Crystal Madrilejos

One of the last things left in the garden were the carrots. We got off to sort of a late start on these and they take a really long time to mature so we figured we’d keep them in the ground as long as possible.

We pulled up our first round of plantings a couple weeks ago and Andrew pulled up the rest earlier this week. We both agree that we LOVE root vegetables. Not only were we pretty successful growing them, but they are just so ding-dang fun to harvest! There are few things as rewarding as digging potatoes out of the ground and pulling up a bright orange carrot. I kept imaging how much fun the little one will have with this task.

Some of the carrots came out a little funky. I think this is because carrot seeds are microscopic and trying to plant just one is practically impossible. We thinned them down after they started to grow, but since their stems grow in bunches it’s hard to tell how well you’re thinning them out. Some of the carrots were wrapped around each other and look like emaciated aliens.

And one particular favorite looks like The Radish Spirit from Spirited Away!

–c.

The other day I had the wonderful experience of making wool felt! As most of you know, Andrew’s parents own alpacas and have been shearing them and, more recently, having their wool processed. Andrew’s mom has been felting for a little while now and last Christmas she got me a gift certificate for felting classes at a local fiber studio.

We went to Places in Time Farm & Fiber Arts (which is also founder and home of the Ohio Natural Fiber Network) for my first felting session. So so much fun! I love the place, it’s so relaxing and there are so many beautiful things to look at and the owner, Karen, is a lovely person.

Andrew and I are working on another baby related project that involves felt and it is an amazing feeling to actually have felt that was raised, sheared, processed, and then felted all locally. Here are pictures of the process:

I still need to take pictures of the fully dried pieces, but will post those soon.

–c.

While in Wales recording with Herman Dune at Bryn Derwen Studios, we went for a walk up the hill and found this lovely creature.

–c.

I’m so sad that I missed out on this Tiny Showcase print by Rachell Sumpter!

[Image via Tiny Showcase]

I had my reminder all set and everything and still forgot about it. Ah well, next time. I was lucky to have gotten one of her $20 “Cave Dweller” prints over at 20X200 awhile back. Her work is unbelievable.

[Image via 20X200]

I highly recommend checking out her website.

–c.

[Photos by Estelle Hanania]

My dear friend Marion designed the shoes for the Dévastée Spring/Summer 2010 collection. I am in love with them all! Not only is she a beautiful person but she is an amazingly talented fashion designer and makes incredible illustrations too! If only I could find a pair of her shoes stateside… le sigh.

–c.

End of the Road Festival: The view out of our hotel room window while on tour with Herman Dune.

–c.

[I’m starting a new feature on Wednesdays, posts about travels that we have taken over the years. Either together or apart. Hope you enjoy it!]

Another reason why I have a million craft projects going is because I have this tendency to do something so much until I get sick of it and have to do something else. Maybe it’s ADD passed down from my parents. After sitting in front of the sewing machine for so long working on the quilt, after a few squares I already felt burnt out.

Luckily, I had been itching to start crocheting again. 2 projects later and I’m burnt out and back to the quilt, but I got a couple cute things out of this burst of crochet energy. Both patterns were from Ana Paula Rimoli’s Amiguri Two! I got this book at Barnes & Noble on a whim and have been pretty happy with it thus far.

I’m realizing that the majority of craft books that I own are in Japanese, I mean, literally written in Japanese. I’ve been able to figure out the patterns relatively easily but I have to fill in the blanks most of the time. This book is in English and I have to say that was a bit easier on the brain. Though mine didn’t turn out exactly like the ones in the book, they were fun to make nontheless. Here is one of them: Peas in a Pod!

The one in the book only has 3 peas in the pod, but for some reason my pod turned out extra large and I was able to squeeze in 4. Go figure. I know everyone’s crocheting styles and stitches are a little different but I have never really paid attention to how many stitches per inch, etc. This might come back and bite me in the ass when I’m crocheting some type of clothing, but until then I’ll just do what I do.

One thing I have yet to perfect is the invisible decrease (which I’ve never heard mention of in any of the craft books I’ve read). I always wondered why the bottoms of all my spheres were lumpy and just not attractive in general. I finally googled this problem and discovered the invisible decrease which improved the look of my pieces greatly, but they still aren’t as smooth as I would like. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to advise!

I’ll post the other crochet project as soon as I take pictures of it. It’s been so cloudy here I haven’t been able to get any good light!

–c.

As if I didn’t have a million craft projects, add a baby into the mix and my brain is about to explode. Andrew has made me promise to not get carried away and take on too many things because sometimes even the most relaxing things can become stressful when you load them on nice and thick.

It’s been a dream of mine to make a quilt. For years and years, I’ve kicked the idea around in my head but it always seemed like such a daunting task since I’d never made a quilt in my life. Finally, I decided on a pattern that I found in Suzuko Koseki’s Patchwork Style that will be our baby’s first quilt and hopefully one that he or she will keep forever.

I’ve had this book for a few years now, first the Japanese version that I bought online and then more recently the English version that came out this year. At first I debated on whether I needed the English version, but I’m so happy that I bought it. The Japanese version was great for inspiration, but for a first time quilter I had to study the English version for a week before I was sure that I had it right. And not until I actually sat down and started sewing did it really start making sense. Here is my progress so far:

Luckily for me, the pattern doesn’t call for too much precision or for much planning. It’s very “decide as you go” which is nice because it’s less repetitive than I imagine a tradition quilt being. Each square is different. There really isn’t a color scheme and it’s sort of all over the place, but so far I’m happy with it. I just have about 24 more squares to go! Yikes.

I hope this baby like bright colors!

–c.

The yhs: Fruits & Vegetable Garden is coming to its end for the season and overall it’s been a mixture of success and failure. We knew this first year was going to be a huge learning experience and in that sense we were a success.

On the other hand, some things were devastating failures. The main one being the deer situation. We truly underestimated their desire to eat all our hard work despite all the beautiful foliage there is to eat outside of the garden. Though some things didn’t work out for us regardless of the deer (such as melons and cucumbers) I think the deer were the main culprit for destroying not only our plants but our morale as well. I think after the first few hits by the deer we realized that no matter how much love and care we put into the garden those pesky deer were going to get in there and wreck the place anyway. So, for next year our main focus is going to be keeping the deer out because, honestly, it’s not worth the time and effort if we can’t keep them out. Or we could just grow solely kale because they didn’t seem to care for that!

But I’m not going to dwell only on the bad things. There were some things that grew really really well! I’m happy to report that we had a fair share of lettuces, potatoes, green beans, carrots, zucchini, butternut squash, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, kale, basil, snow peas, green peas, and (dried) lima beans.

Some things that grew well, but then were ruined by the deer were swiss chard, tomatoes, strawberries, and our second round of green beans. We were able to harvest some of these things but not as much as we would have liked.

We also got a few cucumbers, one pepper, two tiny eggplants and about a million pea tomatoes. Let me just say that we planted way too many pea tomato plants. They are extremely cute (being smaller than even a grape tomato) but not really worth the effort of picking all those little guys. Note for next year: only one pea tomato plant.

–c.

The yhs: Fruits & Vegetable Garden is coming to its end for the season and overall it’s been a mixture of success and failure. We knew this first year was going to be a huge learning experience and in that sense we were a success.

On the other hand, some things were devastating failures. The main one being the deer situation. We truly underestimated their desire to eat all our hard work despite all the beautiful foliage there is to eat outside of the garden. Though some things didn’t work out for us regardless of the deer (such as melons and cucumbers) I think the deer were the main culprit for destroying not only our plants but our morale as well. I think after the first few hits by the deer we realized that no matter how much love and care we put into the garden those pesky deer were going to get in there and wreck the place anyway. So, for next year our main focus is going to be keeping the deer out because, honestly, it’s not worth the time and effort if we can’t keep them out. Or we could just grow solely kale because they didn’t seem to care for that!

But I’m not going to dwell only on the bad things. There were some things that grew really really well! I’m happy to report that we had a fair share of lettuces, potatoes, green beans, carrots, zucchini, butternut squash, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, kale, basil, snow peas, green peas, and (dried) lima beans.

Some things that grew well, but then were ruined by the deer were swiss chard, tomatoes, strawberries, and our second round of green beans. We were able to harvest some of these things but not as much as we would have liked.

We also got a few cucumbers, one pepper, two tiny eggplants and about a million pea tomatoes. Let me just say that we planted way too many pea tomato plants. They are extremely cute (being smaller than even a grape tomato) but not really worth the effort of picking all those little guys. Note for next year: only one pea tomato plant.

–c.