Since I’ve been doing a bit with the garden this year, I’ve decided to document it to remember, especially the dye flowers.
This time I’ve edited a teeny bit, unlike my last garden photo session. And I had a “helper” who thought it was a great service that I’d lie down on the lawn to relax together.
Elderflower cordial.
The shops were all out of organic lemons, so I also made a batch with oranges and one with mint! A bit of an experiment, but I’m happy to report that it tastes really great.
It’s been a couple of years since last, so I thought it was time, we have a lot of elders right now, they spread like weeds. I’ll wait for autumn and make a batch with the berries too, it’s really good in winter, hot with lemon, ginger and honey if you have a cold, don’t want one or just need heating up. And then I’ll cut some of them down, because, well, there’ll be more. If I don’t keep them in check we’ll be known as Elderberry Jungle Farm.
I’ve been making other stuff too – stay tuned. I’ve finally had time and “presence” to start painting a bit again this week! But not much, still have that hedge to cut.
Det var et par år siden sidst, så jeg fik lige lyst til at lave lidt saft, siden vi har rigtig mange hyld for tiden, de breder sig som ukrudt.
Butikkerne var helt udgåede for usprøjtede citroner, så jeg lavede også en portion med appelsiner og en med mynte. Det blev virkelig godt! Til efteråret skal jeg lige have lavet lidt bærsaft også, det er rigtig godt varmt med citron, ingefær og honning. Og så ryger nogen af planterne altså, inden vi helt drukner i dem.
The section of lawn that I killed off last year is all filled out, although not just with dye plants. In fact, the dye project seems to go not all that well. Plants are growing (in case of the japanese indigo, not growing, but surviving), but no flowers. The weld most likely won’t be useful until next year, but I did hope to finally harvest a lot of coreopsis. The marigold also aren’t looking very willing. I didn’t sow new Dyer’s Chamomile, there is still some in the abandonded veggie garden along with woad.
I took the opportunity of clear soil to bury a few old potatoes, replant my strawberry plants and some asparagus. Lettuces and spinach, kale, and this little experiment: The wilted stub of a used supermarket celery, now look what it’s doing after I planted it! Hopefully some radishes on the way too.
It’s still stormy and autumn like temperatures here (13 C yesterday), so I don’t spend much time outside actually. We’re putting up a temporary fence where the hedge died, so we have a corner of shade and quiet, vainly hoping we’ll actually get to use it. I think I’ve had 4 days’ use of our garden furniture this year! I believe it’s the third summer in a row that’s acting this ghastly, and I really, really dislike strong wind. We’ve also had snow 3 winters in a row now, very unusual.
Well, at least I have an excuse for knitting more sweaters since they’re now all year gear! I’m going to step up my needle sizes to be able to finish sooner…
I found out that my new to me little pocket camera actually does quite good macros. I can’t see a thing on the display outdoors though, so I’ve developed a new (to me) style of taking pictures. I simply wave it around, try to point it in the general direction of something and click. Play with over- and underexposures in the sun etc. The macro lens I have for my SLR is a 90 mm and gives a completely different perspective compared to the wide angle of a tiny camera.
For starters I’ve been doing garden walks since so many things are in bloom right now, but I’ll continue to explore this method time and again just to get out of my regular groove. How about deliberate out of focus for instance? The columbines are going now, so I promise next time it will be something else…
The photos are unprocessed apart from resizing – exposure and colour are all from fiddling with camera settings. No crops. Some have been more deliberately composed, most are randomly aimed at the target.
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You’ve probably seen my pix of yarn drying in the sumac tree in the front garden, it’s so easy to use, good branches. Today it’s really been put to work! It’s my montly headache day, but I felt perky enough to do some “dumb work” as we call it here.
On Sunday I put out the rest of my Gotland fleeces to soak in a tub before scouring, today they are promising a quiet sunny day so I filled my carrot bags and hung them up to drip dry the dirty water before getting the soapy baths ready.
I’ve also started mordanting my tapestry yarn, I’m going to keep a “regular” batch as well as some of the other forms of mordanting I’ve been contemplating.
Some cotton yarn that has been scoured, waiting for the next step.
And some small test skeins for a test tapestry. I had a bunch of purples and blues already from a colour blending test session, I wanted some black as well and as an afterthought did some greens and yellows on some strands that had already been cut for more testing which never happened. Only plan is to use a lot of white (remember my dream?) and then wing it row by row. Will probably end up needing more black. 😉
UldtræMÃ¥nedens hovedpinedag i dag, men ikke værre end at jeg fÃ¥r lavet lidt “dum i arbejde”. Vinde garn op, binde snore pÃ¥, bejse uldgarn og vaske bomuld i soda, sÃ¥ det hele er klart til plantefarvning. Puh, det er kedeligt, men det skal jo gøres hvis man vil have lov til at lege.
Uldtørretræet blev også lige læsset med gulerodssække med gotlandsham, som har ligget i blød siden i søndags, det kan lige få lov at dryppe det snavsede vand af inden det skal i et varmt sæbebad.
Og så smed jeg for sjov et par garnstumper i syrefarve, til evt. brug i mit nye eksperiment gobelinvævning. Har nogen andre stumper fra testfarvning jeg også kan bruge bare til at øve mig med.
