Each Little World

Thanksgiving bouquet

All through the holiday season gorgeous bouquets are beckoning at florists and grocery stores. But I try to keep making my own arrangements directly from the garden until the last possible moment. While there is not enough left in my garden to create the huge arrangements of summer, there is still plenty to augment something purchased at the grocery store. Here I used a lacy 'Redbor' Kale as the store-bought starting point, and then walked around the yard picking and clipping. The quickest and easiest part of the whole Thanksgiving prep!  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM OUR HOUSE TO YOURS!

Plants include Epimedium, Annabelle Hydrangeas, and the giant fuzzy leaves of Heuchera vilosa 'Brownies.'

Monster maple leaf

The dry, warmer-than-usual days we've had this November have allowed us to work later in the garden than in recent years. We've continued to rake up leaves, cut down perennials and cage the "rabbit candy." When Mark was on recent yard duty, he found a fallen maple leaf that was so large I dubbed it the "maple leaf as big as my head." A leaf that spectacular couldn't be ignored. So, herewith, for your delectation, is our maple leaf documentation: 

 

     

    

 

    

Finale

 

Finale

Lone leaf

lingering on the branch

until a breeze sets it

fluttering,

flittering,

floating downward

onto a silvered sea of siblings.

All poised skyward —

Tracing their final flight from home to here.

    

This is one of my assignments from the Aboretum Corps of Discovery workshops, called "The Language of Landscape." I was given the word "fluttering" and had to use it in describing landscape. As with many of the class assignments, I used our garden as the inspirational landscape.

Fabric feast online at last

A veritable fabric feast is finally ready for you to dig in and digest it. Now — no matter where you live — you can see almost 8,000 of the 13,000 items in the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection (HLATC). As HLATC curator Maya Lea puts it, the famed fiber resource at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been  "unlocked" for global public access to both images and cataloging information. It is up and running in a digitized, searchable database which you can access via the HLATC homepage. As a "friend" of the collection, I can only join with Maya and her staff in saying yippee! The two pieces displayed here give you a tiny taste of the riches you'll discover.

Hat: 1950-1997. Indus Kohistan, Pakistan. Extensively embroidered and embellished female child's hat constructed from black cotton.  (Copyright: HLATC / UW) 

And, as always, if you live in the area there's a long list of upcoming fiber events to enjoy:

January Book Discussion: The Lady and the Unicorn

Date and location TBA. Free. Set in 15th-century Brussels, this novel by Tracy Chevalier contains lots of information about tapestry-making. There will be a tapestry technique demo, a short talk on the Unicorn tapestries, and a discussion of the book. 

Crocheted-Bag Workshop

Sunday, February 14 AND Sunday, February 28, 1:00-3:00 p.m. (2-session class)

Location TBA. Cost is $30 members/$40 non-members, advance registration required. Local legend and master crochet artist, Betsy Tuttle, will teach you how to make a reusable shopping bag of her own design from durable reclaimed fiber (provided). No previous crochet experience is necessary; limited to 15 participants. 

Caring for Your Textiles Workshop

Sunday, March 7, 1:00-3:00 p.m. Location TBA. Free

Learn how to properly care for your textiles to preserve them for the future. The HLATC’s assistant curator and collection manager, Diana Zlatanovski, will offer practical guidelines for the care and storage of your own textiles at home. 

Watch the events listings on the HLATC homepage for more specifics on these and other events.

Arpillera: 1973-2000.  Arpilleras were created by women in Peru. The tradition began as a response to the brutality of General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship which began in 1973. (Copyright: HLATC / UW) 

Pods in the parlor

Once upon a time, I thought the pods from Locust trees were rare and magical. I called them "happy charms." I'm sure it was because there were few Locusts in my neighborhood which gave the trees a sense of mystery and cachet.

Now I'm the proud possessor of three large Locust trees and all the leaves, pods and windfall branches that entails. Though they can be messy, I love my Locusts. And never more than in the years — like this one — where they are loaded with seedpods. 

I watched the pods developing all summer, like bunches of elongated, twisting green bananas. By the time they started showering down in October, they were burnished to a rich patina. 

If I were a trendspotter who worked for the famed British paint company, Farrow and Ball, I'd name a paint color after these pods; perhaps "Moleskin" or "Autumn Velvet." If I worked for the American paint company, Benjamin Moore, then I'd call my paint color "Bitter Chocolate" or "Burnt Sugar." But no matter what you call these pods, I am in love with their luscious color.

 

As always, once the pods start coming down, there are too many to just leave them to compost in place on the ground. So I picked them up in fat fistfuls, marveling at the size variations and the velvety softness.

I stopped when I had enough to fill a large hand-made wooden bowl. As soon as I perceived the pods as natural objects worth collecting and displaying, they ceased to be a nuisance. And picking them up became a pleasure rather than a chore. 

 

Now they're souvenirs of the slow turning of autumn towards winter — on display indoors like the treasured objects of someone's 19th century "Cabinet of Curiosities."

The Thanksgiving Table

If you love entertaining and holidays like Thanksgiving, consider compiling your own personal Thanksgiving book — on paper or the computer. I started mine the year I got tired of figuring out what size turkey to buy and how long I cooked it the previous year. I bought a thick, three-ring binder and immediately wrote down what I made for T-day dinner, what we liked enough to make again, and how much — or low little — to prepare for any given dish I served. 

My notebook has been a real time saver since I always know where to find my T-day info and I also have a specific place to file all those ideas, inspirations and recipes for future holidays. Eventually I even made photo copies of the recipes I use every year so I didn't have to pull cookbooks off the shelf and spend time searching every November. My autumn / Halloween / Thanksgiving notebook is now bulging with notes, cards, magazine clippings and assorted articles.

This year I'm thinking about adding Diane Morgan's book "The Thanksgiving Table" to the mix. A handy size paperback, it covers the holiday from a historical perspective but also looks at all the special tools you'll need for cooking a turkey or baking pies. Running all through the books are ideas for centerpieces, tablerunners, T-day decor of all kinds.

But mainly it's about the feast. There are recipes for vegan entrees as well as everything you could possible need to know about the holiday bird, from determining size to carving and serving. The book also has directions on how to barbecue, brine or classically roast a turkey; along with menus, timetables and dealing with leftovers. And many of the dishes are given a contemporary fillip like Morgan's recipe for cranberry salsa with lime. And my favorite — a hip take on that 1950's favorite: green bean casserole with onions. Morgan sautes the green beans and tops them with shallot crisps!

PUMPKIN PIE/WWW.DIANEMORGANCOOKS.COM

The book is available from Morgan's own Web site (where she lists the must-have tools to make cooking the turkey a breeze) and from the publisher, Chronicle Books. Locally, I discovered it in Madison at the store where I work: Orange Tree Imports.