nest making

Back when I had not long completed and handed in my dissertation last year, I was getting back into the garden after it had suffered through a year of neglect. One of the projects, which ended up as an exercise in therapeutic making, was to create a fence around the sewer manhole in the back corner of the yard. It was accessed by the water board a couple of times in the last few years when they were relining the network of pipes, but had been covered by at least a couple of feet of soil and mulch. I hadn't even realised it was there! We considered different approaches to keep the manhole clear - we were thinking a brick wall at one stage. However, for a long time I have wanted to try Tino's technique for building a herb bed, and it suddenly occurred to me that this could be a great solution.

I had some hardwood stakes leftover from edging the veggie garden beds so I started by hammering these in around the manhole after clearing off the thick covering of rapidly gathered debris. Nearby is a big, old, and very rampant buddleia bush that needed hacking back - again. The long canes were perfect for weaving around the stakes to create the basket-like wall.

This is a beautiful, engrossing, process - I feel the quality of the material (the buddleia canes) as I bend it them the required shape. I listen to its feedback as it responds to my hand. I'm being 'taught' by the material, as it tells me the way it wants to go. I don't always get it right - bits break and pieces need repositioning - but the made form is forgiving and it accepts the messiness of added and re-layered pieces. I thought I was making a giant basket, but as variable making pervades, the more tousled form is unmistakably nest-like, and I realise, I am making a lovely human-sized nest!

More on how this nest has been going later... there have been other nests in the meantime. I've always viewed plant material as valuable - my dad always said to never let anything organic leave your property - but this value goes beyond just chopping up the prunings to become mulch.

A couple of weeks ago at Easter time I made some nests to house eggs for the nieces...

And for the more eggs for the in-laws...

A nest for us with Easter offerings, now nicely mounted on our front door...

And this week, a nest for our gorgeous neighbours to pop their business cards in. This weekend they are embarking on an amazing new business venture - 'pressing provenance' - serving up stylish toasties at local farmer's markets. Best of luck for the opening at Substation Farmer's Market, Newport and looking forward to enjoying a delicious toastie!

food growing as practice

This has been niggling at me for a while, and I want to dispel what seems to me a popularly held myth, that growing your own food is easy.  There's enough banter out there about food growing, in book form, on the television and in the online/blogosphere scape, and although there is a lot of instructive info, it often feels like all that is required is some enthusiasm and a simple intent to start and it will be as easy as a wink.  I'm all for talking about the positive benefits of vegie and fruit growing, but it certainly is not always easy, if it was would anyone ever buy food?!

I absolutely adore Costa as the new host of Gardening Australia, but I can't help but wonder at the apparent ease at which his "Verge" garden has sprung up.  Commitment is such an important ingredient for successful gardening, particularly when the initial exciting flush that comes with something newly begun dies down.  What I find difficult to manage is the balance between patient waiting and quick action.  Like anything in life, you get out what you put in, you literally reap what you sow.  Food growing requires consistent effort, but an interesting kind of consistency that must also allow for adaptability.  You have to keep putting in, but keep a close evaluative eye on what's happening to know what steps to take.  How do you develop this eye?  How do you know how to respond?

The required skills and knowledge can be learned in part through books/television/internet (which, I'll say it again, overwhelmingly make it seem so easy!), but there's a level of know-how needed that can only be cultivated by doing.  I've been thinking about this for a long time since I saw an episode of Gardening Australia back in April (see "Gardening for Life" on 14/4/12), that showed a segment about a retired market gardener in Coburg who was turning over the lease for his cultivated land to CERES.  He had a knowledge of the land that he had tended all his life which seemed to defy logic.  At one point he says that a patch over there "looks" good for growing broadbeans, and I wonder about what is going on here.  Is it the development of a localised wisdom that comes through experience?  Perhaps coupled with repetition, careful observation and above all practice?  So food growing is a practice?!  Of course, it demands the consistent effort and commitment that developing a practice requires.  When expertise of a practitioner is demonstrated it dazzles and implies effortlessness, and perhaps that's what is happening on shows like Gardening Australia.

As my ripped up corn stalks (due to dog vs rat battles) from last season testify, food growing is not easy!  In actual fact, it was easier when I went more by my instinct and less by instruction from books.  So like the market gardener, I'm going into the next season with the intent to listen to my own intuition and discover the lore of my land.

winter moments

Hello after a big winter hiatus!  I'm at the point where I'm through the conference and teaching preparations and back into semester two...where did the time go?!
Winter is idling along...it's been so very chilly...but punctuated by lovely moments that can only happen at this time of the year.

There is broccoli in the garden and I'm looking forward to Spring and time to plan and plant!

I'm still crocheting away... thinking about the anatomy of known forms.

solstice greetings!

Winter solstice here today and it's a suitably cold, miserable and wet day.  But I'm happy as the house is toasty and warm (I blocked some holes in the yet to be renovated skirting boards with some junk mail :P).  See how great a salutation "solstice greetings" is?  Now I get to say it twice a year :o)

sunshiny day

It's the kind of day that I never want to end...it has been a day with the most perfect Melbourne weather and I've been pottering about doing lovely research things at home.  I've been trialling some photography of my gleaned __________ garments and catching up on some reading.  Enjoy what might be the last day before winter sets in y'll!

garden windfall

I've been starting a series of workshops in the studio to unpack what is happening in this space...privileging making is the focus and I'm experimenting with what this means in various ways in the garden and the workroom and hopefully making some more tangible links between the two.  So far I've been thinking about dressing the garden and the workroom and objects within the space...

 It has been a windfall of sorts with a bit of rejuvenation being injected into my work...but I also had a very suprising garden windfall on the weekend...I was weeding and tidying up the garden edging under the apple trees and what I thought was a bit of rubbish (maybe something pulled out of the bin by the doggles or blown into the garden), was a cripsy $20 note!  It might just have been washed and fallen out of a hung on the line garment pocket, but I like to think that like the said rubbish sometimes does, it blew into the garden in a happy accident :o)

Gem and Hugs also got blessed and dressed by the garden on the weekend...pretty pups!

back in not so black...again!

Back towards the beginning of my bloggy happenings I moved away from blackness and into blackness with the blog layout...for a while I've been tired with the black, and even though it is less lit pixels, a pal pointed out to me that a difficult to read screen isn't very sustainable either!   So I've taken the plunge to start redesigning the blog page in line with some new directions I'm taking...it's a work in progress...watch this space!

As I mentioned in the previous post, the uni semester started last week which takes me away from all routine things, and this week has been about developing a new routine...which is kind of nice - means some jiggling of priorities and attending to the really important things.

I didn't touch the garden last week...it has been a very disappointing season with the lack of a real hot stretch and all of the pests (aphids and rats!) that have just caused almost everything to fail.  Even the last hope for apples is out the window as these late season sturmers have been munched away at (I think rats...again!)  When I went to take a pic I discovered european wasps sucking away at the flesh too!

But I did manage to pick one, the last with no rat chews...and looking at the woodbridge link, it's reassuring that my apple looks the same as theirs, even though it is insanely early compared to the june/july ripening time that they predict...

There are always some lovely things in the garden though, like this orb weaver on one of the rose arches....

And the zucchinis and cucumbers I planted to replace those pulled out during the dog vs rat debacle are doing well...even though they are late in the season, hopefully I'll get a crop...

I'm starting some experiments with making vegetables in the studio...not sure where it will go, but I'm doing some plastic crochet Marjorie Bligh style with a twist.  I'm doing some hyperbolic crochet to make some lettuce forms...in this case using glad wrap from a bunch of organic celery...


From sheet to form :o)

new things

I have some new beginnings lately...although I'm not really sure where I'm heading!
I finished the latest baby cardi...a friends new bub is just about here :o)

I got onto my elbow patch project, using an old well loved printed cardi, and some of the crocheted grannies I was working on here.  This cardigan was my favourite "go to" cardi around 7 or 8 years ago (my fav now is a big oversized machine washable grey woolly that came from the op shop).  There's a nice narrative of remnants and mending within it...

I swiss darned across a little ladder in the cuff, and used the granny squares to stitch over the elbow holes.  These particular grannies were made using the remnants from first of the sock yarn cardies which I made for my niece.

In this last pic you can see the previous mending - the darning which my mum did lots of years ago.

I'm taking my everyday craft practice into other projects...using leather remnants stitched together to make a thick leather yarn which I have then crocheted into a massive granny square using a 20mm hook...

I'm unsure how this will be applied to a garment form at the moment.

New things are popping up in the garden like these dwarf beans, the last for the season...I hope we have some continued warm weather for the last of the summer crops...

And the water tanks (1 in the front garden, and two in the back) now have a wire mesh covering to grow some lovely plants on them.  This one behind the workroom is filled by the water from it's roof, and connects to the watering system for the adjoining patch which you can see in the pic above.  I planted two old fashioned noisette roses next to it - Lamarque, and Mme Alfred Carriere in the winter, which now are able to be tied up away from the trampling doggles!  I'm hoping that next spring will see them flourish and bloom and eventually creep over the workroom roof to create some nice living insulation :o)

giant eyelets are go!

I went on a big eyelet expedition last Friday, but before I get to that, I failed to mention the watermelon suprise I had the day before.  The watermelon plant out the front was looking a bit wilted after the hot weather while I was away.  I was worried that it could be on it's way out if I didn't start to look after it more carefully, but when I looked closely I saw a lovely melon about the size of a tennis ball developing!

I'll be very careful to water it everyday now, I think that's what they need.

I'm about to start making curtains for the holiday house at Rye, and decided that eyelet top style would work best for the rods and style of the windows.  I've never invested in large eyelets and the equipment to attach them - I have wanted them, but never had a good enough reason.  So I popped down to Eyelets Supply Co. in Springvale to get my 40mm beauties!

I've never been to Eyelets Supply in person, although I've rung through orders hundreds of times.  I liked seeing their sets of old skool dies...

And their presses...

Here's the big eyelets...

And the lovely sales guy Luke demonstrated how to attach the eyelets and also told the story of how he amputated his hand 15 years before!  I think he felt he had to tell me because I asked if he minded me taking pics of him hammering and thought I might notice his hand looked a bit funny.  It was amazing that he could hammer with it and write normally...I won't go into more detail, might be too gory for here!

Next door is a Chinese temple too, which was so pretty, I love the ceramic details :o)