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)

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...

back to a different kind of work

I'm finally getting around to doing my post christmas/new year catch up post.  P went back to work this week, and I was supposed to get back to serious PhD work, but this little beggar has gotten in the way a bit this week!

I finally took the plunge iphone wise and I've dressed my whitey in a pink bumper...I think I must have been subliminally channeling this vintage cloth I have on the table at the moment when I made this choice!

I wasn't really going to take a holiday break from study, but with the other half home and so many renovations in the pipeline, I had to give poor P a hand.  So it was a working holiday.  At home we had a fence to fix after Hugo did a runner on christmas eve (lightening induced)...all was well, he got picked up by the police, drunk and disorderly with a golden retriever pal he had found along the way, and taken to the local emergency vet.  That was a very relieving phone call I recieved at 4am!

We stabilized the old fence posts with star pickets and concrete then reattached the palings side by side with screws.  It doesn't look terribly pretty (hence no photo's!) but it does the job and it is down the back behind the workroom.  I did however glean the surplus palings and came up with a thrifty use for them.  I've been having probs with the vegie patch - it is divided into 4 sections, but as I mulch and the plants grow, everything spills into the other sections.  So, I used some long chunky stakes, malleted into the ground, and screwed the palings on horizontally.  It has made such a difference in feeling organised and on top of everything...I think it's a bit of an analogy for the PhD, which definitely is in need of some set boundaries and clear direction!

Other renos have included re-laying paving in our patio, fixing an outside wall and painting windows.  We also had a little getaway down to Rye to P's families holiday house, but also did renos down there too, so it was only a holiday for the doggles who got to have lots of lovely long walks, not for us!

The vegie growing is going ok, but a little slow, I don't think there has been enough consistent warmth.  I've only had a few beans and zuchinnis so far.  One thing I am excited about is a watermelon plant in the front garden which is looking promising - I've never succeeded in getting one to grow before.

And on the making front...
I finished the green tones baby cardi...
I joined all of my cardi knitting remnant granny squares together.  It's about the size of a place mat and I find it very lovely, it reminds me of Sophie Digard.  At the moment it's over the arm of the sofa...I'll keep adding to it and maybe one day it will be big enough to cover the bed...

 And, I have started another baby cardi...moving along swiftly with this one :o)

 There's a few other bits n bobs going on, but definitely time to get back to another kind of work!

mannequin mania and some gleaned cloth

After years of thinking about it I finally got a dressmakers mannequin for the workroom...I so often get stuck or don't do things because I don't have one, so I'm hoping that this will transform my work.
I purchased a full body form from tinnafashion, a place which pen put me onto (ta ducks!)...it came last week, with an unfortunately broken base, but their service was fantastic and they personally delivered a new one that night.

Here she is alongside Claudette who I introduced a while back...I was already calling the new girl manny, so I thought I would officially name her Manuella Santos, Manny for short after this degrassi character!

I started trying some things on Manny...I was developing a garment shape from the apron panels when I last utilised Claudette, and a few different forms emerged, one being a dress using four apron panels (two for the front, two for the back)...

This is made from the poly backing cloth with the print strike-through that I showed when I was taking stock of some of my remnants...

I've created a series of garments which experiment with variations on this technique - this is a top version using the same print of gemma hunting bees which pen made an apron from :o)  I've been trying to work out how to photograph my gathering of garments and where I might go next...

I'm always photographing views of the garden from the workroom, but today I felt like doing the opposite and snapped pics of this years parsley and glimpses of last years in garment form...I've been  getting in the habit of pulling focus more and more - this is evocative of something which I was playing with here...

birthday, baby cardi and beans

I'm amused that absolutely no-one has taken me up on my christmas giveaway offer of a plum jam recipe...maybe no-one else has any plums either!

I've been distracted by other bits n bobs anyhow...my lovely pal Belinda held a birthday party for her little boy who turned 3...she put on an amazing lunch and spread of party food...here's my origami'd birthday card, envelope made from a page from the weekender mag and the wrapped pressie using some of my gleaned paper remnants from my digi printing...

The pressie was an origami book and paper set :o)
I also made a start on the next sock yarn baby cardi...another pal is having her bub number two in february so I'm getting in early!

And I picked the first of the purple king beans which I have growing alongside and twining up the meyer lemon which is espaliered on the back wall of the house.  Not a bad weekend!

christmas gleaning

I always like to make time for hand crafted christmas greetings, and I also like to include some dog pics like this gorgeous one of Hugo from last year...

This year I have heaps of plum jam recipes left over from the giveaway in my guest book I had for summer gleaning - the recipe's are a photocopy of my own handwritten one from my cook's organiser...

So I thought I could glean the remnant recipes for this years cards.  I used a technique from my favourite origami book - Home Decorating with Origami by Tomoko Fuse...

I folded the A5 recipe sheets into what is described in the book as a letter holder.  I printed a cutie picture of Gemma and Hugo looking down the back garden in a strategic spot on the back of the recipe so that I could write the christmas message around it...

For an envelope to put these in, I decided to make my own.  A while back pugly pixel blogged about a coolie envelope template from jetpens...which I promptly purchased online!  It makes tiny envelopes, so I blew it up on the photocopier to A3 size to also make four bigger sizes...I spray glued the photocopy onto a piece of cardboard and cut it out to make my own template - yay!
I've been collecting any interesting images from magazines, booklets and newspapers so went through the stash to come up with some sweet combo's...

And to finish off these ones which weren't going through the post, I sealed the envelopes with some spiderman stickers which I had about the place - P is a spidey fan :o)

"Amazing power and responsibility!"