Miette - Gathering resources

In preparation for actually starting the knitting on my Miette I have looked up resources for the different stitches, and any tips for the pattern etc.

First up, there has conveniently been a Miette knit-along hosted by Gail, with some incredibly detailed posts with all sorts of information. She doesn't actually have a list of the posts on her blog (although they're all under the knit-along tag), so rather than have to scroll through them in reverse order, I thought I'd post a list of links here (for my own use as much as anything):

1 - making a plan, 2 - gauge and sizing, 3 - how much yarn, 4 - lets knit, 5 - some more yarn notes, 6 - top down raglan construction, 7 - more on swatches, 8 - fixing mistakes, 9 - removing sleeves, 10 - row 25, 11 - next part, 12 - sleeves, 13 - sleeve tv, 14 - button bands, 15 - buttons

I found it very helpful to read through all these posts before I stared, as they allowed me to see what hurdles would be coming as I progressed, and intend to refer back to some of them as I reach those stages.

The next thing I did was make sure I was happy with all the stitches required by the pattern (some of which I've never done before). Here are the stitches in the glossary that are new to me or I wanted a refresher, and the resources for them that I used:

CO (Cast On): I needed to use the long tail cast on, which is what I normally use, and also knitting on
kfbl (knit front and back loop): I used this video
ktbl (knit through back loop): I used this video
m1 (make one): I used these two videos (only using a make one left): video 1,  video 2
ptbl (pearl through back loop): I used this video
yo (yarn over): I used this video

The only stitch left that I haven't got a resource for is BO (bind off) - when I've bound off before it's always been quite tight and not stretchy - I don't think that's what I want for the bottom of this cardigan, so can anybody suggest a suitable bind off (and ideally instructional video)?

(PS: the ravelry project for my miette is here)

Balcony Gardening - Week 1

I know this past week or so has been a bit intense in terms of gardening updates, but from now on I will be limiting them to a maximum of one a week (on exciting weeks, less when there's nothing exciting). So if you're not interested in the gardening please bear with me! (And for those of you that are, I will still be posting periodic updates).

Week 1 of my balcony garden has definitely been exciting, and only partly because it's all still quite new. We have had some seriously strong winds the last few days, particularly Wednesday night, with gusts of up to 100kph (according to the good old BOM). I was very worried for my plans on Wednesday and moved them from their spot near the edge of the balcony as far in to the building as I could, making good use of my shelves, to try and protect them a bit.

The next exciting thing was a parcel I received in the mail from my lovely friend Lorraine - she had offered to send me a couple of seeds, but when they arrived I discovered that she'd sent this massive bounty:

All bagged up in zip-lock bags with instructions written on the bags. Wow! There's seeds for Mixed Lettuce, Carrots, Dwarf Sugar Snap Peas, Dwarf Green Beans, Dwarf Butter Beans, Capsicum, Scallions, Basil, Corriander and Purple King Climbing Beans in that pile. So generous - Thankyou Lorraine!!!

On Saturday I planted some of the seeds from Lorraine- I've sown some of the dwarf sugar snap peas, green beans and butter beans into egg boxes, and the capsicum, scallions and basil into strawberry/cherry tomato punnets (with drainage holes punched into the bottom).

Another exciting thing of the week is also seed related; the seeds that I planted last Sunday started growing!! When I got home from work on Wednesday one of the first things I did was take a peek at the seeds (just as I'd done morning and evening every day since planting them!) and there were tiny little seedlings growing!! In the "inside box" there were a couple of marigold seedlings and a heap of tiny tiny rocket seedlings.

Then, on Thursday there were rocket and marigold seedlings appearing in the "outside box" too!! Interestingly, although the inside marigolds appeared first and are currently bigger than the outside ones, I currently have two seedlings from 12 seeds inside, but 11 outside. By the time the weekend rolled around the tomatoes in the inside box had started growing little seedlings too - it looks like all 5 seeds I planted in that pot have started growing. Exciting!!! Sadly nothing has yet appeared from the string-o-pearls, but I am still patiently waiting and hoping that they do. Here are my seedlings 1 week post sowing the seeds (outside box first, then inside box):

As well as exciting progress with my seeds, the plants I bought are doing great guns, including some strawberries starting to appear on one of the strawberry plants!

Hopefully I'll find week 2 just as exciting as week 1.

Miette - Taking the Plunge

I shared some hand-knit cardigan inspiration the other day, and since then I have made my decision and taken the plunge, buying yarn and getting started on my first cardigan!

On Thursdaty, after shortening my list to four possibilities, I went down to Morris & Sons and Clegs to look at yarn in my lunchbreak. After mulling it over during the afternoon, my impatient self then went back to Morris & Sons after work to buy the yarn I'd chosen.

I ended up choosing to try the Miette Cardigan - while I absolutely loved some of the other cardigans they were all a fair bit more complicated. I decided that I'm dealing with enough new stuff learning how to make something cardigan shaped, so adding in lots of cabling or lace would just be making it harder than it needed to be. If I'm going to give this a go I should make it as most likely to succeed as possible, which means starting simple!

I saw some really really lovely yarns when looking, including some gorgeous merino yarn, and some lovely bamboo stuff. However they were either the wrong thickness for this pattern, or the price was a bit prohibitive to go that expensive. Instead I have chosen some lovely cotton yarn which came in at much more affordable price. I've also got some fun interchangable circular needles, where you can screw different needle sizes onto different cable lengths, I'll let you know how I find them in due course. It's also the first time I've gotten wooden needles - so far I've mainly used bamboo, with my first beanie being done on metal and plastic ones.

The yarn is Morris Avalon 10ply Pima Cotton in Moonstone. It's apparently quite a new one and came in a lovely selection of colours. I had to remind myself that I'd decided I wanted a pale and neutral coloured cardigan that would go with lots of things, or I would have come away with one of the other lovely colours.

Excited to get going, I spent thursday evening knitting up my swatch straight away - taking the advice of the lovely lady in Morris & Sons I cast on a few extra stitches, and knit a swatch with a central stockinette section 18 stitches wide with a few extra stitches in garter stitch along the edge to stop it curling. After knitting my swatch I was a bit worried my gauge was too small, as it appeared to be 3.5 inches for 16 stitches, rather than the needed 4 (shown below, pre-blocking). However, I carried on and blocked it (hand washing it in warm water then laying it flat to dry and it's dried a little bigger - just the tiniest bit smaller than 4" for 16 stiches.

I have to say, the yarn knits up so incredibly soft, with beautiful drape - I have to admit I have spent quite a lot of time playing with my swatch since it dried, as it's just so lovely! Can't wait to have a whole cardigan like it!

(I've started a ravelry entry for this project here)

Balcony Gardening - Day 1

Before I get into the guts of this post, I wanted to share that this is my 400th post! How exciting! When I started I honestly never have thought that I would keep going this long! And in part that is thanks to everyone that stops by and reads, and particularly those that comment - I appreciate each and every one of you! Anyway, enough of that, on to business...

In my previous balcony garden post I talked about my wishlist and plans for my balcony garden, ending the post with a shopping list. I'm happy to say that on the whole I kept to my shopping list when I went and bought all the stuff last Sunday. Below you can see the alive parts of my balcony garden at the end of my first actual day of gardening (I'm not counting all the reading and planning as days).

It's very modest at the moment but (I hope) it'll grow. In the trencher on the left I have three different strawberry varieties. The round pot has mint, the trencher at the back has sage, oregano, thyme and rosemary, and the small trencher has perpetual spinach. They were all on my list... the big barrel pot with the tree wasn't on my list; it's a lime tree (a dwarf one designed for being in a pot).

All the pots I bought (except the barrel one) were plastic and terracotta coloured. I made this decision from two pieces of advice. The first was from Sam, who commented that she found (actual) teracotta pots dry out quicker than plastic ones. The second was from a staff member at CERES who mentioned that dark coloured pots would heat up in the sun faster than pale ones, so they suggested getting paler coloured ones (which by the way they didn't have, so I doubly listened to their advise as they were telling me to buy something from another shop!)

Getting a citrus tree had crossed my mind, but it wasn't in my plans for day 1 - I was planning on getting some pots and outdoor furniture and see how the space was going. However my brother saw this pot, which we both really liked, and we decided to go for it and get a citrus tree - we think it looks great in the pot and is the perfect feel for the yellow building and terracotta tiles. Looking at the options in bunnings (the tree was from bunnings, all the other plants from CERES) I really wanted to get a blood orange tree, but sadly they didn't have any dwarf ones, and the lady who gave me some help was adamant that it wouldn't survive in a pot, so the choice was basically lemon or lime - I decided to go for lime because it's that bit more exciting to me, and who doesn't like the idea of a G and T with home grown lime?!

I also bought some seeds at the same time as the seedlings - shown above is the beginnings of my attempt to grow rocket, "Mr Stripey" tomatoes, marigolds, and "string o pearls" (flowers). I'm hoping to put the string o pearls in the pot with the lime tree, and the marigolds under the tomatoes.

The scientist that I am, I thought I'd try a couple of conditions for germinating the seeds - so I made up two identical sets and put each in a plastic box, and now one is living inside, just inside the window next to the balcony where it gets the morning sun, and the other is living outside on the shelves (see below, right). I still don't really know what I'm doing in terms of seeds, but I'm opening my boxes to give the plants ventilation in the morning, and then closing them again once the sun goes down to keep them warm. I'm also checking that the soil stays damp, spraying it with water from a spray bottle as not to disturb the soil too much. Cross your fingers for me that in a few weeks I'll have some plants growing! If I'm doing anything wrong or you can suggest anything, please do so in the comments!

 

So lastly above are a couple of pics of what the balcony looks like now - the junk is gone, the extra bikes are gone (ignore my bike, she's still there while there's still space, but that's the one I commute on every day). My gardening supplies and seed box are on one shelf unit, with the extra potting mix on the bottom shelf to support the shelves. If you look behind the bike in the right hand picture you can see the large round pots that I've bought ready for the tomatoes (and beans/peas?).

I didn't quite manage to get everything I needed on Sunday - there was one last trip I needed to take to K-Mart to buy the table and chairs I've had my eye on and some small trenches for lettuce etc. However, when I was in the car headed to pick up the boy, just after dropping my brother off at the uni there were troubles! The clutch stopped working - I couldn't get the car in gear. I was stuck at the front of the right hand filter at the traffic lights. After putting my hazards on, a few minutes later I eventually managed to get the car into first and get it to move, only to have it stall, right in the middle of the junction (blocking the tram tracks in both directions!) eek!!! I just about managed to get the car to move again, and managed to roll into a loading bay space just outside of the junction, at which point I had to call the RACV for a tow. The car is now at the mechanics getting something to do with its clutch fixed, and I don't yet have my outdoor furniture or extra pots. Quite a stressful end to an otherwise enjoyable day!

Inspiration: Hand Knit Cardigans

I think I've plucked up enough courage to try knitting a real garment, and so have spent the last couple of days researching patterns and yarns. Thus, I have come across a whole bunch of gorgeous patterns. Here are some of the cardigan patterns that I have particularly been lusting over...

    
Cherry | Derica Kane | Henrietta Maria

     
Miette | Peggy Sue | Whole Wheat | Wild Berries

    
Basic Black | Agatha | Blair | Bright Star

 
Zig Zag | Emelie | From this day forward

 
Philomena | Cecilia

(Click on the photos for a link to the pattern on ravelry)

Balcony Gardening - Wishlist and Planning

As I mentioned in my last post about my balcony gardening, one of the books (Sugar Snaps and Strawberries) I got from the library suggested the following:

"Make a list of everything you want to grow. If you have big dreams, make that list a long one. For now, don't let pesky details hold you back - such as the fact that rooftops are not usually considered appropriate places to grow wheat. If you want to grow it, put it on the list."

It then continued on with some other things to think about when making you list. And so, after carrying out that exercise. here's my wildly ambitious list of things I'd like to grow (in alphabetical order, I don't need to share with you the crazy order my brain came up with this list!):

Avocados Basil Bean Shoots Broccoli Carrots Cauliflower Chilli Cucumber Garlic Lemon Lettuce Lime Marigolds Mint Onion

Oregano Potatoes Raspberries Rocket Rosemary Runner Beans Sage Spinach Strawberries Sugar snap peas Sunflower Sweet Potato Thyme Tomatoes Violas

From there, I used the information in the two books to annotate my list with which plants are well suited to various conditions (shady, windy, dry), which ones are suggested plants for small places as you get a good crop from them, and what size/depth pots they need to be planted into. From there I could examine my list and make a final list of things to grow, based both on what I'd like to try and grow, and what is sensible to try and grow.

Here's my final list, this time I've added columns indicating conditions each plant is reported to be tolerant of (windy, dry, shady), and plants that give a good yeild for their size

Plant	Windy	Dry	Shady	Crop
Basil				*
Carrots	*			*
Lettuce	*		*	*
Mint			*	*
Oregano	*			*
Potato	*
Rocket	*		*	*
Rosemary	*	*
Sage	*	*		*
Spinach		*	*	*
Strawberry	*
Sugar Snap Peas / Beans	*	*	*	*
Thyme	*	*		*
Tomato				*

As you can see, most of the things I chose were suitable for the conditions that I have - quite windy, or more sheltered but less sunny (and trust me, these were the more suitable ones of the original list).

I then went out onto the balcony and armed with a tape measure tried imagining where I could put plants - I decided that as a starter I could put 7 large-ish (~35cm) pots along the front of the balcony, and another two  on the ends of the two shelving units - so 9-10 medium-large pots. Smaller pots could also go on the shelves as originally planned. Combining this information with the other information I'd gathered (when to plant, suitable pot size, water requirements, etc) I then sketched out a little balcony plan:

Large-ish pot spots:
- 1 and 2 - Herbs in large trench - Rosemary, Oregano, Thyme, Sage
- 3 - Mint
- 4 - Basil, Chilli
- 5 and 6 - Tomato
- 7 - Potato
- 8 and 9 - Strawberry in large trench
- 10 - Bean/Sugar Snap Pea

Smaller pots on shelves:
- Lettuce
- Rocket
- Spinach

From this I made a shopping list and headed out to Bunnings for pots and potting mix, and to CERES for plants and seeds. I deliberately didn't go for the maximum I could fit straight away, I don't want to overwhelm myself. I hope to expand what I have in time, but I think this is sufficient for day 1.

In my next balcony garden update I'll share with you how much of my plan I followed, and show you some pics of my balcony garden, day 1.

Button Indecision

I've made a good start on my stash-busting attempts that I talked about here. I cut out the blue and red shirting for a JJ shirt last week at Bek's house and stitched the princess, side and shoulder seams. Then I got confused by their instructions for the collar so put it aside until I could look at the one I've made before. Last night I pulled it out and added the collar and sleeves.

I was even thinking at one point that I might be able to wear it today, but then I realised I'd completely forgotten about the buttons! Whoops! I pulled out my meagre button stash to see if I had anything, but the only buttons i had more than three of were the below ones, which I didn't really like with the fabric - they were too shiny and a smidge too small. They were bought for another fabric, so can continue being saved for it.

I laid out the other buttons I've got to see if any of them spoke to me and would help with choosing what to buy. I decided I preferred the slightly larger ones, and preferred the matte ones as opposed to the shiny ones. (I'm also often taken with mix and match buttons in general, but don't think this is the project for that)

What buttons would you use for this shirt?

PS: I'm not sure I'm loving the shirt, the strong vertical stripes down the front just feel a bit overwhelming and I'm not entirely sure that I didn't put the sleeves in back to front, as the poof from the gathers seems to sit wrong.
PPS: I haven't finished fixing the princess seams yet, so it won't end quite as shapeless as the top photo.

Balcony Gardening - Trip to the Library

As part of my plans for getting a balcony garden up and running I went to the library to get some books so I could learn up on the topic.

After locating the gardening section I plonked myself down on the floor infront of the shelves and started browsing through the books. reading the titles hunting books that looked promising - ones about gardening in small spaces, growing food, books for beginners, stuff like that. The library had about three shelves full of gardening books, and after going through them all I'd pulled out a pile well over a foot high to narrow down from. I carefully picked up my pile, and garnering a few strange looks at the size of my pile of books I settled down in one of the armchairs and started looking through them more closely.

Some were completely not applicable to what I want to do, or the information was exclusively geared towards people with garden beds, so I managed to exclude a few quite quickly. Then after flicking through the rest and reading a few pages I narrowed it down to three books that I thought were worth getting out and reading through more thoroughly.

 The first book was "The Edible Balcony - Growing Fresh Produce in the Heart of the City" by Alex Mitchell.

Overall I found this book very useful and informative, the actual information in the book was nearly all relevant to what I'm hoping to do, and as well as listing general concepts it had more specific lists, ideas and examples. I particularly liked the "projects" and thinking outside the box" ideas, which really got you thinking of different ways to use all the space that you may have available.

However, I found some parts a bit wordy and irrelevant, there were whole pages where the author was waxing poetic about specific examples of balcony/roof gardens, which I found a bit excessive and too frequent - once I was halfway through the book I'd had enough and started skipping those sections. I also found that while the book was jam packed full of inspiring and attractive photos, they didn't always relate very well to the nearby text. Also, some of the projects would have benefited greatly from having a photo or diagram to explain them, as just the text instructions left me completely baffled. Some parts I had to remember to ignore as it was written by someone from the UK, so the climate concerns are somewhat different there than here in Melbourne.

Having said that, I did gather quite a lot of information from the book, including some ideas for inventive planting options, and the startings of a list of plants to try growing. There was also a fair bit of specific information about those plants that will be useful to go back to once I've chosen what I'm going to grow.

The second book I got was "Grow Your Own Vegetables in Pots: 35 Ideas for Growing Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs in Containers" by Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell

I was very disappointed by this book. On the surface it looks like a book aimed at beginners, containing information for beginner gardeners. However, there was quite a bit of gardening specific terminology that wasn't explained. They also don't give much contact to the plants they're suggesting, or the different conditions that the plants will grow particularly well or poorly in. They just give a whole heap of specific examples of unusual containers that could be used to grow the plants, but don't give any added information that explains why it is a good container for that plant. So unless you can find the specific container they're suggesting you don't really know what to try instead, as they don't tell you the particular aspects of the suggested container (or conditions or combination of plants) that are good.

I really tried to find a good point about this book, but I really struggled. The only thing I could think of was that they were good for adding captions of all their images. I don't feel that I gained any useful information from the book, and I won't be coming back to it as reference in the future.

The last book I got was "Sugar Snaps and Strawberries: Simple Solutions for Creating Your Own Small-Space Edible Garden" by Andrea Bellamy.

This book was quite useful, it had some more specific examples like the other books, but what I found particularly useful was the different chapters it had, in particular the ones near the beginning that talked about planning and such. For example, on chapter suggests writing a list of everything you'd like to grow, ignoring whether it's practical with the space/time/climate/budget you have. I decided to do this exercise, and the act of writing out a list really helped me get going with making some decisions about what I want to grow.

It also has quite an extensive list of plants with information about them and how to best grow them at the end of the book, which was very useful as reference material for narrowing down my list and using this information in combination with that from "The edible balcony" was how I chose my inital list for what I'm going to have a go at growing.

As I've implied in the above paragraphs, I have used these books (and a little bit of the internet and advise from friends) and progressed in my balcony gardening plans, which I shall post some more about soon.

Great stuff... #1

I'm sure you've all seen various posts around the interwebs where people have posted a little round-up of things they've found that they've found particularly impressive, inspiring or interesting. Since I really do enjoy reading them myself, as they often contain things I haven't seen and alert me to blogs I haven't heard of, I thought I'd start occasionally doing posts like it myself.

[source - Tilly and the Buttons]

• First up is probably the thing I've found the most amazing and inspiring last few weeks, the pattern illustration embroidery that Tilly has done (pictured above)
• I think the tip in this post for marking darts will transform my dart sewing experience!
• Zoe has written a great post about independent vs the "big4" pattern companies.
• Have you ever had a crease in some fabric you just can't get out? Megan has a tip for removing it.
• Andrea has put together some great "make this look"s using independent patterns.
• I'm super jealous of Lauren's new sewing room (and her new Thurlow Shorts too for that matter!)
• How clever are these leggings that Carolyn has made?
• And I'll leave you with this great Minoru that Lizzy finished last week, I really do think it's fab!

PS: I've given my blog a mini-makeover, so if you read my posts in a reader you should pop on by to take a look

Balcony Gardening - Back to the Beginning

I've done a little gardening before (see here and here) and have had average success. I've grown Tomatoes successfully, gotten a few cucumbers and potatoes, and had reasonable luck with herbs. But overall it's all been a bit hit and miss, and has been done with very little knowledge behind it.

Since I moved earlier this year, I no longer have an actual garden, but still want to have a go at growing myself some food again this year. So, I have decided to take a more learned approach and do some research before I start. I am also hoping to document the process here, which will hopefully give double benefit - if you know anything about gardening please pipe up with any advice/tips/suggestions you have, if you don't hopefully I'll be able to share some knowledge. Apologies if you're not interested in my gardening adventures, but there shouldn't be too many posts, I hope you stick around and just skip past them.

The first thing all the books seem to say is to evaluate the space that you've got, so I thought I'd start by talking about my gardening space. While I used to have a small courtyard garden with raised beds, since I'm now in an apartment, my new "garden" is my balcony:

It's a decent sized balcony (about 3.4x2.1m) and faces north (ie towards the sun down here in Aussie-land). It is undercover (covered by an identical balcony on the level above), so doesn't get wet in the rain, which in Melbourne with its inconsistent rain isn't necessarily a bad thing. Instead of relying on rainwater I will hopefully be able to collect enough grey water from the washing machine to use to water the plants.

As you can see above and below, part of the balcony sticks out from the building, but most of it is a slight indent, with decent depth walls. While I can't put anything on the walls themselves, I will hopefully  be able to take advantage of this vertical space by using shelving (one unit shown behind the bikes, not currently assembled, the other in the below photo).

The bikes will be finding another home to give more space, and I also plan to get a table and some chairs so that we can use the balcony in nice weather too. Below you can see the other side of the balcony - the junk will be going, and the shelves against the wall will hopefully give me some extra space.

It's hard to judge how much sun the various spots on the balcony will get. I can easily see what sun they get at the moment, but as we get into Summer the angle of the sun will become higher into the sky and thus how much of the balcony gets sun will change. So other than making an "educated guess" I'm not sure what to do.

What about you? Are you much of a gardener? Do you have any tips for me? Suggestions of things that I might have success growing? Ideas for making good use of the space? (Particularly for growing stuff from seed, I've never successfully done that before)