectly normal apartment in San Francisco, the imagination and perseverance that it required of my parents comes into clearer focus. They decided to move out of the city, buy a 200-year-old hay barn, move it piece by piece to some land they bought, and re-assemble it into a home. They did this without much money, largely on their own (helped plenty by a volunteer crew of friends and family), so big wheels lived side-by-side with cement mixers.

This next one (below) is my favorite. At some point, the saw in the background moved upstairs, outside of my parents bedroom. Where it stayed until I was in high school. The barn was always a work-in-progress, and I guess that's the thing about childhoods. You don't know that it isn't exactly normal to play with dolls in the middle of a building site until you get a little older.

I love the barn like she is a person. We spent my whole childhood growing up together and uncovering who we always were. In some ways, I’d like to be more like her: a purposeful old soul with a big heart in a simple setting, who can weather any transformations that come her way.