A few years ago, The Daddy Monkey and I moved into the smallest of our home’s bedrooms, the room that was once The Boy’s nursery.  When we had to switch bedrooms around years ago, we found ourselves hastily moving into a periwinkle blue room.  Years later, the same art and belly casts still hung on the wall.  It was time for a serious update.

While I tend to like a lot of color when it comes to interiors, the mama in me yearned for a pale, neutral, adult space.  I painted the room a pale, pale gray.  And ten weeks ago, I began sewing a new quilt to replace our old one which was in sad shape.

Here it is at last.  I had the idea for this quilt years ago, as The Snail and I browsed the local quilting shop.  Several years later, and after ten weeks of stitching, it’s on my bed.

I wanted this quilt to be all about texture.  I think the all-white theme does a good job in keeping the quilt and all its doily-ness from being too cutesy.  I raided my stash for most of the fabric, and I would say I spent only about $40 on extra batting, a few new pieces of fabric, and the doilies. The top was pieced in a quilt-as-you go method that can be found in the book Patchwork Style by Suzuko Koseki.  I completely improvised the design as I went along.   The back is made of a king size sheet I found at a thrift shop, with a small strip pieced in to give it the length I needed.

I really love how the white quilt makes this tiny bedroom look a bit bigger.

I still need art for the walls and I can’t decide what direction I want to go on that–if I want to keep it neutral, or go for some color.  But for now, it’s a haven for my tired eyes and body at the end of the day.  A space just for me.

Here are the rugs I hinted about.  I really love them.  The instructions can be found in the book Patchwork Style by Suzuko Koseki.  (The same book I used to make these two little purses.) Made entirely of patchwork from my stash.  I am really mindful of trying to use what I have lately.  Again thinking of the words,

Use it up, wear it out, make do, or go without.

Now I will admit to not “going without” sometimes.  But with some things, I’ve been trying hard to not spend too much, or to make it myself if I can.  I’ve been making a good effort to use my fabric and yarn stash and it feels good to not head to the craft store every time I start a project.

And I have to say that I really, really love these rugs.

Here’s to “using it up.”

It is such a small thing that it hardly deserves blogging, but I’ve been making these knitted dishcloths and I’m really liking them.  I made an enormous ball of tulle-yarn and I probably have enough to make about a thousand of these.  Which is exactly how many I want.

I’ve lately been thinking about practical things also being beautiful.  I’ve always been a real homebody, but now that I am home full time again with both kids, and we are home so much, I want my home to feel beautiful.  Not perhaps in the traditional sense, but in a comfortable, lived-in, and loved sense. Why can’t things that are meant to be practical also be beautiful?

I’m thinking of this broom.

And about a dozen of these cups.

And pretty much every thing at Herriot Grace.

I’m reading the book Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes right now, and I couldn’t even wait until it was finished to talk about it here.  It has my brain positively buzzing.  In a good way.

For those of you who haven’t read it (it seems to be all over the blogosphere right now), it’s about how many modern families have chosen not to participate in our consumer-driven culture, and have decided to take a more holistic approach to running a house and/or raising a family.  Who knew how much politics, consumerism, lies and deceit have changed the way housewives work? The first section of the book is the “why” and the second section is the “how”.  I am still in the first section of the book, and the sheer amount of information in this book is staggering.  This woman has done her homework.

Some fantastic quotes from the book:

“The industrial revolution and subsequent rise of America’s consumer culture had demoted homemaking from a craft tradition to the mindless occupation of primping the house, shopping and chauffeuring.”

“…each of us has a calling or right livelihood  that enables us to serve the common good, and in finding this calling, we will be most happy. Few, if any spiritual teachings call us to seek the accumulation of money, stuff, power, or other purely selfish interests.  Further, in a life-serving economy, we individually accept responsibility for creating our own joys and pleasures.  We do not rely upon corporate America to sell us these things.  We take personal and collective responsibility for supplying many of our needs.  In taking these steps, we discover that true economic assets, unlike money, are intangible.”

“…the more homemakers are able to do for themselves–whether it be cooking, preserving or growing food, mending clothing or purchasing it used, fixing cars and appliances to avoid replacing them, cleaning with vinegar and water rather than toxic chemicals, or making rather than buying gifts and toys–the less time they exchange for money, the fewer natural resources they require from the planet, and the less they rely upon (and the less they are complicit in) the global extractive economy.”

And it just makes me so happy to read this book.  It’s so affirming to my life and how I have chosen to live and raise my family.  I think all mothers from time to time wallow in the thought that they are not doing enough, or the Right Thing.  But when I think about my life, and how my husband and I have made major sacrifices to be able to raise our children in the way that we feel is right, I realize that I am doing a lot and I am making the right choices. Compared to some I look like a complete nutjob, but thanks to the internet, and many blogs in particular, I know now that I am not alone.  And now I feel somehow justified that I want to make everything in my house (see my bio to the left).  I’m not crazy!

And let me say here, in the interest of full disclosure, that Ms. Hayes does not imply that Radical Homemakers are only women or housewives.  Men are Radical Homemakers, too.

This book is helping me re-affirm that I am indeed doing the right thing, and even though I don’t make a paycheck, what I do is very valuable.  Everything I do is important, and there are many facets of The Big Picture: the cooking from scratch, thrift shopping, sewing, knitting, canning, bread baking, toymaking, shopping at local organic farmer’s markets, and just plain choosing to say “no thank you” to a lot of things.  Always keeping these words in mind:

Use it up, wear it out, make do or go without.

All of these things (and more) do contribute in a small way to making the world a better place.  And this book has already taught me that being a housewife, or stay-at-home-mom, or homemaker, or whatever you want to call it, is important, and is not just taking the easy way out.  And according to Shannon Hayes, it’s a downright political act.  No longer will I reluctantly have to say “I’m a full-time mom,” when I’m asked the dreaded cocktail party question, “so what do you do?”  (I never liked that question anyway, even when I had a paying job.)  Now I can say with pride, “I’m a radical homemaker.”

]]> http://www.thelaughingmonkey.com/blog/2010/06/15/on-being-a-radical-homemaker/feed/ 9 http://www.thelaughingmonkey.com/blog/2009/10/14/toy-box/ http://www.thelaughingmonkey.com/blog/2009/10/14/toy-box/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:00:05 +0000 Rose http://www.thelaughingmonkey.com/blog/?p=1917 This was my toy box when I was a little girl.  My mother made it in a woodworking class when we lived in Kansas.  I was not known as a neat child by any means, and I found the toy box to be a great place to hide, rather than a great place to put [...]]]>

This was my toy box when I was a little girl.  My mother made it in a woodworking class when we lived in Kansas.  I was not known as a neat child by any means, and I found the toy box to be a great place to hide, rather than a great place to put toys.  Inevitably what I wanted was always at the bottom, which meant that everything was always on the floor, rather than in the toy box.

I held on to this toy box for probably about 30 years.  My mom always said it could be my hope chest someday.  Does anyone do that anymore?  I didn’t.  But I lugged it from place to place, always finding it handy for stashing something away.  It got painted a couple of times.  Once it was black.  (I know, what was I thinking?) But I stripped it down a few years back, and it sat, 95% done, for years.

I was on one of my get-rid-of-stuff kicks when I decided that this sad thing just had to go.  The front panel was loose, The Boy had scribbled on it with crayon, and it was dirty and dingy from not having any varnish or paint.  I sheepishly asked my mom if she wanted it before I sent it away.  She declined, not having anywhere to put it.

But I still couldn’t get rid of it.  It sat for another year.

I’m on a major fall-cleaning kick around here: cleaning up, clearing out, and organizing.  I decided to fix up this sad old thing and give it to my own children.  I scrubbed and sanded it, and removed the last of the black paint.  I made a homemade non-toxic furniture polish out of mineral oil and beeswax, and polished it up.  I repaired the loose front.  Then, to make it a comfy place to sit and curl up with a book, I made two cushions for the seat.  I can proudly say that the cushions didn’t cost me a cent.  It was all materials from my stash.  The foam, the batting, the fabric and thread were all from previous projects.

So now it sits in my own childrens’ room, holding all their dress-up gear.  There is alot of it.  And now my own boy likes to climb inside to hide.

Our dishwasher finally went kaput.  It’s been on the fritz for months, and to be honest, it has never worked right in the few years we’ve had it.  It did the worst job washing dishes, as opposed to our old one which would wash anything.  I swear you could put a whole chicken in there and the bones would come out clean.

Last time our dishwasher died, we rushed out and bought a new one and it was a piece of junk.  The Daddy Monkey has been looking on Craigslist, and has found a few, but we are in no hurry.  We’ll get one eventually because a dishwasher is nice to have for dinner parties and when you are making jam and whatnot.

We finally embraced the act of washing dishes by hand, and I cannot believe what has happened.  Our kitchen is always clean. When the dishwasher worked, it seemed that there was always a sink full of dirty dishes.  Either the dishwasher hadn’t gotten the load clean, or there were too many dishes for one load, or the machine was full of clean dishes and waiting to be unloaded.  We both swear that our new setup is faster.

We bought a nice drying rack, the only one the store had that folded up, and wasn’t plastic.

We both make an effort to wash dishes when they are there.  I try to keep on top of them during the day and The Daddy Monkey usually does them after dinner while I’m bathing The Girl.

I love the fact that we can now use an eco-friendly dish washing liquid as opposed to that nasty chemical stuff that we used in the dishwasher, but I’m not happy about using more water to hand wash.

At least we have this guy to keep us company while we wash.

I think he was a plant holder in a previous life, but now he holds our brushes and scrubbies.  I found him ages ago at the Goodwill, of course.