*blush*

Really?!? More than a year!?! What can I say for myself? Graduate school is taking all of my time, but there are so.many.things. that I’ve wanted to write about and never gotten around to. I guess this blogging thing really takes discipline, huh? Well, I can’t promise daily posts or anything, but right now I’m aiming for twice a month. Does that seem fair? See you soon!

Garden Update

I have a confession to make. I am a huge procrastinator and a perfectionist. Bad combo. I keep going outside with the best of intentions; I mean to go out there and take lots of lovely pictures to share with you. But then I see the petunia that needs deadheading, and then there’s that weed that needs pulling, and then next thing I know it’s four hours later and I’m covered in dirt and I need to go shower before getting within ten feet of my camera.

Anyways, today I went out and took pictures, weeds be damned. If you recall, this is what my garden used to look like. Nice, but blank. Here’s what it looks like now

So here’s the first side. As you can see I’ve planted moss between the flagstone. Well, it’s mainly moss, but here and there I’ve put various kinds of thyme (mainly creeping thyme of course )

There’s an azalea and a columbine there, alongside some tiny lupins that I started from seed- now that they’re established they’re starting to get better. That huge empty space was supposed to be full of peonies but I ordered them from this mail-order catalogue company that had some problems. I still want to put peonies there but I think I’ll leave it for next year.

And here we have some hydrangeas, but unfortunately only one is in bloom right now.

And here’s the tree that I spent so long picking out. Okay, okay, it’s not technically a real tree. It’s a white lilac grafted onto a tree trunk. I chose this because it won’t get super tall or wide (and as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the neighbours’ yards are quite close). Around its base I’ve planted various ferns and some lilly-of-the-valley.

And here’s the rosebush, butterfly bush, and raspberry. That tall spindly thing is a Russian sage; it’s usually quite nice, I don’t know why it’s so sprawling this year.

Well, there you have it, my garden so far. As I’m sure you noticed there’s a lot of impatiens. A LOT. I’m not particularly fond of them myself, but my mom was so excited when she came home with two trays of them (full confession, I live with my parents) so I had to use them. I guess it’s for the best, to fill that area entirely with perennials the first year would be way too expensive. Also, I suppose it’s best to build up the yard over time, seeing what’s working and what isn’t and all that. I don think I’m going to put in lots of bulbs this fall.

But the yard isn’t all I’ve been working on, any day now I’m going to post pictures of all the planters I put on the deck. Stay tuned!

Odds and Ends and Bits and Pieces

Hello again!

I haven’t forgotten about you, I’ve been snapping pictures every few days with the intention of posting them, but unfortunately my old and dying computer can’t keep up with the bright young thing that is my camera. He has his good days and his bad days, and thankfully today is a good day, so prepare for lots of unrelated pictures.

Here are some delicious lemon squares I made a while back that were the PERFECT thing to have with tea while reading the newspaper.

Next we have a tiny sweater I knitted while watching the BBC version of Mansfield Park. That neck hole was the first time I ever knitted with DPNs and I nearly lost an eye! The pattern is from Alison Hansel’s Charmed Knits and I used a sample of sock yarn I got when I ordered some gorgeous yarns from Knit It Up.

And now we come to the garden pictures. I’m sorry that I don’t have any landscape type shots to show you the overall picture, but I have been doing a lot of work out there.

So first off, here’s young pea pod.

And here’s a poppy. I planted them last year after their flowering time so this year was my first experience of them.

And lastly we have some radishes. I have to be totally honest and say that I’m not particularly fond of radishes, but these were good as far as radishes go.

And that’s it! I promise to get some more garden pictures to you soon. It’s been raining on and off all day today, but as soon as it clears up I’ll be out there with my trusty camera.

Tags: bakning, Gardening, knitting, lemon squares, peas, poppies, radishes

Introducing Evangeline

First off I want to apologize for being away for so long; my laptop is in the last throes of his illness and I fear he won’t be around much longer, so I’ve been trying to let him rest up between exertions.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want you all to meet Evangeline! I began her last summer after browsing several blogs. I was especially inspired by Emily Martin’s work at Inside A Black Apple.  Evangeline is a simple rag doll with an embroidered face and felt hair. Even though it was unintentional, I love the way her braids curl up. Apparently that just happens when you try to tightly braid strips of felt.You might be wondering why she’s wearing a gray scarf with such a lovely summer dress. The truth is that I had originally planned for her to be wearing a blue and gray dress with a dark brown jacket, but then I found this beautiful bit of yellow cloth kicking around that was already cut- and hemmed- into a circle (I think it was from some sort of gift basket or something). That’s right, to make that dress she’s got on all I had to do was cut out holes for her neck and arms. The only downside was that I had already crocheted her a tiny scarf and there was no way I was going to forget about it. So That’s why she’s wearing it, even though the poor dear is probably getting heatstroke.

Tags: crocheting, Dolls, sewing

Hand Dyed Yarn

I finally jumped in and tried this whole Kool Aid dye thing. I know the major gripe with it is the super bright colours, but I think mine are nice and subtle. I think it’s because I didn’t use 100% animal fibers, the yarn was actually 40% nylon so the dye didn’t take to the nylon bits.  I like how it looks like it’s been spun with white yarn if you look really closely.

The purple one was made with grape and cherry, and the pink and green one was made with strawberry-kiwi and lemon-lime. The skeins were rather small, only 98 yards each, so this yarn is making a hat and wrist warmers.

Tags: crafting, crocheting, hand-dyed yarn, knitting, kool aid, yarn

Book Moods

I crave books the way others crave chocolate (although, I must admit I’m also pretty fond of chocolate. There are just so many kinds to love; old, new, funny, sad, intellectual, superficial, informative, all are good in their own way. But I can’t substitute one for the other, if I feel like getting lost in a period piece no amount of pretty pictures in a design book will satisfy me. Similarly, nothing can take the place of a good mystery on a summer night. I also find that I have very specific cravings; a cold and rainy fall day requires Jane Eyre while a warm and rainy spring day screams for The Secret Garden.

And don’t get me started on food cravings that books induce! Jane Austen makes me long for white bread with butter and raspberry jam (I don’t know why, I doubt it’s mentioned in the books) meanwhile intense thrillers require strong coffee.

I’d love to hear about your book induced cravings. And am I the only one who has book moods?

Tags: books, cravings, Jane Austen, Jane Eyre, The Secret Garden

Preppinig for the Preppy Quilt

I have always loved quilts. I think they are so gorgeous and I find their stories fascinating. The very fact that women would take the time to put together these amazing, not to mention useful, works of art from bits and pieces of their daily lives astounds me. I suppose it would come as no surprise that I desperately want a quilt.

There are a few drawbacks to purchasing a quilt though. For one thing there’s the astronomical cost. I totally understand why they cost so much, but as a cash-strapped student I just can’t justify spending two or three thousand on a blanket. Then there’s the fact that these beautiful quilts were pieced together by someone else; someone else put their time and effort and thoughts into this. I think what I like most about a quilt is that they are invested with the thoughts and hopes and dreams of their maker, and I want this piece to reflect my thoughts and hopes and dreams.

Which brings me to the topic of my post. I’m going to make myself a quilt! I don’t know all the techniques or official methods, but I’ve perused some quilting magazines and books and I think I get the gist of it. I wanted to keep the colour scheme and patterns simple because I don’t like how busy a lot of quilts tend to look. I actually bought two sets of coordinating bed sheets from the Martha Stewart Collection at Macy’s (I decided to use bed sheets because buying cotton sheets seems to be cheaper than buying an equal amount of fabric, plus I liked the pattern and the fact that they went together so well). I love the blue and yellow combo with all the white, I think it looks really summery and preppy.  I chose a simple pattern involving squares made up of two triangles; I got the pattern idea from a Klutz book on quilting, and then just repeated the block over and over. I don’t know enough about quilting to know what the official name of this design is, but I’m sure it has one. Does anyone else know what it’s called? And I’d love to know any tips and tricks you may know of!

Tags: bed sheets, blankets, Martha Stewart, quilting, sewing