Looking out the kitchen window I noticed one of this year's hop vines working it's way up the trellis and amongst some of last years vines that I didn't get around to pulling out.
One of the interesting things about hops is that they don't grow on last years vine. They always start new from the roots.
First rose is blooming. This is Lady Banks. It's probably been blooming for a couple days. I've been a bit distracted as I've been working through a cold.
A little comfort food. I made these donuts last Sunday and they are so good. The recipe calls for a donut pan. Since I don't have one I used a baby bundt pan. These are topped with pear-ginger jam.
And these:
with cocoa powder mixed into honey.
Every spring I plant seeds. I consider how much of an act of hope and faith it is. Every year.
And every year I am reminded of the persistence of life...
These could be the same squash that I just planted, or maybe a different variety? They are volunteers. Something I fed to the chickens during the fall or winter.
And now I need to decide, do I let them grow or pull them out?
P.S. There's my recycling project for the week too...Last weekend I bought a half-gallon of goat's milk to make feta. I saved the container to make a mini "hot cap." A little shelter for the night.
Last night's full moon:
I wonder if it's what made the indigo sprout...
I had placed my planter with the indigo seed outside. I guess I wasn't quite ready to give up. Good thing too. I planted the indigo seed on March 14th.
I went outside to look for a rainbow.
No rainbow, but the dogwood next door is looking pretty amazing.
My sky scarf is long enough that it is easiest to knit while wrapped around my neck. Lots of gray right now.
I am continuing to think about how I recycle...how much of what is considered waste can be reclaimed, reused.
I want to share not just things that might be clever, but also the very practical. The things we all might do, the basics. To look closely at the things in my home and celebrate sustainability.
With that in mind, here is something very simple:
I buy most of my food bulk. A few exceptions are olives and the occasional jar of peanut butter (although I think I am done with that!). Most of the jars that I buy can be reused. Popcorn anyone? A cup of cocoa? Or even better...a mocha?
My favorite homemade mocha right now is made from espresso, 1/2 tea of cocoa powder and a tablespoon of honey.
Another simple idea I've been playing with recently is making my own containers for seed starting. I've been using pages from an old phone book to make containers to hold the soil mix and seed. I think this will work better than my egg shell experiment...the dogs dug those up.
I'm also remembering my grandfather who often started seeds in yogurt containers.
And because it is May Day, Bluebells in a blue bottle.
This weekend the weather was nice enough that it was time to set up my shelter for the porch swing. This is an old lace table cloth. I tie two ends to the porch swing, one corner to my wall of windows and the other to one of the wires that supports my grape vine.
Part of the view at the moment:
Another project I am working on with a re-claimed table cloth:
A bucket style bag. This one had been dipped into an indigo vat twice when this picture was taken. Tonight I dipped it again to create more blue patterns farther up the bag.
You could have a bite of yogurt cake with rhubarb sauce:
It's the first stem of rhubarb this year (from the garden) plus a few frozen strawberries to make it red.
We could tour the garden. I had to try another batch of lettuce in egg shells as the first batch didn't work so well...
I'll show you my sky scarf:
It's getting quite long. It seems quite different to me to look at it as a whole rather than close up:
Every little section has something I love. The colors here are so soft they might not show up on all monitors quite right...and the yarn I spun on Friday night is here somewhere.
And I'd share the thing that has excited me the most this weekend... The indigo yeast vat that I started last summer and thought wasn't working very well, sat outside all winter. While I was cleaning the garden last weekend I decided it was probably time to dump it somewhere. But when I looked closely I realized it was an interesting shade of green and I thought "Hmm, maybe I should bring this inside and warm it up a bit?" So I did and amazingly enough...it works!
The yellow is velvet dyed with onion skin. I love these colors together.
Mostly I buy my dairy products in glass bottles, but once in awhile some plastic will come home. Last week I decided to cut a container into square tags and then write the names of the tomatoes being grown on the plastic with a sharpie. I'll either use a hole punch or a hammer and a nail to poke holes in the tags and then hang the tags on the appropriate stakes when they move outside.
And then a close up of the shawl I'm now working on:
I've decided to use some other colors for stripes but the green blend will be the "primary" color.
Oh spring surely did arrive this weekend...
The plum blossoms were the first to open. I hope it sets fruit this year. Lots of bumble bees around this weekend so maybe...
Yesterday was the first Farmer's market of the year... I bought cheese, bread, radishes, broccoli, carrots, Brussels sprouts and potatoes. This year there seems to be more spring veggies, not just things stored through the winter like the potatoes. There were quite a few greens too.
Half of the radish leaves went to the chickens and half was used to make pesto for my lunch.
With such beautiful weather, this weekend really was spent mostly in the garden.
But I did do a bit of spinning and knitting. I think I've solved one of my problems with my sky scarf. I've continued to have problems working on it every day and have been mostly just noting the weather and then catching up on the weekend. This week I'm going to try something new. I've got a second project I'm going to work on as well.
While I was cleaning out baskets I found a shawl I had started and then put down at some point (probably to start the sky scarf). I've decided that after I finish spinning and knitting my daily row for the scarf, I'll continue spinning and knitting on the shawl until I've satisfied my need to spin/knit in the evening. I think this will make the spinning/knitting more of a commitment for the day.
I want to know why the weather is given as 40% chance of rain instead of 60% chance of sun? Mostly we got the sun. And oh it made me happy...
Most of my spring cleaning happened in the garden today(had the day off from work)! Weeding and digging and pruning. I harvested a handful of lettuce that reseeded last fall and is just now starting to grow. I was experimenting to see if I could save lettuce seed. I'm not actually sure where that lettuce seed is at the moment, but what reseeded in the garden did beautifully.
I also did some spring cleaning in the pantry. I pretty much made this up but it is loosely based on the rhubarb chutney recipe in Small Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. It has dried cherries, dried prunes, dried apricots, apple cider vinegar, red onion, rhubarb (from the freezer, my plant is almost ready to start harvesting from) and a bit of sugar.
Also did some closet organizing whenever the clouds sailed over and covered up the sun. This once was the leg on a pair of pants. Now it's the latest thing from the indigo vat...and yes there is a spot of dirt on the fabric.
I found a home for a fermentation indigo vat. It was almost 90 degrees F on top of the closet this morning. A little warmer than it would normally be, but I'm pretty sure it stays consistently between 70-80 degrees.
The closet came from The ReStore in Seattle. It was originally from one of the Seattle schools and was taken out during a remodel. I've had it for a long time now.
Today was really more about the garden, but I did stitch the bottom hem on the t-shirt I've been working on. I sat on the front porch steps with the dogs and watched the morning go by...
A favorite from childhood, drum stick primroses (primula denticulata). I discovered one that I planted last spring survived the year and popped back up to bloom again.
Dear Spring,
Thank you so much for making an appearance today.
I really needed to spend the day in the garden. Digging, getting ready to plant onions, potatoes, and some lettuce. Making discoveries:
Love,
Deb
"Each of us harbors a homeland, a landscape we naturally comprehend. By understanding the dependability of place, we can anchor ourselves as trees." Terry Tempest Williams
"Having once put his hand into the ground, seeding there what he hopes will outlast him, a man has made a marriage with his place, and if he leaves it his flesh will ache to go back." Wendell Berry
It always seems that the words I need at any particular time tumble into my life. I just started reading An Unspoken Hunger by Terry Tempest Williams. The sentence above are words that make so much sense to me. Words that I want to linger in my mind.
I've carried images and pieces of Wendell Berry's poems in my mind for a very long time, the first book of his poetry a gift from one of my favorite teachers in high school.
Being able to grow, the capacity to change, is an important part of creativity for me... but growth isn't always a good thing.
Today I planted indigo seed, madder, safflower, calendula, cabbage, broccoli, swiss chard, and onion seeds.
As one grows larger, the other grows smaller...transformation.
Noticing: Pulmonaria in the garden. The Forsythia started to bloom today too.
And doing:
Mending a hole in my buckwheat pillow.
And:
Knit, fulled, and dropped into the cabbage dye bath. The shiny yarn is a banana fiber. The dye didn't take in the wool well so I tossed it back in. I rinsed the fabric sooner than I usually do.
One of my great-grandmother's lace doily's. It has some stains/rust spots. One of the interesting things about this piece is that the center medallion is crocheted in a heavier thread then the outside ring of flowers. I tossed it into an onion skin dye bath.
I have an idea.
When it's quiet I can hear the rain hit the top of the chimney. I can often tell how hard the rain is falling by how much noise is created.
Snow however makes no noise...
The snow was from earlier this week, there is however a chance of snow again. I guess I'll wait another week to plant peas.
It may be cold, wet, and windy; snow may be in the forecast...
But spring is coming. Yesterday I had two eggs on the same day for the first time since Jitterbug started molting in the fall. More of the crocus are popping up in the garden too. And the rhubarb is up to four inches.
Maybe it will be t-shirt weather soon? I'm going to be ready. Today I tried out another pattern. This one is destined for the dye pot.
The next one will have a few more inches added to the bottom and the neckline adjusted just a bit. Patterns are like recipes...the details are adjustable.
No recipe involved here.
I've been craving a cheese sandwich but didn't really want to make bread and then have a lot of it that I would end up eating, so I bought a small loaf of locally made sourdough. Added a little local cheese and a saute of cabbage, apples and hazelnuts and I had this week's Dark Days meal.
Hmm...maybe French toast for breakfast?
I actually could harvest something to eat from the garden right now:
A few warm days and I'm going to have a nice crop of Swiss chard and kale so I'll wait. I could also raid the lettuce that reseeded from last year and the chickweed I suppose. There is another weed in that mix as well, not sure what it is.
Spent a couple hours in the garden today, mostly pruning the large apple tree but also doing a bit of weeding. I decided to be brave and planted a few peas and some spinach in my little hoop house.
Dark Days Meal:
Some of my Dark Days meal for the week did come from the garden. I picked a handful of parsley, a bit of sage and a branch of rosemary. This is a spin on a recipe from The Italian Country Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper. The recipe I based it on is "Farro Risotto." I left out the olive oil, garbanzo beans, orange zest, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and added some butter, cauliflower, diced apple and local cheese instead. I should have added some hazelnuts too. 99.9% local, just used a bit of salt.
What I learned:
1. It would be better to break the egg at the narrow end of the shell for a deeper "planter."
2. The egg shell planters dry out quickly.
3. It is easy to over water.
4. Hatching lettuce is fun.
I'd call the first part of this experiment successful. I'll be planting the first two shells in the cold frame tomorrow. I plan on smashing the egg up a bit.
I like how this looks with a few leaves.
I've always wanted to try using an egg shell as a planter. Not sure how practical it is, but why not try once? I planted a bit of lettuce in these.
I also planted onion seeds today. It begins again...
And then there is this. A planter of a different sort. A lot more stitching to do on this...
Food:
For the next Dark Days post there is a challenge, to make desert! What a great reason to do a little playing in the kitchen...
Coeur a la Creme, raspberry sauce, and cookies. It was a bit of work, but I'd do it again.
First I started with making cream cheese. Cream cheese is really easy to make, it just takes a little time. I used directions from Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll. It wasn't until I was washing the dishes that I realized one tiny little non-local thing had made it into the mix, the culture for the cream cheese. Oh well! Cultures probably aren't something I'd ever give up as I explore sustainability as a life style.
My recipe for Coeur a la Creme called for cream cheese, sugar, cream, egg white and kirsch. I substituted honey for the sugar and left out the kirsch.
The raspberry sauce was made with frozen raspberries, water and honey. I cooked the berries until they were syrupy.
The cookie recipe came from here. I used butter, honey, local flour, and hazelnuts. If anyone decides to try this recipe, watch the cooking time. I almost burnt my cookies. I want to explore this site more as I switch to baking with honey rather than sugar.
All that cooking inspired me to clean the fridge:
I store my bulk items in canning jars. I have rice, flours, nuts and seeds here. Plus pickles and jams. And cream cheese!
Seeds:
I've been considering a lot how eating local depends a lot on planning ahead. Last week I found quinoa seed. I've never grown it before, so it will be a bit of an experiment.
Yarn:
My latest bus project. I've lost count of how many socks I've knit now. The yarns used in these socks are "leftovers" and the green in these socks is a local yarn.
Today I was able to come home early from work.
I took a walk through the park.
Tried to work on one of my blankets but had a little too much help.
And took the chickens a treat.
I've had three eggs this week, despite the cold weather. Barred rocks (the striped chickens) will lay through the winter their first year (edited: and sometimes other years too). I was lucky enough to get a piece of plastic over their run so they've had a nice cozy shelter during our snow storm.
While I was out I noticed one of the last branches of lunaria in the garden. They are becoming even more transparent as they age.
I've been thinking about how snow is rain transformed. The ordinary (for us) made unusual (again, for us). The snow has caused a lot of frustration for people I know, but as it melts away, I still think it is magical...
Now it's time to spin white yarn.
Hello snow... I've been waiting for you.
We don't have much snow yet...but enough to enchant my walk. Enough to distract me for several hours today.
Enough that soup was the perfect meal for lunch. It also happens to be my "Dark days" meal for the week. I added some dehydrated corn and peppers for some extra flavor. The last potato from my garden and a handful of parsley that I picked today went into the pot too.
Parsley is hardy stuff, but we're supposed to have a pretty long stretch of cold so I pretty much picked everything. I'll make a "pesto" with most of it.
This is last week's "Dark Days" meal that I never got around to posting. It turned into a comfort meal of sorts. The last of the sugar pie pumpkin I grew topped with hazelnuts, a boiled egg and apple slices.
It was good.
This morning, at the bus stop, for just a moment a glimpse of what would appear to be the full moon. But according to the charts I looked at, the full moon was really yesterday. It made me think about how without science, determining when the moon was full would be a matter of instinct, of faith, of poetry.
My first seed order arrived today. Perhaps I can grow a blue moon...
It's wet and windy, a very stormy day. The kind of day would have us all looking for shelter (my word for 2012) sooner or later.
Shelter has a relatively simple definition, a place of refugee or protection. More than anything, as I think about shelter this year, I want to document how I create shelter, what kind of home maker am I, how I feather my nest...
Today's mending:
What if it is enough to know what is underneath something?
The silk/hemp fabric that I used for some of the squares on my "made of stars" blanket has frayed very badly. The fabric was a gift from my mother and I want to be be able to keep it where I can see it, but it's just not standing up to the wash and wear that I put this blanket through. And so I am layering fabric over the top of this fabric. The red in the background is the first piece that I have used to cover one of the silk/hemp squares.
What if we broaden our definition of a garden? Green onions anyone?
And my Dark Day's Meal for this week:
What if I make my own fruit/nut bars...make them just what I want them to be? They make a yummy breakfast with a bowl of local yogurt.
It started out promisingly enough, it could have been feta (what I was aiming for). I suspect it went another direction due to temperature. It's still very tasty.
Today I was off work a bit early. It gave me a chance to gather a few more windfall branches and to finish off the wreath I've been making. It's becoming a tradition to make wreaths from whatever branches fall out of the neighbor's trees during November windstorms. The little reindeer was a gift from someone. It looks right at home munching on a few branches.
I also started a couple dye baths with red cabbage. One in an aluminium pan and the other in stainless steel. Red cabbage dye baths seem to change color easily, but I always like whatever shade they become. This one has a bit of local wool that I want to use in the sky scarf.
Thinking about how we can adapt to what is available.
Cold and sunny. A perfect day to work in the garden, start a new dye pot (it's the water that the goldenrod was in with a variety of leaves added) and go to the farmer's market.
There is snow/rain mix in the long range forecast. That has to be "taken with a grain of salt" around here. But it has been cold. We are certainly moving into another season.
I never thought celery would become a seasonal food for me. I had an apple/blue cheese/celery salad for lunch and peanut butter and celery for a snack.
I'll be making celery salt with the leaves, a season of another sort.
The latest sock to join the family.
From the garden. Beginning and ending and cycles.
What if clouds were made of lots of tiny little flowers? (Playing with Photoshop again).
I turned the heat on for the first time last night. The temperatures are supposed to be close to freezing tomorrow so tonight I picked my three winter squash/pumpkins. I have a few small lemon cucumbers to pick and I'll check the tomatoes one last time tomorrow and that will be it for the summer crops this year.
Looking a little bit closer at the large winter squash. It gives me ideas...
Following Sea
The compass rose on my "Following Sea" blanket shifted a bit as I stitched it down. Not really a surprise to me as I'm working on a velvet base. And really, this adds truth to what I am doing. Water is fluid...things will move.
For the last week I've had it on the table, looking and thinking about what I wanted to do next. Wondering how much I wanted stitching to show and where.
This morning I decided to stitch with heavier thread around the outside of the compass, as a filler in the center of the rose and along the outsides of the triangles. I'll use quilting thread to fill in the rest.
I love how the center now looks like a partial moon.
I've also been contemplating what will be next. I think a ring of fish around the compass rose. Halibut, salmon, and bull heads. Some of what my family fished for commercially while I was a child and what my brothers and I would catch as we fished from the dock. Maybe some Dungeness crab, to represent my teenage years.
Or maybe boats...
The other project of the day, rose hip syrup:
I have a lot of rose hips in the garden (and a few raspberries that were eaten before they left the garden), so it seemed like a good time to try rose hip syrup again. This time I added fresh ginger from the farmer's market and a stick of cinnamon. The directions I used are here. The next project with rose hips will be to make Schnapps.
I also want to say that I am sorry for any frustration the comment section may cause. I really value what everyone shares and regret that it is a bit more difficult. Unfortunately I don't think it's possible to change it to a different setting. I'm going to stick with this format for a month or so and then I'll decide whether to switch back.
For late winter. I planted kale, swiss chard, cauliflower, and broccoli.
When my winter squash and pumpkin (I have just one, a pie pumpkin) are harvested, I'll swing my little hoop house over the cole crops and the greens. Hopefully that will get them through the worst of our winter.
For fall: since the squash will be harvest in the autumn, I will call it a fall crop. Still hoping to have the grapes ripen. They are so close.
For spring: lettuce seed that I harvested today. It was all I could do to not try blowing the little puffs away.
The remains of summer: they aren't going to last much longer. I've been picking a handful or so of small cherry tomatoes everyday, a few larger ones as well. If it gets too cold at night I'll be making salsa with green tomatoes.
The bittersweet part of summer. It is still warm and sunny, but there is the realization that fall is coming. The nights are cold.
Time to wonder if the grapes will ripen this year?
To eat the last couple raspberries and realize that there will just be handfuls of cherry tomatoes.
Maybe a cuke or two.
To admit that if I want tomatoes for the winter I will have to buy them.
(I bought about 20 pounds of tomatoes yesterday at the farmer's market. Today's project: tomato sauce, freezing tomatoes, drying prunes and making fruit leather.)
And to pull the few beets and carrots I've grown to make way for a winter crop of swiss chard, kale, and broccoli.
It seems that I have one of the more unusual Ameraucana chickens, one who lays pink eggs!
The eggs are the pink of the sky at dawn on a sunny day.
Didn't expect this. Cotton dyed with elderberry leaves in an aluminum pot. Solar heat only.
Last year my results were brown.
The difference would be the aluminum.
Hope it's color fast.
First tomatoes harvested.
They were bitter sweet.
Blueberries are well worth growing if you have space and the right climate. The bowl that I picked today would have cost me ten dollars at the farmer's market. I've picked that much 3 or 4 times already this summer off of 3 blueberry bushes.
It did take awhile for the blueberry bushes to become this productive. Part of it was reaching the right age. The other factor was that I finally figured out how to give them enough water. One spring while I was expanding the vegetable beds I started piling sod in front of the blueberries. I realized that it would create a type of swale that would catch water so I left the sod in place. A year later I had more blueberries than I'd ever had before.
If it's hard to read the postcard, you can click on the image and it will open as a bigger window.
Today I played with a hammer, drill, and saw.
A hammer that was my grandfather's, a drill that was my father's, and a circular saw that my parents gave me for Christmas a couple years ago.
Every girl needs a set of tools.
Part of this was already in place. My dad put most of the frame work up for me a couple years ago. I nailed the 2 by 4's across to create a support for the windows and then started nailing up the windows.
Some of the windows came from a friend, some from my parents, some from one of my brothers.
The porch side.
Yes Dad, I know none of it's straight.
I also spent some time playing with the settings on my camera and enjoying the roses.
There was a collapse today. I wanted to move the stove over a bit to make room for the squash but it was more than the poor legs could stand.
The bamboo stakes that are holding up the chicken wire around the squash and corn beds. An effort to keep the dogs out.
A silk wrap to top another of the stakes. (And grass that is getting a bit too long.)
This fabric, from Grace, faded very well. I'm going to add a moon and some stars to the mix.
And speaking of chickens... Rosemary wants to know if I have more grapes for her.
Happy May Day! I couldn't quite sneak around to everybody and leave a bouquet on the door knob... Does anyone do that anymore?
The chicks moved out today. I wasn't going to mix them with Jitterbug quite yet, but when I opened the door to the dog crate to put food in, Jitterbug strolled right in. There has been a bit of squabbling, but nothing bad. Not sure where they are going to sleep tonight. They'll have to work it out and I'll shut whatever doors are necessary.
Started a new dye pot today. I was cleaning out the freezer and it seemed like a good idea. I have some very pink fabric now. I sampled wool, cotton, silk, and a silk/hemp blend and they all absorbed raspberry and sour cherries quite well. The next thing to find out is how well it will last.
And because I can't help myself:
Lola.
First day that was warm enough and that it just felt right to pack the basket and head to the porch swing with projects. A little sewing, the sweater I'm knitting, one of the books that I'm reading...
Sun bleached cushion
Apple Blossoms across from the porch swing
and blueberry blooms right around the corner.
Garden update: A few potatoes are up, snap peas are at 3 inches, Swiss chard sprouted, something ate the garbanzos I planted, something is eating the lettuce starts (not slugs, have to do some research on that one), no carrots yet, might be one radish, garlic is looking great and I'm going to start hardening off the tomatoes tomorrow...
First harvest of the year (if I don't count eggs), rhubarb for coffee cake...yum!
I wanted to get a picture of the chicks that would show how big they are getting but they were very uncooperative...
Chattanooga is a very suspicious bird.
I've started turning the heat lamp off during the day to start acclimating them for going outside. Next weekend might be the big move, depending on the temperatures at night.
It's going to start raining any time now, but the morning was actually very pleasant for gardening. I love the way the golden hops look growing up the raspberry canes. I know I'll regret it later in the spring. It got a bit out of control last year.
This morning I found a very good documentary (via Farmama). It is long, but worth watching. It covers the future of our food supply and permaculture.
Time to plant more seeds.
It will be clear enough to see the moon tonight.
This afternoon it wouldn't have appeared so. A good rain shower.
Still, this morning I was able to clear a space for the shelling peas and for some herbs. And there was time to pull handfuls of bindweed/morning glory.
I hauled this barberry home on the bus from the farmer's market this morning. It will be a good addition to the dye garden.
I've planted three buckets with fuchsias, strawberries, lobelia and petunias. They seem to be surviving the cold evenings well enough so far, but they are sheltered under the eaves of the house.
Tomorrow I will plant more seeds. Shelling peas, more radishes and lettuce, maybe some beets.
I realized tonight I have lived in this house as long as, and almost longer, than any other house I've lived in during my life.
I wonder what it would be like to live in one place for a very long time...
From the farmer's market: greens, radishes, and honey. I'll be using these, along with other local ingredients, to make quiche, radish leaf pesto, salads, and ice cream.
Most of the day was spent outside. A good gardening day. Dry and a bit overcast. Warm but not hot. Planted carrots, Swiss chard, poppies, nasturtiums, safflower, a couple garbanzo seeds. The peas and some spinach are up, but no sign on the radish, lettuce or potatoes yet.
Even the stitching went outside.
I think they'll stay in the garden but I may make more.
The baby chicks home for now. As they grow they'll need a bit more space.
Like most babies they play hard and sleep quickly. I have to be careful not to put too many wood chips in the tub because they really like to scratch around. If they get too enthusiastic they can fill up their water bowl.
I've put together a few photos and some info about my coop for those that are curious about raising chickens. You can look here if you like. I certainly don't consider myself an expert on chickens, but I can say they are a lot of fun and I wish I'd set up a coop sooner.
This morning I finally got a glimpse of that big moon. It was glorious, if slightly smaller than what I imagine it was a couple nights ago.
Due to unseasonably cold temperatures I will not be planting peas this weekend. I will be starting a few things inside though, like some onion seed.
Maybe next weekend.
Winter gardening is mostly about planning and dreaming. The magic of seeds and pruning. Removing what is not needed so that there is room for new growth.
Winter, at least in this corner of the world, enforces honesty. It reminds me of how important the bones of a garden are. The evergreens, the structure, what we might place in our gardens.
This morning I hung the first of my new prayer flags that I want to make. This one is for healing.
That chooks like yogurt. Haven't tested this yet.
That my dogs will eat radishes. Who would have thought?
That Briar will still dig holes in the garden. Should have had her help with planting seeds. I planted:
And that I like my sweet pea quilt better in pieces.
While I was playing with the color (it was dark when I took the photo), I started wondering what if I bleached it just a bit to soften the colors? I think it might make the pattern more cohesive. I'm also wondering how quilting will affect the patterns. I'm going to try quilting a square to see what I think. I'll probably wait on the bleach experiment until the chooks are out of the house. They are right next to the washing machine right now. I'm amazed at how calm they stay when it starts the spin cycle....
Once I had this idea that I would only address one topic per post. I think I might have read that somewhere on "how to write a blog." I've given up on that. Along with, "if you want more readers, no cute titles, they don't "google" well. I don't think I've ever followed the piece of advice that a blog writer should pick one topic per blog. More and more, I find that I want to write about whatever the day has brought me that makes me feel creative. And that might mean mixing topics.... I don't think I could be accused of being a "specialist." Maybe that means that I will never excel at one thing, but I'm okay with that.
The wool quilt:
I knew when I started this project I'd really have to think about how I was going to sew the quilt together. Past projects with wool haven't been successful because I didn't really think about how the seams would work. Here's how I've solved the problem for the wool quilt.
1. Fold the squares right side to right side and sew the two inside layers together.
2. Lay squares flat, overlap the back fabric and whip stitch the edges together.
I'm going to add another layer, probably flannel to the back. The current back layer will become batting at that point. I'll probably tie the two layers together.
The garden:
Walking through the garden tonight I noticed that I have the first sprout coming up of something I've planted outside. I had filled a cardboard tube with seed starting mix, placed it in the ground and covered it up with a mini hot house. The dogs have only destroyed one so far. I think this might be a workable solution for starting seeds in the garden and two playful dogs. I love it when a plan comes together!
One baby kale coming up. And a few more weeds, darn.
Melinda, at One Green Generation has her seed list for the year up. I think I'm going to do this in rotations of what I'm planting. So here's what's going in the ground right now:
Blondkopfchen is the only variety that is new to me. I'm trying to find a substitute for Sun Gold which is a hybrid but is so incredibly good. I will also get some Seattle's Best from my mother and will probably buy one Brandywine start.
Started out cold and foggy but the sun came out and warmed everything up enough to do some gardening. Planted potatoes, shallots and pulled some weeds. Harvested some spinach and divided up a clump of garlic that I missed last fall. Admired my first tulips:
While I was waiting for it to get warm enough to be outside and garden comfortably, I did some sewing and finished putting together the jacket I started last night.
The front was cut from a denim skirt, the back and the arms from the legs of jeans. The print on the back was a cuff I had sewn on that particular pair of pants.
I've been wanting to do this project for about 2 years now and am a little unhappy with myself that I've waited this long. I've even known this was the perfect pattern for me to make myself a denim jacket with. I love how it's turning out. It's super comfortable and much more flattering than the denim jackets I've tried on. It looks a lot better on me than on the hanger.
On the other hand, two years ago I wouldn't have left the spot that I'd mended previously as part of the jacket. I wouldn't have left the edges unfinished (I sewed a line of stay-stitching around the hem and am letting it fray to that point.). I wouldn't have tied knots on the "right" side.
I'm thinking of doing some more hand stitching around the edges. I tried a little section on the front. I may also sew some small white buttons on. And I might do a little bleaching.
Finished up my perfect day with stew from the slow cooker, peach/blueberry crisp, and a little knitting. Now it's time for a little reading.
Rotating the tomatoes every day so that they grow straight.
Tomatoes are one of the few things that I start indoors from seed. Most other things I start outside. It's a matter of prioritizing given the space and the time I have. Next year I may be adding a few peppers to this mix. They are on a shelf that is about 2 feet from a lightbulb and is right against a window.
Spring also means...
Getting to wear light cotton tunics. This one was given to me by a friend that was cleaning out her closet. She didn't like that the facing flopped out. Generally when I sew shirts like this I don't use facings, I just bind the edge (just like a quilt). To make this more tidy I sewed some french knots amongst the embroidery that was there and added some french knots to the back neckline. As I was working on this I started thinking about how I could continue to add more and more stitching to a shirt like this. It was one of the things that I really liked when I read Alabama Stitch Book by Natalie Chanin. One of the examples given in the book is a skirt that the author says she's had for years and that she's still adding beading and stitching to.
Maybe nothing is ever quite done.
This is a picture I took at a park near where my parents live. My mother was the first to see the face in the log. I thought of this picture as I started one of the books I'm currently reading, Gardening at the Dragon's Gate by Wendy Johnson. This book is full of wisdom but isn't a "how to" book. I'm about a fourth of the way into this book and finding it very enjoyable.
I just finished reading One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka. Another book that is not "how to" but is very thought provoking.
One of the things I think both books are making me think about is the quest to keep trying things, to explore different possibilities, to be open...so in that spirit, I give you "mini-hot caps:"
Not beautiful, but I'm hoping that they will speed the germination of a few things along and keep baby plants from being trampled by the dogs and dug up by the neighborhood cats. I'm trying a few with lids on and a few without lids. Clear plastic would probably be better, but I don't have any of that. I've been saving the bottles that white vinegar comes in for this.
Now I need to find some straw.
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