A Final Update

For a few weeks at any rate. I know it's been a while but I have a million excuses, life has been quite busy and quite stressed the last few weeks. And to be entirely honest I've been exhausted and my mind quite lacking in topics of interest, and things worthy of the time it would take to write and read them. But we'll be on the ups with lots to share when we get back.

Where are we going?   China.    How long?    Three weeks.    When?    In three days.

So the rest of my week will be quite busy, trying to finish everything, pack everything, clean everything, and hopefully forget nothing! Well here are some garden pictures  as well as a few of my corset for you and if you think of us say a prayer for easy, safe, successful and enjoyable travels.

Corsets and Costumes

I'm on a bit of a costume kick and this year I'm feeling a little 18th century obsessed! I've gone to a couple rennesance fairs and of course made my own costumes and I must say I was very happy with them. My first costuming adventure began after falling in love with the Lord of the Rings, I began drafting my own patterns and hand sewing my elven dresses which all things considered I think came out very well. But when I made my first corset/stays for the renn fair, that was a game changer. I love the weight and the layers and the shapes created by the clothing of yesteryear, if I could wear them all the time I probably would.

Well anyways, a few years ago ... Okay about 5, I bought an actual stays pattern packet rather then drafting my own. I found that half done corset in a bag last month and decided to finish it, it was only then that I realized it was an 18th century design ( not rennesance). But I liked it, and I was determined to finish so I started researching 18th century clothing and oh is it lovely! I am so excited to finish the stays and beggin the rest of the costume!

I've almost decided to go ahead and wear it to the renn fair anyways, I mean really half the costumes there aren't historically accurate and lots of people don't even wear costumes! I think only a handful of people will notice and probably most of them wouldn't even bother saying anything.

So here is some inspiration from my Pinterest board on costumes! And yes, I do plan to make my husband wear a kilt. I'll be sure to post costume updates along the way and I'll tell you why I love corsets so much.

Back to the Garden and something I learned about Squash

 My spaghetti squash gets bigger every day and I'm so excited about it! This however is not that first one I told you about, that first one and the four after it, all shriveled up and fell off the vine. That of course left me feeling devastated  and curious as to what could be the problem!?  So I did a little research and discovered that squashes will start to produce a fruit but if it isn't pollinated or isn't properly or sufficiently pollinated it will shrivel up and fall off. For whatever reason we don't get many honey bees around here, so with knowledge I decided that the next female flower that opened was going to get properly pollinated and as I guess you can see my paint brush pollinating skills are excellent! This lovely is only about a week old but I can't wait to eat it!

       Speaking of eating (I'm starving) this morning I pulled up some young potatoes and I plan to bake them with our basketful of yellow cherry tomatoes using this recipe that I found this morning. It looks amazing and I can't wait to try it (I'll tell you how it turned out)! Now if only I had bought the white esparagus at the whole foods store yesterday that be lovely with it! And then I could make some bread ... Okay enough talk of dinner I really am getting too hungry.

       In the garden I also have Cherokee purple heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, Asian eggplants and cherry tomatoes which are trying to be trees (they're already taller then me and still going). Also because I forgot to show you before here is my little satsuma tree. I got on sale for $15, I wanted a lime, but all they had were Mexican Key Limes and if I ever get a lime I want to buy a kefir lime, so I can use its leaves.

Another Garden topic ... seed saving! These bags are fill with seed pods finishing drying up, I want  leave them out to dry as long as possible but the birds had discovered them, so paper bags is in a cool dry place it is!  I have  radishes (I will never have to buy them again), mustard, cilantro, and arugula or rocket. I also have some that are already finished drying and have been put in little seed pouches.  I also have some tomato seeds fermenting in a baby food jar, which really isn't as hard as it sounds and surprisingly works quite well! When I lived in Harbin I saved a  bunch of tomato seeds, just for something to do and ended up with about 20 tomatoes on my balcony the next summer. I had so many tomato plants I didn't know what to do with them!

Homemade Pita and Hummis

I love baking, but between summer, an easily overheated kitchen and a needy baby who doesn't like  naps, not much has been going on in that department. However, I recently had a craving for pita and Hummis! Now I had made pita before ( also tortillas and Chinese pancakes, all of them basically flat breads) and I knew it wasn't so complicated, but honestly I forgot just how easy it is. All you need is flour, salt, yeast, oil and water (I also added a couple sprigs of chopped rosemary) and this receipie from Smitten Kitchen. They might not get that perfect pocket in them but they are still perfect for ripping up and dipping in hummus. Which is also amazingly easy to make. For a classic hummus all you need is chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic, but there are a million ways to switch it up. Next time I want to try a cucumber and mint Hummus, I'll let you know if it's any good!

The Jones Line

I recently wrote a post about our little Rode Trip to New York and in that post I kind of half promised to tell the story of my moms family line. Now my mothers maiden name is Jones and with a last name as common as that we didn't expect to get very far when doing our genealogy searches. (Note here, don't waste your money on an Ancestry.com subscription, I mean unless you're rich and like wasting money....then by all means do as you please). Fortunately for us, we already had 1. A lot of names and information and 2. The family stayed in relatively the same area, making it much easier to track things down by census information. My Great Aunt who is now 92 and her older sister had at one point started doing some research and she was able to give us some names and dates as reference points.
    It's funny how we as people always hate the multitude of questions they ask on Census records, but when we look back, oh it is so wonderful to learn the little details! Now I'm thinking I'll write another post soon on how to research your ancestry for free, but for now I will simply share a few sights that can get you going. My top 3 are probably Familysearch, FindaGrave and Rootsweb. Now there are a lot of sights that you have to pay for, like Ancestry.com and Fold3. My advice is to not bother with those for as long as possible, and if you find any information that only those sights have put it on a list and when you've got it all together and you have a not too busy month get a months free trial and research all those at once for free. But I digress ....
      Ah yes, the Jones family line, we have traced it back to the 1600's and a man by the name of Teague. No one seems to know to much about Teague, there is some conjecture that he was the son of Christopher Jones (captain of the Mayflower) but there's really no proof, also there is some possibility that he was half Indian (leaving the possibility of an illegitimate son of C. Jones, though not likely). At any rate he lived in the area of the Plymouth Bay colony, at Chatham and Yarmouth, and though there is no record of his marriage it is believed that his wife was a woman from the Wampanoag tribe. There are however records of Teague, mostly court records however as he was often in trouble.

    Next in line is Josiah Jones and his wife Elizabeth Berry (daughter of Richard Berry, friend and fellow trouble maker of Teague). These two lived in Yarmouth and later move to East Greenwich RhodeIsland and seemed to live rather respectable lives. Their son Seth (first of many by that name) married Priscilla Hamilton they had a son who they named Josiah and he married Sarah Place. Their son the second Seth was born in 1763 in East Greenwich, he moved to New York and married Nancy Carr ( who there is very little record of. Seth and Nancy had at least 7 children, two sons who they named Seth Nelson and William Jones. Seth Nelson Jones was born in Otsego county NY and married Calista Yager. They had a son who they named Seth Eugene and he married Frances Amellia Wellman ( another long family history). Together they had six children, William, Howard, James, Alice, Lulu Bell, and my great grandfather Warren Benson (who as the story goes, owed his interesting name to the stove). He married Anna Marie Wiese who's family had immigrated from Germany and they had 4 children Seth (my grandfather), Lorenz, Emma and Ruth (who we visited last month). My grandfather Seth Eugene Jones married Rose Mary Feeley and together they had three children of which my mother is the youngest. 

    So there you have it, a rough history of the Jones over the past 400 years.

A Gardeners Rant

I'm sure you've seen as many of these cute garden markers as I have, anything from old silver spoons to popsicle sticks. I love them because they're cute, and who doesn't love cute things. But they also kind of irritate me, I feel like the only reason you would need them is if you had so many plants you couldn't remember where you put what. On the other hand if you have that many plants and that much space you should be an experienced enough gardener to tell your plants apart. Thus the only good reason left for a gardener to use them is if you plan on sending a stranger (husband, child, or friend) into your garden to get something for you. Would you use Garden markers?

Thoughts on self sufficiency and community

Self sufficiency is another big thing that's started popping up all over the place recently and it takes the idea of green organic living to an entirely new level. Anything from growing your own salads to large kitchen gardens accompanied by chickens and people who make there own of anything they can and try to live off the grid as much as possible. Even if you can't be entirely green and self sufficient, any little bit counts towards living better and less dependent! And while I readily admit this to be a dream of mine I will also admit that in some ways the base of this isn't entirely good.  Now I know perfectly well that the idea is to be able to rely on "yourself" and not " the industry" but we should never be fully self sufficient, if we were to be fully self sufficient we would have no need of others and there would be no community, and though we could do without "the industry" we should never attempt to do without each other, friendship and community are a crucial part of our existence. God said its not right for man to be alone and it's true. We need people, people to love, people to share with, people to help and people to laugh with. People are important and so is community.

First Unravel

On my most recent visit to a local thrift store it was a particularly hot day and they had a large box of sweaters sitting outside marked at 25cents each. I grabbed a few nice wool ones for an experiment in unraveling. If you read my previous post, Drop Spindle Experiments, you'll know that I was playing around with the idea of recycling and repurposing old woolen items. So this is my first project and though not completely finished yet I couldn't wait to share.

I started out with this grey vest.

It's a nice soft gray, speckled in reds, blues and yellows.

Extra large and 100% Shetland Wool.

I started by opening up the seems

The ribbed neckline and armholes were separate so they were the first to be unraveled and rewound. Each of these three center pull balls is about 56 yards of fingering weight. When I've finished unraveling the entire vest I may ply it together on my drop spindle for a more easily used yarn or I might leave it at this weight for something warm and thin, perhaps mittens or socks.

Quilt Update 2

         

So I realized today that it's the third of May and I'd missed my first of the month quilt update. Obviously the update was not the only thing I forgot in the quilt department this month, as you can see I only managed to make 2 new blocks. Between the business of everyday life, a couple of big weekend trips, a cat napping baby and several other projects... I have plenty of excuses.

Drop Spindle Experiments

kurdistan woman

I recently learned about drop spindle spinning and I am so excited about it! I was at an old wood resale place a few weeks back and I noticed a spinning wheel and I realized that I don't actually know much about spinning and I decided that I probably should! Up till this point I had never heard of nor seen anything about drop spindle spinning though apparently  it is one of the oldest and most commonly used methods for turning wool into usable yarn. As I did my research and learned more about this art, I realized that I had to try it! But how could I "get my feet wet" without paying to much for the water. It's one thing to spend a lot of money on something you know you're good at and you know you love, it's another to spend it on a whim that you might end up hating. Besides all that, it's really just not my style! So I began thinking about what yarn is traditionally made from. Sheep's wool is a given, but I have no sheep, angora rabbits, alpacas ... but what else has soft fluffy warm fur? Cats, dogs... I used to have a cat similar to a Norwegian Forest Cat she had the most lovely long soft gray fur. Dogs such as collies, retrievers, hurding dogs and huskies also tend to have a lot of long fluffy fur! 

twining on a drop sindle

This however interesting still wasn't helping my cause much as I don't currently have any pets, fluffy or otherwise. So my thought process continued on to natural fiber, cotton and flax. Well near my house grows a lot of milkweed, and to be honest I know a lot of people with fluffy dogs. But it would probably be a long time before I ever get around to any of that. Drop spindles however, are also very good for twining. So I decided to make my own very ruff Turkish Spindle to give it a try and it was amazingly satisfying and relaxing, which in turn turned my thoughts to recycling and reusing. Why not take old, used, ugly, stained or holey sweaters, scarves and other knitwear from say your local thrift store. Simple wash, unravel, dye and re-twine to make new yarn that you can knit or crochet with! Here are my two cheaply made Turkish  spindles, one is made from sticks and string the other from tongue depressors and a chopstick!

Basket Case

I'm a bit of a basket case, I love baskets! Baskets of all shapes, styles and purposes. I guess one of things I like most about basketry is the textile nature of it. Woven, knitted, knotted, crocheted and sewn things have always been a favorite of mine and baskets are like a more solid version of that!

Before the interesting adventure of "pregnancy carpal tunnel" started last summer, I was having great fun with making my own little baskets! It started out with a terrible little thing made from dry and brittle day lilly sticks, but I soon had a brilliant idea. As with everywhere around here we have and almost limitless supply of this fast growing vine known as virginia creeper.  It's not  at all like poison ivy and though you wouldn't want to eat the berries, simple using the vines isn't going to give you any problems.





I was able to make two nice specimens before my fingers started giving me problems and I'm so pleased with them! I love gathering cherry tomatoes with the small one and the bigger is just lovely.So without further adue I shall share with you how easy it is to do!


First it's a good idea to make sure what you have is virginia creeper and not some other nasty fiend! Virginia creeper looks like the above picture, it's sets of 5 leaves make it very easy to identify.

Your next step would be to gather as many as you can or at least as many as you think you'll use.

After that's finished strip off all the leaves(I threw them in my compost pile).

Next choose the strongest straitest pieces of vine for your base, make sure these ones are thick but not dry or brittle. You have to have at least two but I'd suggest a minimum of four, this was going to big a bigger basket so I used 8. As you may be able to see, I took the four thicker ones and cut a slit in the middle about an inch long to pull the other four through before I began binding them together and weaving, you don't have to do this, but I think it makes it easier and stronger.

Beggin your weaving, there are a million posts and videos online about basket making so I won't go into to much detail.

Continue weaving till you get the size you want for the base, bend your base spokes up and add more if necessary. Weave upwords till you have the desired hight, make handles and bind off (sorry I don't have any pictures of these steps).

And there's the finished product! I love my basket.

Garden is Getting Greener

Little update on my garden, peas are getting taller, lettuce is getting leafier and the radishes are just as happy as can be. I've also got some squash growing nicely. Cilantro for the hubby, Rosemary coming back to life a bit. A happy mango and a patch of dirt that's almost ready for some flower seeds! Oh how I love spring!

Quilt update 1

So it's been a month and I've only gotten 3 more done ... Wich is less then one a week. A little sad, a little less then I had hoped for, but still better then nothing. I think I have decided to make the backs of them solid white and black, though I have yet to decide on a filler I was thinking of using old dryer lint in an attempt to make this a very recycle friendly kind of project but my mother pointed out that I would either have to wash it very cairfully or do something extra to the lint so it doesn't bunch up when washing ... Or I could use regular batting .... Or perhaps a few layers of old sheet!

Growing a Cut Flower Garden

If you've ever wanted to try your hand at selling things weekly or monthly at your local farmers market, you'll  undoubtedly know how difficult and complicated it is. Just thinking about it is potentially migraine worthy! Its not like a roadside stand, you have to know what your selling, when your selling, how much and at what charge (all of this pre-season and if your selling anything edible you have to have insurance.

Well all that mess got me thinking about what kinds of non-edibles can you sell at a Farmers market. Obviously there are a number of homemade goods such as baskets and quilts, but what if you want to grow things? Cut Flowers and potted plants and cut flowers could easily be a great solution. Super fresh, mix your own bouquet, while eat those summer strawberries you got next door.

I love the idea of growing my own cut flowers, but why grow them just for myself. I would love to have a huge cut flower garden and sell them. Allow people to come into my garden and mix their own bouquets of very freshly cut flowers. I'd have a sign by the road with what flowers are in bloom, I'd probably also sell any excess vegetables, eggs, or homemade goods in a little shop off the back of the house. Not sure that I will ever do it, but it's a lovey idea non the less!

field of flowers

What kinds of flowers do you like in a bouquet? Do you enjoy big hot house blooms, old fashioned fragrances or perhaps something a bit more wild. Subtle or attention seeking, purely floral or would you enjoy some herbs thrown in the mix to liven things up a bit? 

Paper Piecing a Quilt

I like quilts, I like making quilts and I like hand sewing and for a good long while I've been wanting to hand sew a quilt. A few weeks back I was looking for some quilting inspiration on Pinterest when I cam across a method called english paper piecing.

The idea is you cut the geometric shapes of your patern out of paper, then slightly larger pieces of cloth. Using pins, fold and secure the edges of your cloth around the paper giving you a perfect shape. Then simply press the pieces and stich them together. There's a great little tutorial over here at  Buttons and Butterflies.

So the other day I started my own, and I'm going to post my progress on the first of every month. You see, ever since I was a little girl I've had this terrible habit of not finnishing projects. But I'm going to break myself of that and you all and my quilt are going to help me do it. Even if it takes a year or more.

Now, without further a due I present my humble beginnings! 1 down 100 ... Or so-ish to go.