Month: May 2021
Garden Notes
I’ve been plugging away with gardening tasks after work this past week. I laid out a second bed, which is going to be for herbs and pollinators. (Eventually, this will be all one long bed, but baby steps to that.)
And then, I’m rather ridiculously proud that I set this up all by myself. The instructions mentioned two people and a step ladder. I had already slotted it in for one of the hour and half a timeframe between when I get done with work and the BF gets done with work, and I just wanted to do it on my own. And I did!
So with the trellis up, I started planting. There are kale, collards and broccoli (with alyssum on the edges) under the trellis, and Swiss chard (interspersed with cosmos) and calendula at the end of the bed. And that’s where I stalled out because it suddenly got cold, and rainy. I have things staged and ready to go, probably on Tuesday, when temps are scheduled to pick up again. And, I have the whole week off, so plenty of time to plant.
Knitting Notes
These are the hexipuffs I got out of the Knitpicks Palette yarn – I am now officially depleted of those extras. (Don’t have a problem with the yarn, I just had a lot of it in incomplete amounts. My stash page in Ravelry looks noticeably shorter now.)
In the spirit of using more stash – I’ve cast on the Qana hat by Sara Setters, using Quince and Co Owl (and Owl Tweet) in the Abyssinian, Steppe and Allagash colorways. This was from a Quince Quarterly, and I didn’t love the pattern it came with, so I found one I liked better.
Garden Notes
The contents of the shrubbery next to the driveway became a little clearer over the course of the week. There are at least three distinct chokecherries, and today revealed a dogwood of the Swida persuasion.
The cherries will be easy to keep – they’re in pretty distinct chunks. I’m not so sure about the dogwood – it’s more mixed up with other shrubs, so while I’m not opposed to keeping it, I’m not sure how easy that’ll be.
Knitting Notes
Pattern: Leftovers Cowl by Wendy D. Johnson
Yarn: Knitpicks Palette in the Ash, Ciel, Clarity, Kumquat Heather, Limeade Heather, Macaw, Marina, Pool, Semolina, Seraphim, Serrano, Silver and Sky colorways
Needles: Size 4 circs
I have used up most of my Palette yarn!
What cracks me up is that by the end, I was down to four colors, so I can totally tell where the end was.
The pattern is easy – it would be a good intro to colorwork. I did manage to break one of the interchangable needle tips while doing this – apparently my tension was a little crazy. It took me three days to weave in the ends, and three days to graft it shut. I’m pretty proud of that graft. It looks way better than I expected it would come out.
Between Ink and Shadows – Melissa Wright
Nim was sold long ago to pay her father’s debts. She now works for the Trust, who control magic in Inara. She must pay a monthly tithe to them, and if she fails, her freedom is forfeit. Her newest task is to steal from the man who is second only to the king in power in Inara, and Nim is sure she’ll fail.
I found this book for free, and was pleasantly surprised. It’s not perfect (I feel like the story was stretched out a bit), but I really enjoyed Nim and Warrick’s interactions, and the hows and whys of the power in this kingdom have really interesting potential. This is the kind of book that keeps me reading the freebies.
Garden Notes
So I was in one of my forums and someone mentioned the end of season dahlia sale at Longwood Garden. I was bad. That’s 18 tubers above. I did give two to the my mother, but the rest are now in pots.
The big pots above are the dahlias. I also moved most of the seedlings out to harden off.
The hoop is up against the south side of the house, and I may need to rethink that. It’s been really warm for the past week (to the point where I didn’t cover them the past two nights), and there’s really no shade in this location. I may move them under the lilac instead – that’ll give them more shade. But we’ll see how this season goes.
The North Wind and the Sea 