Nostalgia and Tea

We have a small room in the basement that has always been referred to as “the yarn room.” That room is home to a giant rack holding about two dozen Rubbermaid bins, and those bins are filled with yarn, swatches, and items I’ve knit. (My canning supplies also live in that room.) I went through there the other day in search of my class samples. The bins are labeled, but the lids were dusty and needed a good wipedown. In the process, I took a peek inside each bin to make sure all was well.

I said to the husband that if anything happens to me, he and the girls are not to take those bins to the nearest thrift store. There is some valuable yarn in those bins that could be sold for a nice profit on eBay, including Alice Starmore Bainin and two enormous Rubbermaid bins full of Brunswick Germantown. I should get some of that out and knit with it.

Retrieving those class samples was a bit of an archaeological dig and a bit more laden with emotion than I expected. I am revisiting an important part of my life with these Sew Expo classes and seeing those yarns brought back a lot of wonderful memories.

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If you haven’t yet downloaded and listened to this week’s podcast episode—and if you are so inclined—I think you’ll enjoy it. My guest is Kira Hartley, author of the book Fabric Wars: The Hunt for Vintage Fabric with Etsy’s DodOddity. We had such a fun visit over Zoom last week. Finding these fascinating people to interview is absolutely the best part of hosting a podcast. Lots of podcasts out there have interviews with sewing celebrities; I want to find the people who aren’t as well known and hear their stories. Kira is working on a second book and I will be sure to have her back for a visit when that one is released.

The podcast also has a YouTube channel now. I don’t have any current plans to do video, but it’s another place to listen to the podcast. And if by some miracle I start producing video content for the podcast, it will have a place to go.

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Our friends, Tom and Marcie, are potters. And artists. They own Mountain Brook Studio and their work is featured all over Montana, including in the gift shops in Glacier Park and Yellowstone. My dinnerware set is from their studio. Tom used to be on the fire department with the husband. The husband has been stopping by their place on the way home from plowing out our fire station to plow out the berm left by the county plow. They wanted to make him something as a thank-you. He suggested they make me a teapot. Isn’t this gorgeous?

The photo doesn’t do justice to the depth of color in the glaze. This is a work of art and I am sure my tea will taste even better for having been steeped in such a beautiful piece.

Tom and Marcie’s son, Matt, is also an extremely talented potter. Check out his Instagram account to see some of the pieces he has produced.

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I am hoping to do some blogging from the road now that I have the new laptop. While I’m in Seattle, I am going to visit a friend of mine from long ago. We knew each other when the husband and I first moved to Kalispell. She and her husband had come here from Seattle around the same time but moved back a few years later. We lost touch, and just when I was thinking that I should look her up on one of my trips over there, she e-mailed me. A gift from the universe.