What did she do today?

I have been searching the internet for information on gardening in tires. It seems to be a very efficient way, as well as economical, to create raised beds. We have enough space to plant in the ground, but raised beds provide better drainage, can save on water, are physically easier to access, reduce the amount of weeds and provide defined rows…all good reasons to consider them.

I found the following website, that had a great idea for potatoes: www.thegardenhelper.com

This is brilliant! A great way to maximize your potatoes, while keeping them safe from crazy spring and early summer rains.

“Potatoes without a garden

If you have no established garden plot, or if there just isn’t enough available space within your garden, you can still grow a respectable crop of spuds, and do a little recycling at the same time. Potatoes thrive in the warm environment of a soil filled tire!
Four tires + Two pounds of seed potatoes + Good soil = 20-30 pounds of winter potatoes!
Pick a spot where you can stack your tires which is out of the way and preferably out of sight. Loosen the surface of the soil just enough to allow for drainage, and set your largest tire in place. Fill the inside of the tire casing loosely with good topsoil, and then set 3-4 potato seeds into the soil. (Use sticks or rocks to keep the casing rings spread open.) Add enough soil to the tire “hole” to bring it to the same level as the soil inside the tire.
When the new plants are eight inches tall, add another tire and soil to the stack, as in the first level. Repeat the process for your third, and if desired, fourth tires. As you add tires and soil to the stack, the 8″ of the plant stalk is covered with soil. By doing this, the existing stalk essentially reverts to a root status and the plant is forced to grow upward to once again find the sunlight which it needs. (much like if you were to try to eliminate a dandelion by covering it with a scoop of soil) By raising the soil level this way (in 8″ increments) the plant is able to continue growing without suffocation, and at the same time you are creating a 24-30″ tap root from which many more lateral roots can develop. Each lateral root can then produce additional potatoes (at 3-4 levels rather than the normal single layer). When you water, be sure that the soil is thoroughly moistened all the way to the base of the pile.
The tires act as an insulator and heat “sink” for your potatoes. This added warmth will cause the lateral roots (where the new potatoes form) to multiply more rapidly, thereby giving you more potatoes. When you need fresh potatoes next fall and winter, harvest the crop from the top tire, and remove it from the pile. More potatoes??? Next tire…”

I decided to give it a try. There is a very good local organic farmer who lives in town, so I was talking to him about the “Potato Towers”. He’s grown them that way and says it works great. He also suggested a thin layer of pine needles under the potatoes. He finds it confuses the potato beetles, which can be a real problem in this area. So I collected needles and planted my first two potato towers. I have 4 more to plant, but possibly 8 more, depending on how crazy I decide to get. I think I have the space. I also planted my spinach today.

Behind the towers is the fence I’ve been putting in. I just need to create the gate and it will be done being built. To the left is the lattice I installed for the peas, which poked their heads up today!

The seedlings spent their first day out in the real sun today. Oh, and do you see on top of the knitting basket, peeking out…it’s the now finished Tangelo Sweater! I finished it in class tonight!! I’ll show pictures tomorrow.

Yesterday was a lovely day.  It was mother’s day, and I got to spend hours hanging out at the yarn store, knitting and gabbing.  The group that was there decided that next year there should be an event with chocolate and knitting on Mother’s Day.  We discussed, among other things, that being a mom is a 24/7 thing and while we love the little people in our lives, time spent being a woman without the extra appendage of an infant or the cries of a toddler yelling “wipe me” from the bathroom, is truly a lovely Mother’s day gift.  It was a great time, and my husband brought my daughter to the park, and then came back to get me.  Here is my wonderful baby girl, hanging out with the ladies (and dad) at the yarn store on Mother’s Day!  I hope you had a nice day, too!

A long time ago (January-ish) I started infant socks for a friend who had a baby in February. Well, I have another Friend, Sara, due in September who started the same socks, and we were both at the toe, and she needed help.  So tonight we finished our socks together.  i should have taken a picture of them together before she left, but didn’t think to.  i do have a picture of mine.  It will be a single sock, as I did not enjoy making this one, and there is no way I shall be convinced to start a second.  Sara plans on making another one.  I give her much credit!

I am done the knitting on Tangelo, but need to work the crochet.  Unfortunately, I don’t have enough yarn, so I must buy a new skein to finish it off, which I’ll do tomorrow.  I’ll have to think of some little project to do with the nearly full skein I’ll have remaining.  I doubt I’ll use more than a few yards of the new skein.

Since I’m basically done Tangelo, i decided to swatch the pillow I’m making next.  The Pillow of Sei Shonagon by Larissa Brown caught my eye while looking through Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together.  This was just such a fabulous idea.  The pattern calls for Louet Euroflax Originals, which my local yarn store doesn’t carry, but I found some not too far away.  It’s pretty fun to knit with, very stiff though.  The pattern is an eyelet stitch, and you then weave strips of muslin through the eyelets.  You can write poems and such on the muslin before weaving.  I’m going to write out the lyrics to Amazing Grace.  Since my baby was born, my husband and I have sung that song to her every night when putting her to bed.  I’m thinking this will be a lovely heirloom style pillow, that she will hopefully cherish and pass on to the next generation.

The swatch looks great.  I am excited to get started on it.

We had a family day today, celebrating Christopher’s Birthday.  We even had a Grandma take care of the baby for a little while so we could hang out alone.  It as nice day spent with an amazing man, who I am honored to get to spend my life with.

It’s a good think I can multi task.  I was able to knit throughout the day and Tangelo has two sleeves and is about 44 rows and a little crochet edging away from being done.  No more pics until it is done!  I’m hearing that this week is supposed be cool to cold and rainy.  Perfect, I get to wear my sweater for a little while before summer hits.

I also received some patterns, from Folkwear, in the mail today. I cut out the chemise today. I’m making it a lovely chocolate brown linen!  I am very excited.  I didn’t do a test on this one, as it should definitely fit and is a pretty easy to wear style.  Here’s hoping I’m right about that…just a smidge nervous about the fact none of my tests have pleased me so far…

Tomorrow is Mother’s day and it looks like there will be quite a bit of time where this mom can work on projects.  I hope you have a lovely day tomorrow!

I rarely get time to play in the glass studio anymore, which I do whine about from time to time, but today I did something about it.  I spent a lot more time then I have beads to show for it, but I’ll show some more tomorrow, as they are still in the kiln.

Joy Charmers

I have made some good progress on the current Tangelo Sweater.  I have one sleeve done and in, and the other started.  May be a lofty goal, but I’m hoping to have it done this weekend!

While taking photographs of the beads and sweater I realized they look mighty nice together.  I’m thinking a nice little charm bracelet to go with the sweater…

Today I made 3 test shirts.  I made them out of muslin to test the fit.  I didn’t like any of them. One has potential, and I’m going to make a few alterations and see what happens from there.  So a lot of time spent for no substantial gain…other then knowing what I don’t want, I guess.

I also started the walk in front of our house.  We are putting in the garden, but I wanted a nice pretty walk way leading to the house so that it’s obvious where to step.  We are putting down gray stone like pavers.  I needed to “skim” 2″ of ground to make room for the pavers and under layer of sand.  I did that tonight at 11:00, when the black flies had retreated for the evening.  They were awful during the day when I tried to start the project.  Any good ideas for safe Black Fly deterrents?    I’m very open to suggestions!  The project is not very photo worthy at this point, but I’m hoping to finish it tomorrow.  If so, there will be pictures then.

So, maybe a dress and a new walkway tomorrow.  Here’s hoping, anyway!

We have been hanging the laundry on our clothes line for a couple weeks now. All in all, it’s working out pretty well. The clothes smell nicer, it’s kind of calming to look out and see the clothes flapping in the breeze, and they dry pretty quickly in nice weather, and not too bad on an overcast day, either. The only thing I dislike about the line dried results are the towels. We have good quality towels, and still, when hung out to dry, they feel like sandpaper. I don’t want to dry them in the dryer, especially since other than jeans, towels are likely the most energy wasteful thing to tumble dry. So my little trick, line dry then throw in the dryer for 5 minutes. It still doesn’t produce the light fluffy results tumble drying does, but it does take the edge off the sandpaper feel. So for now, that is my solution.

We needed a clothespin bag, so I whipped up this fun dotty bag. It has a metal ring to keep the top open for ease of reaching the clothes pins, and has a metal rivet to hang it on the railing. Cotton fabric, inside and out, with a layer of interfacing to keep the body of the bag stiff. Fun!!

We have chickens!!  Three of them. I want 6, and am figuring out where to get my next three from, as the place I got the first 3 have no more.  But I’m having fun with these little ladies.  Two are Rhode Island Reds and then the littlest, a Black Australorp, is the queen bee, from what I can tell.  They are adorable and everyone in the family is fascinated by them.  My husband thinks they are cute and picks them up and pets them, the baby loves to watch them run around and talks to them and talks about their wings flapping.  The dog is very interested and wants to be more involved, but for obvious reasons, is not.

They are a week old.  We are trying to decide on names, and we are thinking of Eleanor, Maryann and Margaret, the Dashwood Sisters from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.  Not sure how that will work for the addition of others in the future.  I ultimately want 6.  I am going to look into some Heirloom breeds.  There is a breeder up the street who is going to have Dorkings available, and that seems very cool.  Still weighing the options, and getting used to parenting chicks.

I love their little cheeping sounds!  I introduce you now to our week old girls Margaret, Maryann and Eleanor (for now, names still pending).

I check in on the blogs in my blog roll pretty regularly, some every day. My Dolce Baby hasn’t been posting much, but she recently posted about a doll she made her Grandma as a gift. It’s adorable, and she linked to the pattern.

Emily Martin of “The Black Apple“, a top seller on Etsy, did a spot on Martha Stewart, where she showed how to make the most adorable rag doll. It was a lot of fun to make. I will be making more of these I’m sure! I filled mine with lavender for relaxing bedtime vibes. A little Mommy gift for my daughter, of course! It matches her birdy from yesterday. I embroidered the face, instead of painting, and I’m quite pleased with how it came out.

If you want to make one, here are the links for the tutorial (it’s in 3 parts) and the template:

Tutorial 1

Tutorial 2

Tutorial 3

Template

There is also a video of the Show Segment.

Garden Update:  I planted my Peas and I have prepped the Potato beds (more about that tomorrow)!  I’m so excited.  I started the remainder of the seeds that need to be started inside.  I’ll have pictures and more about the potatoes tomorrow!

My daughter likes little stuffed animals and she likes birds, so when I saw the pattern for this adorable little “ornament” in Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson, I had to give it a try.  I’m not big on making little stuffies, because the stitching is usually very annoying, I’d rather work larger.  But this was very straightforward and quite easy.  I can honestly say it took less then one hour from the time I started cutting, to my sitting here blogging about it, with photos ready for posting (that included tucking the little one into bed!)  These would be nice gifts for little girls, especially if they were made of the same fabric as a little skirt or dress.  They would also be nice stuffed with a little lavender, which I thought of after I stitched this one closed, but I will remember for the next one.

I had a lot of fun with this and it has inspired me to spend some crafting time back on the sewing machine.  I have a stock pile of little projects from the book the birdy came from including a neat online tutorial I stumbled across…which I shall share when I share my finished project from it!

For now, I give you “Birdy”

I rented a rototiller! In less than 3 hours I had the whole garden all fluffed and that manure mixed in! I borrowed Dad’s truck to pick it up so when I got back he was there. He made sure I knew how to use it (I did), and then stood watching me while I did the whole thing through one time. I started the second pass on the first side, got about half way through before he asked if he could “have that for a minute”. He ended up finishing that half and doing the second half (men and power tools). I can’t say I minded, as my sneakers had given me blisters the size of a nickel on both heels! But I still feel pretty accomplished, and I really need a new pair of shoes for the garden!

Whave a dog, and she likes to play in dirt, so we need to fence off the garden from her run area, so we don’t have her getting into the garden. I dug 5 holes 2 feet deep for the fencing.

I’m getting stockade fence for that part. I don’t like the look of stockade fencing, it makes me think of a compound or something, but I’ve decided that painting something cool on it will make it happy and whimsical and feel less “compound-like”. I promise pictures when I get to that part.

I also got some tires…for a project I’ll share later.  Are you intrigued?

I started a cute little summer dress for the baby.  I’ve used one skein, already, of Babyboo.  It’s Bamboo and Nylon, and is very soft!  I love the color, it’s called Poppy.  The maker is Knit One Crochet Too.  I worked on this while roaming the aisles of Home Depot trying to figure out what would work for all my outdoor gardening projects.  I hope all my manual labor will not leave my arms too soar to knit tomorrow…then again, is that possible?  Could I really go a day without knitting?  No pain, no gain!