bee creative

how to avoid cutting the grass and pulling weeds

1.  Felt some wool:

I love the way this felted, especially where I couched the silk yarn.

2.  Go to the farmer's market:

3.  Decide to start cooking as soon as you get home.  There was this recipe that I wanted to try from the new cook book I got yesterday, Local Flavors by Deborah Madison.

I made Asparagus Bread Pudding (without the mushrooms and with asparagus I had left over from last week).   It ended up being lunch and part of dinner.

 

Not quite 100% local since the salmon was from Alaska, but definitely in season.  

4.  Sew a cushion for the porch swing.

5.  Put the dry clothes away.

6.  Decide that if you don't cut the grass now, that it will never happen today. 

7.  Cut the grass during the hottest time of the day!

8.  Fall asleep on the porch for an hour.

The weeds aren't all pulled ( and never will be), but the garden looks pretty darn good:

a little of this, a little of that

I took the day off to enjoy the sunshine and it felt like such a treat.

Living without a car means taking some great walks:   Eva asked a couple posts back about whether the creek I had photoed looked as pictured for the whole stretch, or if it was just that section.  The answer to that is, yes, the whole stretch is green and lush with textures.  There is a trail that runs along a lot of it that can be walked until it reaches the bay.  Today I walked another favorite trail.  It winds through a canopy of trees and ends up along the water.

I am very lucky that I live a beautiful corner of the world.   I walked along this stretch of the trail up to a shopping district and went to my favorite bookstore, got a nibble for lunch and then came back to sit for about an hour or so to read.  I also started another pair of socks. 

 The garden:  As I wandered through the garden tonight, I noticed the peas had started blooming.  This is a shelling variety called "Blauwschokkers."  They are used dried as a soup pea.  This is one of the vegetables I'm going to save seed from.  

Wool quilt #2:  I decided to stitch lines across the latest square that I knit.  Tomorrow I'm going to felt/full the square and then do some additional stitching on the felted surface.  I did some stitching on a wool sweater that I fulled once and loved the way the stitching sunk into the fibers.  I also started wondering, what if I couched some yarn in stripes as well, before it was fulled?  It will have to wait for morning.

a pot full of pansies

One old name for pansies is "heart's ease."  I like that.  Thinking about what I could embroider on the wool square I knit up today. 

wool quilt #1 and #2

What if I made a lily pad and a pond lily?  What if I cut up the felt I made and used it to fill the holes in my wool quilt?  What if I cut squares out of the felt and then sewed it on to a piece of fabric I had knit and fulled, and then needle felted some circles on top of the squares?  What if I pieced a quilt with squares that were knit or woven or felted?  It would be wool quilt #2. 

I've been thinking about making a quilt with fabrics that I've made myself for the top layer for quite awhile. 

I've been thinking about definitions for quilts, blankets, and afghans for awhile too.  And tonight I'm thinking about boxes.  About what message or story is told by using geometric shapes, such as squares  (boxes?) and circles.    At what point are we boxed in?  What boxes do we live in?  What magic is held in a box (Pandora's box?).  Just thinking....

moving forward with the sweet pea quilt, plus a few other things

This weekend was really about the garden and being outside, but I did work on a few projects.  Over the weekend I've been thinking a lot about my sweet pea quilt and decided that I did want to tear it apart and do it differently. 

 

I've decided to set the squares on the diagonal.  I think I might piece a checkerboard boarder to go around the outside of the "peace and plenty" squares. 

I also did a little wet felting.  Just a little experimenting:

I had a project in mind, but I think they look  a little bit like lily pads and that gave me another idea.  It was a lot of fun and I learned some things; like that I probably haven't been using enough water while felting in my past experiments.  Also, that the washboard works great for the final stage of felting. 

And I made covers for the wicker couch that I moved out on to my covered porch.

 I found this at a thrift store.  It was labeled two twin sheets sewn together to make a king sized spread, price $3.00.  Sweet! 

things I am thankful for

That I was up and outside at 5 AM this morning (as I usually am).

That I missed the bus I wanted and decided to take an "urban hike" to run my errands today (the art store and the Re-store, my local salvage/habitat for humanity store).  I walked down a few streets I've never been down,  saw some inspiring gardens, passed by a corner of the creek that I've never seen, and burnt enough calories that I felt okay eating a hot fudge sunday.   

what a difference a day can make in the garden

This morning the garden looked like this:

And I ate my first strawberry (nothing else is even close, just this one....)

This evening it also has this:

It still needs to be painted, and I'm going to keep an eye out for cedar shingles for the roof.  But the chooks are bedded down for the night.  Of course I had to climb in the pen and shove them through the door to get them to go in.  That was after I tried bribing them with treats to see if they would go in.  They were suspicious, and rightly so. 

I know they went in the coop this afternoon, but this evening they really couldn't figure out why I wasn't taking them to the laundry room for the night....  Guess I'll check on them one more time.

garden update: May

Dame's Rocket, weedy but smells divine.

The garden in all it's weedy glory.  The covered structure in the back is my tomato hut, where I'm growing tomatillios and, of course, tomatoes.

Peas and potatoes seem to be growing several inches a day at the moment. Garlic is looking good, onions so-so, beans, squash, and corn just popping up.  I need to make something with rhubarb tomorrow. 

  I grow a lot of things in containers too.  There is some parsley, a tomato, radishes and some squash coming along in this tub.  The radishes will be long gone by the time the squash grows big enough to fill this tub. 

The chickens get their coop tomorrow.  I think they are very excited, I know I am. 

this week's bus project

I like how two threads that seem so unsubstantial on their own

Can be combined to create something with weight and body.

What if I combine two yarns, one that will felt and one that won't?  What if I felt it?  (the answer to that will be coming soon). 

living in the moment: my "clock"

  

Finished up my "clock."  The glass is fused glass my mom did.  The record is attached to an old wood box.  I used two quotes, a definition of "time" from the dictionary and a quote from Thoreau.  The quote from Thoreau:  "You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in every moment." 

At this very moment, as I write this, I am sitting with my front door open, listening to the rain come down.  It would be easy to be unhappy with more rain, but I'm not.  It's what makes my corner of the world so green.  It will make the garden flourish and fill my rain barrel.

I found a very interesting lecture about happiness given by Dan Gilbert that was done for TED (via No Impact Man).  What I found most interesting about the lecture was the idea that we human beings have the capacity to create our own happiness.  That we can choose to be happy.  I believe in this.  Maybe part of this is learning to live in the moment? 

wool quilt update

This morning I finished sewing together all the squares that have been embellished.  Another 22 four squares to go.

It's large enough now to have a sense of how it will function as a blanket.  I am in love.  It has enough weight to have presence but not so much as to be bulky.  Perhaps it is the hand sewing, but it seems to have joints and moves and flows.  It has enough repetition and pattern to be comforting, but enough variation to be interesting.  It is a mixture of things that are old and reclaimed, from friends and family, but also things that are new and from new friends.  It is a mixture of old techniques and new technology.  It feels like it is completing a cycle.  But maybe one like the sun, that will radiate outward? 

on a beautiful day

A beautiful day to go to the farmer's market (on the bike!), come home and sit outside with a project or two, to take a nap, to garden a little, to take the chooks outside to play, to eat local organic food (from the garden as well as the market).

To wonder why all the critters feel the need to sit on whatever project I'm working on:

Briar is sitting on my bus project for the week.  Yarn left over from other projects that I knit and then felted.  It was a "What if..."  that will lead to another "what if..." 

It is a mixture of felting and non-felting yarns, of different stitches.  I felted it by hand first and then felted it a bit more in the washing machine. 

first rose blossoms of the year

Rosa rugosa

Lady Banks

more projects? more time?

There is never enough time in the day for all the things I want to do.  Always more projects than I have time.  Things are never as organized or as clean as I want them.  And yet, I'm slowly becoming more okay with it.  As I mentioned in a comment at Mendofleur, I'm trying hard to keep in mind that it's not about having enough time to do the things that I want, but rather to be happy/content/satisfied with how I've spent my time.   I think I came to this as I reconciled turning a 20-30 minute commute into a 1 1/2 to 2 hour commute by choosing to sell my car and bus/walk/and now bike.  

This is a project I've had in the back of my mind for years now.  I've been wanting to make my own clock, but rather than putting the hours and minutes down, I want to write reminders to use my time for things that I love.  To be in the moment.  This is an old record that plays on a Victrola.  It has a chip in one corner so I decided to sacrifice it to this project.  Tonight I took five minutes to start.  I sprayed a bit of spray paint I've got in my stash on for a base coat.  Tomorrow night I can spend 30 minutes or so starting to write the text I want or work on embellishing. 

I've started to wonder if sometimes I've made things more complicated for myself than they have to be.  I'm learning to break things down into manageable pieces so that I actually get things done.  Last month I promised myself that I would spend 30 minutes each day organizing and de-cluttering.  I did fairly well at this for about twenty days and then got side tracked.  I found that I could do 10 minutes and changed my goal a bit. 

A couple nights ago I was thinking about wheels, about cycles and I wondered how it would be to print circles with a lid and fabric paint.  I liked it but the white background was a little stark so I softened it by dyeing it in coffee.  Last night I took 10 minutes to write some text.  Tonight 10 minutes to needle felt some wool and silk (it is so soft!) into some of the circles.  I don't think of this so much as starting a new project, but as making notes to remind me of an idea that I've had.  And I'm not sure where I'll go with this next, but it feels like a very good use of time. 

making fabric

I'm thinking about how all fabrics that we work with are woven, knit or laminated (felted); created in some way to make fabric.  Machine or hand made. 

Wool alpaca blend (will felt), and an acrylic wool blend (won't felt).

Silk top for felting or spinning. 

finishing and starting

I didn't get anything dyed this weekend, no sewing.  Mostly the weekend was spent with family, cleaning house (and organizing, more on that later) and on the bus. The bus time gave me time to finish:

Pair number fifteen.  I was so close to running out of yarn, I stole a tail from the first sock to finish off the toe of the second!  This is "Blue Sky" organic cotton.  They are anklets for summer.  Tonight I'm choosing yarn for my next project.  I'm going to to a bit of playing and just knit some swatches, inspired by Shibori Knits by Gina Wilde.  I've had this book on my request list for the library and just got it.  There are some very neat projects in this. 

I did a bit of planting too.  This tomato is one my mother started.  Along the edge I planted 6 or 7 carrot seeds.  As soon as they pop up, I'll find another planter to plant a few more seeds in.

I spent a lot of time just enjoying the promise of spring blossoms too:




Quince, a variety grown for the fruit. 

crafting a better life for myself: getting around

I did it!  Seven miles round trip walking and biking.  A glorious day!

out in the garden tonight

The rain stopped, the skies cleared and the sun came out.

But I didn't find the sample the wind blew away. 

"What if a much of a which of a wind..."  e.e. cummings

I gathered up a few more dandelions layered them on the wool again, put a new piece of cotton on top and pounded away:

Not done yet.  I know that some people are looking for the flower image when they do this. I just wanted the color, or dye.  I think with another layer of color this will look slightly batiked.   

when the dandelions bloom again

Sometimes it feels good to walk in the rain.  To come home and find dry clothes, something hot to drink, to stand on the covered porch and listen to the rain come down.

To enjoy the neighbor's dogwood tree. 

Last night I remembered a project that I just had to try out.  Flower pounding. 

A good way to deal with frustration or burn some calories.  The dandelions were placed on the wool I had dyed with the dandelions.  (It's really hard to see any of the color in this photo for some reason.)  I laid another piece of fabric on top of the dandelions and pounded away with a wood scrub brush.  It left yellow rings on the wool and yellow streaks that looked flower like on the cotton.  I'd share after pictures but the cotton blew away in the wind storm we had.  I'm going to try this again when the sun comes out and the dandelions open again. 

the slow way home

 

First of all, thank you everyone for the feedback on my felted weaving.  I am really excited about the possibilities.  There is something about the idea of working from a single thread and transforming it into cloth....  Kind of like a bird building a nest. 

Today I walked the slow way home.  I live about 3 1/2 miles from where I work and normally walk at least part of it when the weather is cooperating.  Today I got off work a couple hours early and decided to walk the long way, down along the bay.  That turned into about 1 1/2 hours of walking.  Maybe I could call that an urban hike?  This walk always brings me an incredible amount of peace, so the time was well spent. 

A few other things that are slowly coming along:

  I finally decided to just write the text I wanted on the silk organza for my fabric printing experiment.  I don't have beautiful hand writing, but at least it's legible and I think it's, well, interesting.   It seems to work in someway.  There's an honesty to it.   

If I'd thought about it a bit more (and had the text in mind when I printed) I probably would have put together my image and the text in my word processing program as layers.  Or maybe not.  I'm trying to learn to like my handwriting more. 

At some point this will be a pillow. 

And then there is the dandelion dye experiment.  I decided to simmer fabric and flowers all together for about an hour and then let it all soak for a day.  Tonight I poured off the dandelions and hung the fabric up to dry.   There are still a few flecks of the flower on the fabric.  It's a very faint yellow.   I did two pieces of fabric and may try over-dyeing one of the pieces. 

Now it's time for ice cream with rhubarb sauce.  And  yes, sooner or later rhubarb is going to end up in the dye pot too!

something old, something new

Last night I dashed through a torrential downpour to get to my front door.  This morning I woke up to glorious sunshine.  Everything sparkled, it was so fresh. 

I sat out on the front steps working on my wool quilt for almost an hour (the old project).  I spent a lot of time thinking.  One issue under consideration was what I was going to do when I ran out of wool blankets to "mend."   Especially the white one that I'm having so much fun dyeing.   Look for more?  Work with something else?  I've realized that wool has really become a favorite material for me.  Whether it's yarn, material, or roving. 

When an ominous gray cloud sailed in front of the sun, I came in for awhile and checked a few blogs.  Once again, Jude at Spirit Cloth inspired me!  And funnily enough, in a direction that I've been thinking about (felting something woven with wool).  It made me think about the way inspiration happens.  Unless we live in a bubble, there is no escaping influences from others.  I think this a good thing.  I think that everyone is more creative as we are exposed to others ideas and creations.  I'm thinking too much I'm sure, but I kind of hope that's one of the reasons why we share what we create. 

Today I put together a little loom, did a little weaving and then a little felting (a new project).

   My loom is a piece of cardboard that I cut slits in and then wrapped with yarn to make the warp (I think I don't have my warp and weft mixed up!).  I used a net needle (intended to weave fish net) for a shuttle and my yarn is New England Highland by Harrisville Designs.  At the yarn store I was told that this yarn felts very well, so it seemed like a good material for this project.  It's left over yarn from a sock.

To felt my sample I used boiling water and a wash board.  I also tossed it in the dryer with the dish towels I was drying.

  I can completely imagine incorporating this into a wool quilt/blanket.  Maybe with denim as well. It would also make a good surface for needle felting. 

I'm not sure if there are  advantages or disadvantages to weaving and felting (or fulling) or using something knit, or for that matter crocheted.  It just might come down to a matter of the preferred way of creating fabric.  There is a distinct difference in texture from something that has been knit and felted though.

I'm going to go back to working on my wool quilt now but I'm thinking about how little squares like this could be used to patch a holey blanket I have.  Or maybe about how lots of little squares could be made and then sewn on to a background like tiles.  Guess I found more trouble. 

today's homework assignment: weeding

Despite the fact that it sprinkled and threatened to rain all day, I got quite  a bit done in the garden.   Including weeding.  I always knew I could make dandelion wine with the dandelions, but today I learned that they are high in potassium and that they will work as a dye.  The next experiment....

  

The chooks got out in the garden too.  They love it.  I love how there is just the tiniest bit of down clinging to the feathers right now.  They are growing so fast.  I've named this one Amelia.  She wants to fly.

  At one point this afternoon, when it really looked like it was going to rain, I came in to do a little "what iffing."  This is a photo that I took, tweaked in various ways, and then printed on fabric.  I ironed freezer paper to the back of some white muslin so that I'd be able to feed it through my printer.  Although I'd tried before and hadn't had good luck, I also tried taping the fabric to paper and feeding it through.  Both jammed the printer.  I've decided that although the results are good when it works, the risk to the printer when prepping fabric myself isn't worth it and that purchasing prepped fabric is the best option.

Time to see what other trouble I can get in to....

flowers like velvet

This is a primrose, primiula aricula to be precise.  One of my favorite flowers because the colors are so intense and the texture is like velvet.  On some plants, even the leaves have a velvety texture. 

Happy first day of May!