Living wreaths and Salish knitting

I was really lucky this past month to attend two different workshops, one on making Living Wreaths and the other on Salish Knitting. I love attending workshops, there is always something new to learn or learn more about, you meet such interesting people and they are a lot of fun.

Living Wreaths

My friend Heather recently did a workshop on making Living Wreaths for The Roots, Boots and Shoots Garden Club in West Kelowna. She is a co-facilitator of the group as well as a Master Gardener and a Communities in Bloom judge. Whew! Let me tell you she knows a lot about gardening! She is super creative and tons of fun!!

At the meeting, Heather showed us how to make a living wreath using a wreath form, moss, a special soil concoction, drawer liner and different plants.

When I first read about living wreaths, they were usually made with succulents. Heather did a wreath with succulents, one with strawberries and one with impatiens. They were all beautiful. I could definitely see so many fun possibilities.

She also talked about how to re-purpose and rejuvenate old containers. The black pots above are decades old but received a great face lift using some special spray paint. They looked like new! I was kicking myself for throwing some of my old junk treasures away.

This pot is a re-purposed angel food cake pan. She spray painted it black. Seriously. And get this, the hole in the centre of the pan can accommodate her umbrella on one of her patio tables. This woman is genius!!

I love her hanging lettuce basket. I can see making these with lots of great edibles and herbs. In our climate, moss is practically nonexistent and quite expensive. As a cheaper alternative, Heather lined this basket with black drawer liner she found at a dollar store. Looks good and works like a charm!

Heather started knitting in January and she has knit some pretty amazing things already!


Salish Knitting

 I was also fortunate enough to attend a workshop given by Sylvia Olsen on Salish knitting. I think most of us, especially on the West Coast, are familiar with the iconic Cowichan sweater. I remember knitting them for my family in the late seventies.Their popularity has endured the decades since.

Sylvia has authored some books on the history of these sweaters and the women who knit them. It is a very powerful story and an important part of our province's history. She guided the group through a knitted hat project using a different technique of carrying colours than I am familiar with. It was super interesting.

Her knitted samples were fantastic!


There is lots going on with the bales and the garden. I am spending quite a bit of time mucking around with my shovel and bucket still. I love being outside and it is light past 9 now.

Thanks Val!!

Aren't these roses beautiful?!?  They smell divine. I sure wish I had roses like these in my garden. I had three rose bushes in my front yard but the deer had been ravaging them so I decided to move them into the back.

wipe out

Ouchies!! Well one survived....hopefully.Yuck!

Well some beans are up. I will be talking bales next post. I know, the suspense is building......

Have a great week friends!

Keep Smiling!!

Chris

Hansa Rugosa Roses-I won't be moving this one ever!

Another Noro Wrap and Straw Baling

After posting the Ojo de Dios wrap a several weeks ago, I remembered how much I enjoyed knitting it. It is knit with Noro Silk Garden, which is an incredibly nice yarn and their colourways are fantastic.

I saw this colour and I think it was the bright limey green and rich blues that drew me in. I am an easy sell in the colour department! 

When I finished and blocked it, I really liked it but the colours looked quite autumnal to me. I mostly wear bright clear jewel tones. I am thinking well someone might like it as I was sitting on the fence about it.

 

I then thought I'd switch it up with one of my brighter blue jackets. Yah baby, we are in colourtown!!

It always is amazing to me how certain colours can just pop out when teamed with a complimentary colour. I think playing with colour and textures are the best parts of knitting for me.

My shawl pin, which is more limey green in real life, looks OK! I did see another Noro colour combo in more wintery shades I really really liked too ....hmmm.

The more exciting topic-straw baling

We planted lots of different veggies in our bales and the good news seeds are sprouting!! Can I have a woot woot!!

 

We have planted lettuce, beans, peas, cilantro, radishes, arugula, spinach and carrots. 

And of course the obligatory strawberries!

And tomatoes too!

 

We still have bales to plant, that are located on the hotter side of the garden. Most probably peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, maybe cukes and a few other things will go into the bales as soon as it is warm enough. I have been reading up on edible landscaping a lot and am trying to incorporate more edibles in my garden. After reading Nicole's post on permaculture, I was in! I was talking to my friend Tangi about it and her daughter designs edible landscapes and is quite an expert on permaculture. Synchronicity!!Gives you pause to wonder sometimes!  I have a lot of different ideas I want to incorporate into our garden this year. We have been digging and weeding and weeding a lot.

Thai cooking

Mung bean noodle salad with shrimp

Recently, my friend Heather had a Thai cooking class. Oh my, it was lots of fun and the dishes were amazing!! We all cooked up a storm, ate a great lunch and waddled home!!

Chicken soup with coconut milk

                                              Pad Thai

 

I love Thai food!! I have bought some Thai basil and lemon grass to go into my herb garden. And cilantro, lots of cilantro!! I am in the process of replanting one of my big planters with herbs, beneficials and pollinators, whew! Lots to think about and plan. That is a whole other big topic!!

Have a great week friends

Keep smiling!!

Chris

Kelpie-a Hap and the Rapunzel Project

Spring has hit in full force in our neck of the woods. Hopefully all of you are finally, finally saying adieu to Old Man Winter and are starting to see warmer days and greener landscapes. It's been really busy here at Chez Chrissie. We have both been doing a lot of yard and garden cleanup. Our backyard has been neglected for several years and the front really needed an overhaul too. This coupled with crazy man Archie tearing up the yard has given us a ton of work!! That's OK, it is just so nice to be outside and muck around in the garden. I was complaining about all the dirt that was getting tracked into the house till I realized the dirty footprints were mine!! Oopsies!!
 I have a lot of perennials in the front but unfortunately the garden plant bullies had taken over and crowded out the nice well behaved ones. As a result there has been a lot of digging and weeding I have been reading up about edible landscapes a lot lately and I am going to try to incorporate some edibles in the front. We have deer to contend with so I have to think about that too. If anyone has any ideas on that topic I sure would like to hear from you!

Update on the Rapunzel Project

Well it is all about the straw bales now!

Since my last post, the bales have been going through their conditioning treatment. For a 10 day period they received a dose of fertilizer every other day and water every day. This is to start the composting action in the bales. By the end of this period the bales should be heating up. Well our guys hadn't read the memo! They were still quite cool inside. Our weather, although warm, wasn't overly warm and we were still getting quite cool temperatures and good frosts over night.This is typical April weather. I think we were all getting a little excited about our unseasonably warm winter and spring (I know, I know, I have family in Eastern Canada and they DID NOT want to hear about that). So we thought we would wrap our bales in heavy plastic to keep them warm and cozy overnight.  Fortunately we had a roll of plastic in the shed ( I don't recall why we had it, but we did). We looked out one morning and some of the bales had big black spots on them. I got a little freaked out as I am thinking spontaneous combustion but in fact it was some weird mushrooms. Obviously our bales were a cookin'! Off went the plastic.

 The next step was the installation of drip lines on top of the bales. Brent hooked them up to some of our irrigation heads so we can flick a switch to water (hopefully) rather than hand watering all the time. This man loves a contraption so he has been busy rigging up a system. I think only one or two bales will have to be manually watered.

We have started to plant some of the bales this weekend. Basically a layer of potting soil is pressed down on top of the bales and the seeds are popped in. This bed will have Watermelon Radishes. These are the best radishes ever! They are green on the outside and hot pink inside. They are  sweet and crunchy and are my absolute favourite. If you see them in the grocery store, get some and try them. We have also planted kale, chard, peas, scallions, lettuce and probably a few other things in some of our other beds and in the garden space in front of the bales. Everything is coming up so it is all pretty exciting . The drought in California coupled with a weak Canadian dollar was made us both do a rethink on our garden. Ergo edible landscaping ideas!!

That is about it for progress on the bales.

Before I forget, you have to go visit Nicole's blog, for two reasons. First, it is a wonderful blog, she is a busy super creative, rocket gardener mom of three beans  and secondly, she has written an interesting post on Permaculture. You will love her!!


Kelpie-A Hap

I have been working a bit more and gardening but there is still a bit of time left for some knitting. I finished this shawl or hap sometime ago. A hap is a Shetland shawl or wrap. Typically there is a garter stitch main section, with borders in the feather and fan or old shale pattern and often a knitted edging. There are lots of great articles written about this style, hopefully I got my facts straight. I have knitted a few from different designers. I like them as they are so pretty and are very interesting to knit. I am a real process knitter as I like an interesting project.

This is Kelpie, a modified hap designed by Jared Flood. I guess technically it is a half hap, but that  may just be a guess on my part. I really really love this wrap. It is so soft and warm and I loved knitting it. It is super nice to wear too.

 

I knit it with Rowan Fine Tweed in several colours. I really like this yarn, it has a more rustic handspun look but knits and blocks beautifully. I don't know if you can see the colour bands in the picture that well, but each band is a different colour. The colours start at a medium blue and carry through an increasingly darker spectrum of blues and greens. Picking the colours for a new project is one of my most favourite things. I have my eye on Hansel, a hap designed by Gudrun Johnston. KristieinBC is knitting one too. I can't wait to see hers, she has chosen such lovely colours.
I love knitting wraps, shawls and socks a lot!

Food !!

Recently, my friend Cooking Heather, invited us out for a morning of knitting and a delicious brunch. Honestly, when Heather invites you, you  immediately say yes please and when!?! And then do a happy dance! We had goat cheese appies, two kinds of quiche, a lovely salad, sausage rolls, guacamole, salsa  and a mango cheesecake. And she just throws it together, just like that. I have the vapours just thinking about it! I recently did a Thai cooking class with her so I will talk about that next time.

 I hope you all have a great week!!

Keep smiling!!

Chris

Colourful Wraps, Brownies and Straw Bales

Well kids, it has been awhile since I lasted blogged. Nothing splendiferous has been happening, just generally a bit busier and being lazy too! However there is always lots to think and talk about in my little corner of the world!

I started knitting this shawl/wrap back in the summer and I did finish it this past fall. I LOVE it!!!

It is Ojo de Dios, such a beautiful design and an interesting pattern to knit. I knit it with Noro Silk Garden-rainbow- #87. It is so nice to wear and it is so bright and colourful, my kind of project!! I could wear it as I cavort amongst my straw bales! It is seriously a lovely project to knit and not to difficult. It's a great wrap and lovely to wear.

It starts with one mitered triangle you knit on your dps. Then the rest of the triangles are picked up on successive triangle edges. The body of the shawl is picked along the triangle border edge and its just good old garter stitch and some short row shaping and you are done! I love how the garter stitch really highlights all the beautiful colours in the yarn. I do love Noro!!! It is the greatest, most prettiest yarn. Looking at my pictures I am thinking I ought to knit another one, maybe in some blues and greens...hmmmm.

Here are some pictures of my friend Stacie wearing her Ojo de Dios shawl. It is so beautiful! She did an extra row of mitered triangles. The colours in her yarn are stunning. They look quite South Western.

I recently found a new absolutely delicious healthy brownie recipe! It is soo good!! Amazingly enough, they do not contain squash. They are made with black beans, applesauce, dates, eggs, cocoa and chocolate chips.Goodness me, these brownies are fantastic, they taste so good and they are not too sweet at all. They are high fibre, quite low in fat and gluten free. They are quick to make but you do need a food processor to mash everything up. The recipe can be found at
 http://ifoodreal.com/black-bean-recipe/. Sooo good!!

Recently my friend Heather invited me to a meeting of a great gardening group she belongs to. Twist my rubber arm and off we went. The guest speaker, Lesley, spoke of her veggie growing with Straw Bale Gardening. We were both immediately hooked!! It is quite a popular and hugely successful gardening technique used  by our great American neighbours. It is now spreading in popularity in Canada . Basically your composting straw bale becomes a growing medium for your plants. At the end of the season, you will have great vegetables and some lovely compost. I could go into a much more detailed explanation (which I did before Blogger crashed...grrr) but there is tons of info online and many books written about the subject. It is a great for gardeners who have poor or little soil, small spaces, rooftop gardens.. etc. It is also being used a lot in community gardens.

 Our backyard is on a southern facing sandy slope and we have crummy soil. We live in a semi arid desert zone. We have literally hauled tonnes of soil, manure and compost up that hill over the decades but the soil still seems to get quite depleted very quickly. This seemed like a great method of growing our veggies with the additional benefit of producing compost on site.What also really sold me with this technique is there is very little weeding and it is very easy on your back.

Brent caught my enthusiasm and the next day we got a load of straw bales. being a city girl I didn't know the difference between straw and hay-I do now!

this guy was a great sport!

Ta dah!!!!

a certifiable silly person

So my plan is to do regular updates on this new exciting gardening adventure. Hopefully all will go according to plan. It sure has the neighbours talking, they figured we were getting goats or ponies! I could do alpacas though. For some reason I am pretty darned excited about it.

good help is truly hard to find!

The bales are in position now. Next step is the fertilizer/watering regimen.Should be interesting?!?

Keep smiling friends!

Chris