DENIM

Inspired by this wonderful blog, I decided to try making some denim earrings for my youngest grand daughter.  Once those were done, I kept looking at the remains of the jeans I had long since "outgrown."  Here they are chopped up and made into a bag for the same young lady.  I used the zipper fly for the bag opening and the waist band for the sides. 

Not quite spring yet

It started with Fred’s remark that the coconut I had toasted looked like the wood shavings in his shop.  Which led to his and our friend, Mary’s, birthday cake.  I made a “spackle” bucket out of a little aspirin bottle and filled it with what were supposed to look like discards from a wood shop and scattered little woodworking tools around.  The draw knife used to be a twist tie and the lathe tool, a toothpick.

It seems like winter has been dragging on rather long.  The turkeys have to be bummed out today.  We got six inches of snow overnight.  Yesterday they had been happily scratching away at green grass in the yard.

I found a youtube video on how to make a cheese basket - - something I have always wanted so I dug through my supplies and came up with 3/8” strips and ordered the half inch half-round for the rim.  The half-round is kind of overkill for what I was trying to do, but I made it work.  On the inside of the basket instead of overlapping it, I just butted it. I used the plied iris leaves for a filler.  I still need to wrap the rim.  The basket is pretty wonky in places. I hope the next one will be better.

Merry Christmas!

I love Christmas.  No bah-humbug, for me.  I love all the decorations although it is a lot of work. 

Our Christmas tree tells a story of our family and friends.  The ornaments include some old glass ones given to us by Fred’s mother and others she made for us in the years she was still well enough to do things like that.  We miss her. There are a few designs made of thin wooden strips that I put together in Germany well over 35 years ago. Some straw figures and yarn eyes-of-God came from Mexico when we lived in El Paso in 1979. Fred’s aunt made some sweet elves we still have which makes us miss her when we see them.  There are at least five motorcycle-themed ornaments.  Fred turned the gorgeous wooden ornaments over the years. Then there are woolly sheep I made more recently.  There are wonderful pieces that were presents from friends and family, including some made with great care by our friends.  And then there are many that were made in China!

Last year I found some lovely Swedish straw stars and other figures on ebay that I had to have.

Our Christmas village is very tiny, but I love it. Many of the little horses and their attendants are from my collection of Britains lead and plastic farm figures. The two ceramic houses and some of the people are from my Mom’s collection, handed down to me when she passed away last year.  We miss her as well.

 Some things are baked already, just no cookies yet.  There is still time.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

THE NAKED DISTAFF

Apparently spiders disapprove of naked distaffs.  I don’t know how long it would take them to finish covering it, but I ended the effort early.

I got some Christmas knitting done over the past few weeks.  The multicolored scarf was knit from a gift skein from Patti.  The skein, Fiesta ballet is half superfine alpaca and half tencel in the aster color.

The other scarf was spun from a gorgeous batt Audrey gave me plus some yummy silk.  Both are variations on the Old Shale or Feather and Fan patterns.

READY FOR WINTER

The sheep are shorn and the garden is done except for the row of carrots.  We switched over to flannel sheets on our bed and ordered hay for the winter.  The sheep are still on pasture during the day.  The ample rain we got has kept both fields in great shape. 

The warmth we got in late winter brought out the fruit tree buds early and there just weren’t any pollinators around to do their work so we got very few apples and no pears or grapes at all.  I went and got a bushel of apples from the cider mill so there are lots of pies in the freezer.

I made this Hanging Vines shawl for a friend using Knitpicks gloss – merino /silk blend.

GOLDENROD AND A VEZINA

This is my favorite time of the year. Asters and goldenrod are just starting to bloom. The end of garden chores is in sight.  Every year we vow to plant fewer tomatoes, etc., but maybe we are getting better at growing them or found better varieties.  This year we grew Brandywine for the first year.  Their growth was rank, quickly erupting out of the tomato cages, swarming over the peppers planted nearby and swooshing out over the ground.  We only had two plants, thank goodness!  They make very large, meaty, sweet tomatoes, but maybe just one of those will do for next year.  As Riverrim said, they give a whole new meaning to indeterminate.  We also grew Moreton and a tomato we had saved seeds from plus two others I forgot the names of – so a total of six plants.  Yikes.

We didn’t get any pears or grapes this year.  The pears didn’t get pollinated and the grapes were apparently not all that happy about being pruned so heavily.  The deer are getting what few apples there were.

I saved seed from the Turk’s Turban squash realizing they may have been cross pollinated with the buttercup or another C. maxima from last year so I got some interesting ones.  They all should be very tasty.  Last year’s Turk’s Turban squash lasted well into the spring which I thought was very impressive.

 

This lovely Vezina CPW will be going to a new home in a few days.  It is completely original except for new hooks and new bobbins.  Thanks to Caroline Foty’s (fiddletwist on Ravelry) new book on CPW’s and their makers, we were able to quickly identify it and then Jerseylightning on Ravelry found the  Vezina “muffler-strap” patent so we were able to date the wheel to around 1880.

VEGGIES AND THINGS

We only dared to grow a tiny amount of corn because the last time we had actual rows of the stuff, raccoons came and got it all.  The beets were fantastic this year.  I still have a few in the garden along with more basil to make pesto out of.  This year I tried a recipe that used mint for part of the basil in the pesto and it was terrific in a quinoa salad.  The squash has been going crazy and we got enough cukes to make pickles tomorrow.  In the background is the tomato jungle.  The lettuce that was replanted in July will be ready in a week or so.  The bush romano beans have been a gift that keeps on giving - - just terrific this year.  

The big change we made a couple of years ago was to grow the tomatoes through black plastic.  I think the plastic evens out the water supply and warms the soil.  We had the earliest tomatoes ever - - mid July!

This year and last we used wood chips for weed control mulch.  The fresh wood chips caused some problems getting seeds started and once they were up some things looked yellowish and unhappy, but we dosed them with lime and fertilizer and it was all good.

I pickled beets today and made some carrot/zuke cake.  I used all the flavorings, raisins and spices for carrot cake, but added in some zukes to help keep it moist.

There is a lot of wildlife around.  The five wild turkey guys hang out in the yard with the chickens and even snooze.  The fawns and their mother have been visiting.

I worked on getting these dolls finished.  The two in white dresses resulted from antique heads bought on ebay, bodies from ebay, one tiny set of eyes procured and installed by my friend Mary.  I found the other eyes online.  The hair is my doing - - a bit too much of a good thing.  I sewed their dresses mostly from old fabrics.

The other doll is entirely original and was found in the attic of a home nearby.  One leg of her kid body was deteriorating so that was patched with leather from a kid glove glued on.  She needed new outerwear all of new fabric.