Winter Report

How can January be nearly over already? Wasn't it just New Years the other day? I'm obviously having much too good of a time!

I've been doing a little of this and a little of that. Yesterday was a good example. I read for awhile, sewed on my latest garment, spun some Falklands wool while listening to a podcast, and sewed the buttons on the bands of my Stripey Sweater:

What a perfect way to use those ceramic buttons! They've been in the stash for probably 20 years or more. There's mostly single colours or just a few of any one colour so they never quite worked out for a project. The buttons were made by Esther Grav from Belleville, ON, who is also a weaver and owner of What's Weft. I'm pretty sure she doesn't make them anymore so they're a treasure.

As you can see the sleeves aren't finished yet. I divided the remaining ball of yarn in half and will knit until I run out. The sleeves will probably end up about 3/4 length because I don't think I have enough for longer. Oh well. It's turning out pretty cute anyhow. Of course now I'm madly knitting away trying to outrun the end of the yarn balls! Why do we all think that will work?

Since it was fairly nice out yesterday (not like today's rain) I wandered out to the garden for a visit with the plants. The mache (corn salad) is getting big enough to nibble:

It's kind of tedious to pick and wash but the fresh greens are quite tasty. My garlic is getting taller:

The chives are starting to come up and the kale will soon have delicious buds to pick. I was seriously disappointed in the new kale variety that I planted last year. They are basically little bare sticks. Guess I'll be continuing with my old standby, Rainbow Lacinato from West Coast Seeds. Lesson learned.

This winter has been fairly mild and rainy. We had cool enough temperatures to kill most of the alyssum and the water garden plants but most everything else survived nicely, even my potted recumbent rosemary which has flower buds on it ready to pop. We only had a skiff or two of snow that didn't stick for long, some really foggy mornings and some very pretty hoar frost. Current temps have been around 8-10C - rather nice actually! They don't call our little corner of BC "Lotusland" for nothing. Oh wait - that does have other connotations, doesn't it? Also fairly well deserved. Heh.

So now off to the studio and the sewing machine. Time's a-wastin'!
 

Knitting FO’s, Part The Second

Here we are again with the rest of the vacation knitting! If you’ll cast your mind back to earlier this year at Fibres West, I bought 500g of a blue-grey alpaca roving that turned out to be blended with merino bits. After spinning it up into a sport weight 2-ply, I knitted Amy Christoffers’ Larch Cardigan with the resulting tweedy yarn. I had lots of leftovers so I decided to make some matching accessories.

There was the shawl, Grey Dragonfly Wings:

This pattern is by Boo Knits and is a free Ravelry download. How could I resist a dragonfly? (Or maybe it’s a damselfly. Heh.) The pattern was a bit unconventional and used 4 different sizes of needles. Good thing I had my trusty Addi Lace Clicks along! I also added 6/0 copper-lined grey AB beads. They just add a wee hint of sparkle:

The alpaca still sheds somewhat so I hope it isn’t too annoyingly linty on my clothes. I didn’t have my blocking tools with me in the Westie so that finishing step had to wait until I got home.

Next I wanted a beret but forgot to bring the pattern I was planning to use. However, there were a number of patterns already on my netbook computer so I picked one, Beret Easy by Aileen Cahill, another free Ravelry download. I was also limited in the needles that I brought along so I was glad this pattern worked for any size yarn and needles. You just work to measurements and the results are this Grey Alpaca Tweed Beret:

Unfortunately, even though I knitted it slightly smaller than the instructions stated, it’s still quite large for my pinhead. I prefer a fairly small beret circumference of about 10” or even less and this one is more like 11.5”. The drawback of measuring your knitting before it’s blocked! Luckily I have enough of this yarn left over to make another so I’ll probably give this one away.

The cool thing I learned while starting this hat is the small-circle magic cast-on. It’s really easy and doesn’t leave a hole in the middle. This technique is going in my knitting repertoire for sure.

Lastly I made a pair of Grey Alpaca Tweed Fingerless Mitts:

Again, I needed a pattern that was already on my computer so I used Gloves Up by Ydun. It’s yet another free Ravelry pattern and was very easy to convert to fingerless. I just ended the thumb and palm with ribbing instead of completing the fingers. I think they’ll be very useful when the weather gets cold.

So far though, it’s been pretty nice around here! No major woollies needed. There’s been some rain, just enough to water my fall rye seeds when they were getting too dry. The veggie garden is pretty much all done for the winter now:

Lazy Rosie, my recumbent rosemary still has to get tucked into the greenhouse though she’s fine outside for now. And eventually the oregano will need to be pruned down but the birds are enjoying the seeds and it looks attractive still. The alyssum went nuts while we were away (it finally got enough rain) and it was so pretty that I’m leaving it for now. It’ll actually survive light frosts unless we get a really cold snap. The deck pots are all cleared and moved into the greenhouse for the winter along with the empty tomato cages.

Doesn’t it look pretty in the early morning sunlight? Betcha can’t guess that I took the last 2 photos with Corbie the iPad, can you? (So much more clear.)

Veggie garden results for the very hot and dry summer of 2015:

• Most things did very well, if I could get them watered enough. Watering was a constant chore for both Thom and I.
• New varieties of kale and cabbage did not nearly live up to the old ones. The kale was very small and the cabbage didn’t set heads until very late and they split before we got back Oct 1. Both were absolute aphid magnets too! Bleh.
• Squashes, both summer and winter, were quite prolific except for some reason the patty pans.
• Cucumbers and tomatoes were early and adequate. We would have had more if they had gotten watered while we were away.
• The Egyptian walking onions were very poor this year. I think I eliminated too many of them last year and it was hard to keep them watered.
• The garlic matured early before the rust got too bad. The chives got the rust quite badly instead. The garlic chives matured very late but no rust. Interesting.
• Replanting baby greens before we went away was hopeless. They bolted before we got back.
• The late-planted carrots were good though. We actually got some reasonable-sized ones!

Now I can move on to the dye garden next. I’m getting impatient to dig up the madder finally this year.

Slowly Roasting

But I’m trying hard not to complain too bitterly about it. It’s not like I could shift that big blob of HOT that’s stuck just off the BC coast! It is what it is. It also was 32C (90F) yesterday and heading for that again today. At least my hot weather veggies are enjoying it – as long as I can keep them from drying out too much. I picked my first cucumber of the season, the beans are flowering and the spaghetti squashes are bigger than softballs. The dye garden isn’t doing too badly either. So far I have a Ziploc full of nicely dried dyer’s chamomile. The Sauce Hollandaise variety looks like every other daisy-type flower you’ve ever seen:

 

Their little faces are about an inch or so across. After I picked them they dried very quickly to crisp little buttons:

(Luckily you can’t see the dried aphids!) I picked a bunch more last evening so hopefully now I’ll have enough for at least one test dyebath. As soon as I around to getting some yarn mordanted, that is.

There’s not nearly as much of the dried grandiflora coreopsis:

That is all I’ve got so far. There’s only 2 young plants so I’m not surprised at the lack of volume. Collection is ongoing. 

What’s next? I’ve been avoiding the studio as too hot even with the big swamp cooler/fan on. I’ve managed to cut out 2 dresses though not even begun to sew them yet. There’s the Mizono dress/jumper/tunic/bubble-thingy, V1410:

You can see it better in the line drawing:

The 2 views are the same dress but it has buttons underneath so you can adjust the drape to tunic length. I cut a size 12 (again, not remotely my pattern measurements!) and also re-drew the shoulders and armscyes to fit me better. I raised the neckline quite a bit too. You can see it gapping badly on the model! I figure I can cut it down if it’s too high but not add to it if I cut too low. I cut some self bias binding for the armholes and neckline instead of just turning under a hem and cut some big square patch pockets. (Because I love pockets!) Lastly I shortened it at the lower lengthen/shorten line by 2”. It’s still going to be pretty long on my 5’3-1/2” (and shrinking) body but I didn’t want to lose too much of the bubbled side seams. The fabric is a black slightly-crinkled rayon with lovely drape. I’ve had it in the stash for ages and it has changed its mind about what it wanted to become at least 5 or 6 times. Ha-ha! It’s committed now!

The second dress I cut out is Marcy Tilton’s Vintage French House Dress V8813:

Here’s the line drawing, View A:

Mine is going to look very much like the photo because I’m using a red-orange stretch linen blend. This fabric tried to change its mind about what it wanted to be a couple of times but I didn’t allow it since I actually bought it specifically for this pattern! Heh. I cut a Medium and raised the neckline an inch. Again I can cut it down if I think it would look better as drafted but I’d rather have the extra fabric there in case. I think I might have to adjust the gathers in front down a little to compensate for my low bust, though I’ll judge that when I get there. Other sewists don’t seem to have messed with the gather height at all though I may also use a different technique to gather them than the instructions say.

Interestingly the Mizono dress is only 2 large pattern pieces but it still took more than 2.5 metres of my 56” wide fabric. (Like the way I slip from metric to imperial in the same sentence? I’m bi-measuremental!) The Tilton dress has her usual odd pattern pieces but this time not asymmetrical ones. I cut the pocket facings out vertically with the stretch running up-and-down thinking that that would stabilise them a little. They are rather voluminous! And Marcy does that with her knit version View C. I’m hoping to finish this dress in time to wear it to a family wedding next week.

Which brings me to a dress that my DIL bought from a thrift shop that fits her perfectly except for where it flares right under the arms. I thought it would be a quick repair but the odd way the lining has been stitched in as necessitated lots of unpicking and possible hand-stitching. I’ve been putting it off but since she’s planning to wear it to the same wedding, I’d best get my rear in gear. Today.

In other news, we took down the display at the Roundhouse Community Centre yesterday. Thom happily got his guitar back and he serenaded us while we packed up the rest of the items. We have re-submitted the cigar box guitar to the Crafts Council of BC for a show in Crafthouse in November. We’ll find out in a couple of weeks if Thom has to give up his guitar for awhile again! Meanwhile, he’s enjoying playing it again while he can. Who knew it would be so popular? On the way home from the Roundhouse yesterday (uphill in 30C heat) we stopped at a shady bench at City Hall to cool for a few minutes and a guy walking by asked about the guitar. Thom let him try it for a bit. (Upside down! It’s a lefty!) He wanted Thom to show him how to build one! LOL!!! Sure thing, bub. Five minutes, tops. Right? Ummm…no. Do your research. Take a class. Put in the time to learn. Just like I’m going to casually teach a total random stranger how to spin and knit a sweater? Just like that.

Anyway, to all my Canadian buddies, hope you and yours have a Happy Canada Day tomorrow! True North strong and free! (Free of Harper would be good too, but I’m not holding my breath.)

Take A Load Off, Granny

I’m exhausted! For the last few days we’ve been making a major push to get the majority of the garden dug, weeded, composted, planted and generally readied for summer growth. Thom & I are finally over our recent colds and have our usual amount of stamina back. The weather is perfect: warm and cloudy. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but we both love to garden. It’s creative and satisfying and good exercise as long as you don’t overdo it. Hah.

I think my plants are actually zombies not as badly damaged as I first thought. For the most part they’ve come back from the dead, somewhat the worse for wear thanks to the recent hail storm but recuperating nicely. Sadly the rhubarb in the dye garden is now inedible:

Hopefully it will survive to come back next year and I did get one last harvest from the larger patch in the back garden which is in better shape. The salad greens (and reds) are growing back after I trimmed off the most damaged parts. Here’s the Cimmaron lettuce:

So pretty. Hard to believe it was smooshed into the ground only a short while ago! I worked hard the last few days to get the squashes and cucumbers in and the greenhouse ready for the tomatoes:

Yeah, I tend to overplant them but I try to fertilise enough to make up for that. These are indeterminates (Juliet & Black Cherry) and grow very tall. Soon it’ll resemble a jungle in there!

The “back 40” is looking much better finally:

We really have a plethora of Welsh poppies, don’t we? They aren’t edible or dyeable but Thom likes them for colour. I try to keep them to the edges of the pathways where they won’t be in the way. Too much.

In the dye garden the Japanese indigo is growing back:

You can see the blue in the damaged leaves. Luckily they’re pretty tough little dudes and grow quickly, especially after a drink of fish fertiliser! Yum.

The single woad plant that I left to flower is starting to develop seeds:

They will turn blue-black as they mature. They look like little tongues, don’t they? Pfthhhh… This plant is taller than my head now and the flowers smell really nice. I know it’s considered a noxious weed in many places but mine are well-tamed and quite legal in BC. I’m very fond of my woad! Even if the Japanese indigo does have more blue in it.

So what else is new? I’ve only got about 3 inches left to knit on the Mia Tunic. The rows are really long (nearly 300 stitches around) so it’s taking me awhile. Plus I haven’t had that much time to knit! I also started a tea cosy for my daughter but it’s not easy or relaxing to knit. I don’t dare start anything else yet or I’ll never finish what I’ve already started! The sewing machine is calling me too but it’s not going to happen until the big garden work is done and we’re down to maintenance level. Soon!

Tenth Blogiversary & A Tragedy

Source

Yes, I have truly been blogging at you for a whole decade now! Who’d a-thunk it, eh? This is Post Number 1532. I think I’ve learned a few things about this medium of expression since I began way back then. At least I hope I have! This here blog is my personal forum for documenting my projects, discussing crafty techniques, sharing my holidays, pondering and musing about things in general, and occasionally whining and whingeing. Thanks so much for sharing all these things with me. And for being unfailingly polite and positive in your comments. I appreciate it. So I don’t have a huge following like some bloggers do but that’s not why I’m here. And of course those of you lovely people who do read my scribblings are the best ever. Even if you never comment, I feel you out there in cyberspace. Big virtual hugs!

Well here it is May 6th already and I haven’t posted since April. Bad 10-year-old blogger! I’ve been quite busy up in the study. I got a bee in my bonnet about cleaning up my library table that serves as a work station in front of the west window. It was piled with junk and hadn’t been sorted for literally years. My actual workspace was shrinking down smaller and smaller and I had to unearth archaeological layers to find anything. The side shelves are also filled with paperback fantasy novels that I was going to get around to reading, ummm… 10 years ago! I’ve obviously been distracted…

So I cleaned it all off, polished the dry wood (solid oak) and only put the good stuff back. I even joined Goodreads so I could keep better track of the books! I still haven’t tackled the little drawer though. I think I’m avoiding it. While I was at it, I also cleaned out the cupboard above my big computer desk. I recycled about 25 years worth of weavers’ guild newsletters (I was the editor for 13 of them) and a whole bunch of conference memorabilia. I saved the binder from HGA Convergence 2002, the one we hosted here in Vancouver, because I was in charge of the publications for it. I figure it’s a part of my history. I never look at the other stuff though so I’m not sad I tossed it all.

Just those two areas took DAYS to sort out. Now the cupboard has room for my projects binders because yes, I save paper printouts of all my project notes. Guess I’m old-fashioned enough not to trust electronic files forever! I have more work to do in this room still: re-sorting books, dusting shelves and generally tidying in, under and around. There are 6 full bookcases in this room as well as the aforementioned library table and cupboard, plus spinning wheels, spinning baskets and a Morris chair that is in desperate need of reupholstering. (I’ve been putting that task off for decades now.) And we aren’t even talking about the other room up here. The studio has been calling me to get back to sewing too. And finishing up the warp still on the loom. Soon. But sometimes you just have to give in to the Cleaning Bug, don’t you? Otherwise we’d be buried in an avalanche of our own possessions.

Meanwhile, I’ve been prepping for indigo vats in the dye studio. My Spectrum Study Group is coming over tomorrow to dip the shibori projects we’ve been stitching on for many a monthly meeting. It’s up to me to make sure the vat goes well, so today I’m going to do a preliminary test run and dye all my own stuff first. Then I’ll make more indigo stock and revive the vat tomorrow. We use the lye/thiox vat because it’s quick and reliable. The drawbacks are that it’s pretty much a one-use vat and it’s hard to get the really deep blues. I have no desire to be responsible for a fermentation vat though. It’s like having a pet that you have to feed and walk! I don’t dye enough to be bothered. However I envy those dyers with the skills and time to maintain what I consider a proper indigo vat. A blue high five to you!

OK. So what’s the tragedy that I referenced in the title? My garden, nearly ALL of my garden has been destroyed! I’m absolutely devastated whilst trying to maintain a zen-like calm. (Not working.) Yesterday we had a huge rain and hail storm that went on for hours! It hailed so hard that bits of gravel from the duroid asphalt roof tiles were washed down and tiny pieces of lichen were torn from the walnut tree branches. It hailed so long that there were drifts of hailstones on my porch at least 4” deep. This was only in the middle of the deluge:

And the veggie garden:

It went on from there twice as deep as this and completely covering the garden beds! It looks like snow but snow would have been kinder. My plants look like someone shot them up with an AK47! A sad muddy crushed salad. I can’t even photograph it close-up for you. Too depressing. A few things are recoverable: the peas, kale, cabbage, asparagus and garlic are scarred but not too broken. Luckily the tomatoes, squashes and cucumbers were in pots in the greenhouse and the basil and coleus were in the house under the lights. There’s a few flower seedlings safely in the greenhouse that I didn’t get a chance to transplant yet. I haven’t planted the beans either. Who knew I’d be glad I procrastinated? But the beautiful rhododendrons and azaleas are shredded, the coreopsis is flattened and my precious Japanese indigo are nothing but leafless sticks. I could cry.

If the roots aren’t damaged some plants may recuperate. I’m hoping so because there’s no point trying to replant most of them. It’s too late in the season for us. I may try again with the Japanese indigo but it needs long enough to make it all the way to seed before frost. The plants are tough and might continue to grow though they are awfully shredded. I’m not terribly enthusiastic about gardening now. Awwwww!!! And it was so beautiful! We were getting daily compliments from passersby. Sigh. Remind me why I bother please.

Oh yeah. Mother Nature tried to make me feel better with this evening sky:

Pretty pink clouds are SO not going to make me any happier!

OK. Enough wallowing in self-pity. I have an indigo vat to make. Onward to blue…

The Dye Garden

A commenter recently asked about what I plant in my dye garden. I didn’t forget but this is not going to be quite as elaborate a post as I originally planned. However, since it’s only spring and nothing has been happening in the dyepots recently, this will be but a first instalment. Dyeing with plants is an ongoing experiment anyhow.

So here’s what the dye garden looks like currently:

It’s a long narrow bed dug out of the city boulevard (local term for the space between the side of our property and the street, aka “verge” in British terms). There is no sidewalk on our block though people walk along here on the grass, usually with a dog or several. Our city is very encouraging about planting and caring for common property like this so it’s not a naughty thing to do. Thom mows the grass/moss and carefully digs out the buttercups and dandelions. For all the city cares I could dig the whole thing up and plant potatoes on it! I won’t though. It’s tough enough keeping the dogs out of my garden as it is.

So first up we have rhubarb. Besides eating the stalks, the leaves make a mordant that works best with animal fibres. They contain oxalic acid which is a poison so you must be reasonably cautious when using it. It’s not toxic once the fibre is rinsed though. The leaves have some colour of their own so it will affect the shade you get when dyeing over it. The roots are also a strong warm yellow dye used with a mordant. You can harvest them when you dig up the crowns to divide them every few years. Note that this is not the only rhubarb plant in my garden. We have 3 or 4 more near the veggie patch.

Then there are the coreopsis (tickseed) of which I have 3 varieties. Dyer’s coreopsis is the workhorse, even though it’s an annual and I have to replant every year. I can easily save the seeds so I don’t have to buy any. The flowers with alum mordant and various after-dips give me yellow, gold, orange and rust and they contain a lot of dye for their weight. They’re tedious to pick but they dry easily to save for later. The whole plant has colour so if you want you can chop them up for a dyepot at the end of the season. These little guys are still babies.

The perennial coreopsis are new to my garden. This one is the threadleaf variety, recently transplanted from my mother-in-law’s garden:

I plan to try the flowers and the leaves for eco-dyeing along with the second perennial variety, grandiflora:

I planted these from seeds last year and so far I haven’t had any flowers to try. We’ll see if they’re worth the space in my garden!

Next we have the baby Japanese indigos:

I planted a lot of these this year because I’m not growing woad right now, which is my other source for blue. Because my garden is so small I don’t get enough plants to dry the leaves and compost them for proper indigo so I use them fresh instead. (Instruction links are on my new Tutorials page at the top of this blog.) It doesn’t give me quite as dark shades as a normal indigo vat might but I can get a nice medium blue and also overdye for other colours.

Next we have my one last-year’s woad which I’m leaving to flower for fresh seeds:

The flowers are so pretty and the bees like them a lot. Behind the woad you can see my expanding patch of dyer’s chamomile (aka golden marguerite). It’s an aromatic plant that stays somewhat green all winter here. Sadly this variety is “Sauce Hollandaise” which has white flowers instead of yellow and so isn’t very good for dye. I’ll probably move it somewhere else in the garden eventually.

Behind that are marigolds, which I also grow in other parts of my garden wherever there is space. Marigold flowers with alum mordant and various after-dips give yellow and gold colours and the leaves can give brassy olive shades. I pick the flowers when they are partially spent and freeze them because they don’t dry well for me. I also think they give better colour fresh or frozen than when they are dried. Marigolds are easy to grow or purchase from nurseries and the seeds are very easy to save. Here they are bothered by slugs and snails which can totally decimate a plant if it’s not protected with slug bait. We try to use an organic type.

Beyond the marigolds are more Japanese indigo which I won’t pick so as to let them flower as early as possible. I learned that trick a few years ago and now I get mature seeds before frost kills the plants. As I’ve mentioned before, these seeds are only viable for a short time so saving seed each year is a must. They’re very hard to come by. I usually have extra though so if anyone wants some, contact me. It’s getting pretty late for this year unfortunately.

In between the marigolds and the second patch of indigo is a space where I will plant some baby weld. This needs a second year to mature and is the best source for a colourfast clear yellow with alum. I don’t actually need any weld because I have bagsful of the dried stuff but I do need to refresh my seeds.

Lastly, there is the madder, my only source for reds:

I should have dug them up last fall and divided the crowns but I didn’t. It takes time to grow good-sized roots so I only can get a single madder pot once every two or three years out of a 6-foot patch. I would love to have enough so I could dig 1/3 of the plants up every year but sadly lack the room. These are not pretty plants and are scratchy and sprawling. The upper plant parts have some colour in them as well so conceivably you could harvest the tops before they die back in fall but I’ve never tried it.

So there you have it! Other dye plants on my property include walnut, blackberry, Oregon grape, smoke bush (Cotinus coggygyria), and black-eyed susans. I get browns and tans from the walnut husks and greys from the blackberry shoots but the rest are just more yellows so I don’t really bother with them. I’m sure there’s lots more plants I could grow for colour but I’ve got a pretty nice palette going in the space that I’ve got. Anything else that you think I should consider?

Dig This

The weather has been mostly nice for the last week or so and we hustled out to the “back 40” (that’s 40 FEET not acres) to get the veggie patch ready for planting:

There was a lot of digging, weeding, smoothing, dumping of compost and deciding where everything will go. This little old lady was quite proud of holding up pretty well to all the physical exercise! Even The Hand cooperated just fine. Then typically, right after I got my little green things tucked into their beds:

…the temperatures plummeted so now it’s colder than it was in February. Sigh. At least these are all the early spring greens (lettuce, arugula, mizuna, komatsuna, gai lan) and the cabbages and kale that should be able to take it as long as it doesn’t freeze. Since we’re nearly a month past our last expected frost date, everything should be ok. Fingers crossed that they don’t get slowed down too much or they’ll all bolt when it warms up again. Gardening is such a crap shoot, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, I’m still schlepping 8 more flats of tomatoes, Japanese indigo and numerous flower seedlings in and out of the basement every day. They can’t go in yet and I also can’t plant the beans until at least the first or second week in May. I have cukes and squashes coming up under the lights indoors too they will need to go out as soon as it warms up enough. Lots of work but worth it when we get to munch on the proceeds. We went to the local farmers’ market yesterday and there was so much produce there that we didn’t need to buy because we have our own! (We did get beets and chard and goat cheeses though.) I was so proud that my rhubarb was bigger than theirs that I immediately picked some when I got home and made sauce. The best over vanilla ice cream! Oh, and I also picked the asparagus and there’s enough for a meal. Yum.

OK, enough garden talk. In crafty news, I’m cruising down toward the hem of the Sweet Ginger Candelia cardi. It’s going very well without any major hassles and I even tried it on and it fits perfectly. Whoot! Why do some projects go so much more smoothly than others? This is going to break the speed record from yarn purchase to finished object for me for sure.

I also started a scarf but I’m not sure if I like it yet so the info on it is pending. I had a lot more success with another project which combines 3 different fine threads from my weaving stash which I’ll knit together to make a tunic top. I have the pattern and have already modified it slightly to fit me. I’m finding it very exciting that these silk, rayon and linen threads can actually be perfect to knit with if combined into a thicker strand and I had great fun playing with different combos. The results are so much better than the pattern’s recommended yarn which would have cost me about $140! Free is better, no? I need to get some photos of the swatches and the yarn cones. More on this one soon.

And I’m still spinning too and now I have about half the alpaca tweed yarn that I need for yet another sweater. (No, I cannot have too many!) It’s pretty fine yarn (about sport weight when plied) so even using the faster long-draw that’s a lot of spinning still to go. Pleasant anyway – at least now that I’ve had more practise with this slubby stuff. I have the pattern chosen and ready to go but I’m going to wait until the yarn is done first.

Still haven’t located my sewjo from wherever it’s hiding! I know I need some new clothes but darned if I can get motivated in the studio. Maybe when I get the garden more completed. All that digging saps my energy and all that’s left at the end of the day is only good for the mindless stuff. But that’s perfectly all right. It’s not a race to the finish. The sewjo will return. I have plans.

Back out to the garden while it’s not raining!

Google-Fu Master

My brain is tired and my mouse-hand is even tired-er. It’s been hard work but I think I’ve conquered the travel plans for this year’s vacation! And WOW!!! It’s going to be fun! Probably also very hot and dry. There are water falls, lava tubes, Anasazi ruins, rocks of all colours and shapes, petroglyphs, canyons, deserts, mountains and, eventually, ocean beaches. Nine Western US states in total, two of them twice – a big loop. Also fabric shopping because I can’t go through Portland without hitting the Mill End Store and Pendleton Woollen Mill Store. They’re very near each other on the same road so it’s not too big of a diversion.

However, because it’s so far to go we’ve decided to leave earlier than we’d originally planned. Which means we’re heading out a week from Wednesday so we’ll need to step up the prep and packing. What doesn’t get done won’t until we get back. Oh well. I’ll have to kiss my garden goodbye for the season. Some things did really well this year including my coleus in the deck pots. Most of them were grown from seeds. This year the leaves on some were huge!

Like the “Kong” variety but these aren’t. The ones I bought were because the seeds aren’t on offer. These “Mehndi” were particularly colourful:

On the right you can see the “Sedona” in gorgeous red rock colours. I love colourful leaves even better than colourful flowers. Yes, odd, I know. I’ll get over it. ;)

Meanwhile, I did finish my second pair of Toe-Up Shortie Socks from the same ball of DGB Confetti:

Again I used my slightly modified version of Wendy D. Johnson’s Toe-Up Socks With A Difference. I’m now starting to get the hang of it though that’s not to say I didn’t have to rip out the heel turn twice on the second sock! I also haven’t figured out how to size it up for Thom or someone else with larger feet than mine. That shouldn’t be too hard though now that I’m more familiar with how it works. They look silly off the feet but fit very closely especially under the arch and heel.

I dyed this pair when they were done just to make them different from the earlier pair from the same yarn. I used some Lanaset Red plus a bit of Black that I had premixed and never used and dyed them in the craft microwave. Now they’re kind of a burgundy but light enough so that the stripey bits still show. Yeah, I’m too lazy to do a proper FO post. If you want more deets you can go to the Ravelry page.

It seems like posting to this blog is going to get a little rare to non-existent in the next while. So sorry! First of all, this next week is going to be crazy busy getting ready to go. (Aaakkk!!!) Also, unless there are more places to get wifi than I’ve encountered in my Googling, I will be very hard-pressed to get out an account of the trip while it’s actually happening. I hope to at least keep writing posts and saving them up for whenever there’s an opportunity to send them. Best I can promise for now.

More when I can!

Whoosh!

It’s been awhile, huh? Sorry about that. I got a little occupied. There was family, babysitting, a friend’s funeral Celebration of Life, long walks, much gardening and when I looked up for a moment more than a week had gone by. Where the time goes I have No Idea. It just disappears. Poof.

Anyhoo, the garden is looking pretty spiffy after a lot of hard work. Here’s the veggie garden (aka the Back 40) from the farthest end:

And here it is from the end nearest the house:

It’s grown some since I took these photos! I left them bigger than usual so you can click to see details if you want. Yes, we have too many Welsh poppies back there. Thom likes them especially and they add some welcome colour. We sadly lost a lot of the creeping thyme between the stepping stones in the pathways this winter but the star creepers (blue and white) came back just fine. I have to beat them back from out of the beds but I don’t really mind. The whole thing is planted now and all that’s left to do for the next while is maintenance and harvesting. Yum! See the pretty lettuces?

The light green ones are my usual Esmeralda butterheads and the lovely bronze ones are Cimarron romaines. There’s lots of other greens too including arugula, mizuna, red komatsuna, and various Chinese greens. I’m still getting kale buds though production is slowing down. I’ve stopped harvesting the asparagus but I might be able to get one more batch of rhubarb. Don’t want to tax the plants too much or next year will be slim pickings.

The crab and Christmas cactuses and the disocactuses plus the aloes are enjoying their outdoor time on their very own little patio:

Only one disocactus is blooming currently though I’m hoping the other two will get the idea soon. The big bright red flowers are so lovely! They compensate for the otherwise hideously ugly plants that I nurture all winter in my living room.

The dye garden is growing though the madder has lots of spittlebugs. They don’t really hurt it much but the new leaves get somewhat distorted. It’s not exactly an attractive plant at the best of times anyway. I just want the roots! Ahem. The front garden is nearly done except for some weeding in the west side. We’ve already gotten some nice comments from passersby too. Now Thom wants to remove some fairly major branches from the huge hazelnut tree before it splits down the middle. Hopefully it won’t be a Major Project but you never know until you’re in the middle of it. I’m going to have to help because I don’t think it’s a one-person job. Not particularly looking forward to this.

What else? Oh yeah. I finished the second pair of gloves:

More details on my Ravelry page.This was the pair that displeased me so I overdyed them with Lanaset black. You can still see a hint of the underneath colours but not the really off-kilter gray stripes. I like them much better. I’m totally done with gloves for awhile. Twenty fingers somehow managed to over-stretch even my legendary tolerance for knitting with dpns. Whew. I’ll be good for gloves for a couple of years now, at least until I wear something out.

My next portable and TV project is yet another pair of socks for Thom. This is the Grey Tabby yarn from Ancient Arts Meow collection:

I took this photo before I wound it into balls because it never looks the same after and I wanted to remember it. So far it’s knitting up nicely with interesting flashing and pooling of colours. I know some knitters don’t like that but I do. It’s like automatic ikat. I’ll get a photo as soon as there’s enough to see.

I also received the replacement connector for my spinning wheel from Jane Stafford. Even though I asked Jane for confirmation ahead of time, I got a bit concerned when the instructions said something about not fitting the S90 or the Victoria wheels. However, what it actually meant was that one of the screws supplied was too long so I just used the original one instead. No biggie. I don’t even know why they give you the screws as well since it would be a very rare occurrence to either break or lose one. Not to mention they could be easily replaced from the hardware store. What you really need is the flexible polyurethane cylinder connector. In the end I fixed it myself without Thom’s help. I have a screwdriver and I know how to use it! Plus I kept the glue stick substitute that kept me spinning in the interim. You never know when I might need it again although hopefully this will keep me going for quite awhile. After all the last one lasted me for 22 years, didn’t it?

Speaking of spinning, the Rainbow Dark project is coming along slowly. I had to slow down on the hackling because my thumbs were extra sensitive from too much gardening. I learned the hard way to quit before I hurt myself! After some rest days I’ve been alternating hackling and spinning which seems to be working ok. It actually takes a longer time to create a length of hackled top than it does to spin it up. I’m partway through the fourth bobbin-full and have the first 2 skeins already plied and washed. I noticed that I had spun a little thicker toward the end of the second bobbin-full so I’ve been watching more carefully to keep consistent. I may have to use that thicker bit for the yoke or something where the difference won’t show as much. Obviously I’m a little out of practice! Usually I tend to go thinner rather than thicker if my attention wanders so I don’t know how I went the other way this time. Anyhow, it’s been lovely spinning out on the back deck in the warm spring sunshine. I can watch all the colours glisten as they turn into yarn in my fingers. It pleases me immensely.

More soon! Gotta get out in the garden today before rain happens or something. I still have marigolds, alyssum and lobelias that need a home.

Enjoying Our Spring

Hope all the moms out there had a lovely Mother’s Day! I did. The weather was a perfect spring day and we spent most of it with our son Simon and his family. He made wheat-free waffles with whipped cream and strawberries for brunch then we all went for a walk by the Coquitlam River and finally ended with an early sushi dinner. Yum. Then I came home to a very cute phone message from the Littlest Grandbeastie wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day. The festivities continued yesterday when we took Thom’s mom out to the garden shop for lunch and plant shopping. Lunch was really good but they didn’t have everything we wanted so we finished off at a second place with more selection. I got several pretty coleus, stripey yellow violas and better basil than what I can grow myself. Also salvinia (floating fern) for the water garden. Now I’ve got everything I need for this year’s growing adventures. I’m running out of room for anything else.

Today I was back out in the garden planting my cucumbers and squashes. The weather has been warm enough for a couple of days and hopefully it won’t deteriorate too much at least until things get established. I also planted the rest of my beans and now the veggie garden is nearly full and the dye garden is done. Only weeding and watering left to do for the next while. Feels good to get that finished. Now we can concentrate on the front garden and clear some space to plant the rest of my bedding plants. I still have lots of marigolds which can always go in the veggie garden if I run out of room elsewhere. I love flowers in with the edibles!

Some of the edibles even look as pretty as flowers:

The dark leaves on the top of the pile are red komatsuna. It’s also called Japanese mustard spinach but this dark purple-red version with the red veins on the back of each leaf is just so pretty! Even better for you than spinach, the taste is fairly mild especially when young and can be eaten raw or lightly cooked. Then underneath these are the strappy bronze leaves of a new-to-me lettuce variety called Cimarron. They just glow in the sun and are a nice contrast with the chartreuse green leaves of my other favourite lettuce, Esmeralda. Cimarron is a romaine type while Esmeralda is a butter lettuce. Yes, I like my food to have pretty colours too, don’t you?

It got too hot in the sunshine to work this afternoon so a break was welcome. Not that I’m complaining about the heat! I’ll be heading out in the shade to clear off the space for the cactuses to spend the summer but first I actually have a Finished Object for you:

I finished knitting one pair of more-or-less matching gloves and am now halfway to finishing the second pair which do not go together in any way that pleases me. They will be overdyed something dark and then I will be happy to have 2 pairs put away for next winter to replace the ones that I was forced to heave out. I need more than the single pair of gloves with fingers that I was left with – at least one pair to wash and one to wear. They get pretty grubby even when covered by fingerless gloves for a second layer of warmth. I like to clean gloves frequently in winter to avoid catching colds and flu from touching public surfaces. Hey, sounds paranoid but it works! I usually get only one or at most two colds in a year, usually thanks to the Snot Fairy, aka Rosebud or the Littlest Grandbeastie. Daycare is a germ incubator for sure and it seems as if I can never wash my hands enough when she’s visiting with a runny nose. Good thing she’s incredibly cute.

So that’s the story for now. I have to go scrub my dirty toes. (How does that happen?) More soon!

Trundling Along

We survived the weekend with the Bigger Grandbeasties (ages 7 & 9) while their parents were away in New York but it was a near thing! I must be out of practice with the parenting thing. It was fun but also kind of exhausting. And we didn’t even have the main part of the child care – their maternal grandma stayed at their house during the week while they were in school. They live about a 1/2-hour away from us (if you take the freeway) so it’s not practical to keep them here and drive back and forth twice a day. Yesterday however we had to do the delivery and managed to get them to school just before the bell. Whew! Luckily their grandma took over again after school and stayed until today. Their parents didn’t get home until the wee small hours this morning. We only know because their car has disappeared from beside our house! They didn’t want to wake us so they slipped away quietly. Our house is quite near the Skytrain line to the airport so it makes a good place to begin a trip but it doesn’t run in the middle of the night so they had to take a cab back. Hope they had fun! They’re probably still trying to catch up on sleep.

After we dropped the kids off yesterday we decided to go for a walk on the trails in Colony Farm Regional Park. This former farm was once part of provincially owned Riverview Hospital and has been fallow since the 1980’s. Some enhancement has been done for fish and birds and there are several trails along the dyke and around the edges. The plants are fairly bursting out with new spring growth even though the weather has still been rather cool for this time of year.

I love all the different grasses and the salmonberries are blooming:

My favourite part of this park though is the Community Garden. (There’s a good article about it here.) I always love to check out how other people grow veggies! We have lots of community garden plots around the Lower Mainland, many of them here in Vancouver, but this one is just huge! It has a number of sections surrounded by grass pathways (very soggy right now) and the individual plots are a good size, not the usual postage stamp.

There are hoses set up to use for watering in summer and many plastic-covered greenhouses. Also lots of interesting garden decor and bird houses which the swallows were making good use of. We could hear peeping inside more than one of them! It’s pretty early still though so not much was actually planted yet. The garlic is all getting tall and there was rhubarb that could be picked. We even saw some nice kale buds but nobody had harvested them. No, we didn’t do it ourselves! Come summer this place will be bursting with produce, so much so that they have to have signs saying no picking! Can you imagine somebody waltzing in to somebody else’s garden and just helping themselves? How rude!

I did get a chuckle out of this sign though:

There’s potential fruit here too. The blueberries were in bloom:

They grow very well in our climate and acidic soil. Ours are also blooming now much to the dismay of our grandkids who would prefer berries all year around! They just need a little patience. Heh.

These apple blossoms were pretty and smelled heavenly:

They have other fruit trees as well. We’ve tried to grow apples (and Italian plums) in the past but they didn’t do very well so we just stick with the berries in our garden now.

It was a very nice walk and luckily the rain held off until we got back in the car. I really needed to get out in the air.

Meanwhile, back in the studio I’m currently attempting to cut out a jacket from slippery squishy silk/rayon velvet. I’m supposed to be ready for a devoré (burnout) session with my Spectrum Study Group on Thursday. Finally we’ve hit on something that everyone is interested in doing! Amazing. I’ve had this fabric in deep stash for years (maybe 10?) and planned on learning how to do this ages ago but it’s taken a challenge from my friends to get me to actually follow through. I’ve yet to dig out my FiberEtch if I can find it which may not even be viable after all this time. Testing will ensue. Otherwise I’m sure we can share. I only plan to use the burnout on the sleeves and collar band and leave the rest of the body opaque. It will subsequently be dye-painted with Procion MX dyes and maybe even get an immersion bath in acid dyes to give more depth to the silk backing. We’ll see how it goes.

But first I need to cut the thing out ready to go. I’m using Katherine Tilton’s pattern B5891, view C/D:

In the interests of time-saving I’ve already fitted this jacket for me though the fabric of the first one is quite different, a heavy brushed cotton twill. I wear it all the time so it was very successful. This time I’m making some modifications to the original and will probably wear it more like a very fancy sweater. I’ve overlapped the princess seam (which in the original is just a seamed section and doesn’t include shaping) and also put the back seamline on the fold and then gently curved the neckline eliminating the asymmetrical collar and button overlap. I’ll cut out a collar/front band that will finish off the fronts and neckline in (hopefully) one strip. Unfortunately I only have 2 metres of the velvet so I’m going to have to squeeze to get the pieces on it. It washed and dried to a little less than 45” (115cm) in width so it’s quite narrow. And of course I have to go with the nap, right? Some creative folding will be necessary methinks. More on this later.

Nothing much else to report. Plugging away alternately on knitting the gloves and the test sock. I have 1-1/2 gloves so far – only 2-1/2 more to go. Including 30 fingers. Ulp! What have I gotten myself into in my quest for new gloves?

The garden hasn’t come along much farther than last time. Things are still growing but mostly aren’t planted out yet. The weather has warmed up slightly, enough at least that I was able to leave many of the earliest flats out on the deck last night and only brought the tomatoes into the house to join the squash and cukes under the lights. This is progress of a sort. Ideally I’d like to see it warm up at to least 10C at night. I haven’t dared plant the beans yet either but then mid-May is the best time here so I’ve got a couple of weeks.

Moving right along. Go cut out the jacket, damselfly!