Alive and kicking..?

The weeks of summer came and went - and RL had my full attention. August is upon us - being the last "summer month" according to Norwegion common knowledge. I hope there are still days of good temperature and sunshine to come - and as a tribute to this wish I decided to experiment a bit on this blog. Starting by posting a photo from my old mobile phone. I have a lot of creative plans and projects on the go, so hopefully the blog will be revived and alive - yet again :-)

Partytime!

Pretty flowers are a must when it comes to party decorating for young ladies like Princess...

...and Princess wanted a yellow theme, but not as in "Easter decor"

All ready to go!

And this is how it all came together - creating a fresh but romantic and youthful athmosphere for Princess civil confirmation party

Princess enjoyed her big day and seemed quite happy with the company and attention from all her family and relatives after all :o)

Better late than never... another Ripple!

The finished blanket measures 97 x 152 cm which is sufficient for a nap on the sofa ;o) I think it was actually done before the end of April, I just never got around to take any photos after weaving in the ends and washing it. I love the effect of the different yarns that range from plain cotton to pure silk. I have used scraps of sturdy wool and soft, featherlight angora as well as some cheap acrylic of unknown origins. The subtle tones of white, off white and beige makes this a true eye candy. Modest and clean and pretty!

Potager - Part four

Finally, the last chapter of this pallet frame potager tutorial. Previous posts contain parts one, two and three of the tutorial/documentary...

A four-legged furry friend watches closely - maybe this is what the dog is thinking: "what is that crazy lady up to today...? Digging for hours (thought that was MY job), then replacing the turf with soil that will be OUT OF MY REACH...??? Peculiar and stubborn is what I would call her...you know, they say that the dog resembles the owner and vice versa..."

I thoroughly watered the potager modules making sure the moist reached all the way down through the soil. this took quite a while and is of course best to do in the afternoon or early morning as direct sunlight will make the water evaporate.

The pre-cultivated (and in some cases not by me) plants are now where they should be - and a few mm below the surface of the soil there are lines of tiny seeds waiting to sprout.

As usual I plant and sow quite densely with the firm intention to thin the sprouts later on, but never get around to do just that - but I highly recommend thinning your plants to make sure they get enough air and light. THIS year I will do the right thing, I promise...

...because the jungel-like look of the potagers when we reached mid summer was not exactely pretty, and the crop was more or less spoiled. "Don t do as I do, do as I tell you to do" - and good luck with that ;o)

Potager - Part three

If you want the whole story, check out the pallet frame potager tutorial parts one and two

I used a double layer of bark cloth to line the pallet frames, shown step by step below. This is done to delay the inevitable weed growing up from the deeper layers of soil for as long as possible. It is important to use a breathing material for this and by all means avoid plastic as this will caus lack of drainage which in turn will make the plants drown and rot...

I used a few cardboard nails (short nails with large, flat heads) to secure the bark cloth before adding a 10 cm layer of cow dung fertilizer (don t worry - your potager will NOT smell bad at all, even though you will experience quite a stench as you work with this shit (pun intended...) :o)

Finally I added regular weeded plant soil, making sure the soil surface is at least 10 cm below the top of the pallet frame to make room for watering the potager, as seen below.

 

As the ground is not level in our garden, I tried to make the surface of the soil level, to enable an even distribution of water. This will prevent the water from gathering in a corner or in one end of the potager.

 

Done! But still some vital parts missing - yes, I am talking about the PLANTS. To be continued...

Potager - Part two

 

Have a look at Potager - Part one if you want the full tutorial for making a potager using pallet frames

...let the hard work begin... Using a flat spade I cut smallish squares of turf and lifted it with a bigger and lighter shovel. I used two of the pallet frames to outline the areas for the potager modules, by pressing them firmly into the grass. This left quite sharp guidelines for the digging.

After removing the turf from both potager modules I thoroughly weeded the top 10 cm of soil by removing small roots etc. Below: Some are not ashamed to watch others do the hard work... 

One layer of pallet frames...

...and then another on top.

A knothole needed to be sealed and a piece of one of the bigger roots I dug up came handy.

Rady for the next step - lining and filling the pallet frames. To be continued...

Potager - Part one

Last spring I decided to finally have a go at making a potager in our garden, using pallet frames. The photo above shows the frames before the staining.

To prepare the pallet frames for their new duties, they got two coats of oil based stain for outdoor use. Partly to make them last longer, partly to make them look better and more uniform.

 

Two of the frames werw old and worn and already had a nice patinated look even before my first coat of stain.

 

The difference between the "worn" and the "new" frames are less obvious after the two coats of stain, as seen above and under

 

Voila! All done and ready to serve as potager modules, as shown under.

To be continued...

26 days later...

The days just blew by, and here I am all busy and springstruck (is that a word...? It is supposed to express the feeling of being equally happy for spring finally arriving AND tired to the bone so that actually enjoying spring is quite a challenge). The photo was taken lying in the hammock last summer and is just a pause-photo awaiting blogposts to come... soon!

Come shine on my Regal Pelargonim x Domesticum!

Today is a rather gray, cold and windy day - but the latest few days have been warm and sunny with promise of spring. I savour the light both indoors and out - but I will keep my Regal from the deceitful elements for a few more weeks.

Pretty spring hues in front of my precious "1971"-drawing by artist and very dear friend Anne Tove Mygland

Still growing

Just a quick update on the latest ripple; it is still growing! My scraps lasted a lot longer than expected so this project will end as a decent sized blanket. Above: update shot with part of matching dog behind chair. Below: update shot with posing matching dog...

Smell the roses AGAIN - or faith and perseverance

Triumph of the roses! I was happy to have caught "on camera" what I assumed was the last day of beauty and glory of my birthday bouquet as posted here. Now I can see that I need to have stronger faith, and trust that I am not the only perseverent specimen around here ;o) This photo was taken yesterday, 16 days after I recieved the roses. OK, they are not longer as perky and well defined in shape, but yet so delicate, beautiful and graceful in their maturity. I value all stages of a flowers life; from dry seed to sprout to bud to blossom to the decay stages.  My sense of easthethic adds of course an important and rewarding dimension to hov I percieve and interpret this process.

May I develop an equally humble, respectful, embracing and valuating attitude towards my own life process and phases - the physical, emotional and spiritual - as I claim to have towards the true blooming specimen!

Springtime Comfort Collection

NEKCWARMER FREE PATTERN
MATCY MATCHY HAT FREE PATTERN
ARMWARMERS FREE PATTERN


PS - You can make free photo collages here

Still a chill - O springtime where art thou?

First of all: HAPPY BIRTHDAY dear sister! Maybe you are not surfing the blogworld today to read this, but still...

Then: The armwarmers are excellent for keeping my wrists and lower arms warm and as bad/good luck would have it that is exactely what I need these days. Bad luck referring to my hope and expectations for the arrival of springtime and rising temperatures, with no need for sturdy accessories like these. Good luck referring to a real chance to show off and use my latest creations as soon as I got them off the needles. My Matchy Matchy hat, neckwarmer and armwarmers are not out of season after all - it is just the season it self being out of season... Scroll down for armwarmer pattern if you need some compensation for the lack of warm weather too ;o)

ARMWARMERS

Yarn: Sulka, Du store alpakka (CA 45 g Petrol S209 and ca45 g Seagreen S236)

Needles: 8 mm 60 cm circulars and 5 mm 40 or 60 cm circulars

The armwarmers are knit back and forth on circulars - you can of course use dpns in stead.The pattern allows you to easily change it to preferred size - just keep knitting the stripe pattern until you got the desired length (which of course requires more yarn than stated here).

Cast on 78 st on 8 mm needles. Change to 5 mm needles and knit 7 rows of 2 x 2 rib.

Change to 8 mm needles as you also change colour. * Knit 1 row, purl one row, then change colour again, knit 1 row, purl 1 row*. Repeat this stripe pattern 10 times (ending with the first rib colour).
Change colour, knit ONE row and change to 5 mm needles.

Knit 4 rows of 2 x 2 rib
Cast off very loosely using 8 mm needles. Weave in loose ends and then join edges together by Invisible Weaving, also called Mattress stitch, Backstitch, Overcast stitch like this:

Then, of course, make another identical armwarmer and enjoy the soft, arm- and heartwarming feling :o)

I DID rotate these photoes before uploading them, but Blogger keep jinxing them so I can´t be bothered to try again. The reason I am posting the above and below photo (and the one further down) is to illustrate how neat and almost invisible the seam appears - I love it! Above: Armwarmer knitware without seam. Below: Armwarmer knitware with (almost) invisible seam

...as you can see below, this is as good as it gets when it comes to seaming up bulky, striped knitware. To the leftt: Armwarmer without seam. To the right: Armwarmer with (almost) invisible seam