Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Design notebook: Gift season
I know it’s spring when all I want to do is get my hands dirty in the garden… but come fall, I find myself stockpiling patterns, yarns and fabrics — while dreading the clean-up that awaits me outside. This is where I find myself right in this early (and beautiful) autumn – inspired by everything textile!
Right now I am working on a pair of “wristers” based on a pattern from Lion Brand (altered to fit my wide hands) – using some lovely variegated sock yarn that I picked up at Baaad Anna’s last week. I’ve got one done and now I am attempting to replicate my changes to the pattern from memory on the second one. It’s a pretty straight-forward pattern, and it’s a first in terms of working in the round, and using sock yarn. I’m digging the yarn so much that I think a matching scarf might be in order.
But before I start in on that, I’ve got to get a few more Christmas and birthday presents finished – the gift season officially begins!
Since my mother’s birthday is soon and I have some beautiful squares left over from this quilt, I am going to start a lap quilt in the same theme as my next sewing project: 
Then onto a quilt for my nephew in the “Grinch Who Stole Christmas II” Kaufmann prints:
I’m all kinds of inspired to make small gifts out of the book Zakka Style – which has 24 super-cute, easy-to-make projects. I’m also feeling a bit reckless about handsewing and so I’m going to start my first hexagon project which will culminate in a pillow for my niece’s birthday in January (I see a trip to Spool of Thread in my near future).
My focus for this gift season is *practice* – since I feel like my skills are improving these days – I want to focus on getting my work to the next level. With crochet that means following increasingly complex patterns. With sewing it means better finishing and attention to detail overall. I’m also interested in portable sewing – ie hexagons – as a way to incorporate projects into my daily routine.
To keep the inspiration on – I am attempting a balance between gifts for other people with items for my own home and wardrobe. I have my eye on a few garments to construct as well as some accessories that have been sitting in the pattern-pile taunting me. Now that school is back in session, I am worried about time! But still, by starting in September I’m giving myself lots of room – and I hope to have a very fruitful autumn!
First Christmas Present Finished!
A shawl for my sister-in-law – a first project crocheting in cables and with slits that make the shawl self-fastening. It’s not a great picture – and I really want to re-block it (just learning about blocking and I managed to “pull” it more than I wanted) – but it is done!
Yay me! Yay people!
I am (right now):
- finally at a place where I honestly make choices about how to spend my time rather than living in the land of what I “should” do;
- proud to have ended institutional and personal relationships that were self-esteem destroying and instead invested the last year in my family, friends, community, education and personal projects;
- learning to stop responding out of guilt;
- reminding myself that over-booking is okay only so long as its with things I *want* to do rather than *have* to do;
- excited that new ventures have brought new friendships;
- blessed by the array of opportunities before me right now;
- striving for a balance between working with my head, hands and heart;
- lucky to have a life filled with people who are gifted, funny, interesting, smart, outrageous, dedicated, and all-around awesome (including my partner and my step-kid).
- grateful!
Bring on the autumn people! It’s shaping up to be a good one!
A mad, beautiful experiment – in photos.
This year, it was time to attempt an experiment I have always been interested in: Three Sisters planting. This involves planting corn, pole beans and squash together to allow for the symbiotic growth of all three.
“Corn provides a natural pole for bean vines to climb. Beans fix nitrogen on their roots, improving the overall fertility of the plot by providing nitrogen to the following years corn. Bean vines also help stabilize the corn plants, making them less vulnerable to blowing over in the wind. Shallow-rooted squash vines become a living mulch, shading emerging weeds and preventing soil moisture from evaporating, thereby improving the overall crops chances of survival in dry years. Spiny squash plants also help discourage predators from approaching the corn and beans. The large amount of crop residue from this planting combination can be incorporated back into the soil at the end of the season, to build up the organic matter and improve its structure.” Renee’s Garden
Sounds great, right? And in the planting I envisioned lovely straight corn with a single bean vine growing up each and a tidy understory of squash plants…… which as you can see from the lead photo, is not at all what I got.
Not only that, but the scarlet runners attached themselves to the bordering raspberry canes and the squash vines also are attempting to use the trellis as a support. It’s all a bit of a mess, really – but a glorious, wild mess that I have grown quite fond of as it’s turned the back of my yard into a little jungle of competing food plants.
And look! It seems to actually be producing a few ears of corn!
And some nascent winter squash!
At this point I really don’t know if the box will turn out much in the way of edible, but I have some theories about how to make it work better next time: Plant the corn first, plant bean vines sparingly once corn is established — and start squash from plants rather than seeds so it has more time to mature in our short season.
In the meantime though……
I think it’s quite the most beautiful riot I’ve seen in my garden thus far.
Last project of summer
It’s been on the list of projects since June – but I finally got it done today! That is, my project to turn an old (busted) arbor into a woodshed to keep our firewood dry-ish without having to store it on our back porch.
Very simple construction included a piece of plywood on bricks for the floor and a roof constructed out of a piece of chipboard with shakes nailed atop in haphazard fashion to make a decent looking roof (we can see the top of it when we are on the porch). Braced the whole thing to the fence for added stability, though it’s in a pretty sheltered spot and I’m not much worried about it getting a lot of wind.
Must say, I’m very pleased with how it turned out. Cost – $25 (plus the old arbor). Labour – about three hours (including getting materials).
And now the garden clean-up begins.
Red Cedar 