The past year has been a year living in the “in-betweenness.” As our home renovation became more prolonged than expected, our family has been staying in a temporary apartment for more than eleven months and counting. There is a lot of beauty to it along with the natural inconveniences – living with minimal belongings of our own and/but the lovely proximity to Central Park. What I found the most inspiring, however, was learning to dip my toes in some traditional needlework crafts out of both necessity and enjoyment.
It all started with repairing the holes in my daughter’s two pairs of pants, then it extended to making fabric toys and Christmas ornaments, and finally, creating home decorations in an impersonal place without any of our own furniture. Seasonality has been rooted in my upbringing (my parents notice and celebrate all the twenty-four lunar calendar micro-seasons); and I find that settling into a new continent, being familiar with my natural surroundings often brings me the most amount of joy in this season of my life. I would love to carry on the nature table tradition once we move into our new home this fall. All you need is a small wooden shelf and some of your favorite designs each month.
In January, my reading list piled up high after the holidays. I needle-felted this mole who enjoys the quiet resting days. In the bird feed, there are some origami lucky stars I made during the Christmas time – a revisit to a childhood craft!
February was an icy month this year – many treacherous roads in the parks. The little wooden “icebergs” were from my daughter’s tangram puzzle. And I made a heart pocket for the root babies to bring in a little optimism during the dark nights.
In March, Central Park was finally thawing. The sky was pregnant with rain; and children ran through the muddy puddles. My daughter noticed the returning birds’ songs. So, I made some wool felt bird house ornaments.
During Easter this April, we dyed some wooden eggs and went for an egg hunt in Sakura Park as usual. I finished a few embroidery samples this month, and wet-felted hollow wool eggs to hide small presents.
Each year, I have a different favorite flower in May: dogwood, phlox, peony, lily-of-the-valley, bleeding hearts, azaleas, allium, lilacs, dandelions…but the bluebells in Riverside Park was the first one I fell in love with. I like the green and pink silks in this scene: the lush green canopy overhead and the fallen cherry petals that carpeted the trails in my morning run.
I saw bees this June all the time, perhaps because I was exploring hikes in upper Manhattan and visiting botanical gardens. I enjoyed making these bee and beehive ornaments, together with playing with different embroidery stitches. The traditional running stitch designs in sashiko are especially meditative; and their aesthetics often make me a little homesick.
Flora Qian is the author of South of the Yangtze. She lives in New York with her husband and daughter.