It doesn’t look like much….

But I spent an hour in the garden today.

Would you believe that after I bought that shiny red fork (you can get away with just a fork right? You don’t need a spade too?) and tried to dig in the raised bed I discovered it was actually a pile of wood with about 10 cm of dirt on top? I could scarcely believe it. Who makes a raised bed like that?

So I got a whole heap of leaf mulch and dug it into the bed to the left. Then I weeded out around all the strawberry plants and put some planks down so they don’t get squashed when I’m digging behind them. Tommorow I’m going to get some plant food and put newspaper down around them.

I piled up some more leaf mulch and will dig it in on the weekend.

I’m not really sure that I’m doing this right. Any advice or pointers in the right direction would be most appreciated!

Green String Bag

This bag is the product of two casting ons, two patterns and my own improvisation and two weeks sporadic knitting.

It draws (rather strongly) on this and this. The handles came from Elisa’s Nest Tote, and the drawstring (so you can stuff it inside itself and cosy up tight) from Everlasting Bagstopper. The stich pattern came from both. I liked the idea of a solid base which I gleaned from the bagstopper, but took a different approach. I knitted a “square” and cast it off, then picked up stitches around all four side. Using magic loop (which kicks butt) I knit the first round, yo, k the second round, k the third round, yo, k2tog, the fourth round then alternated round three and four. This gave exactly the right number of stitches to cope with the pattern, with no tricky brain gym. When I got to the top (very arbitary, but about 15 inches) I didn’t cast off, just knit the i-cord handle with the live stitches. Elisa’s Nest Tote describes this far more eloqently than I ever could. I knit both handles at the same time so I knew they would be the same length. If I made it again (which I will) I might experiment with one fat handle coming from the point where the handles meet.

  

I decided the inside needed a pocket to put all the essentials in- always handy to have them away from everything else. I picked up some stitches above one of the sides of the original square, matching the length. Again I k one row, yo, k the second row, p the thrid row, yo, k2tog the fourth row then alernated rows 3 and 4. (This time knitting back and fourth, hence the purl row). After about 4 or five rows I picked up the sitches back along the rows I had already knit, then joined it to the bag, this gives the pocket some shape and a wee base. From this row onwards I knit the pocket into the bag using a similar method to joining the I cord.

I appreciate that all those instructions are a bit hard to follow. If you want me to clarify anything further then let me know. When I make another one I will take some photos so you can see what I was doing!

I thouroughly enjoyed knitting this bag- and enjoyed using it today. The stitch is great as it allows for seeingly endless expansion- though I’m sure it has it’s limits. But it was figuring out the pocket that gave me the most satisfaction. When I get my hands on some more cotton, you can tell what I’ll be making!

Things I Love

:: The first spring blossum ::

:: Thumb holes in sleeves ::

:: Knitting out of a flat surface ::

I thought I was finished knitting this bag, then I realised it needed a pocket on the inside. Knitting this pocket is so much fun!

In my garden….

When we were little we had a tape with lots of kids songs on it. One was about the garden:

In my garden, there is a little kowhai tree in my garden, and it’s just about as tall as me. (It went through all the native trees- rimu, matai, pohutukawa etc…)

(There was also one: there are pigs wearing wigs in the garden, eggs with legs in the garden, you get the picture!)

We don’t really have a garden to speak of at the flat- Pedro would soon see to it, but there is a space out the back where someone has had a garden in the past- a row of strawberries that need weeding and some unruly bok choy plants. Inspired by the feeling of picking bok choy and adding it to a stir fry I decided to put a few things in for the coming spring/summer season, so that means starting to grow some seeds and digging over the garden now.

This afternoon Michael and I headed up the road to the gardening shop and picked out some seeds each. I chose a lettuce mix, cherry tomatoes and a zucchini. Michael chose some herbs- coriander, basil, chives and oregano. We made some little pots by wrapping wet newspaper around a spice jar and dunking in water, filled them up with seed-raising mix and planted our seeds.

They’re sitting on top of the fridge in a warm spot, quietly germinating (or at least we hope so!)

 In other, exciting news, on our walk this afternoon I was thrilled to find spring blossum begining to bloom. Will take my camera with me and report back tommorow!

Our resident Eunuch

Pedro went in for his “op” today. He’s a little restless and grizzly, but seems mainly normal. He’s sleeping in front of the heater at the moment- not much has changed there!

Michael’s Mum is staying with us at the moment. She’s in the middle of a move to Melbourne- flies out tommorow, so we are enjoying some time with her before she goes.

I’ve moved to flickr, so I can participate in some of the community events going on- google web albums doesn’t have much of a community going yet. Check out the lazy-butt cookin’ group set up by Jojo, I’m sure it’ll be a lifesaver in time to come (and easier on the bank balance than take out!) I’d love to see what all your stand in meals are too.

Spun.

It’b been on my header for a while- here it is drying in the trying-really-hard-almost-spring sunshine after a bath with some wool wash. Next stop: wound into balls, closely followed by a knitting project. What do you think of this, in lap rug form?

Sadly, this one I could not salvage.

Carolyn, this one’s for you.

Our house is two homes- one we reside in (at the front) the other is a work in progress (up the back where our garage and washing line is.) Yesterday after putting the washing out I spied this on the junk heap- half an old bicycle, a rickety clotheshorse, other assorted rubbish previous tenant’s have left behind and the landlord has pulled out of the house (like the old bath.) I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it sooner- presuably it’s only just been added!

After at least the weekend in the rain- I read in the paper this morning that we had 3/4 of our average august rainfall in 24 hours- I don’t think my electrical skills (cough: nonexistent) are up to salvaging it- and there are no mixing bits or bowls to be seen. So it’s junk pile (lick finger and chalk up mark) 1, Jessicah 0. I’m sure there’ll be others.

A wee bit of googling shows this to be the original kenwood mixer- and a quick trademe search showed up this. I am sorely tempted….

Just like a Turtle

I’m not really a softie person (love them to bits, just not a maker of)- aside from a felt doll with wonky legs and no clothes that is doomed to never be completed, the only softie I can recall making is a really cool turtle that could curl up into it’s shell, about 8 years ago.

Clearly this isn’t a turtle, but a stuffable shopping bag- whipped up this afternoon while a puppy was napping, out of some kinda shiny curtain material. It started out as a reversible bag, but as I progressed I found it wasn’t really going to work that way.

The little inside bag flips inside out and the main bag stuffs inside. It may still need a button to keep it all closed- maybe in mark 2.

An Apple Pie

Food tastes so much better when made with one of the underlying principles of a major avenue of fibre craft, don’t you think?

I made this pie so long ago now that even all the dishes have been washed.

There is a luxurious pile of blue wool sitting on my desk. My green cotton bag has been frogged once, and reknitted past the point where I frogged it (I may or may not have made up the new pattern). I pulled a quilt out of a bag, where it has sat, not entirely forgotten (read: nagging guilt), for at least 3 months, an tried a new approach.

Hope you have all had a lovely weekend.

Retail Therapy

It really does work wonders! I took up some pants for a friend I used to work with (boy is she short!) and she insisted on paying me. I would have done it for the love, but she pointed out it was a good deal for both of us- it was going to cost $25 a pair to get them done by a so called “seamstress”. So armed with $30 I headed to town yesterday to visit my favourite stores, and got a little something from each, leaving enough for a cup of herbal tea at the end of it all.

 Some cotton yarn from my (snort) LYS which is currently becoming a hybrid of this and this, some air dry clay to put some of my ideas into practise from a fabulous art store, some 6 inch squares of japanese cotton fabrics from Cherry Blossom and a piece of brown linen form the remnant bin at the fabric store.

I spent a lot of time in all the shops stroking the wares (primarily the yarn store-how easy it would have been to blow the whole budget on one ball of mohair!), picking things up and generally having a good look around. It was lovely to have a few hours to mull things over in peace, choosing just the right things to spend a few dollars on.