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!

patchwork quilts are strange

I was lucky to take part in a quilting workshop with the wonderful Kaffe Fassett at the Fashion & Textile Museum in London a few weeks back. I'm new to the world of quilts and I find it a strange process in regard to material use. Cutting  up new fabric and rejoining feels a bit un-thrifty, but I am planning to glean the remnants from the cut off corners. A slow arduous gleaning task coming up!

thread and drawn

Last week at the drawing salon, the lovely miss Angie brought in some thread for all us to glean from...part of the stuff from a former incarnation that she was hanging on to...just in case...you know, that old chestnut!  I did end up with the lion share and I think that I must have a life time supply here now...

Luckily I managed to find a placcy container to store most in and I do feel quite inspired to get into some more varied sewing projects to use them too :o)


Speaking of drawing salons, time also to show some more of my drawings.  I like grouping them together here as I'm struggling to find my style...that was always my biggest drawing challenge.  Reflecting back on these later, with help of the drawing tag in the cloud might just help!

Some faces from a couple of weeks ago...and don't you know it...some hands too...

crumb bum stupid head

The personal vernacular of hubby P and myself has of late been evolving to the tune of the opening skit of this portlandia ep…



…and we’re currently in the midst of calling each other and the doggles “crumb bum” and “stupid head” at an almost constant and ridiculous rate.  It’s quite fitting really, as I am at the moment lifting myself out of a state in which I felt I was a firm stupidhead and definite crumb bum a lot of the time!  Yes, I’ve been wrangling this darned PhD of mine into some kind of ok shape, and I finally feel that I’m getting there.  A fog has finally lifted, while the hazy melancholic autumn is setting in.  Maybe this is a phenomenon to watch out for…decline pushing other areas of my life into the hopefully sublime!

You might have noticed that this little old blog is looking quite a bit different…it’s been on the back burner for a bit, but the wrangling has been happening here too and it’s finally looking a lot more designerly!  The tabs up the top are yet to be populated…this will evolve over time.

I’m still making lots of lettuces as opposed to growing them, (there are some growing too)…I might make a salad…

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)

have beans

Where have I been?  I hardly know myself...too many everyday things and holidays getting in the way!
We went down to P's families holiday house for "Oystralya Dai" (last Thursday, quote Pen!), and spent the weekend...I didn't get back till Monday night...

But we had lots of fun, and did more renos which are now nearly done, yippee!  But onto beans now...firstly a bean shaped Gemma pet on the bed at Rye (couldn't resist!)...

But what I really want to get to is the beans in the garden.  We had lots of broadbeans back in December...

Which were yum when I cooked them with my meatball dish

The purple king beans growing alongside the espaliered citrus trees on the back of the house were growing beautifully at the start...

And we were picking some lovely beans too...

But a few weeks back I noticed that not many more beans were coming and the leaves were looking poorly with some browning off.  On close inspection I discovered tiny aphids on the undersides of the leaves.  I've never seen these ones before, they were almost invisible and almost like a coating of sticky green.  I'm not into spraying at all, even with a soap spray and I'm glad I didn't because some ladybirds moved in and then a week later I could see their larvae, which are so small it's hard to take a pic of them!

These beans are pretty much a write off now, but there were a few flowers that are developing into beans now, so fingers crossed!

I have the next lot of beans planted out the front, and they are looking good, so it doesn't really matter so much.  I have the attitude (and this is true of the ratty issue and this seasons plum situation too), that I'll take what I can, or reasonably should, and if other creatures or plants in the system need to do this too, that's ok, it's a bit of give and take.  Having said that, it is just as well that I'm not relying on my garden for absolute subsistence!   But I'm learning from what does and doesn't work, conducting the garden activities in a more orderly manner now and documenting the process, which should all help as I trundle along.  Oh, and mentioning the rats again...the games continue as when I came back from Rye all of the half developed corn cobs had been stripped from the stalks.  When the dogs are away the rats will play....oh the woe of these before and after shots!

The doggles have been going nuts trying to get into the fenced garden now...my bet, clever rat knows it's the only place in the garden they can't get to!   Gems and Hugs can get their heads quite a way through this mesh if they want to and are now destroying whatever plant matter within reach in the effort to get to rattus.  Note to self...need smaller gauge mesh!

rats!

We have some resident rats here...I'm was never worried about them as we've never had any (or mice) in the house and they keep the dogs endlessly amused as they run along the fence railings.  That was until now!  I came home from the beach with the doggles as it was getting dark last week and there was the little blighter (well, no so little actually!) up on the apple arch.

I had been wondering for a while what had been causing this kind of damage to the apples.  Definitely not birds who peck bits here and there...this was consistent nibbling to one apple at a time until the last bit would disappear.  I was suspecting rats and that was well and truly confirmed.  I called the dogs and they went nuts once they saw the rat up there...they were jumping and yelping, the rat didn't know which way to go and finally launched itself off one side of the arch and unfortunately doggles were not quick enough.  There were two repeats of the same, one in the early hours of Sunday morning (aarrgh, followed by a very drooby Sunday).  Although the apples are being saved from rat nibbling, the kerfuffles have caused most of the still very green apples to be knocked off the tree.  I've saved these couple...the bigger one was looking beautiful too :o(....with the hope that they might ripen off the tree.

Besides the failures in the garden (there have been more too - grrrr!), I've gotten back to making with some leather and have been finding that as I make I'm sorting the remnant pieces into streams suitable for their use.

This piece goes into the unusual/unique/interesting stream where anything might go!  More to come on this next adventure...