What's brewing at the farm...

Happy Spring! Early May brought some glorious happenings at the farm. Our planting efforts in the fall have paid off!

Garlic was up in late March and continued to grow strongly through May (the green growth in the foreground.) Behind the garlic, you can barely glimpse the low, blue grape hyacinth that was a big hit at the Boston Wholesale Market. And just behind them are the purple alliums that remind me of grape blow pops! They smell divine.

We also hailed the arrival of over 40 baby chicks in April. I ordered mostly laying hens: Rhode Island Reds, Black Australorps, and Aracaunas. The Aracaunas are the chickens that lay the green and blue eggs. Looking forward to that! I also ordered a handful of beautiful bantams that i spied at the Topsfield Fair last year: Silver Seabrights, a Mille Fleur, and some red Old English Bantams. They have been a lot of fun to watch grow.

My stash revealed.

Yes, I am a little mortified. It's been hiding in three cabinets in the hallway. As I don't live in the hallway, I have been happily ignoring the growing stash of yarn that has existed there for the past three or four years.

My stash has told me a few things about me:

1. My taste is not as stellar as I thought. Evidence: the oh so soft but furry red and orange yarn in the upper right corner. (what was I thinking?)

2. I am a slow learner. I have many ones and twos of skeins that I bought early in my knitting career (8 plus years ago.) We all know you can't make much with one or two skeins. I am assuming I bought the one-sies and two-sies just because I liked the yarn, with no real plan in mind for them. Jeez.

3. I like a bargain. With many trips over the year to craft stores like Michael's for various other needs, like art supplies, I could never resist a trip down the yarn aisle. Thus, the handful of synthetic type yarns. I also went through this phase of :oh, I'm gonna make a huge blanket and therefore will need a lot of inexpensive skeins. I'll buy three skeins to start and then head back for the other 83.

I think my favorite bargain in the group is the black cotton bagged skeins that reads: "Factory Mill Ends." But hey, it's black cotton. I can figure out something to knit with that, right?

For all you fellow stashers out there, I hope this is somewhat comforting? And hey, if you see any of the onesies, twosies, or threesies here that you are interested in, please contact me. My next move is to cull this pile. I'd like to get rid of about a quarter of this.

Lastly, I'll share a little of the chaos going on in our apartment right now...I am nursing a chicken's legs back to health after a nasty bout with scaley leg mites. She doesn't want her cage and insists on living in the bathroom. The cats have abandonned their beds and now take turns sleeping in the hay of the chicken bed or the lobster trap that one of the neighborhood kids built for us. (Doesn't everyone need a lobster trap? huh?) And our bulldog has stolen the couch. Good thing I don't need to sit down today, as it will take me forever to put back this stash.

you can see the herringbone pattern, right?

Alas, I have completed what I thought would be a pretty basic purse, knit in a herringbone pattern. The pattern came from the book: Knitting Little Luxuries, a Louisa Harding book. Unable to find her yarn that is called for in the pattern, I found a remarkably similar colorway yarn from Plymouth Yarn called Shire Silk. While mostly a straw yellow color, it has flecks of orange, white and the occasional green, which gives this bag the "embroidered straw bag" look of the 50s.

So all the while I am knitting this bag, for some reason (like being neurotic,) I am not trusting that the herringbone pattern is being translated. I kept asking anyone who would listen: "you can see the herringbone pattern, right?" After approximately a dozen affirmative answers, I let it go.

Having finished the knitting was really only half the battle. I now had to embroider all those little flowers on. Guess I forgot about that when I got so excited to make the purse. Here, ladies, I will recommend cheating a little. If you look closely in the picture above, you will notice little red knit flowers with the yellow centers. I purchased those at a fabric store years ago (M and J Trimmings in NYC), and just sewed them on quickly. The same goes for the silk looking peach colored rosettes. The remaining flowers, I hand-embroidered as lazy daisies with embroidery thread. Yikes. The pattern recommends using skinny ribbon, but my fabric store did not have a very good selection of colors so I went with the embroidery thread.

The next step involved something new for me: fusible interfacing. It's basically just a thick, iron on fabric that makes the purse less loose and knit-like, and makes it more solid, stronger. I just cut it to shape and ironed it right on. Very simple, but it involved a few nervous texts to a girlfriend to confirm that was I was about to do wasn't going to ruin a week's worth of knitting and a weekend of tiresome embroidery.

Now the kicker. Lining the purse with fabric. A seamstress, I am not. Yes, I own a sewing machine. And on good days, I can even wind a bobbin and thread the thing. But beyond that, I am a little helpless. Thankfully, the purse fit under the foot and I was able to sew a straight line up and down with little trouble. I even got so confident as to put a little pocket on the inside. I've had it in my mind that I will be swinging this little straw bag with me up and down the streets of Paris in a few weeks, so I sewed a little passport pocket! (here's where you oooh and ahhh.)

It's definitely not a purse you would want to overload, as I don't think the handles could take the kind of weight I typically put in my shoulder bag/girl on the run/never know when you'll need those sneakers or tire iron in the city. But definitely can handle a small wallet, your lipstick (a girl's gotta look smart), keys, etc. I debuted my purse at girls scouts. One of the girls said: "I wish I was listening when you taught us how to knit last year." Ha!

Orchids orchids everywhere...

I just returned from a weekend down to New Jersey to visit a good girlfriend. She suggested we drive into the city and check out the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden. I was kind of thinking, gee, I'd rather hang out in her apartment, drink some wine, knit a bit and catch up. Besides, I work with orchids almost every day. I rotate many into my clients' offices on a monthly basis. Mostly phaelenopsis and dendrobium orchids. And yes, I think they are lovely, but yeah, you could say the novelty has worn off a bit for me. I'm an ass. The show was jaw dropping. I should have known better.

I saw orchids in so many shapes and colors that I have never seen before, and probably won't see again for many years to come. I just so happened to have my camera with me, which rarely occurs when I really want it. I was a picture taking fool. Red orchids! I love the red. And a green the shade of gross dyed beer for St. Patty's Day! Blue, lavender, mango orange! All the colors you never see in your typical, widely available phaelenopsis orchids.

There were orchids hanging from the ceiling, leaping out of carefully constructed "living walls", and living on trees. If you look closely in the picture above, you can see the fuschia colored mass is nothing more than dozens of orchids hanging suspended above the pond. There were even fragrant orchids! Ultimately, this show was a truly a color-lover's dream.

The show's creator was inspired by the work of Brazilian landscape designer, Roberto Burle Marx. One of his more famous projects is the Copa Cabana beach site/boardwalk area. Burle Marx's bold use of colors and shapes in the landscape and his use of tropical plants in most of his designs fit the show well. Back in the day when many landscape designers/architects combined and pursued other talents (think Noguchi with everything from sculpture, set design to furniture design and landscape design) Burle Marx took to painting. One of his large paintings was on display in the main room. You can see a glimpse of it in the first photo above.







So, of course, after the show, I had to spend an hour in their well appointed gift store where I purchased some unusual tomato seed, a mango colored begonia plant, three plant books I couldn't live without, a small fern (that I will soon kill, don't worry), a journal, and a NYBG magnent for my mom. Oh, and of course, a red orchid! Finally I have a red orchid! Photo to follow in the next post, I promise.

Another Finished Project

I am embarrassed to admit to my 2 or 3 readers that I have not posted in so long because I could not remember my username or password to log into my blog. It's like searching for a lost object: sometimes if you stop searching for a while, then begin again with fresh eyes, it comes to you. Presto. I am back. The good news is that as a result of being gone for so long, I have many new knitted objects to share!

The sweater I have just completed is my first cardigan with a serious lacy patterned border. Looks more complicated than it really was. It was a Rowan pattern called "Cloud" from the Calmer Collection. An 80% cotton, 20% polyester fiber, this sweater is amazingly warm.

Confession time: you will notice there is only one button on my cardigan. It is VERY important to make sure that both left side and right side of your cardigan are knit exactly the same! As I tend to fudge my increases and decreases here and there, without really keeping score, one side is slightly off from the other. To the untrained eye, no biggie, right? But when you go to match up each of the 5 buttons, you can definitely see the difference a bit. Solution: one button near the waistline and the upper front lays flat, and no one's the wiser. Truth be told, I usually only button one on most of my cardigans anyway. So, voila!

P.S. My apologies for the rough self-photos. It's difficult to get a full shot of the sweater when you are trying to take the picture yourself, can't figure out the self-timer on your camera, hide the double chin (failed), get the sweater details, and keep the thighs out of the shot. Good times!

Kaethe saved this sweater . . .

I was at the tail end of knitting this sweater when my neighbor friend Kaethe called and invited me over for a "sewing circle" night at her place. The sweater was finally complete, and I just had to weave all the many ends into the sweater. With so many belt loops, that called for a fair amount of weaving. Sidenote: weaving in all of the loose ends is probably my least favorite part of any knitting project. Once it is all pieced together, I just want to wear it already!

So, armed with crackers, cheese, and several bottles of red wine (you may see where this story is headed...), I made my way across the street to Kaethe's. When she saw the sweater, she got so excited, and asked me to model it. While she poured me my first glass of wine, I was more than happy to show it off. I kid you not, after my first sip of wine, apparently, I was a little too excited as well, and a small dribble fell onto the front of my sweater! Catching the stain in time, a calm and collected Kaethe poured a small amount of salt onto the stain, and voila! The salt absorbed all of the wine, and the stain was literally gone within a few minutes.

I'd like to report that I wore this sweater to a party hosted by her a few weeks later, complete with a glass of red wine, and didn't spill a drop. See, you can dress me up and take me out.


P.S. This was a cheapie to make. A Patons pattern that I actually found at a Michael's store (I usually don't find much there that agrees with me.) And only 4 skeins of their Divine yarn, which ran me around $5.00 a pop.

There's nothing like losing...

Whipped up a cute little hat just before the holidays. Pattern from Louisa Harding's book Gathering Roses: Accessories. I've had the book for a few years now, and made several projects out of it - a purse and two hats. Romantic designs for hats, scarves, purses, and gloves. A lot of Harding's designs appeal to the "pretty girl" that I never get to be in my daily life. But hell, I can knit purdy if I can't look purdy all the time. Got the hat knit in short time. Wore it to Christmas down at my in-laws. And promptly lost it. Or maybe I should just pretend I have misplaced it. All I know is that it didn't make the trip from Plymouth back up to Boston with me. I got one good shot of it here, so I have proof it existed!

This is the same hat, pictured in the book, I believe in Louisa Harding's Kashmir DK yarn. It's done in a moss stitch, which gives the hat some heft, allowing you to play with the brim.

On a girls weekend down to Jersey to visit my friend Jess, we both decided to knit the same hat. We started the hat together, going over the pattern to determine any "bumps" before we left each other to complete it solo. Last Monday morning on my way to work, I got a picture mail on my phone from Jess, asking me if I knew any coneheads who needed a hat. Gauge gauge gauge, I guess. This hat runs a close second to my favorite funniest moments: people slipping or falling down.