Trundling Along

We survived the weekend with the Bigger Grandbeasties (ages 7 & 9) while their parents were away in New York but it was a near thing! I must be out of practice with the parenting thing. It was fun but also kind of exhausting. And we didn’t even have the main part of the child care – their maternal grandma stayed at their house during the week while they were in school. They live about a 1/2-hour away from us (if you take the freeway) so it’s not practical to keep them here and drive back and forth twice a day. Yesterday however we had to do the delivery and managed to get them to school just before the bell. Whew! Luckily their grandma took over again after school and stayed until today. Their parents didn’t get home until the wee small hours this morning. We only know because their car has disappeared from beside our house! They didn’t want to wake us so they slipped away quietly. Our house is quite near the Skytrain line to the airport so it makes a good place to begin a trip but it doesn’t run in the middle of the night so they had to take a cab back. Hope they had fun! They’re probably still trying to catch up on sleep.

After we dropped the kids off yesterday we decided to go for a walk on the trails in Colony Farm Regional Park. This former farm was once part of provincially owned Riverview Hospital and has been fallow since the 1980’s. Some enhancement has been done for fish and birds and there are several trails along the dyke and around the edges. The plants are fairly bursting out with new spring growth even though the weather has still been rather cool for this time of year.

I love all the different grasses and the salmonberries are blooming:

My favourite part of this park though is the Community Garden. (There’s a good article about it here.) I always love to check out how other people grow veggies! We have lots of community garden plots around the Lower Mainland, many of them here in Vancouver, but this one is just huge! It has a number of sections surrounded by grass pathways (very soggy right now) and the individual plots are a good size, not the usual postage stamp.

There are hoses set up to use for watering in summer and many plastic-covered greenhouses. Also lots of interesting garden decor and bird houses which the swallows were making good use of. We could hear peeping inside more than one of them! It’s pretty early still though so not much was actually planted yet. The garlic is all getting tall and there was rhubarb that could be picked. We even saw some nice kale buds but nobody had harvested them. No, we didn’t do it ourselves! Come summer this place will be bursting with produce, so much so that they have to have signs saying no picking! Can you imagine somebody waltzing in to somebody else’s garden and just helping themselves? How rude!

I did get a chuckle out of this sign though:

There’s potential fruit here too. The blueberries were in bloom:

They grow very well in our climate and acidic soil. Ours are also blooming now much to the dismay of our grandkids who would prefer berries all year around! They just need a little patience. Heh.

These apple blossoms were pretty and smelled heavenly:

They have other fruit trees as well. We’ve tried to grow apples (and Italian plums) in the past but they didn’t do very well so we just stick with the berries in our garden now.

It was a very nice walk and luckily the rain held off until we got back in the car. I really needed to get out in the air.

Meanwhile, back in the studio I’m currently attempting to cut out a jacket from slippery squishy silk/rayon velvet. I’m supposed to be ready for a devoré (burnout) session with my Spectrum Study Group on Thursday. Finally we’ve hit on something that everyone is interested in doing! Amazing. I’ve had this fabric in deep stash for years (maybe 10?) and planned on learning how to do this ages ago but it’s taken a challenge from my friends to get me to actually follow through. I’ve yet to dig out my FiberEtch if I can find it which may not even be viable after all this time. Testing will ensue. Otherwise I’m sure we can share. I only plan to use the burnout on the sleeves and collar band and leave the rest of the body opaque. It will subsequently be dye-painted with Procion MX dyes and maybe even get an immersion bath in acid dyes to give more depth to the silk backing. We’ll see how it goes.

But first I need to cut the thing out ready to go. I’m using Katherine Tilton’s pattern B5891, view C/D:

In the interests of time-saving I’ve already fitted this jacket for me though the fabric of the first one is quite different, a heavy brushed cotton twill. I wear it all the time so it was very successful. This time I’m making some modifications to the original and will probably wear it more like a very fancy sweater. I’ve overlapped the princess seam (which in the original is just a seamed section and doesn’t include shaping) and also put the back seamline on the fold and then gently curved the neckline eliminating the asymmetrical collar and button overlap. I’ll cut out a collar/front band that will finish off the fronts and neckline in (hopefully) one strip. Unfortunately I only have 2 metres of the velvet so I’m going to have to squeeze to get the pieces on it. It washed and dried to a little less than 45” (115cm) in width so it’s quite narrow. And of course I have to go with the nap, right? Some creative folding will be necessary methinks. More on this later.

Nothing much else to report. Plugging away alternately on knitting the gloves and the test sock. I have 1-1/2 gloves so far – only 2-1/2 more to go. Including 30 fingers. Ulp! What have I gotten myself into in my quest for new gloves?

The garden hasn’t come along much farther than last time. Things are still growing but mostly aren’t planted out yet. The weather has warmed up slightly, enough at least that I was able to leave many of the earliest flats out on the deck last night and only brought the tomatoes into the house to join the squash and cukes under the lights. This is progress of a sort. Ideally I’d like to see it warm up at to least 10C at night. I haven’t dared plant the beans yet either but then mid-May is the best time here so I’ve got a couple of weeks.

Moving right along. Go cut out the jacket, damselfly!

This Little Pinkie…

Hello again! I spoke too soon – our Easter wasn’t quite as quiet as we expected. There was a bit of a crisis at our son’s house so we ended up going over there at the last minute. We weren’t really very useful (except Thom got their wifi set up finally) but at least we got a walk in the damp forest along the Pitt River and some sushi with the family. (Plus a delightful phone call from the Littlest Grandbeastie.) We will not speak of ongoing sagas with furnaces, hot water heaters, sump pumps and installation/repair men, ok?

Except that we have Good News in the repair department – Thom finally found a local auto repair shop that we can trust to properly fix our dear old VW van. Yay! She’s over there now getting her transmission hauled and refurbished and hopefully all will be well so that we can actually get some camping in this year. It’ll take a couple of weeks to complete so luckily we have a spare vehicle with the MINI-Cooper. (Not that we use either of them much! We tend to walk if possible.) Then there’s the negative to counter the positive news – the other day some $#!^-head managed to break the driver’s door lock on the van. Again. When will they learn there is nothing in there to steal? Unless they wanted to make a cup of tea? Didn’t think so. Grrr…another repair expense that we didn’t need.

Meanwhile we have a little knitting:

Do you like how I test each finger for exact length? That’s the advantage of knitting my own gloves! They really fit. If you embiggen it you might even be able to see the Channel Island cast-on that I started the cuff with. It makes a vaguely picot edge and is very stretchy. I tried a new way to begin this cast-on without the slip-knot, similar to the way I begin the long-tail cast-on (good tutorial series of photos here). I like it much better. And this tutorial is similar to the way I do the Channel Island except that they have too many ends to deal with. Instead I begin with a loop of the main yarn for the doubled tail as in this tutorial – except I leave out the slip knot and begin with the double-loop stitch which holds well enough instead. Clear as hot chocolate for you? It does make a really nice edge for the k1/p1 rib. When you go to knit the next round, make sure you’re working your knits into the picot stitches and purls into the single loops which naturally recede. And there ya go. You’re welcome.

So this wildly speckled glove is now finished but the second one started off quite differently in the yarn patterning so they aren’t making a pair even by my admittedly lax standards. I just may finish it anyhow and then make another that hopefully will match this first one better. And the fourth one won’t have to match anything because I plan to overdye the second pair until they are nearly black. Or something. We’ll find out eventually how this goes, won’t we?

Up in the studio the sewing is still stalled out. I’m beginning to suspect that I’m avoiding dealing with the Tilton Skirt entirely. So I’ve decided that I’m going to really put it in the doghouse for now and sweep my plate clean so I can get back to work there. There are lots more patterns and fabrics in the queue! I’m not giving up on it entirely but I think I need some real time away from it so I can deal with it again. Somehow it’s one of those dogs that just doesn’t go the way you expect even though it shouldn’t be at all difficult. No idea how this happens but it just does occasionally. I’m betting that it will be too warm to wear an underlined wool skirt around here soon anyway. It can even wait until next autumn if it has to because chances are I won’t be needing it until then. So there.

Whew! That feels better! Now what else did I have in the pile of cut fabrics? Probably things that would be better worn in cold weather. Oh well. If I can knit gloves in spring I can sew long-sleeved dresses in spring too. Why not? It’s not like the Couture Police are going to give me a ticket for sewing out of season! And I seem to remember a more summer-ish vest/top thing of Katherine Tilton’s. It’s on the bottom of the pile now but that can be remedied.

In gardening news, it’s been raining and sunny alternately but it’s still pretty darned chilly. The tomatoes and indigo have been coming in at night:

…while the cukes and squashes stay under the lights full-time:

They still look awfully little especially when compared to the garden centre’s offerings but I’d rather they were small when they go out in the garden than be held too long in pots. Some of the stuff in the greenhouse is starting to look a little stalled now however despite my best efforts but I’m still loathe to plant everything out quite yet. It’s still been going down to as low as 7C (45F) at night and the days are only about 12 or 13C (55F). Not particularly toasty yet. We did have one warm day that got up to a whole 18C a week or so ago but it’s been nowhere near that nice since. That’s spring on the Wet Coast for ya. Predictable in its unpredictability. Don’t forget an umbrella.

Which Came First, The Bunny Or The Eggs?

Happy Easter or whatever you might celebrate – even if it’s just a long weekend off work! Here in Damselfly’s Pond Easter isn’t really a big deal. When our kids were young we usually were out on our little sailboat (think seagoing camper van) and hiding chocolate eggs in our boots was as exciting as it got. Later when they were grown somebody (that would usually be me) might occasionally throw a family dinner but not often. These days they have their own kids and get to hide their own eggs. We won’t even be seeing any of them this weekend because they are all busy with their own families. I don’t mind. I can always find something to occupy myself. The options are many and varied.

It’s raining today anyhow. Most of my baby plants are hiding out in the greenhouse with the door shut. Yesterday was quite nice though and we got quite a lot done in the garden which is of course still our biggest ongoing spring project. The veggie patch (aka the Back 40) is nearly done: cleaned up, all the compost on, beds shaped and several already planted with my early greens. They are growing visibly by the day! I picked our first bunch of asparagus and also made the season’s first rhubarb sauce which we celebrated over vanilla ice-cream. This morning we had it on gluten-free pancakes for breakfast. Yum. Talk about celebrating the coming of spring!

Thanks to Thom the dye garden is also nearly finished being prepared. I’ve got woad, Japanese indigo, coreopsis and marigold seedlings nearly ready to join the madder already there. I’m also attempting to grow a perennial coreopsis from seed. I wanted at least 3 plants but these seeds didn’t have good germination so one is all I managed to get. I’m not growing weld at all this year because I have Way Too Much already chopped and dried and don’t need anymore for awhile. Of course they reseeded themselves anyway and we had to weed them all out. I don’t really need marigolds either but they are pretty and I grow them every year regardless. They add some welcome colour in any spot that might be looking a little bare. Please explain to me why all the many types of plants that give yellow dyes are the ones that are easiest to grow? The few that give blue are easy to grow but not easy to extract. And I only have one option for red and can only harvest the madder once every three years. The ease of obtaining a plant colour is the exact inverse to my desire for that colour! Go figure.

Anyhow, nothing much else crafty is getting done around here. No sewing. That Tilton skirt is still making me grumpy with its non-cooperation so it’s in time-out while it ponders its bad behaviour. I’ve been test-knitting a sock for Sanjo in yummy silk and wool yarn in bright red. It gave me some problems and I had to start the thing over again quite a few times before it started to go correctly. It ain’t over yet either! And I finally finished another of my endless pairs of socks:

Tough Love Retro Rib Socks

Begun:  February 20, 2014
Completed:  April 14, 2014

For:  me (but of course!)

Yarn:  SweetGeorgia Yarns Tough Love Sock, colourway Phoenix Rising (black, reds, oranges, gold) 80% merino/20% nylon, 115g = 425 yds

Needles:  Blackthorn carbon dpns, 2mm

Pattern:  Retro Rib Socks by Evelyn A. Clark, from Interweave Knits Winter 2004.

Comments:  The last time I knit this pattern it took forever! This time it went quite a bit faster because I finally had the pattern fixed in my brain. I quite like the results even in such a stripey yarn as this one. These socks are a test for the durability of the Tough Love Sock yarn. Now we’ll see how well they wear before I buy more skeins.

I also still have another skein of Tough Love Sock in the more subtle colourway Rogue (purples/stone/moss) for Thom. But I think I’m going to knit up the Gray Tabby from Ancient Arts for him first. Just trying to decide whether to make plain socks or try to incorporate some kind of rib. I still think plain knit wears better in the long run anyway.

Since I finished the above socks, I decided that even if it’s spring and the odds of an opportunity to wear gloves is slim to none I would start a new pair anyhow. I will be needing them eventually because I only have one pair left after the recent m*th incident. The yarn is some sock yarn from very deep stash, possibly DGB Confetti, in one of those ubiquitous printed stripe patterns that in a fit of pique I had overdyed with splotches of purples just to make it look different. I’m not sure it was necessarily an improvement! If I have to overdye it when it’s done to make it palatable I can do that but it seems to look better knit up than it did in the ball. These gloves will probably only use up one of the two balls but at least I have lots just in case. (And I can always make another pair for a spare.) I’m going with my usual Hooray For Me Gloves free pattern by Marnie McLean but with full fingers. I’ve knit this pattern so many times you’d think I’d have it memorised by now! It’s simple and clear and fits me nicely so why mess with a good thing? Marnie has instructions for knitting the fingers in double-knitting but I don’t mind doing them in the round the normal way. Yes, it looks like a hedgehog but that’s just fine. I’m used to manipulating my pokey sticks around safely. More on this project later. I really need to take some photos, don’t I?

Attempting To Make Up Lost Time

I haven’t managed to get back up to my studio yet. Yesterday, since I was feeling so much better, ended up becoming a gardening day instead of a sewing day. I got the pea nets replaced with Thom’s help (he wielded the staple gun!) and some bird netting over the emerging pea seedlings. Yes, the birds tend to munch them off if they aren’t protected at least until they are bigger and tougher. Birds like their fresh salads too you know! Years ago I didn’t really believe it was birds that were decimating my peas. I thought it might be slugs, the bane of Wet Coast gardens, until I saw the triangular bites in the leaves. Bird-beak shaped bites. Grrr…

I also got a lot more of my seedlings transplanted into larger flats. Though I still haven’t gotten the first bunch of transplants into the garden yet! At least they are fine in the greenhouse at night and out on the deck in the daytime. The newest transplants still have to come back into the house each night since it’s a little too chilly for them yet. Surprisingly I had such good germination with my Japanese indigo seeds from last October that I ended up with too many seedlings! I figure 24 plants is plenty for this year’s dyeing plus the 7 or 8 woad plants. That should be plenty of blue to play with! I also transplanted my coreopsis (yellows, golds and rusty oranges), lobelias (both trailing and not) and some cabbages. Next I need to deal with the tomatoes, coleus, red alyssum and sunflowers. And finally plant the cucumbers and squashes seeds. I keep forgetting them, poor things, but there’s still time. When the weather was so warm the other day (18C) I thought I was getting behind but it’s much cooler today. I’m just rushing the season a little I think. Relax, damselfly.

Meanwhile back in the studio, I forgot show you the patterns I got from the last time I hiccupped and I fell for a BMV sale.

That’s 2 more Tiltons (Katherine this time), a Sandra Betzina, a DKNY and my very first Kwik-Sew ever. I liked the pockets on the first Katherine top and the colour blocking and tunic shape on the second one. They are a little older and I was afraid they’d go out of print soon so snatched them while I could. The Today’s Fit shirt/jacket has a great pleated collar and raglan sleeves which I’d love to learn how to fit on me. I like some of Sandra’s designs but haven’t actually sewn any of them yet. The DKNY dress has a really nice low cowl but I’m not sure if the pleats will look too maternal on my fluffy middle. I’ll have to test it with cheaper fabric just in case. It also needs sleeves, at least cap sleeves. I’m dying to test the fit of the leggings in the Kwik-Sew. (Does that cutesy spelling make you cringe as much as it does me?) This will probably be the first thing that gets sewn out of this pile. Also the leotard, particularly the view with the racer back, has some potential as bathing suit/camisole fodder. You know I never sew anything straight up! That’s why it’s so much fun.

Well obviously nothing crafty is going to be happening while I’m sitting here typing this, is it? Best get a move on. More soonest.

Back In The Saddle

Well, whatever that bug was that I had is now gone without a trace. Not even the cough left. Sheesh! That was such a waste of time! Thank you to all those who wished me well. I’m sure it helped with the Bug Begone!

Since I was feeling somewhat restored yesterday, I ignored the lovely warm day and went up to the studio to carry on with the Marcy Tilton Skirt V8499 that had been languishing for weeks. While out of commission I had been doing some reading on underling and found this nifty method of underling and enclosing the seam edges at the same time. I made a little sample:



Yeah, I didn’t match the subtle plaid but accidentally flipped one side before sewing the seam. It’s a sample, people! This technique only works for the long vertical seams but it works great. What you do is cut the underlining with the vertical seam allowances 5/8” wider (i.e. for a 5/8” seam, cut 1-1/4” allowances). Then sew each main fashion fabric piece and its matching underlining right sides together with a 1/4” seam (note they won’t lie flat because the underlining is larger), flip them right side out and press. The underlining folds neatly over encasing the seam edge. You can also baste the horizontal edges if necessary to keep them in place. Thereafter you treat each double-layered piece as one and sew the garment normally. And there ya go! Faux French seams. ETA: Oops. That was incorrect. It's really a faux Hong Kong seam finish.

This skirt has giant pocket bags as you can see here:



I decided not to use zippers on the upper edges but to make button plackets instead. I had to pick out some of the wee bit of stitching that I had already done on the pockets and then I underlined them. Since the vertical edges of the pockets are to be incorporated into the side pieces anyway, I just underlined them normally to the edge and tucked the trimmed top and bottom edges into the hems:



The outer pocket fabric is cut on the bias but the cotton sateen underlining is on the straight grain. This should help it keep its shape better. I did a lot of hand-basting, some of which will be permanent and some that will be removed before sewing the front side underlinings on. I don’t usually thread-baste and it’s probably overkill but I just wanted to make sure nothing was going to shift. The 2 buttons in the photo are just sitting on top of their buttonholes to see what the effect is. I’m actually quite pleased with the hand of the underlined wool fabric and it is properly opaque now. It has a bit more body and less cling. It still creases too easily but maybe not quite so much as before.

Underneath those big pockets I decided to put a small patch pocket situated close to the top so I could get at it easily. I was afraid that anything you put into the main pocket would be lost awayyyy downnnnn at the bottom! Yes, I actually use my pockets. Don’t you? Hmmm…I just realised that I’m going to have to sew the patch pockets to the side fronts before I put on the big pockets and stitch the underlining on. I was hoping to stitch them through the underlining as well but if I try to stitch them after attaching it the main pocket will probably be in the way. These little problems are what I get for re-engineering the original pattern, huh? Sometimes you don’t notice the assembly details until you get there.

So anyhow that’s as far as I got yesterday: cutting out the skirt underlining and completing the pockets. Is it ever going to be finished? Today though I have to get out to the garden and get some work done there while the weather is good. The peas are coming up and their nets are not ready for them yet. We’re replacing them this year as the ancient originals are really disintegrating. I actually discovered that we already had some netting in the cupboard under the grow-op when I cleaned it out so we didn’t even have to buy any! Totally worth the clean-up, I’d say. You never know what useful things you’ll find. Or total garbage too for that matter.

And now for something completely different, check out the cute animation that Thom found whilst wandering around the interwebs. Yes, we are total Westie geeks. After last year’s cross-country trip, you had to have noticed! Though we actually had 9 guys pushing our van into the repair bay in Ottawa. (My heroes!) Sadly she’s currently still limping and needs a transmission job. Soon, my pretty.

Off to have some lunch before trudging out to the Back 40 for some hands-in-the-dirt time. (That’s 40 feet – not acres!) Later, darlings.

Spring Flop

Just a quick note to say that I’m still here but feeling a little under the weather at the moment. I picked up another dose of the same bug I had the last time I got sick. It’s not exactly a cold and not exactly the flu – just a bit of sore throat, occasional sneezes and some coughing. Plus of course the nastiest symptom – an absolute total lack of energy. It like gravity has suddenly doubled! I’ve mostly been hanging out in a semi-reclining position and only doing the most pressing of tasks, like getting more tea, making food and watering my plantlets (which are starting to become desperate for transplanting). It means that I’ve gotten a lot of reading done but surprisingly not a lot of knitting. You know things are truly bad when I’m not really interested in knitting! However, this annoying illness passed fairly quickly last time (3 or 4 days at most) so I’m hoping I’ll start feeling better very soon. Yes, I’d better! I have things to do and places to be! I already missed an excellent birthday party. Bleh. I have no clue but I would love to know where I caught the darn thing so I can do my best to avoid it next time! Nobody else that I know of has been sick.

Anyhow, spring marches on with or without me. My asparagus is starting to come up! More soon.

No April Fool

The weather is lovely and sunny and we’ve been busy. Thom has been working diligently in his studio, cleaning, sorting, vacuuming up the spiders, washing walls and painting. He’s still not quite finished but the lure of the outdoors has been too much to resist. So after we took a nice long walk yesterday and a sushi lunch, he was out in the garden pruning the laurels (Prunus laurocerasus, not true laurel). Those things need constant hacking back or they tend to take over the world! Luckily you can chop them anywhere and they sprout new leaves and fill in the gaps practically overnight. They even root easily from a cutting so they can become a nuisance if not kept in check. I do love the almond-smell of the leaves when run through the chipper-shredder though. It makes great mulch under the blueberry bushes.

While he was doing that, I’ve been mini-gardening. These babies are still being brought indoors on cold nights:

They’re growing quite nicely and hopefully will be able to be planted in the garden soon. They first have to be big enough so the slugs can’t immediately eat them off! That’s the biggest reason that I plant nearly everything (except peas and beans) in the house first. There’s just no point in direct sowing anything else. Here’s my handy grow-op:

There’s tiny tomato plants, Japanese indigo, coreopsis, red alyssum, basil, cilantro, coleus and more under the lights. The newspaper is covering some sunflower seeds that I just planted. Next it will be the squashes and cucumbers but I’ll wait a week or two more first before planting them. I don’t like to hold them in pots for long and want the ground to be warm enough when they’re ready to go in. See the cupboards above and below the lights? I spent all afternoon yesterday cleaning those out. I got rid of all the junk and now have better storage for the stuff that’s left: seeds, pots and flats to plant them in, potting soil, netting for the garden, bird seed and suet. Also a few other odds and sods. Our house may be small but it does have a lot of storage spaces. Which tend to NOT get sorted out often enough. We’re trying to catch up.

That’s the door to Thom’s studio and in the course of cleaning it up he also cleaned up the shelves behind it and painted the outer concrete foundation. So now it’s my job to finish washing the floor. Those black and red vintage linoleum tiles might not be in perfect shape but they’re practical for an area that’s right inside the basement door and subject to a lot of mud and dirt, tools and equipment, and bicycles being dragged in and out. Yes, that’s the sunshine coming in the open basement door! Love it.

Best get on with my day. Moving right along…