For my final inquiry post, I’ve created a video to encapsulate my reflections on my inquiry project. The video, uploaded below, includes a summary of my project, a reflection on my process, and a reflection on the role of technology in my project.
Overall, I am really proud of my project! I had a great time exploring and experimenting with new materials and ideas. Although the project is done for now, I hope to add new pages over the next few years and post updates. Thank you for tagging along with my process and I hope it was helpful for anybody who is hoping to take on a similar project!
— Sofia 🎀
Written Video Script:
This semester, I started the process of making my own recipe book. Baking has always been an important part of my childhood and one of my biggest hobbies now. I had always wanted to have a nice, hand-crafted recipe book one day with all of my favourite recipes, but it always seemed daunting and intimidating to start. This free inquiry assignment was the perfect opportunity to dip my toe into journaling in a sense, and good motivation to start a project that I have been thinking about for a long time. In my first post, I set out my idea and goal for this project, which was to make a hand-crafted recipe book with a unique page for each of my favourite recipes. While I have not finished the project yet (because I still have many recipes I want to add), I am very proud of what I have accomplished.
My process started with making a cover page for my recipe book. I used a great website called Floss Cross to make a cross-stitch pattern and leaned on my previous cross-stitching experience to make something that I really liked and felt personal to me Next, I started my process of curating and finding materials for this project. I bought some materials that I didn’t end up using, and thrifted some old books that proved to be very useful to my project. I also used a lot of materials that I already had in my craft bin. Next, I made pages for 5 different recipes of mine: Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies, Boesch Back, Lasagna, Blueberry Muffins, and Apple Crisp. I made an effort to try different things for every page and make each page its own. For each page, I wrote out the ingredients and instructions, made a title card, and added decorations that I drew.
This learning process allowed me to explore my creative abilities and combine lots of my interests. I have always loved making physical crafts using different materials and techniques. For this project, I cross-stitched, I collaged, I drew, and I did some printing. I think this process was very good practice for me to work steadily towards a goal. The problem I have when taking on new projects is that I have big visions of what I want them to look like, get very motivated and work on them all the time, then get disappointed when the finished product is not what I envisioned. My process for working on this project was to create one page of the recipe book per week, which allowed me to spend time on each page. If I had taken on too much with this project and tried to make pages for all my recipes very quickly, I do not think I would have loved my end product as much as I do. And even though I haven’t filled the book yet or added all my favourite recipes, I am excited to add to it over the next few years.
My main use of technology for this project was the inspiration. I love scrolling and browsing ideas on Pinterest, and I definitely got inspired by all the pins about journaling and recipe pages. I love using Pinterest for all my projects because I love seeing the variety of ideas for one project. Everyone who posts their pictures on there has so many different ways of approaching and executing project ideas, which inspires me to explore the ways that I can make something. Aside from inspiration, technology has helped me catalogue my memories. Each of the recipes that I have made for my book are special to me in a different way. Technology allowed me to create a space for my memories associated with the project but also for this new memory of making this project.
