Category: gardening

  • Make Do and Mend

    Here’s a short project I did this morning – Dale asked me to mend the sleeve of one of his spring jackets, so I thought I’d take a few photos to document it.

    jacket mending 1

    The seam on the outer part of the ribbed cuff had come open. I couldn’t sew it from the wrong side because the cuff is folded over and sewn down inside.

    jacket mending 2

    Mattress stitch to the rescue! I used doubled grey sewing thread and pretty big sewing needle.

    jacket mending 3

    Tighten up along the way.

    all done!

    All done! I sewed over the loose threads from the previous seam, knotted the end of my thread and pulled the needle through to the inside, securing the knot inside the two layers of the cuff. It took all of five minutes, and now it’s much neater. Of course, had this been one of my handknits, the ribbing would line up perfectly at the seam – but you get what you pay for with ready-to-wear.

    Now I can get back to some soothing stockinette, in Handmaiden Casbah.

    mmm, stockinette

    Hello to my first little tomato sprout of 2014!

    hello little sprout!

  • now you see it…

    now you see it

    A completed, but not quite right, cardigan out of Eco Wool…

    now you don't

    …ripped.

    New stuff? I started a new quilt!

    new quilt

    Knitting with Handmaiden Casbah and Dream in Color Everlasting today.

    what i'm knitting with

    Cleaning up the garden.

    herbs

    P.S. New ‘like’ button below each blog post! Just in case you don’t feel like leaving a comment :)

  • tomatoes, quilts, sweaters

    There are 5 days left in September. Whaaaaat?

    The garden is winding down. There’s still some greenery, and I need to harvest the herbs. I think the dill went to seed though.

    beans

    The tomato plants aren’t looking very good so we harvested all the green tomatoes. Some will ripen, some will be pickles, some will be fried. There are a lot!

    dying plants

    harvested tomatoes

    I’m super close to finishing the hand quilting on my giant star – that’s the bottom edge right there! I’m still planning to put in just a few long vertical quilting lines, so it’s not quite done yet. What colour binding shall I do? The back is a dark blue-grey chambray, so I was thinking maybe a navy binding. Or purple. Or red. I’m open to suggestions!

    almost

    I started a new worsted weight sweater with this yummy pink organic merino from Phoe. It’s Fleece Artist, so it’s kinda funny that it went from Nova Scotia to England and then back here to Ontario. I’ve ripped this sleeve twice already, so I’m hoping the third time’s the charm. It might even be a Rhinebeck sweater.

    pink!

    Speaking of Rhinebeck, have you seen Ysolda’s The Rhinebeck Sweater book? It’s full of people and sweaters I love, in a setting I adore! I really missed attending last year, and I’m really excited about this one.

    In case my pink Rhinebeck sweater doesn’t work out, I do have a pile of other new sweaters to wear – my next collection! It’s a small one, with 3 sweaters and 2 accessories. I’m really happy with how they all came out, and the yarns from Lorna’s Laces are heavenly! The patterns should be available in October – before Rhinebeck.

    sneak peek!