herbs and dresses

Two years running now I have sown herb seeds and forgotten about them. My favourite culinary ones I watch out for and if I don't get success with seeds, I tend to buy a plant from the garden shop. Ditto with most vegetables - if I don't get seed success, then I buy seedlings.

Other herbs have fallen by the wayside. Astragalus, elecampane, anise hyssop, chervil to name a few. After the first unsuccessful sowing, I clean forgot about having another go. So come the next day before a full moon, I'm going to sow some more seeds and see what will grow in Autumn. Better do some research before then or I will guarantee another no show on the germination front.

I'm still knitting in the round without a pattern. I've done the skirt part of the planned pinafore (for my daughter who is two) in three different 10-12 ply wools and have now changed down in needle size and length to knit the bodice part in 8 ply. The bottom wool is the lovely home spun home dyed wool from Granity. Then some black boucle type wool leftover from my cardigan last year. Then some red boucle type wool which I bought to do the tension sample for the cardigan and then decided to swap to black. Now I'm knitting the rest in an army green colour which was once in my Grandma's knitting stash waiting for her to turn it into a jersey for Grandad. I'm thinking that when I get to the very top part, I will make long straps which can be buttoned up in more than one spot. Hopefully this means it will last longer.

Today I've harvested the last of the potatoes from our first potato patch and dug blood and bone, dolomite lime and sheep manure into the vacant patch. I've planted cavolo nero (lacinato kale) along the front where I can check for caterpillars and eggs easily. Later this week I will plant leeks along the back. I've also started to prepare the site for Fionn's garden. He has chosen to plant broccoli because he likes eating it now. Enough to warm a mother's heart.

I'm going to try my next batch of coriander in pots. The seedlings which came up from my last sowing have disappeared. Maybe slugs love coriander? I've been trying for all of spring and summer for coriander this year, to no avail.

I will stick to using up my wool scraps...

Last I wrote that I was part way through the gorgeous homespun and home dyed wool from Granity and that after that I would move on to other balls in my stash. A stash which I had thought was too small to be called a stash before I cleaned the study and faced the sum total of all the balls previously in bags all over the place. Today I used up the homespun wool and thought how very beautiful the dress would look if I picked out the green in the variegated wool at our local wool shop and did the rest of the dress in soft green.

Two things.

The wool shop is not open on a Sunday, it is Sunday today and I want to carry on with the dress.

We were at friends for lunch today and one of our friends talked about how people on secure jobs (very luckily, this includes us) are in an improved position and should spend up a bit. This really jarred with me, as it did the first time someone I heard the idea (from someone else again). It doesn't feel right. Is it because I feel there is too much wasteful consumption clogging up our planet? Is it because I feel sick, as I do, at the idea that I am benefitting from the misfortune of others as our mortgage interest rate drops and shop prices fall while others no longer have a job?

So I am continuing on the dress using up my odd balls of wool. I am knitting in black now.

Not to freeze

To freeze or not to freeze is a discussion we seem to have at least every year at my place. Do we need a chest freezer? No. Would a chest freezer be very useful? Yes. Can we afford one right now. No. So I guess we'll shelve that one until next year.

I bought mushroom compost to build up the garden underneath the study window. Brighid considers it her new playground. If I can get up before her tomorrow, then I will plant the chicory there and sow some rocket and coriander and peas (and hope she forgets about the area). Chicory looks very pretty so far. As far whether I will like the taste, I'll report on that later in the year.

I found the right parts for the food processor liquidiser attachment. I made a blueberry, kefir and maple syrup smoothie. I liked it. The children did not. Ah well, at least my intestinal flora is getting the good treatment.

I have started Brighid's knitted dress again. This time I cast on by knitting into the front of the previous stitch, just as my mother taught me years ago. It made a neater and tighter edge and was much easier to prevent twisting given that I'm doing the circular needles lark again. Last attempt I cast on by making loops with my finger and sliding them on. Won't be doing that for circular knitting again. So I have 40 grams of this gorgeous wool from the Granity craft shop and then I'll have to switch to something else when that runs out. I do have some leftover bobbly black alpaca wool of the same thickness from when I knitted my posh cardi last year. When I get to the bodice part, I think I'll switch to 8 ply. I have some plain black 8 ply left from knitting Fionn's sleeveless hoodie. It's quite fun making it all up. The skirt part is surely not difficult and I'll use the size 2 version of the sleeveless hoodie pattern to guide me for the bodice. When I read Heather Nicholson's book on the history of knitting in New Zealand, she observed that in parts of Europe they rarely bother with a pattern. So I'm feeling rather European and I will feel rather more European if I pull it off and the dress is pretty and easy to wear.

My chillis are coming along nicely. I have a renewed interest in chillies as Paul Pitchford says that they are strengthening to the lungs. There was a doctor in California who found surprisingly low rates of respiratory problems amongst Hispanic smokers in Los Angeles and attributes it to chilli intake (presumably more than guesswork - the book I read doesn't elaborate much). So given Favourite Handyman is still scaring me with his lung burning habits and given that he likes chillies and hot foods, I might make up some harissa (or surely I could buy some decent harissa though maybe not locally) for him to add to whatever he likes.

Another 24 hours

So the four days of solo parenting has turned into five. Rather stumped for things to do given we were all devastated by the consequences of a fifty-minutes-late flight from Auckland to Christchurch, the children and I went out for dinner. I ran up the stairs first to check with the lovely Nell as to whether she would let us in given the children were barefoot and I was in gumboots. All okay. We bumped into friends with children at the restaurant so I got adult company and the children got to play.

I have started a new knitting project when I haven't finished the last one. This is a bad thing to do. But I didn't know how to pick up stitches to make armbands on Fionn's sleeveless hoodie. Since I gave up, a friend who has made the same pattern has advised that she left the armbands off completely with no ill effects. Which means that I can sew the rest up. Perhaps even tonight. But in the interim, I have started something for Brighid. I think it will be a dress and I have moved from the slavish following of a pattern which I was taught as a child and feared to deviate from, to making it all up. A drum roll would be appropriate. It is the home spun and dyed wool I bought at Granity last month and I am knitting 120 stitches in the round (in the round being a first for me also) which is going to be the hem of the dress. Something about the wool invites improvisation. I have the idea that I will knit up and along the way I wil learn how to decrease in the round and then I will probably split into two sides on straight needles and make a pinafore style. I chose 120 stitches because I had this idea that the numerical proportions would lend themselves to decreasing evenly around the skirt.

The garden is growing nicely given the good weather. Only the good weather has subsided as of today and the forecast is wet for most of the coming week. I think Favourite Handyman went away the wrong week. We ate potatoes from the garden yesterday. They tasted great to me. The tiny people were sniffy.

I've been hatching more plans for raised beds, this time using corrugated iron which we have in storage ready to be recycled. Favourite Handyman suggested it for the bed which is 1 x 2 metres, but for the work involved, I think raising the bed which is 1.5 x 2+ metres is a better idea. We would have to buy in some soil or extra compost as we would raise it about 0.6 metres. It would deal with the waterlogging problem quite well though, and provide quite a warm plot.

knitting

I've finished my cardigan. Photos will come. Photos do eventually get posted here on most projects, just often verrry late. It's lovely and warm and I think even styley and I'm wearing it now.

I had been looking forward to a break from knitting so I could read some books, advise some people on cloth nappies, maybe even do some mending. But I missed knitting. Don't know what's going on there. I have started reading The War for Children's Minds by Stephen Law though. Stepehen Law's website is here. Not that I've read that properly either yet (been knitting my brain away) but it's there if you feel like it. I've been thinking about education issues until literally my head has started to hurt and his book gives me a chance to think about things from a different perspective, one not rooted in questions about where my children should spend their days.

My current knitting project is a sleeveless hoodie for Fionn (5). I'm knitting it in black and yellow stripes. They are his favourite colours and he has chosen both the colours and the stripes so that when he lays on the grass wearing it, he will look like a bumblebee. I'm using Perendale wool, 100% wool and New Zealand made. It's lovely and soft. I bought it locally at the lovely wool shop here in smalltown where the ladies are fabulous and these days I even have a discount card as I'm a member of the local knitting group. While I was at the shop buying wool the other day, the owner showed me a sample of the new range about to come out. It's called "Charity" and it is 100% wool, New Zealand made and designed for making charity knitting affordable. It will be $2.99 for a 50g ball (if I have remembered correctly) which is truly fantastic. Wool at functional prices instead of expensive leisure craft prices.

There are some wools on the market made (or at least processed) in China. I've made my disapproval known. I don't spend money on wool and time on knitting (both of which surely could be better spent on red wine) in order to support sweat shop labour and excessive fossil fuel transport costs.

Sewing night

I finished all of my refashioned dress-into-skirt except I have to sew the elastic ends together. And I yacked a lot. We shared stories of what we've done with the placentas of our children, which prompted one lovely woman to move to the other end of the room. We finalised the details of our local event for the International Knit in Public Day. Except we're having ours at night, at a local venue of our affections where the coffee, wine, beer and food are superb.

My head has spilled over with thoughts and information about food. I spent another while at the doctor's talking about immune systems this afternoon. I have been dimly aware that I put a lot of energy into making sure the children get lots of nutritional goodies and frequently forget or forgo myself, which is something which I'm changing. So I'll be into the aloe vera juice shortly. We have our own aloe vera plants in pots, but for the meantime, I'll buy the juice from the health food shop and keep ours for dealing with burns. Or to keep looking at and imagining that I'll remember about our aloe vera pot plants next time I burn myself cooking.

So next week at sewing I could do sensible things like learn to replace a zip in my son's jacket. I'm not reaaaaalllllly feeling like being sensible though. I fancy making something sumptuous, with sumptuous material. Easy-to-make kind of sumptuous garment, because I wouldn't want complexity to get in the way of having fun with my sewing friends. Maybe I'll find some pictures of inspiration on the net and share.

Oops!

Nearly forgot I had a blog.

Here in wetville that had turned into droughtville, we finally had some rain for most of this week. My friends on tank water supplies are able to use their washing machines again. My garden is looking quite reasonable and I'm aware that I need to get Favourite Handyman to download some photos. You know, so you can tell I'm not a fake. Cos' you'd all be reading if you thought I was a fake making up my garden, huh? Or just because I don't have any home photos for ages and this is supposed to be an at least partly illustrated diary of my gardening journey.

I've been thinking about global and local food supplies untilI overloaded today and it all fell out of my head. No doubt I'll be thinking about it again soon.

Last night at my local book group we talked about old fashioned skills like sewing. One of my friends said 'nobody knits anymore' and I elbowed her to disagree, just like at school (though then I'm sure it wasn't about knitting). Some of us are learning to sew nappies for Real Nappy Week next week and spurred on by that opportunity, we are organising for an evening sewing class at the Adult Ed section of the local high school. Not everybody learning to sew some naff sundress at once (I still remember that at school when I was eleven. I have yet to see a fashion era in which that sundress looked passable). We would each bring our projects and problems and our tutor would be able to help us with them. Crucially, there would be no one year olds at the class.

Cos I'm old fashioned (or a new fashioned greenie peak oil-aware person as an alternative description), I am indeed knitting. I've knitted a jersey for my daughter and a garden hat for me and now I am really being adventurous and knitting myself a cardigan out of alpaca and merino wool. Photos on my next photo post. I'm wary of putting a time on when that will be. Who was that in Alice in Wonderland who was always late?

I've found another source of chicken poo and will be collecting that very soon. Clearly not all chicken keepers are keen gardeners.

Our scarecrow has fallen over completely before we could get him to look awesome.

I've been catching more mice. I'd better go and bait some more traps now. Also want to get some rocket and mesclun planted for growing on the windowsill and some sprouts going. Maybe some bread.

I think this adds up to getting pressing "publish post" and getting lots more active for the next hour.