Green Grin

Winter Solstice Sundown Artisan's Fair

2011-12-21T17:32:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the lackluster posts of late. I've been wandering the backroads deep in Cutelandia for the past two months, with no time to spare! I've made some groovy new friends, some of whom have already gone on their way to have their own adventures.

Others are still with me, giving me good company as my journey continues.

I'll be participating in one more holiday show, Schmidt's Winter Solstice Sundown Artisan's Fair. (see flyer in sidebar to the right). It's this Thursday, Dec 22, at the Elk's Lodge on 50th & SE Hawthorne in Portland. The hours are 4pm to 8pm.

I'll have a new batch of Mitts for Musing (have you gotten yours, yet? Seems like just about everyone in Portland is getting some!) & some cute little-nesses:

After tomorrow I'll take a small break from "making" and put together my new studio (excitement!!) and have some nice long walks in the woods (even more excitement!).

Looking forward to the return of the light!

Handmade NW's OHSU Holiday Bazaar

2011-11-29T12:35:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'll be participating in Handmade NW's OHSU Holiday Bazaar. It's located at the Center for Health and Healing at 3303 SW Bond St. near the base of the Tram (in Portland). The event runs from 10am to 5:30pm, Wed. November 30th. 10% of all proceeds will be given to the Heart Research Center, so you can do a little Holiday shopping and contribute to a great cause at the same time!

I've been sewing like crazy to prepare for my upcoming shows. I'll be well stocked with Mitts for Musing handwarmers

Pocket Buns, including some exciting new designs

As well as WeeKinnie Nests and other Green Grin-ness.

See the sidebar or Event tab for more upcoming events!

Green Grin Monster Attack!

2011-11-07T15:26:00.000-08:00

I just finished a commission for a couple of monsters. I stretched myself with this project, tried some new things. They are designed to hang on the wall. I like how they turned out. Pretty Goofy!

Samuri Bat Demon

Wormatar

Lewis Elementary Holiday Bazaar

2011-11-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

I have my first holiday show of the season this Saturday! It's the Lewis Elementary School Holiday Bazaar. It will be from 10am-4pm, November 5. Located at 4401 SE Evergreen Street in Portland. It's my first year with this show, and I've heard great things about it. A nice plus is that they've made an arrangement to accept credit cards for all of the vendors. You can find out a bit more info. at this website.
Meanwhile, I'm busily sewing away, amidst the moving into my new studio space! Yes, it's hectic, but fun.

Cute Things

2011-10-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

I've been filling some custom orders lately.

There's been a bit of a black & white theme going on.

It's hard to let these cuties go!

September Color

2011-09-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

Some reasons why September is my favorite month:

Cosmos sulphureus solar soaking in the greenhouse

Resulting color on wool and silk

Coriopsis tinctoria

Bundles solar soaking

Resulting flower print on silk and wool

Fermenting indigo vat (yep...in the greenhouse!)

Indigo dyed wool and Cosmos dyed wool

Indigo dyed wool and hemp-silk

Oak galls

Silk dyed with Oak galls and modified with iron

Eucalyptus leaves

Eucalyptus dyed wool and silk

Red Alder bark (currently fermenting in a bucket)

Rudbeckia

A Good Day

2011-08-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

I'd like to extend a huge Thank You to all who stopped by my booth at this weekend's Alberta Street Fair. Seeing your smiles and positive reactions to my work feeds my spirit! For those of you who made purchases, thank you for making this my best Fair ever in Portland!

Pigeon was a custom order, but she received so much attention that I will be exploring Plush bird-making in the future.

My plans for now are to move my studio from its current location in a smallish bedroom, to the upstairs of our house, giving me twice the workspace. This will involve moving the entire contents of four rooms of our house, plus some carpet removal and painting. Yeesh! It's a looming task, but it'll be wonderful in the end.

I'll also be busy at the sewing machine replenishing my stock of Mitts for Musing and bringing more Plush creations to life, but for today it's relaxing in the blueberry field and garden, and an afternoon brewski in our new garden-viewing lounge area.

Alberta Street Fair

2011-08-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'll be here this weekend:

My booth will be on Alberta Street between 21st and 22nd streets.

Stop on by and say "howdy"!

Whole Foods Hootenanny

2011-08-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

I'll be here tomorrow

Summer Deck Happenin's

2011-07-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

Stevia plant

Thai Basil

Solar dyeing with walnut & silk (actually, I should call it "cloud dyeing")

Fava bean shucking (mmmm...my favorite!)

Dinner-to-be

New Mitts design with buttons!

New Mitts design with Cuteness!

It's nice to have company

Everyone wants in on the action

And the Winner Is...

2011-07-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

I had fun last week entering some of my work in the Columbia County Fair. I was able to enter in several different categories: Hobbies, Textiles, and Sculpture.

Here's a photo of everything I entered, prize ribbons atached.

I got the high-point award in the Sculpture category with these soft-sculptures. I received a special plaque and some award money donated by Michael Curry Design, a local (large) puppet-making company.

Thanks! I'm already scheming about what to enter next year!

Sherwood Art in the Park

2011-07-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'll be participating in the Sherwood Art in the Park wine and art festival. It's a 2-day event benefitting Wild Cat Haven, a rescue refuge for wild cats. It will be my first time doing an event like this. I'm excited to be part of the wine & art crowd! Also looking forward to doing a festival on the grass in a park, rather than setting up on a sloped, concrete street. And amazingly enough, it actually looks like we'll be having a real, sunny (dare I say "hot"?) weekend!

I'll have my special helper!

Today

2011-07-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

It's so nice when they like each other!

Little Myron

2011-07-03T17:04:00.000-07:00

new sign

2011-07-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

Feng-Shui Doo-Hickies

2011-07-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

Gourds, feathers, wire, & beads.

Protection Device

Sunny Day Printing With Sis

2011-06-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

Design process

Testing the carved rubber stamp and cut foam stamp:

Print!

Making a stamp using cut adhesive foam:

Foam stamps. This is a quick, inexpensive, and easy way to make re-useable stamps.

Sally's flag:

and, on the Farm front....the salad greens are IN!

Green Grin meets Crafty Underdog

2011-06-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

For those of you living locally, I'll be doing my first show with the Crafty Underdog this Sunday, June 12. It'll be a big shin-dig at McMenamin's Mission Theatre in NW Portland. I'll have a table full of Plush and some Mitts for Musing, including new cotton/hemp/lycra summer Mitts.

Stop on by and say "howdie"!

Success Story

2011-06-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, Jess bought a couple of Pocket Buns from me at a craft show. She thought they would be perfect for her second grade Spanish class; the children could take turns holding the stuffed toy while they shared during the morning circle.

The softies were named "Y" and "Z" and became the darlings of the classroom, especially "Z", or "Zeta". The children took turns being in charge of her for the day, and someone was always holding her.

After a year of intense, loving cuddling, Zeta developed some holes. Jess asked me if I could make a duplicate to replace her, and she sent me the original to copy. I had to laugh when I opened the package; Zeta had been squeezed and caressed so much that she'd grown about twice as tall as she'd originally been! Right around her soft, palm-sized middle is where the holes were, where the continuos kneading of small hands loved her right through.

I took this photo after I'd mended the holes in the original Zeta, but you can see how loved she is. The darker one is Zeta #2; she's super soft, made out of a thick cashmere sweater and reinforced with double layers of fabric.

Jess also wanted to give her kids something special at the end of the school year, so she ordered a set of WeeKinnies, one for each child.

I had so much fun with this project and am super happy with how it turned out. Thanks, Jess!

Little Mr. Tuffet

2011-04-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Big Louie likes to visit me occasionally while I'm at work in the studio. I thought it would be nice to create a special spot for him.

I'd been inspired by the Hassock in Elizabeth Abernathy's winter Nuno Magazine (page 50). As much as I was craving to dip-dye an old wool blanket, add some embroidery to it, and create a stunningly lovely hassock, that project will have to wait for another day when I have more time. Instead, I opted for the instant gratification method. I dug out an old, semi-felted rainbow sweater (huge!). I cut two large circles for the top and bottom, and a wide band to sew around for the sides. I used two bags of tiny scraps left over from sewing projects for the stuffing (and a handful of dried catnip!).

Big Louie is such a sweetie; he nestled in as soon as I showed it to him.

A new tuffet!

Horny Head

2011-04-25T10:32:00.000-07:00

I've created another large, strange head as part of my on-going "Heads-Up" series.

This one is about two feet tall including the horns. There are pockets hidden under the white "fur" for the three small "fairies" to hide in. The mouth is a pocket, too.

A Forest FunKinnie waiting to see the Horny Lord.

Green Grin does Earth Day

2011-04-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

Holy Cow, Dear Readers! I almost forgot to let you know about an imminent event I'm to be involved in. I apologize for the last-minute posting (for you readers living locally).
It's my first vending event of the season: Portland City Repair's Earth Day Festival.
Saturday, April 23rd.

I love doing this event, even though this time of the year, the weather can be quite unpredictable. At least I have sides for my canopy this year! Actually, it's supposed to be a sunny, warm day. (I'll believe it when I see it!). There will be two stages with live music, a few food booths, tons of groovy informational booths, and a smattering of vendors. It's not so much a craft fair, as a fun festy event.

I'll be sharing my booth with the ever-so talented Carrena of Skrappy Joy fame. She'll be debuting this year's collection of cute & comfy Skrappy Joy clothing crafted from reclaimed t-shirts.

I'll have plenty of the ever-popular fingerless Mitts for Musing

Baskets of Pocket Buns

Other misc. Plush goodness

a rack of OOAK Green Grin clothing, and a sale table

(and maybe farm-fresh duck eggs for sale!)

I hope to see you!

Some Hoodie Sewing

2011-04-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to make a dent in my overwhelming fabric stash, I've been sewing up some clothing, lately.

I love velour, and often pick up large pieces when I see them at the thrift store. I pulled out some colors I thought would look nice together. The dark gold is from a large men's shirt; the lighter gold and stripy piece are scores from the thrift store fabric bin. (I ended up not using the rose-pink top).

I used an old favorite pattern, which I re-traced and drew in the pieces for the color-blocking, then cut up to make patterns for the different-colored piecing.

Cutting out the pieces.

Here are the pieces laid out. The cutting surface is a folding card-board cutting board, found at a local thrift store for $1.00! It's perfect for cutting on the floor. I just plop it down and instantly have a clean, firm surface for working on. It folds up for easy storage. The squares are handy for when I'm re-working a pattern or for measuring.

I hand-stitched a little leaf motif on the front.

Bright hoodie for spring!

Adding to the Flock

2011-04-04T13:32:00.000-07:00

I decided to try a little realism while making a recent plush. Sweetie's birthday was coming up, and he has a little collection of duck decoys.

I'd found this folk-art duck pattern at a thrift shop and thought it would be fun to make a stuffed decoy.

I wasn't satisfied with the pattern as it was, so I flipped through the bird field-guide and couldn't resist trying to make this loon.

I reduced and re-drew the folk-art pattern to make it look more loon-like.

I'm so pleased with the results! Sweetie likes it, too.

And speaking of ducks, I finally stitched up this pre-printed duck I picked up awhile ago at Knittn' Kitten.

I love these pre-printed patterns, especially the sort of realistic looking ones. I buy them whenever I find them at thrift stores. The nice ones are rare enough that it's a bit of excitement when I find one.

There's something about this duck that is neat and strange at the same time. I'm saving the second one to use flat as an applique element. ('though it is tempting to sew up another one of these goofy ducks!)

Stones & Wool

2011-03-06T20:35:00.000-08:00

I recently discovered Nuno emagazine by Elizabeth Abernathy. I couldn't resist buying the first issue. The photography, styling, and projects are gorgeous and inspiring. And the bonus is that she uses reclaimed materials for her projects.

I was quite intrigued by this stones & felt project.

This is definitely a "slow crafting" project, requiring meticulous hand sewing, but the resulting combo of wool felt and stones is so worth it! After encasing my stones in wool, I ended up sewing them together into this amorphous object.

I'd like to revisit this technique and try making some jewelry, which is what Elizabeth did with her project in "Nuno".

I highly recommend checking out her blog and e-magazines...get ready to be inspired!

Prototype

2011-03-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

New Friend

2011-02-27T17:37:00.000-08:00

I made a new friend...

Casting On

2011-02-21T19:31:00.000-08:00

Well, once I got the yarn all spun and washed, I just couldn't wait any longer to cast-on for knitting my Traditional Danish Tie-Shawl. The yarn is subtly striping the way I'd hoped, and I'm liking the way the charcoal stripes are looking.

My absolute favorite knitting is with my own handspun.

New Laptop Sleeve

2011-02-20T21:29:00.000-08:00

Last year I made this groovy laptop case for my computer, using one of my favorite patchwork techniques of mosaicing together small scraps of wool. I loved how it turned out, but it was just a tad too small for my PowerBook.

Thanks to generous & thoughtful friends, I was recently able to upgrade my computing to this MacBook.

Sleeker in design and trimmer than the old PowerBook, it fits the sleeve perfectly, gliding in and out with ease.

Luv.

Re:Boutique Grand Opening

2011-02-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

SCRAP's Re:Boutique shop will be having it's grand opening later this month. The shop features handmade items crafted from recycled materials. I'm selling Green Gin's fingerless Mitts for Musing, and small plush Pocket Buns. For those of you readers who live in the Portland, Oregon area, SCRAP is a most excellent resource for recycled craft materials. Come on down and check it out. I hear there will be a Thai food cart in the parking lot!

http://www.scrapaction.org

The Wheel Goes 'Round & 'Round

2011-02-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

I've been taking advantage of this winter's recent inclemency by sitting near the wood stove with my spinning wheel. Last week I spun up this hand-painted BFL top in Lord of the Mountain colorway I bought at last year's Black Sheep Gathering from Crown Mountain. I love, love, love Crown Mountain fibers. The hanks are soft and a joy to spin, barely needing pre-drafting. Each bump of fiber is like a mini-painted masterpiece. I wanted to stretch this top to make as much yarn as I could from it, so I spun it up in a fine singles (fine as I can make, anyway!) using the top as-is (no splitting or dividing).

I delved into my substantial stash of naturally dyed fiber (all of those experiments add up!) and pulled these, which somewhat matched the colors in the Crown Mountain top. I spun a singles using long stretches of each color, one after the other, hoping to create a yarn that will have some subtle striping when knit up.

I love how the finished yarn looks. I find that "barber pole" yarn is a beautiful object in itself. As far as knitting it up, it tends to give a tweedy appearance, blending the colors even more. Next time I'll try to spin my singles even thinner, and go for a triple chain-ply, which will keep the colors rather more separated.

My plan for this yarn is to knit a tradition Danish tie-shawl. I've been wanting to make one for ages; I'm attracted to the way the shawl wraps around and ties at the waist, making it practical (& cozy!) for daily use when working around the house.

I'll be adding in some stripes with this charcoal grey recycled yarn. I've got a huge hankerin' to cast on NOW, but I'm trying to hold off until I make more progress on a top-down sweater I'm working on (my first full-on sweater!). It's been so chilly this winter, that I've been mighty inspired to knit up plenty of warm coziness. I just hope I get them finished in time to give them a bit of wear before the cold weather leaves!

In Progress

2011-02-14T21:10:00.000-08:00

A Tardy Arrival to the New Year

2011-02-10T13:45:00.000-08:00

Welcome!

I'm finally sewing something special for myself. This is a soon-to-be appliqued sleeve for a hemp-hoodie-wrap-thingie. Mmmm...my favorite color: brown!

I've been exploring new directions with my plush-making.

...as well as continuing production with some tried-and-trues (the ever-lovin' Mitts for Musing).

Some things work better if they sit around for awhile, partially made, waiting for their true final forms to be revealed.

Louie sez "Mrrrrow". (He's my cuddle muse).

Upcoming Green Grin Shows

2010-11-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

I'll be participating in three craft shows this season: November 20th, Saturday, 10am-6pm SCRAP's Annual Holiday Bazaar 2915 NE MLK Blvd.(at Stanton), PDX November 28, Sunday, 11am-5pm GIVE Handmade Sale Left Bank Annex 101 N. Weidler, PDX

December 19th, Sunday, 11am-5pm Handmade NW's Formal Holiday Artisan's Fair The Acadian Ballroom 1829 NE Alberta St., PDX All of the shows are free of charge, and there will be live music and food available. Good times! I'm super excited to unveil my latest Green Grin-ness and get out & interact with the world. Sure, I have tons of cute, cuddly friends with me in the studio, but it's just not the same as smiling and laughing with real humans. I have the grooviest new business cards/labels, thanks to the lovely and talented Fran. We've more exciting projects in the works...stay tuned...

I'll have the largest collection of Mitts for Musing that I've ever had at one time! (they'll go fast!...)

Random cuteness, of course.

It's always hard to know when to stop creating and when to start packing everything up for the show...

More Cuteness

2010-11-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

This morning I finished this Cutie.When I start making one of these crocheted creatures, I never know how they'll turn out. For this one, I made long, spindly legs, thinking it would look funny standing tall on skinny legs. But when I started to sew the pieces together, Cutie wanted to recline, instead.

Here's Sly Little Bro.

And shy Octopal.

I rewarded myself with a walk in the woods over accross the creek, exploring some new forest paths. The stroll was glorious, and I came home with some gourmet tidbits!

GrinKins Grow up

2010-11-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

I just finished these two new off-shoots of the GrinKin clan. I used the same GrinKin head and legs, but I added a body with arms, and switched the horns for ears and wooly-felt hair. I also put in a little touch of white reflection to liven up the eyes...less scary that way.

With their long, flexible legs and arms, they are super fun too pose and play with; I couldn't resist shooting a few snapshots! Now to come up with names for them.... And since I'm sharing photos, here are a couple of pictures of some interesting rocks we found during our recent visit to central Oregon.

Green Grin Inventory

2010-09-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

Lately I've had some requests from folks who've been interested in obtaining some Green Grin wares. I've been so busy crafting and selling at shows that I haven't been able to keep my Etsy shop stocked. This post is to show the Green Grin items I currently have in stock. For those of you who live locally and may be able to attend upcoming holiday shows, think of this as a sneak preview! As always, new items are constantly flowing out of the studio, so I will be updating this posting as I make stuff. This creature started out as a pile of fluffy wool. I spun the yarn, crocheted then felted the body, sewed it all together & stuffed it and added the features.El Torrero Man, the last of my Heads series. Soft sculpture.

Buddy Bear, made from a cashmere sweater.

Another spun, crocheted, felted critter. This one's about the size of a cat.

Fancy Bunny. The moveable legs and arms are attached with buttons.

Another Fancy Bunny. This one's from cashmere.

Hot Water Bottle Cozies.

The Queen who started it all!

Buddha Bunnies

Hot Pot Handle Holders

Pocket Buns (I swear they breed when I'm away from the studio!)

Mitts for Musing fingerless gloves.

Big Bear, spun, crocheted, felted.

Patchwork Hand Bag

Silly Rainbow Guy

Pert Rainbow Gal

GrinKins

Pincushions

Nestie Head

Eyeglass Case

Mr. Stripey

Wobbly Woman

Thanks for looking!

Process

2010-09-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

Spinning wool into yarn

Crocheting appendages

Felting them up!

Arrangements New Friends!

Co-Inspirers

2010-08-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

I was recently lucky enough to have a fine visit from some good, old friends. Whilst we adults prepared dinner, drank wine, and worked on solving the World's problems, the kids were happily busy sewing and creating in the workroom. I'd given them each a felt ball, and from there their imaginations took off. I wish they were around more often to give me inspiration...check it out: This is Erica's super cute little buzzy creature, complete with holographic wings and striped eye-patches. It has a little string coming out of the top of it's head, and if you hold it by the string, it looks like it's flying.

Ezair made this curiously cute horned creature with a magical flying-squirrel coat. She also left me with a page of cartoony drawings I hope to use as Plush inspiration.

Here's Erica modeling her new pair of Snake Eyes Mitts for Musing. Sorry you didn't get to muse on any real snakes this time, Erica!

Sewin' & Farmin'

2010-08-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

Here's what I've been up to these days:

Sewed a new batch of Mitts for Musing (getting ready for Fall/Winter sales).

Sewed a new batch of Pocket Buns.

Tested out a new furry fabric on a bunny...pretty darn cute!

Crocheted and felted; waiting for eyes.

Sewed a new batch of Buddha Bunnies.

Dye experiments with the madder root I grow in a bathtub in the garden. I accidentally boiled the batch on the left; luckily the fiber seems fine, and what a lovely color it turned out! I'm so thrilled to be able to grow a plant in my garden that will yeild such a gorgeous color.

I spun up this yummy yarn from the samples I received in Phat Fiber's May box. The theme was "Blossom and Bark" and there were quite a few samples that were in the pink family. I arranged all the samples in order by color, and just spun them up one after another into a long single. I decided to ply it with another single in green, to balance out all of that pink. This is my first multi-colored barber-pole type of yarn, and I just love it. I'm thinking to use it to make some squares for an afghan. Even though I wish I could spend all the days in the studio, the farm in August requires a bit of attention, mainly in the form of harvesting and food processing. Here's the labor of a recent weekend, left to right: boysenberry-honey jam; super chutney with squash, plums, apples, onions, and dried tomatoes (I know, I know...it's chutney enough for two years!); and sweet & sour Asian plum sauce. Last but not least, August's star....blueberries! (by the bushel!)

Somewhere in the Rainbow....

2010-08-09T07:40:00.001-07:00

A recent thrift store find: I couldn't pass up the bright colors! Two skeins of this cheerful brightness, even though it is acrylic yarn....

Luckily, it didn't take long for inspiration to strike (like a bolt of rainbow!)

As it turns out, this acrylic yarn is perfect for this type of work! It's easy to crochet with, and makes a nice, smoothish, firm surface. It's not even yicky to be touching it!

Well, and who would you like to be? Perhaps some ears and a tongue would help.

Time for an adventure...

I love making new friends!

Scarecrow

2010-08-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

Or perhaps I should say "Scarerobin". Really, the robins haven't been scratching in the onion patch since this mannequin went up! The gourd-head is from my sister's garden (many moons ago). The yard-sale hat was the initial inspiration.

The weeds are being well-guarded....

Turning Heads

2010-02-21T10:24:00.000-08:00

I've been following my creative muse lately, creating this series of goofy Plush Heads. I love being able to flow from one idea to another, exploring the medium of 3-d sewing and stuffing. Originally, I'd wanted to make some soft masks to hang on our walls at home. For some reason, instead of a flattish mask, I ended up making this stuffed head. I used a simple inset pocket-making technique to install a recessed mouth. I amused myself by making a tiny version of the big DiscusHead, which could live in DiscusHead's mouth. Then I had the idea for this sun-eating-moon, or Revenge of the Eclipse Head. El Torroman was inspired by Venezuelan dance masks, and was technically the most challenging Head so far. I learned that large inset mouths can cause the whole structure to sag and be unstable. I kept stitching and adding things on, making the best of what I'd started. With NestieHead, I put the fur-lined insert in the top if the head, to make a little nest for a baby creature. Then I had the funny idea to add little floppy legs onto the heads, and made this family of GrinKins. Some earlier explorations:

Buddha Bunnies

Tactile Whatsit

The most thrilling thing about making these Heads is that they use up scraps!! So many more ideas to birth...

Holiday Craft Show Recap

2009-12-20T11:22:00.000-08:00

As a craftsperson, the "holiday season" is a time when I have an opportunity to sell my wares and generate some income. This year is the first time I've gotten it together in time to actually get into some local holiday craft shows and take advantage of the gift-buying going on in consumer land. I was fortunate in my choice of venues. The three shows I did were decently attended by folks who dug my offerings and were willing to part with their pocket change. The thing I love about face-to-face sales is the energy exchanged. My customers seem genuinely happy to try on endless pairs of mitts, finding just the right one, and the delight is palpable in the smiles as shoppers fondle and squeeze the inviting, wooley, soft wares on display. It makes me happy to see the response to my work. I value the feedback I receive from my customers and other vendors. It's fun to present new ideas and see how they go over. This season some of my new ideas were cutenesses like these:

I can't believe that I've finally succumbed to the cuteness thing, but they are soooo fun to make, and their adorableness is rather addicting. I've been perfecting my scrappy appliqué technique, and my latest exploration is making these bags. I'm inspired and excited to make more of these. It takes a fair amount of time to sew all the little pieces together, so I want the bag itself to be super-high quality, with the construction, lining, etc, so that people may be willing to splurge on buying them.

The hot item this season, however, has been the fingerless Mitts for Musing. I've gone into mini-factory mode stitching these up this past month. It's encouraging to have an item that sells well. I think what clicks with these mitts is that they are practical, in-fashion right now, unique, and...under $20. A great gift item. Thankyou to my customers! I have a handful of nice pairs left that I'll be photographing and adding to my Etsy shop this coming week. Too late for holiday gift-giving, but hey, it'll be mitt-wearing weather for months to come! Here's a photo of my table at yesterday's SCRAP Holiday Bazaar.The event went pretty much as I expected. I was happy with my sales, but attendance over all was somewhat slow, due perhaps to a lack of promotion. The vendors were quirky, wonderful folks, and I feel like I made some great new friends. Kelly at SCRAP did a nice job of arranging us all in various rooms, and providing cookies and hot coffee through-out the day. We had a fine time chatting and entertaining ourselves in our little room. One thing I love about this event is that all the crafts were created using upcycled materials. The wares were all high quality and showed an intriguing level of creativity. I'd like to see this event better promoted next year, as it's the kind of thing Portlanders would really go for, if they only knew about it. In the midst of all this local vending, I also had a custom mail-order for this furry family.

Now I just have to complete another custom order for several pairs of slippers, and I'll be able to take a break from my sewing-for-profit. I'm especially looking forward to attending to some spinning and doing some natural dyeing with my home-grown madder, as well as organizing my fiber stash and tidying up the studio. I want to keep on track with my business sewing, though; the winter is a good time to build up some stock for upcoming spring and summer events. It's a drag to be inside, chained to the sewing machine during the spring when the weather is shining and the garden is calling my name. One last thing; a question for you savvy Bloggers: the way I add links to my blog posts seems really slow and awkward, with typing out the entire address to the link (hence the lack of links!). I'm wondering if anyone out there has a tip for an easy way to do the links. Cut and paste doesn't work...

Next Craft Show Coming Up

2009-12-03T14:56:00.000-08:00

Hopefully ya'all aren't getting tired of hearing about my craft shows! It's just that that's what's going on for me right now. This Sunday I'll be at Handmade NW's "Formal Holiday Artisans Fair" at the Chelsea Ballroom in Portland.This looks like it'll be a fun event. All of us vendors are dressing up fancy, and there will be live classical music and tea. I donated some "Green Grin Free Gift with Purchase" coupons for the Goody Bags that will be handed out to the first 100 shoppers. At my table I'll have cute stuffed animals and softies, felted goods, appliqued fingerless mitts, hot-water bottle cozies, lovely felt flower ornaments and goofy angel ornaments like the one above, and misc. wooly bits and bobs. If you do make it down, look me up & introduce yourself! I have one more day for sewing...no way will I be able to make all that I'd like to! I've also had a bit of a dental disaster. A week ago I bit into something hard and one of my front teeth broke off. Yeh, it's a major drag. Not having dental insurance makes it a quadruple major drag. So I'm feeling pretty self-conscious about it, but life must go on. It may be a bit of time before I'll be able to get it fixed. I'm practicing smiling with my mouth closed. So while I'm quite excited about this coming up show, I'm also a bit nervous, you know, about the missing tooth and all. I just hope I don't scare away customers!

Still Busy Making Stuff

2009-11-28T17:36:00.001-08:00

The Trunk Show at SomaSpace last weekend went quite well. I had a nice spot in the main room,with nice folks on both sides of me. Actually, everyone there seemed nice; it was a real sweet vibe, with lively shopping music, folks strolling in and out, homemade chocolate samples... As expected, the fingerless Mitts for Musing just about sold out. Surprisingly, the slippers were popular as well.

In fact, someone ordered slippers for their entire family! Today was perfectly gray and overcast for doing a photo shoot. I was able to take many photos for the Green Grin Etsy shop. Here's my little set up out on the deck.

It's amazing how easy it is to create a whole little world in there.

So now I'm busily making slippers,

and some other mysterious things.

Preparing for Craft Shows part 2

2009-11-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

My first craft show of the season is this Sat., November 21 at SomaSpace. The hours are from 1:00-4:00. For those of you readers living in the Portland (Oregon!) area, SomaSpace is located at 4050 NE Broadway, behind Trader Joe's. If you're out and about for the afternoon, stop on by and say hi. This free event is being billed as a "Trunk Show", and it's a smallish affair, held in a lovely street level dance/yoga venue. I did this one last year, and it was quite sweet and enjoyable. I'm scheduled for two other craft shows in Dec. The big one is sponsored by Handmade NW, and held in the Chelsea Ballroom, Dec. 6th. The third event is S.C.R.A.P.'s annual Bazaar and Bakesale, Dec. 19th. I'm very excited about being involved with this one, 'cause SCRAP is a great place, and I'm looking forward to meeting & hanging out with the good folks there, as well as other crafters working primarily with re-use materials. I'll post more about these events as they near. Meanwhile, I'm headed back into the studio to finish up a batch of cuddly hot-water-bottle cozies. Tomorrow will be my last day of sewing for this weekend's show. I'll work on a few more stuffed creatures. I was hoping to get some slippers done for this sale, but it's not gonna happen. Lots of Mitts for Musing!

Preparing for Craft Shows

2009-11-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

Well, it finally stopped raining long enough yesterday for me to take some photos of my latest sewing adventures. I've lined up a couple of craft shows to sell at during the next month, so I'm busily stitching away. As you can see, much of what I've been making has been all about using up scraps. Will I ever use them all up? Will my studio ever have enough space to walk around in?

I've been loving sewing up these soft vessels. They use up the tiniest of scraps, and you know that makes me happy! The shapes remind me of ceramic pots. I'm keeping a couple for myself, just to have around the studio for holding things.These Hot Pot Handle Holders have been popular with the cast iron skillet crowd. Mine are in constant use. These are one of my lower priced items. More bunnies. These are the most fun to make. When I put on the faces and then sew the heads onto the bodies, they take on such personality. So cute!

This style is a bit simpler to make, and great for dressing up. I knit this free-form cape from some of my experimental handspun yarn. It can also be worn as a little dress. As I was making this, I was remembering when I was a kid, and how fun it was to play with a stuffed animal that had clothes and accessories I could put on and off.

Here's another attempt at making a simpler design. The idea for this came from a vintage Women's Day pattern (1967!) I picked up at S.C.R.A.P. The pattern sheets have full-sized patterns for 10 different animals. The original sizes are large, like a small pillow. They have cool embroidered faces, but I prefer using applique. Every year I want to make ornaments, and I finally came up with something this year. These are little angels. My embroidery skills aren't that great, so instead of looking cute, they look kinda' mischievous. I also wasn't sure how angel wings look (have you ever noticed how many styles of wings there are?) so some of them look more like flying creatures than angels. I think I'll be the only one who knows that these are angels! I'm also making these felt flower ornaments. (out of tiny scraps...I'm so happy!) Reading glasses cases. A while ago I made some for myself which I love. I thought I'd make some to sell, to see if other folks would like them. I was able to use some of my special vintage buttons on these. Getting all this stuff together and taking photos made me feel pretty good; sometimes I'm there in the studio stitch,stitch, stitching away, feeling like I'm not making much progress. Now I can see that I am actually getting a collection together. I'm looking forward to these craft shows. It's always so fun to interact with the folks who are drawn into to my colorful, squeezable display of goods.

Ready to go out into the world.

cider pressing

2009-11-07T07:28:00.000-08:00

Every Fall we press apple cider with a big, old apple press borrowed from a neighbor. Family and friends come out for a day of "appling" and socializing, going home with a few gallons of fresh cider.This year we had about 10 varieties of apples. The best cider is made with a blend of different types of apples.

My job was sorting and washing. I mixed several varieties together in every sink-full.

Next, bad spots are cut out, and large apples cut in half. Most of our apples are smallish, so we didn't have to do too much cutting.

Here Nita is tossing the apples into the hopper. The hopper funnels the apples into the hog, which roughly grinds the apples into small bits to prepare them for pressing. It is loud, and while the hog is going, there's not much conversation. The apple bits fall down into a large, wooden basket.

When the basket is about 3/4 full, we slide it forward under the press. Here Kether tightens the press down. Rather than ratchet the press down all at once, it is more efficient to wind it down until juice runs out, let it sit for a bit, then wind it down some more, repeating several times.

Ambrosial nectar drips. We filter the fresh cider through cheesecloth to remove the chunks of apple. Most of these jars will go into the freezer, to be enjoyed all year. What doesn't fit in the freezer must be consumed fresh within a couple of weeks. Some years we make hard cider, but decided not to this year. We had a few pears, so the last batch pressed was pear/apple, and that was the best! All together, this year we got 29 gallons of cider. The apple crop was slim this year; last year we had enough apples to press over 50 gallons of cider!

After the juice is pressed out, this apple pulp remains. It goes onto the compost pile..the worms love it!

Now I'm sitting here writing this on a chilly, grey, blustery day; looking at these pictures, I can still smell the apples and feel that sunshine on my face...hmmm..methinks a cup of hot, mulled cider is in order.

Wonderful Walnut and Natural Dyeing

2009-10-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

I feel so lucky to be living near this venerable, old-growth Black Walnut tree.

This is a view from my dye kitchen.

She's really in her glory in the fall. Standing underneath her brilliant yellow canopy, on a lemony carpet; a breeze puffs by and hundreds of small, shimmery leaves snow down golden... Just watch out that a nut doesn't fall on your head! This year the nuts are bountiful. They give up the most gorgeous brown, tan, and beige colors. The leaves (while still green) also make a lovely brownish dye. However, I still have two five-gallon buckets of this soaking-nut ooze from past years. I'm trying to use it up, but a little goes a long way. I'll not be collecting nuts for dyeing this year. The squirrels get them all! The brown is walnut dyed over logwood and indigo. The beige is the walnut exhaust bath . These are madder berries. I've read that madder "does not reliably produce seeds", so I decided I ought to harvest these seed-containing berries while I had the chance. Each berry contains one largish seed. I'm still waiting for the madder tops to die down so I can dig the roots and use them.

These are dark red dahlia flowers, dried, that my friend saved for me over the summer. The dyebath was a deep, red, merlot color, but the wool came out a bit different than that. The dark bronze color on the left is from the dahlias. The sheen of the Romney fleece makes it look almost metallic in real life. The brilliant yellow on the right is from a fresh Dyer's Polypore Rick found in the forest near our house. I simmered the mushroom, strained it, then merely soaked the fleece in the dyebath without heat to get this color!

footstool recovery

2009-10-17T14:32:00.001-07:00

Ever since we finished painting and re-arranging our front room, I've been inspired to slowly create new & needed textiles to decorate the space. Most recently, I decided to re-cover this humble foot stool.

I used my favorite technique of late; randomly sewing down scraps of sweater wool to a backing fabric. I'm so in love with this process. For one, it uses tiny scraps of fabric in a most lovely way! I like the randomness of it; the freedom of just grabbing into the basket of scraps and plonking down whatever I pull out.

For the final touch, and to pull all that randomness together, I like to sew thin, meandering strips on the surface, and travel all over the surface with machine top-stitching.

Hmmm, looks like it'll fit. The back looks interesting, too.

Here I've laid it over the stool upside down, and am pinning the corners to fit. I then stitch the corners and trim off the excess fabric.

Next, I sewed a casing of knit fabric all around the bottom edge.

Thread a cord through. I used a strip of sturdy knit fabric.

Oh yes, this is fitting nicely.

Snugging up the drawstring.

Tuck in the ends.

Foot stool cozy!

I like it.

Testing out the new thing.

Harvest Reds

2009-10-16T18:58:00.001-07:00

The past few years I've really enjoyed growing these Polish Linguisa tomatoes. They're a large, pepper-shaped paste tomato. The young plants look pretty spindly and frail, and they're some of the last ones to start setting fruit, but once they get going, they're quite prolific, and continue to ripen their tomatoes up until frost. My favorite way to prepare them is to slow-roast them in a 200 deg. oven all day, until they're leathery-soft. Then I layer them in a pint jar with fresh basil leaves and olive oil, squishing them down well to get the air bubbles out, fitting in as many as I can into the jar. They keep several months in the 'fridge. The flavor is so exquisite that they're usually consumed by merely spreading them on toast. The golden tomato is an Orange Oxheart, another favorite of ours. The flesh is firm and sweet, nearly the color of a peach, with a complex, smoky flavor. This year our Orange Oxheart plant was rather sickly, and its fruits somewhat mealy and meager. Generally, though, this is a dependable, delicious tomato. I grew these three varieties of chili peppers this year.

The long, shapely ones are Cayennes. The medium-sized ones are Thai Dragons, a good standby for these parts. They always bear much fruit & ripen well. I'm not sure what type the tiny ones are; they're suuuper hot. They're about the size of my pinky fingernail, and even just one of these peppers in a dish really heats it up. The plant is smallish and covered with tiny, red peppers. I plant my chili pepper plants in pots, so I can move them around to the warmest sunny spots during the summer, and then when the weather cools, I bring them into the house or greenhouse to finish ripening.

This year I'm drying my chilies, but sometimes I pickle them in half-pint jars. This batch has five different varieties in it! Those leaves in there are mint leaves. I make a super easy and yummy hot-sauce by opening a jar of my pickled chili-peppers and whizzing the entire contents in the food processor. The result is a vinegary, thin hot pepper sauce perfect for dripping on anything that needs pepping up. I can't resist sharing this photo with you.

I took it just before sunset, after I'd finished harvesting and cleaning out the winter squash bet. Mmmm....I see many pumpkin pies in the future.... I've been wanting to introduce you to the ducks, but they're quite shy about getting their picture taken.Here they are so busy nibbling lettuce seed in the garden that they didn't notice me with the camera. The brown duck is a Khaki Campbell named Peep. The two Black Runners are Lady and Sir Ernie Longneck. I kinda' have to coerce them into the garden, but once I get them in there, they get into foraging and eating slugs. Probably their favorite garden treat is Brussels Sprouts. They like the leaves and love the sprouts. It can be quite a game, me shooing them away from the Brussels Sprouts bed, them scooting & clucking around the garden, only to return to the Brussels, me chasing them again....gotta love them quackers.

My Latest Slippers

2009-10-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

Fresh Fall slippers in all their glory! Easy on-&-off! Comfy, cozy! This pair is my trial run of a pattern from a Japanese craft book called "Room Shoes". Since they are a prototype and not "fancy", I dug through my scrap bag for all the materials. As usual, the scrapped-together look is probably more interesting than if I'd designed a look using "special" fabrics. The outsides are a thick, golden wool knit originally scored at a thrift store, since made into a curtain, and for the past years riding around in my stash boxes. They're lined with a fine-wale, soft, burgundy corduroy. I used a scrap of felted blue wool blanket to line the insoles. As usual with new slippers, I love them! Since I don't read Japanese, once I traced out the pattern, I just kinda made up the sewing-together. It looks like there are some interesting/helpful techniques in the instructions, but I couldn't quite decipher them. I like how these slippers turned out, and I'll be fooling around with some other versions from this book in the future. It looks like the sewing bug's finally returned to the studio. This is becoming a comfy, cuddly, wool wrap- hoodie. Nothing like a Fall nip in the air to inspire cozy-makin's!

Fourth of July Harvest (oh, and more hats)

2009-07-04T22:23:00.001-07:00

This morning I got up at 6:30. With the weather being so hot this week, the only time to really do anything out in the garden is in the morning. Today was harvest day and here's the haul: Red Currants.

I'll dry these. Last year, I used the currants for home-made pectin. It took many currants to make just a little pectin! Green Shallots.

Calendula blossoms.I'll dry these and have them on hand for adding to baths, soaks, and hair rinses. I'm also saving a few rhubarb seeds, and some lavender.

Beet thinnings.

These will get soaked & swished in cold water to clean them, then we'll add them to salads and stir-fries.

Li'l B was very sweet, keeping me company during my rounds. It's a special day for her, 'cause exactly one year ago, we found her under a currant bush and brought her in...such a teeny tiny little thing! I've been bringing her out to the garden with me ever since she was big enough to get around. Now she loves it when we can all be in the garden together.

Salad for tonight's dinner. My favorite...fresh fava beans! Mmmm...I love these sooo much.Jaquie and the beanstalk! I'll blanch and freeze these for later use. They're perfect right now, and we have more than we can eat fresh. If I wait too long, the inner skin on the beans will become too tough to eat. They are super delish, just boiled a few minutes, with butter & salt. A handful tossed into a stir-fry gives some nice texture and flavor. Fava bean hummus is divine. I could eat it every day. (I have, been, actually, for the past two weeks!) Even though it's hard, I'll make myself leave most of the rest of the harvest on the plants to mature for seed for next year. Large-seeded fava seed is expensive, so it's worth it to save seed, even though it means I get to eat less of them. Peas. St. John's Wort. I'm so happy how this plant has been naturalizing around the farm and in the gardens. How luxurious to leisurely pick the blossoms at the peak of their bloom, from chest-high plants in my garden!

I've read that St. John's wort makes a good dye; I tried it last year, with poor results, but since I have such an abundance this year, perhaps I'll give it another go. This little harvest I made up right away into a tincture.

I blended up the flowering tops with some rum (normally I'd use vodka, but this rum was all I had on hand today). This slurry will go into a glass jar for a couple of months, then I'll strain it and have a year's supply of tincture. St. John's wort has great anti-itch properties. A little of the oil or tincture dabbed on bites, rashes, or itchy skin gives good relief. I like to add the oil to my hand-made salves, too.

Here's the 4th of July harvest!

You can bet that I was ready to sit down and rest with a nice glass of sun tea, after all of that, but picking is only 1/3 of the job (growing:1/3; harvesting:1/3; processing:1/3). As any of you with gardens know, processing all the bounty can be lots of work. In addition to all of the above, I also made a little batch of blueberry jam (was I inspired today, or what!) This is from last year's frozen berries; I'm working on using them up before this year's harvest starts coming in. I used the hand-made currant pectin in this batch. It seems to have jelled up fine; I'll have to wait and open a jar to know for sure.

Okay, now I can rest with my tea and....spin! (more on that, later!) Meanwhile, I also want to show you some new hat ideas I've been working on. I love these two new patterns!

This one is red wool on the outside, and turquoise velour on the inside. It's kinda hard to see, but it's covered with metalic gold top-stitching. The flaps button up on the sides with matte-silver leather buttons.

This one's a velvet driving cap. It looks fantastic on. Thanks for stopping by!

Groovy Hat and Cacti

2009-06-27T23:03:00.001-07:00

I've been dying to knit up Leethal's Vortex hat ever since it appeared in Knitty's winter 08 issue. On my recent trip to California, I picked up some luscious merino roving dyed by Beesybee Fibers and quickly spun up this:

I wanted a striping yarn, so I tore off the different colored segments of the roving and spun them in long, single-colored passages. My first time spinning merino; not too bad, but I wasn't able to draft & spin as finely as I'd have liked too. And even though I felt as though I was spinning it with plenty of twist, I had to run the whole bobbin of singles through the wheel a second time, adding a bit more twist so it would ply well. By the time I chain-plied the yarn, it was, once again...bulky-weight!(Will I ever be able to spin anything else?!) The dark brown stripes are from yarn I picked up at S.C.R.A.P.

Since my yarn was heavier than what the pattern called for, I knit up the child's size, and it turned out perfectly. I love how it fits, so cozy around the ears. Rick's already been wearing it when it cools down at night. The pattern is so fun to knit, that right away I cast on to try knitting up the pointed version.

This time the change in guage didn't work out so well, and it came out rather too small. It's in the frog pond, waiting to be transformed into a pair of stripy mitts. I'll definitely be knitting up another "pointless" version for myself; this is a super fun knit and super comfy, groovy hat. And just a few more photos from the New Mexico trip. These are some little sage bundles we made out of sage growing not ten feet from my friend's front door!

We paid a visit to Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge south of Albuquerque. It's one of the country's largest migrating bird refuges. Apparently, during the spring and fall, there are millions of birds passing through here, and the sight of them taking flight at dawn is amazing. This time of year, though, there's not so much happening. We took a peek, anyway, and saw some Snowy Egrets, turtles basking on logs, a wild turkey, and a goofy Roadrunner skittling along with a huge bug in it's beak. An interesting thing I learned about this refuge, is that it is intensely managed to provide optimum food and habitat for migrating birds. Not only are various areas drained and flooded to create wetlands at certain times of the year, extensive crops such as wheat, oats, and other seed-producers are grown for the birds to feast on while they're here. We also toured one of the most interesting arboretums I've been through; a cactus arboretum!

It's difficult to see the scale, but some of these babies are huge!

There was some interesting art scattered throughout.

I was wearing flip-flops as I strolled the pathways, and some of these plants really made my exposed toes & ankles cringe!

Here I am bouncing around in the back of a pickup with the dogs, on the way to a dusk visit of a very special spring hidden in the nearby dessert, outside of Socorro.

This is me in the plaza on Museum Hill in Santa Fe.

This is a huge bronze sculpture of a Native American dance. I love how fluid and active the forms are, even though they are cast of this very hard metal.

And this is a view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, up near Tres Piedras. Mostly it's all dry & sagebrush dessert around there, but we went on what was my favorite walk of the trip, up around one of the Piedras, and this is what we saw.

Viva New Mexico

Black Sheep Gathering & A Wedding

2009-06-25T11:33:00.001-07:00

I went to the Black Sheep Gathering fiber fest in Eugene last weekend. I brought my bike with me, so I was able to park the car at a friend's house, and bike around everywhere...that was great fun! A country dweller like me doesn't get much of a chance for bicycling, these days. I so enjoyed myself, seeing all the gorgeous fibers, and especially having geeky fiber chats with just about everyone I came across. Most of my friends aren't into fiber to the extent I am, so I don't get to really "geek-out" about it too often. First off, I headed straight to my favorite bargain booth, Fantasy Fibers. They had two large bins, one of "Mystery Batts", and the other of "Natural-Colored Rovings". At $1.35 per oz., the Mystery Batts are a real deal. I was told that this year, they have lots of alpaca in them, and they are very soft.When Li'l B. saw me taking photos, she promptly wrapped herself in a batt and took a snooze. Check it out; this: Opens up to this:And this one:looks like this inside:It's kinda like eating a box of chocolates.It's my first time spinning from a batt, and I love it! All I want to do is spin and spin and spin...I'll try my hand at making some art yarns with these, experimenting with new techniques. I also came home with a lovely, bi-colored CVM (California Variegated Mutant) fleece; I'll show you later when I wash it. Between the fleece, the mystery batts, and some other oddiments, I ended up having to make two trips with the bike to haul it all! Definitely a year's supply of fiber (at least!) And, since I know you've all been dying to hear about my trip to New Mexico, I'll share a few wedding photos. Here we are, cheering on the bride. We were all friends together in Corvallis, about 23 years ago! It was great reconnecting with everyone, and we all got to stay together at a sweet little guest house in downtown Santa Fe. This is the wedding arch..it's framing a "tree" of clematis, on which guests hung colorful paper dragonflies inscribed with personal well-wishings to the couple. Aren't the wedding cakes lovely! Each was a different flavor, all very delicious...I liked the raspberry creme the best.I've been rather out of commission this week, with back issues...total drag, except that I have been able to knit! Next time I'll show you what I made, and share some more desserty photos. It's good to be back!

Off Again Already

2009-06-07T21:05:00.000-07:00

Oh my. It's time to leave again for another trip. This time it's a quickie to New Mexico for an old friend's wedding.

The past week's been a blur of mad gardening (o, my aching back!), sewing, and a bit of house cleaning (we can't have the house-sitters thinking we're total slobs). I've been thinking of you often, dear blog reader, and of all the lovely things I could be sharing with you. Alas, busy-ness has prevailed, with no spare moments for photographing or posting. *^* - Be back in a week!

Green Man Lurking

2009-06-04T21:25:00.001-07:00

I've noticed a mysterious stranger lurking amongst the plants, lately.

He seems kinda shy.

I find him rather hot.

L.B. is not impressed.

A few more things to get into the ground, or at least into larger pots. Here's a snapshot of the garden. I'm rather embarrassed, I mean, it looks so weedy. It's much more organized-appearing in real-life, I promise. You can see my potting-up station, with the wheel-barrow of freshly-mixed potting soil.

This evening was most glorious in the garden, with a thunderstorm blowing in; cool/warm, humid gusts of wind; the air full and active. I felt quite energized and was able to get quite a few things into the ground before hunger drove me indoors. Despite some cloud rumblings & a few ionic flashes, the drenching cloud-burst never quite occurred. I'll just have to keep on watering.

Safely Home

2009-05-31T22:24:00.000-07:00

I'm home.

When I arrived home at 11pm after driving for 11 hours, I stepped out of the car and inhaled; the night air was sooo spicy-fresh fragrant, smelling of growth and fertile flowers. ahhhhhh

I had a fantastic trip. Here's a couple of photos of my packed-to-the-brim car. Crazy, eh?

Yes, driving to California and back is a lot of driving. One of the things that amazed me, was that in a total of 34 hours of driving (all of the driving for the whole trip), just about all of it was through stunningly gorgeous scenery. Really. Southern Oregon mountain passes, redwoods, N. California coast, San Fransisco Bay; I'm so blessed to be living in such a beautiful part of the world. The N. California Women's Herbal Symposium was excellent, as always. This was my first year going for both of the spring weekends. I eagerly soaked it all in; connecting with some fine folks, adding to my knowledge of herbal & health ways; camping near a burbling creek, breathing wafts of bay-scented breeze. The Herbal Symposium is truly an amazing event. Fully organized, funded, and consisting of all women. Many women. Sad that something of this nature is considered amazing or even revolutionary, in our current society, but that's the way the world is, right now. Being in that space, with all those women and kids, feels so sacred, and safe. It's a huge safety zone, for four days, where there is no harassment, no judgment. It's so affirming to see how every woman blooms into a beautiful goddess in an environment like that. Teri and Karen are doing some amazing work, keeping it all going. It has such a positive impact on so many women's lives. Here are a couple of snapshots of my vending set-up at Sunday's Marketplace.

The new display case worked fantastically, drawing kids and adults in continuously to fondle all the colorful goods. The cute bunnies & creatures I made sold right away. Everyone was sooo happy with their new cuddly bunnies! Selling in person is so much more fun than selling on-line.

Here is some of the loot that I came home with. Most of it I got in trades, but I did buy a few things.Seeds from the seed swap; fancy homebrew I won in the raffle; some of Jen's special healing homebrews, Swedish bitters, tooth soap, home-cured olives (!!!); fresh, raw almonds from a local family orchard, herbal sachet, salve, lavender bath salts, one of Joan's lovely blue-moon mugs, Wild Women coffee, a gorgeous hand-made basket, 3 kinds of seaweed, needlefelted doll, hand-dyed roving for spinning, beeswax candles, and kid-designed notecards. Kinda like Christmas!In-between weekends, I visited some good, old friends in the Bay Area. It was sweet to connect with them. I really enjoyed that I came to the city to visit my urban friends, and both of them took me for walks on the beach! I drove back up the coast from San Fransisco on Hwy. 1. The most lovely scenery you could imagine, but oh my is that a twisty, windy road! Most of it is a wriggling snake. I'm glad I wasn't in a hurry. I made a bakery stop in Pt. Reyes, buying possibly the most decadent item they had. Something about long road trips compels me to eat extreme food. While strolling the street and noshing my chocolate-peanut butter-bar, I ducked into an interesting-looking fibery shop. Feeling flush with the fine day, and wanting to reward myself for being such an alert driver, I bought this hand-dyed roving from BeesyBee Fibers I do so enjoy dyeing my own fiber, but occasionally I'll treat myself to someone else's work. I love these colors.

As you can see, I didn't wait long to start spinning it up! I'm separating out the different bands of color and spinning it up into long runs of color to make a self-striping yarn. It's my first time spinning merino, and as long as I inch-worm the drafting, it spins great. I'll show you the yarn when it's all finished.

Meanwhile, much goings on at the farm while I was away. So much growth. Including this eucalyptus sprouting from the root! We thought it was dead, from the extreme freezing of our past winter. And now, we are having temperatures that are hovering around 15 deg. F warmer than what is "normal" for this time of year. While the summer weather is nice, it's putting a damper (or should I say "heater"?) on the gardening activities. We have flats of starts all ready to go in the ground, but planting those babies out now really stresses the plants. The hot weather is continuing on, though, so we're doing the best we can, working during the cooler hours of the day. We'll just have to see who makes it and who doesn't. Here's a photo of yesterday's lunch & dinner. You can see that the Napa cabbage is beginning to flower. During a good year, the Napas form large, succulent heads lasting in the garden for several weeks. Delicious raw or in a stir-fry, and perfect for making home-grown kim-chee. Doesn't look like this year is a good Napa year, as the heat is causing them to bolt before they've formed heads. The other stalky things are the young flower stalks of the Burdock plant. I peeled them, chunked 'em up, par-boiled, then added to last night's curry. Not too bad!

I'm happy to be back, dear blog reader; thanks for stopping by. Now I must get out to the garden before the sun bakes too hot. See you again soon!

Off to California

2009-05-13T22:54:00.001-07:00

I'm off to the Northern California Women's Herbal Symposium. The car's all loaded up, the cooler full of freshly made rice-balls;ready for the 10-hr. drive south. Don't worry, gentle blog reader; I'm not abandoning you for good! I'll be back towards the end of May. Stay tuned for more bloggy goodness coming up; the adventure never ends.

New Display Case! & Cutness

2009-05-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

I have to show off my new display case. Rick's such a sweetheart to have made if for me. Isn't it the best? It turned out so nice, especially considering he used a handsaw to cut all the pieces! I want to paint the outside up real swanky-like. I'll be using it for vending at shows and doing trunk shows. I can't wait to put it into action.

Come on in!Pincushions Hot-Water-Bottle-Cozies I've had a serious attack of the "cutes", lately. I can't stop making them! This one is crochet from some funky hand-spun, felted, and stuffed. I've several more of these in progress; I'm really enjoying exploring this technique. Traveling chopstick cases. Yup. I've been busy.

I also wanted to show you these fancy hot-water-bottle-cozies I just made. They are a custom order through Etsy. All cashmere. Super-luxury. I'd better send them off, quick, before I decide to keep them for myself! Now it's back to the sweat shop. I'm keeping my nose to the grind-stone for three more days, then I'll get everything organized, labeled, and packed, ready to head south for the Herbal Symposium.

Placemats, Sheet-mulching, Knitting

2009-05-03T09:25:00.001-07:00

There has been a flurry of creative activity and gardening going on around here, but I haven't been pausing often enough to take photos. I want to keep in touch with all you faithful visitors, though, so I'll share some moments from the recent past. I'm in love with this "sewing-tiny-wool-scraps-onto-a-backing" technique, and have been playing around with different ways to use it. We've been testing these placemats out. They are luxurious, lovely placemats; they make me want to just rest my head down on them while I'm eating! When I washed them, the triangle edging became frayed and warbly; not sure if these wool placemats would hold up to repeated washings. So I probably won't go into production making them to sell, even though they are fine, wonderful objects. Here's a photo of Rick with his sheet-mulching demonstration. He set it up in the permaculture booth at the recent Yard, Garden, and Patio Show in Portland. We're sheet-mulching enthusiasts, with all of our veggie-garden beds being sheet-mulched, and more, besides. And here's some knitting. I blasted through this cabled vest; it's my first time doing cables. I revised the pattern to knit it all in one piece, so no sewing up at the end. The only thing I didn't like about that method is that when I'd notice a mistake in the cable pattern a row or two back, to fix it would require ripping out the rows across the entire vest! Being the lazy sort, I mostly left in the mistakes. After all, it's my first cable project, and when I wear it, the general public won't even notice those lumpy spots. Next time I'll be a better cable-knitter! Now I'm at the finishing up part, which involves knitting I-cord around the entire vest. For some reason I haven't been able to get myself motivated to get going on that part, so it's been languishing in the ufo pile. I guess I'm a little worried that after all this knitting, I won't the way it looks on me, so I'm postponing that moment. Look for upcoming posts of the latest creations & garden growings! Happy spring weekend to you all.

Good Morning

2009-04-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

This is the view from the bed when I open my eyes in the morning.

New Slippers

2009-04-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

Well, my old slippers finally wore out. I suppose I could mend them, but I've been wanting to knit myself a pair of those felted clog slippers for awhile and this is the perfect excuse. I dug around in my stash, and found this yarn dyed with last year's natural dye experiments. At that time I was dyeing whatever fiber I could get my hands on; unraveling sweaters, buying inexpensive balls of Lion Brand wool or Paton's.I figured I'd take a chance and knit up the slippers with some of this yarn and hope they felted well. (Lazy me, didn't want to take the time to do a test run). Since the pattern calls for holding the yarn double, I chose to hold two differently colored strands together. I love the heathered effect; the colors seem richer and more interesting to me, blended this way. The colors I chose were dyed with indigo, hops, Oregon grape root, hemlock bark, logwood, and the red was dyed with koolaid. I used the classic Fibertrends Felted Clogs pattern. This is an interesting pattern to knit; never a dull moment; completely trusting the designer to deliver me through this series of mysterious stitches to a completed slipper.Then trusting that it will shrink to fit! Wah-La!I love them so much, I could barely bare to remove them for this photo-shoot. Of course, one turned out slightly larger than the other. I think that I knit the 2nd one rather tighter than the first.I can tell that even though they are double knit on the soles, they'll wear through fairly soon, so I want to sew on a sturdy piece of felted blanket to the bottom, and add a soft piece of felt to the inside. So far I haven't been able to take them off long enough to do so; I hope I don't wear them through before I get around to it!I've read that some folks paint the bottoms with a rubbery substance to make them slip-proof or even moisture resistant for quick trips outside. I may just have to make another pair to try that out. Hmmmm...hey Rick, need a new pair of slippers?

Machine Washing the Fleece

2009-04-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

The last time I visited Eugene, I scored a couple of fleeces at an estate sale. There was a huge pile of them in the barn. The nice old guy in charge of selling barn stuff said I could have my pick

at $15.00 each. I was pretty excited. There were no clues as to when they were sheared or what type of sheep they were from. Some of them had won prizes at a county fair. I chose the two cleanest-looking ones. I was trying to be realistic as to whether or not I'd actually get around to processing the wool; I figured two fleeces would be do-able. (I'm still a newbie when it comes to raw fleece). So this week has become fleece-washing week. Luckily they've been skirted already. When I dumped the first one out, it had rather more vegetable matter than I'd first thought. I think that in the world of VM, it's not so much, but to someone used to working with pristine, store-bought rovings, any vegetable matter seems like a lot! It took me awhile to sort out the wool into piles of cleaner and less clean. (The idea being that I'd wash them separately) I'd done some research, and figured that washing the wool in the washing machine was the way to go. I used Dawn dish soap, hot water, and a series of 15 minute soaks, spinning out the water in between each. No agitation!I was amazed at how white the wool became! You can see the difference here, between the yellowish unwashed wool, and the whiter, washed stuff.I spread it out to dry on a sheet on the deck. I had to keep going out and fluffing & turning it, just to feel it's soft squooshiness! Now I have bags and bags of clean wool ready to play with. Just in time for dyeing season...I'll be able to try out as many dye plants as I'm able too! And I can try some wet felting, too. It seems like an infinite amount of wool, but I have a feeling that I'll go through it pretty quickly. I wasn't sure how great it would be for spinning, as the staple length is only a couple of inches. But a quickie trial at the wheel proved it to be quite nice to spin; I think that if I spend more time prepping it, it will spin up pretty well.For now, this thick-n-lumpy single is perfect for my current project. Crocheting these creatures, which will be felted and stuffed. The lumpier the better! All in all, I'm pretty happy about this new wool. I'm still not so crazy about the little bits of organic material in it. What do folks do about that? I can't imagine picking it all out! I look forward to obtaining more raw wool, now that I know how easy it is to wash it.

Snarflie had a Baby

2009-04-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, methinks going-ons are happening in the studio behind my back whilst I'm napping....

Hats and More Hats

2009-04-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with hat designs (here modeled by the lovely and talented Luna).

Hats are so fun to sell in person that I haven't put any in my shop, yet.I'm building up inventory for a couple of events this summer: the Northern California Women's Herbal Symposium, in May, and the Oregon Country Fair, in July. I love selling my hats; it's so fun watching folks try them on; some people really get into it and try them all! Each of my hats is one-of-a-kind, and there's always a perfect person for each hat. I can see it the moment they put it on their head. Perfect.

Another Day in the Studio

2009-04-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a good day for finishing up odds-n-ends in the studio.

Sewing in labels:

Sewing on eyes:

Sewing in a hat band:

Swatching: Waiting in line: And drying dandylion root. At dusk, Rick and I fired up the newly scrubbed clean sauna for our first sweat of the spring. Ahhhhhh.

Felted and Stuffed: Snarflie

2009-04-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

I'm so inspired!I made this crazy creature by crocheting some handspun yarn into a lumpy skin, felting it in the washing machine, and then stuffing it.I'm in love! I was very happy to stuff it full of tiny bits of fabric scraps. I don't know which was more exciting; watching Snarflie's body take shape, or finding a use for the tiniest of scraps.As you can see, the eyes and ears are just pinned on, but I think they look pretty good, and I'll sew them on where they are.The inspiration for this technique came from Lexi Boeger's book Intertwined. She has a great description of creating what she calls Nozzlers. Here is the first one I made. Random crocheting with random yarns created an evocative, somewhat abstract form. I wanted to try for something a bit more recognizable, but still having random elements. Most of it is made from fat, lumpy singles I quickly spun up and crocheted with right off the bobbin, plus some random bits of handspun from the stash. What fun! I have ideas for many more...I hope they hatch soon.

spring woad

2009-04-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

I've only been seriously experimenting with natural dyes for one year, so I haven't yet had a chance to grow too many of my own plants. One dye plant I do have in the garden that I'm really digging, is woad. Last spring some seeds were gifted to me; I got them started, and found space at the end of the veggie plot to tuck in about 15 plants. I did two harvests, the first giving me 6 1/2 lbs. of leaves, and the second 2 1/2 lbs. That was plenty of material to play around with and get to know Woad a bit. I left the plants to overwinter, hoping to get some seed this year. Well, I was amazed at how these little plants fared during our "coldest-ever-winter"! They stayed green and perky all winter, when all around, the ground was covered with frozen ice for weeks on end; all the winter kales died, our three eucalyptus trees died, and, oh, so much other damage to plants. And here's Woad, ready to meet the new year without so much as a withered leaf. Seeing that the leaves are moving towards an upright position, getting ready to send up that flower stalk, I cut all the leaves except for two plants, which will flower and give me seed for next year. Not having time to fiddle with doing a blue dye bath, I merely boiled up the leaves, added alum-mordanted roving, and simmered for 45 minutes. You can see the lovely red of the liquid; hard to believe that color comes from those green leaves! The wool comes out a salmony-tan color. It will be interesting to over-dye some of it. That nice yellow is from fresh, unopened, spring catkins of birch and alder trees. They smell heavenly when being boiled; like balsam incense. This is a photo of one of our gardens. The woad is at the far end (you can't really see it). The walking onions are coming up in the foreground; the straw-mulched area has shallots and garlic, and on the right are peas (not up yet). I'll leave you with a picture of something from the studio. Happy pollinating!

The Tastiest Nettles Ever

2009-04-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

I harvested my first batch of nettles for drying yesterday. I picked about one large paper shopping bag full. This time I used gloves for picking. In the past, I've enjoyed picking nettles bare-handed. Picking nettles by hand with no gloves is a very meditative process. Each pinching of leaves must be done with precision, intension, and breath. Sure, at the end of the picking session, the finger-tips are stained green for several days; tingles & numbness do occur, but very little painful stinging goes on. I figure that the tingles & numbness (urtication), are healing in some way. Yesterday, though, I was intent on gathering many nettles fairly quickly, so I wore gloves. Nettle still got my attention, though, even through the gloves! She is a very sociable weed; "Notice Me! Notice Me!" she says. I did notice her, and followed her beckoning, green trail down the hill, through the woods, and into the dappled sun-light on a gentle slope next to Beaver's creek, where the largest, strongest nettles were growing. I'll dry this harvest for using all year. We love adding dried nettles to our soups, or sprinkling the powdered, dried greens over food. Especially good is a sprinkle made with equal parts dried, powdered nettle, and dried, toasted, powdered nori seaweed. Yumm. Nettle is a green super-food, free for the taking. She's very high in calcium, magnesium, trace minerals, and chlorophyll, as well as a host of other minerals and vitamins, including the B's; high in protein, vitamins C and D, and is good for nearly whatever ails you. She's famous for nourishing hair and skin, and I've noticed this spring, just since I've been eating nettles several times a week, that my nails have become quite hard. Nettles taste rich and wild, and can be used in any recipe that you'd use greens (such as kale or spinach) in. Once cooked, they loose their sting. If you'd prefer them raw, they make a fine pesto, ground up in the food processor with the usual pesto ingredients. I use wooden tongs to handle nettles in the kitchen. They work splendidly, and I can trim, chop, and move about heaps of nettles with no worries to getting stung.One of my favorite farm lunches (quick, tasty, and satisfying), is Greens on Toast. Here's how I made it this week; Roughly chop a mix of currently growing greens. I used beet-green thinnings, dandylion greens, and nettles. Saute some sliced leek. When it's soft, add a bit of garlic, salt or tamari, and generous pinch of smoked paprika (get the good stuff...it's so worth it! a little goes a long way). Then add your greens. My 8" skillet packed full will cook down to enough to cover one piece of toast. Use more than you think you'll need; they reduce a lot. Stir it all up, add a splash of stock or water, and cover. Let it simmer on med-low while you prepare the toast. I use rye bread. This time I made it fancy by melting some goat cheese on the toast and adding some sliced avocado, but it's still darn good with just greens on toast & no extras. When the greens are all cooked down, dark green, and soft, remove the lid and let any extra liquid boil off. Using tongs, place the greens on the toast. Drizzle with just a few drips of balsamic vinegar. Oh my. When I cooked up my greens this way, they were butter-soft, umptious, savory...wow, really delicious. Especially after a winter of eating greens and veggies imported from California. This concoction is also good with a fried or poached egg (fresh from the duck, of course!) slipped in between the toast and the greens. Writing this makes me want to go whip up some greens on toast for breakfast!

Handmade Yarn

2009-04-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to share this with you; I can't believe it, but I just finished dyeing and spinning this huge pile of yarn. It's a generous three pounds, about 2,000 yards! I figure that's enough to knit just about anything I want to. It all started with the natural dyeing. I began to explore it about a year ago. Now that I'm living out in the country, there are sooo many sources of natural dyes, free for the gathering or growing. At first I was unraveling thrift-store sweaters to supply yarn for my ever expanding dyeing habit. Then I got turned on to spinning, and my muses danced for joy at the endless possibilities of color-making. Oh my! On thing lead to another, and last summer found me dyeing up pounds of BFL and Corriedale roving, along with some silk fiber. I found many shades of yellow, brown, and beige, experimenting with plants found around the farm. Then I got an indigo vat going, and over-dyed it all, to create all these shades of blue, green, and teal. To make the yarn, I combined three strands of drafted fiber, two of different colored wool, and one of silk. Drafted some more, and spun it all up. I love how the skeins look similar, but are extremely variegated. It reminds me of sun-light reflecting off of a forest creek. One thing I learned, is to handle the fiber oh-so-carefully when dyeing. I had some minor felting in my rovings, and it's not so fun to spin slightly felted fiber! I think the indigo vat was partially the culprit; placing the fiber in and out of the vat, which is quite warm, requires a certain amount of handling. Then it required a lot of rinsing, (more handling). Anyway, this year, I'm figuring out ways to reduce the handling of wet fiber while I'm dyeing and rinsing. I'm going to obsess over keeping the fiber felt-free.I'm planning on knitting up a poncho out of this flickering sun-dappled creek yarn. I've been so excited about this project, that I've continued to move forward with it, all these months. I'm still excited about it, so I think the knitting will happen soon!

First Spring Sun Tea

2009-04-06T15:57:00.001-07:00

Today it is sunny enough to make sun tea! Yay. I may not have even thought of it, but our well water is tasting strange today, and I was sooo thirsty.I decided it was a great opportunity to use up some of last year's dried herbs. Does anyone else have the problem of working so hard to "put up" the harvest in various ways, only to find years-old jars of pickles languishing in the larder, or old, ice-encrusted bags of berries hidden in the corner of the freezer? Don't get me wrong; a high-light of my life is being able to eat food I've grown and processed all year 'round. Sometimes it's just hard to know how much to put up, or I just get tired of playing with my food. Sure I could whip up some dynamite mead out of all those old frozen berries, but it just gets to be too much, sometimes. I am constantly amazed at the abundance I live with and am surrounded by in my North American culture. It doesn't seem fair. In the meantime, I'll work on using up those 2008 dried herbs, before they get too dry and musty. This batch of tea got yerba buena, mint, oats, skullcap, stevia, a beebalm flower, lemon grass, and roasted chicory. All grown here on the farm, except for the chicory, which I like to add to give the tea some body. There is wild chicory growing everywhere out here, and once I did trundle all over with bucket and spade, digging up whatever roots would hand themselves over to me. I roasted it up and ground it, and my oh my, was that the bitterest brew I ever did taste! Undrinkable! Perhaps I should try again, at another time of year? I'd love to be able to harvest my own chicory! The lemon grass I used was fresh! Yes! I actually overwintered the pot of lemon grass in the house this year. She tolerates no freeze, or even near-to-freezing temperatures, so past half-hearted attempts at overwintering in the unheated greenhouse have failed. This plant happily sat out the winter in the house on the floor, next to the glass door. She got a little grumpy during bouts of super-cold weather (no doubt feeling that draft through the glass), but she's looking good. I won't put her outside until late in May. The tea is quite tasty; it only took a few hours to brew in the strong spring sun. Just a few leaves of stevia give it a slight sweet edge. I'm hoping the skullcap and oats will help Rick a bit with his allergies. The next batch will get nettles, too.Here's to ice-cold home-grown tea and sunny days!

Spring Greens,Polenta, & A Dress

2009-04-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist showing you a picture of what I found in the garden for last night's dinner. Isn't it beautiful? Despite my whining about the chilly weather, spring is definitely here. The lettuce, beet greens, and kale all overwintered under cloches. Now that the plastic is off, they are vibrant, green, and growing. The corn salad, chervil, and a few tiny arugula leaves are from the salad bed in the greenhouse. The fennel, dandelion greens, and nettles are growing at large here and there around the farm. Mmmmm. Fresh food at last! I made a little salad of the lettuce and corn salad, and cooked up all the other greens (about a pound's worth) into this polenta dish. I've never been that intrigued with polenta in the past, finding it a lot of work for a gooey mass of corn mush, and I'd always splash a bit of the boiling hot goo on my hand and get burned. I recently discovered a recipe for no-stir polenta, cooked in the oven. All you do is put water and dry polenta into an oiled pan, and pop it into the oven for about an hour. Stirring in a dollop of caramelized onion (I have some stashed in the freezer) part way through the cooking enriches and flavors the polenta, without the need for adding cheese. While the polenta was cooking, I went out and gathered all my greens. After roughly chopping them, I steam-saute'd them with some olive oil, a whole garlic clove, and a dash of smoked sweet paprika. Then I layered up the cooked polenta with the cooked greens, sprinkled goat cheese on top, and heated it in the oven another 10 minutes.The result is so delicious, this is the third time I've made it in about two weeks! It's a great way to eat a LOT of greens, and the nettles and other wild greens are so tasty. It is rich and satisfying without being heavy. Thanks to this most excellent cookbook I came across at the library, Mediterranean Grains and Greens, by Paula Wolfert. And just to show you that there has been some sewing going on around here, some pics of a dress I just made.The top part was a t-shirt I repurposed. The middle part was made with the bleach stencil method. Last year I did a bunch of bleach-stenciling on fabric; now I'm incorporating the images into different projects. I'll likely be posting less frequently during the upcoming weeks. I'll be going to the Northern California Women's Herbal Symposium in mid-May, and have mucho work to do before then, both sewing and in the garden. Any of you women who are interested in herbs and natural healing, I highly recommend the Herbal Symposium. It's an all-women event, four days camping in Northern California with delicious food and teas, excellent, high quality workshops, and wonderful folks. It's reasonably priced, with great work-exchange opportunities. I'd love to see you there!

The Garden Begins & Homemade Amazake

2009-03-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

I've been busy in the greenhouse.Look how they're all coming up! Mmmm...future delicious food.I've started medicinal & culinary herbs, dye plants, salad fixin's, brassicas, some flowers. I've been using this nifty little almanac from Ed Hume. It's available from their website, or at stores selling Ed Hume seeds. We used it last year and really liked it. It gives day-by-day suggestions, according to lunar and astrological cues, for the best times for planting, weeding, fertilizing, harvesting, and much more. I've found it to be especially helpful when I'm feeling overwhelmed with garden tasks, or not sure what to do next; I let the suggestions in the almanac decide for me. I've been looking through the upcoming weeks and making notes in my daily planner as to what gardening tasks to do on which days. So far, so good! Recently I made some amazake. A delicious, naturally sweet beverage made with organic sweet brown rice and koji. Koji is a culture (Aspergillus oryzae) used to ferment the rice. It's quite easy to make amazake at home, the only trick being to keep the fermenting rice at a consistent 120 deg. for about ten hours. I have a box food dehydrator with an adjustable thermostat that works great, but it could also be kept warm with a heating pad, or on a radiator. The recipe I use yields about three quarts of amazake. Usually I freeze about half of it for future use. Last year I made some pretty tasty "ice cream" out of it. It can be used as a sweetener in baking; my favorite recipe is coconut macaroons with chocolate chips. And of course, it's so delicious to drink. I like to blend some up with cocoa powder, vanilla, maca, and a dab of almond butter. Wow, what an awesome treat. I'm working on getting together a system for getting good photos in the (dimly lit) kitchen. Then I'll be able to make some more detailed food posts with recipes & how-to's. Until next time, Happy Spring!

Sleeve Dyeing

2009-03-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Ever since Lee Meredith made this post about her experimental sleeve dyeing with food dyes, I've been wanting to try it. I finally found an appropriate sweater (anyone else noticing how it's becoming more difficult to find decent, recycle-able sweaters in thrift stores these days?), a smallish turtle neck knit of bulky angora/wool/nylon in a tweedy pale blue/white. I diligently recorded the entire process with photos, but mysteriously, when I went to put together this post, all the photos of this project had disappeared from my photo library without a trace! O, the puzzle of those 1's & 0's. Well, my photos pretty much echoed those of Lee's, so if you click over to her posting, you can see what the process looks like. It was an adventure, for sure.Basically the process involves disassembling a sweater into its parts (sleeves, front, back), soaking in vinegar water, and pouring different colors of food color/koolaid solutions over the sweater pieces. I did this on the floor, which was not too comfortable for the old bones. Next time I'll set up a card table outside so I can stand. I think the paste food colors are the economical way to go, but they are difficult to dissolve. Next time I do this, I'll mix up a stock solution of each primary color using my Magic Bullet mini blender and warm water. That should quickly dissolve them, then I can use these primaries to mix up the colors I want to use. After applying the dye and wrapping the sweater pieces in plastic wrap, they are heated (I used my steam canner) to set the dye; cooled, rinsed, dried, and the pieces unraveled into yarn.The resulting yarn is a lovely, mottled variegation of colors. It will be fun to knit up; I only have to decide what groovy thing to make!

Knitted Rug Finished

2009-03-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

For someone who doesn't really consider herself much of a knitter, there sure has been a lot of knitting going on around here, lately!Some of you may remember an earlier post about this scrappy, knitted rug. I finished it, and we love it. Shortly after cast I off and laid it out on the floor in its new home in front of the wood stove, Rick stretched out on it to test it out, and promptly fell asleep! I guess it passed the test. Li'l B likes it, too.I've been liking the moss stitch these days, and I think it works well in this rug. The edges don't curl, and the texture is thick and springy. Really soft and comfy. It's funny, 'cause I wanted to try knitting a rag rug rather than crochet (which I've done several of). I thought I might like the knitted texture better than the crochet. Then I choose the moss stitch, and the finished rug does look rather crocheted! Actually, it's not as "holey" as crochet would have been.Thanks, S.C.R.A.P.

My First Knitted Garment

2009-03-15T10:08:00.001-07:00

I'm so excited to finally share this with you! Yay...I finished my first knitted garment.One exciting thing about it is that the main yarn is some chunky wool I frogged from a thrift-store sweater (it was a huge sweater with cables; I still have several balls of yarn left over!). I dyed it using eucalyptus leaves, which gave some lovely orange tones. The yarn still caries a faint whiff of eucalypt, which I love.Unfortunately, when I dyed the yarn, I overboiled it, which harshened the fiber, leaving it somewhat scratchier than it was before. I found some mohair odds-n-ends in my stash, and decided to carry along a strand of mohair with the main yarn to soften it a bit. I randomly changed colors of mohair. I'm so happy with the resultant fabric. The changing colors have a kind of water-color quality, and almost glow. Sunset. The pattern is a Floor-Length Vest from the Fall '00 issue of Vogue Knitting. The only mod. I made was to shorten it. It was a straight-forward simple knit, all in st. stitch with garter-stitch edges. Since it was my first garment, however, it all unfolded mysteriously as I knit along.I came to a snafu when it was time to sew up the side seams. Oh no...the fronts were four inches longer than the backs! How did that happen?!?!?! Arrg. Onto the floor in the ufo pile for several weeks. Finally I got to work on shortening the fronts, made slightly more complicated by the fact that the carefully knit-in pockets were right in the way. I ended up cutting off the too-long part and re-knitting the edging. Not such a big deal when I sat down and did it. Lesson learned; next time I'll work the fronts and back in one piece if possible. Left the pockets off for now. I think the garment would be more usable with pockets, but frankly, I'm kinda over working on this thing. I would like to install a two-way zipper in the front.The reason Rick is modeling the vest is because it fits him so well and looks great on his body-type. Tall and thin. Not me. As gorgeous as it turned out, it is not at all flattering on me. (nothing like trying on yer hand-knit garments for a reality-check as to body shape!) I'll likely end up selling it. One of the reasons I've been slow to take up knitting is that I can never really know how a knitted garment will fit or look on me until it's very nearly finished. So it's a ton of work to make something and then have it not work out. I suppose that as I gain more experience with my knitting, I'll have a better idea as to what styles and types of yarn will work for me. Right now I have another vest, cabled and very nearly finished, on the needles. I'm a little nervous about how it will look, but we'll see soon enough!

Body Parts

2009-03-14T20:08:00.001-07:00

Let's Felt a Cat Toy!

2009-03-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Li'l B loves to chase a ball (when she's in the mood, anyway). She especially likes the balls that make a sound. Since she chases, but doesn't yet understand the concept of "fetch", I've made her lots of balls (less chasing for me). Here's one way: You'll need wool fleece or roving, jingly bells, nylon stocking. First, put a handful of fleece in your hand. Place a couple of bells on the fleece. Then place more fleece on top of the bells. Wrap some more fleece around it all, forming sort of a ball and compressing it with your hands. I usually save the pretty, colorful wool for the outer layer. Sometimes, at this point, I'll wrap some wool yarn around the ball, to sort of hold it together. I like to leave a short length of yarn dangling; it will felt up and make a nice tail to hold the ball by. When you've got enough wool squooshed together, hold it tight in your hand and slide it into the toe of a nylon stocking. Tie a knot, enclosing the wool in the nylon. You can make several at once, just keep stuffing the wool in and tying knots in between. At this point, you can either felt it by hand or in the machine. I usually opt for the machine; just toss it in with a load of laundry. To felt by hand, stand at the sink with a bowl of hot water. Dip the wool ball in the water, squirt a small amount of soap on the ball, and start to knead and squeeze it, dipping in the hot water occasionally. Continue to rub and agitate the ball until it is felted the way you'd like it to be. This may take some time to get the ball nice and firm.When your ball is all felted, use sharp scissors to snip and peel away the nylon. If your kitty enjoys catnip, you could do a final soak of the ball in a strong batch of catnip tea, then let it dry. I like to put some dried catnip in a paper bag, place the balls in the bag, and let them infuse with the catnip for a few days. Our favorite family game is me at one end of the house, Rick at the other end, and Li'l B in the middle. We humans take turns bouncing or rolling the balls past the cat, while she jumps, chases, hides, and finally stretches out on the floor to take a nap.

Music to Spin By

2009-03-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

I recently came across this gem at the library : The Rough Guide to the Music of Kenya. This CD contains a great overview of contemporary Kenyan music such as roots benga, rumba, coastal taarab, and urban rab. Sounds intriguing, no?High-energy benga, with its pulsing beat, great bass-lines, and funky, interlocking guitar riffs, puts me in mind of Congolese Soukous. Infectious, booty-shaking rhythms. Really, there is no sitting still when this music is playing! Which makes it perfect for spinning. Treadle to that beat; watch that bobbin fly. Twice through the CD gets me a bobbin-full, happy all the time. I'd highly recommend this CD to the lover of African music, or to someone who just wants to check out a new flavor of hip-shaking goodness. And if you're not in a spinning mood, then slip off your shoes, pop in this CD, blend up a batch of papaya margaritas, and do a barefoot boogaloo in the kitchen with your sweetie. As to what I'm spinning? Well, you'll just have to stay tuned!

Knitting Needle Case

2009-03-06T09:09:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to organize, I whipped up this groovy case to hold my double pointed needles.I'll show you lots of detailed photos, in case you'd like to make one for yourself.First I did some calculating and figured out the measurements. Since I wanted to be able to store all my dpns together, I made mine 18" long by 13" high. That's big enough to fit a set of needles in each size up to 13s, with a nice flap for folding over. I think it would also be nice to make a smaller one, holding fewer needles, for a more portable case.I used blue corduroy for the outside, and an Indonesian batik print for the inside. I cut a piece of each fabric to my measurements, and sewed them together by serging around the outside. I appliqued the meandering purple lines on the outside by zig-zag stitching on thin strips of stretched cotton knit.For the needle pocket, I cut a piece of each fabric measuring 17" long by 5.5" high. I fastened the fabrics together by serging around the outer edges. If I were using a heavier fabric, I would just make the pocket of a single layer. Next I sewed on the applique (the image with the people) by zig-zagging around it. Then I sewed on the purple lines, and then the strip of tan fabric for writing the numbers on.I attached the needle pocket by stitching around three sides, leaving the top open. Then I stitched the channels for holding the needles. (fun!) I made the channels on the left smaller, to hold smaller needles; the channels get larger as they go to the right. The smallest ones are about 3/4" wide, and the largest are 2" wide.I wrote the numbers on with a permanent marker after I stitched the pockets. I wasn't able to put numbers on the smaller pockets because the applique was in the way. I really like the way that image looks, though, so I just left the numbers off. Next time I make one, I'll remember to embellish in a way that leaves space to number all the pockets.To finish, I stitched a tie onto one outside edge; another thin strip of stretched cotton knit. (when you cut a thin strip and stretch it, it forms a kind of cord).This needle case works great, and whenever I'm starting a knitting project, it's luxurious to just grab this roll and have all the dpns together in one place, nicely organized.If anyone is inspired to make their own case, I'd love to see pictures!

felt vessels

2009-03-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to share these felt vessels ever since I finished them earlier this winter.The yarn is recycled from a thrift store sweater. All the colors were achieved using natural dyes from plants I grew or gathered myself.The pink is from a mushroom called Western Red Dye (Dermocybe phoenicea). These mushrooms are hard to come by (at least for me!), so I wasn't able to dye much pink.The yellows are from another mushroom called Dyer's Polypore (Phaeolus schweinitzii). This mushroom gives a lot of dye, so I was able to dye quite a bit of yellow fiber (way more than what I used for this project).The green is from a plant called Red Shiso, or Perilla. It's an edible herb that looks somewhat like basil and is used in Japanese cuisine. Very easy to grow. When I dyed the fiber, it at first was an interesting greyish lavender. But after felting, the ph of the soap changed the color to this lovely mossy green. I'm not sure if you can see it in the photos, but the green has a bit of a purplish haze to it.The pale orange (in the stripe above and in the fringed bowl), and also the blue, are both from the woad plant. Woad is commonly used to get blue. You have to use a special process to get the blue from woad leaves. Interestingly, when the leaves are merely boiled, they give a pale orange color. I like this plant, because I can get at least two very different colors from it. It's easy to grow, too! I used alum as a mordant for all the dyes except the woad blue.I used the patterns in Cat Bordhi's Second Treasury of Magical Knitting. Ever since I made my first knitted and fulled bowl, I've been wanting to play around with her patterns. The patterns are playfully written, and fairly easy to follow.I love how these came out! I think they are a nice showcase for the naturally dyed yarns. I use them in my display at craft shows, to hold smaller items for sale.As usual, I hope to make more of these!Until next time, explore!