Soil blocks: Not an unqualified success :(

I got a soil block maker at the beginning of seed-starting season(which is February around here), hoping to get the convenience of peat pellets without the added expense.  So far I've had mixed results.

Most of my seeds germinated just fine in the soil blocks, but shortly after gaining their first or second set of true leaves they seem to have stopped growing.  These were planted sometime in March - I'd think the plants would be a lot bigger by now!

I've heard that if you pack your soil blocker too tightly the roots have trouble penetrating.  My first few blocks were loose enough that I had trouble moving them without crumbling, so I packed the next set more firmly.  There's no way for me to know what's too tight or too loose except trial and error.  It's also possible I might not have watered them enough - or I might have watered them too much!  I hate it when diametrically opposed actions result in the exact same symptoms!  I've tried potting some of them up and attempting to loosen the soil a little, but so far it doesn't seem to have made much difference. 

So far the broccoli I started at the end of February hasn't gone much past this stage here.  I planted them out in hopes that being in the ground would encourage them - I'll let you know if it works. 

My sage, on the other hand, was planted in a peat pellet, and is going gangbusters, along with several other varieties of herbs.


I'm not all that upset, because I knew that soil blockers had a bit of a learning curve.  At the most I'm annoyed at the prospect of not having some of my longer-growing veggies (namely broccoli and eggplant) this year.  I'm probably not going to have time to try and start the eggplants again if these fail to thrive, but I can start more broccoli seedlings for a fall planting.  I think next year I'll stick to the peat pellets for these, and experiment with the soil blocks for plants that grow faster, so that I have time to try again if I don't get it right the first time.

Mildly annoyed-

One of the S-hooks by which my seedling lights are suspended from their chain has fallen into the light fixture :(  This is what it's supposed to look like:

This is what it looks like now:

 This is very inconvenient.  I can't just turn the whole thing upside down and shake the hook out, so I'm hoping it won't cause any serious electrical shorts in there.  Now I'm going to have to find some other way of hanging this end of the light!  Right now it's propped on our defunct clothes dryer, but this has the light a lot farther away from the plants than I'm happy with.

Fortunately, my sage does not seem to be suffering much!

Getting back in gear

My first (and usually only) show of the year is coming up on May 8 - the day before Mother's Day!  This will be our fifth year at the Westville Artwalk!  If you live anywhere close to New Haven, come and see us!  There are always a lot of talented artists in a variety of media, plus live music and lots of fun activities for kids :)

I've allowed myself to get distracted by knitting and gardening these last few months since the December holidays, and it's time to start getting some real work done.  Last year I managed to acquire a lot of new stones, so this year I need to start doing something with them.  I've just finished this pendant (sterling, rose quartz and peridot) -  I now have to figure out the best way to hang it.  I always run into this problem, especially with large-ish pendants.  I have a choice of putting it on a commercial chain or making a chain/necklace for it myself.

Using a commercial chain would certainly be the fastest and easiest option, but I don't always have them on hand, and the snake chains that would be most appropriate for something with this weight really aren't that cheap, even for me.  I just don't have the buying power to buy enough snake chains at once  to get quantity discounts, which means I'm paying almost full retail for this particular supply, plus shipping!  Not really very good business sense.

The flip side of this is if I make a chain or necklace with materials I have on hand.  I wouldn't have to buy any new supplies, and they would have been bought at wholesale, thus bringing the materials costs down.  The trade-off is that it takes a great deal more time to fabricate a chain/necklace, which frequently increases the price of the finished piece to something that is more difficult to sell.  Even if people appreciate handmade work and think the price is reasonable, it doesn't mean they can afford it!

I know - I need to get my jewelry in front of people who value handmade and have money.  I'm just not there yet.  The higher end shows that attract that type of clientele are just out of my range right now.  I can't afford the booth fees (which would have to be paid up front), and my display isn't professional enough.  I've been adding pieces to my display in bits and pieces over the years as I needed them, so nothing really matches.  I haven't got the space or the capital to try and fabricate booth furniture myself, so that's not really an option for me.  What I really need is to win the lottery!  That way I can just buy everything I need all at one go.  It will all match, it will all look professional, and if any of it doesn't work the way it's supposed to, I can go complain to someone who will help me fix it!

Back again!

I know, I have been terribly remiss!  It's been ages since I updated this blog.  Nothing very interesting has been going on, and the light hasn't been good for photos.  Now, however, it's gardening time again! Yet again I have way too many seedlings and can't fit them all under my lights.

 At least a good number of them are cool weather crops, and I'm finally starting to get them into the ground, thus making room for the new seedlings.  I finally got a heating mat for my germination flat, and that's made a huge difference in my success rate with some of my warmer weather plants!  Peppers and basil especially have had much better germination rates for me this year.  I hope the growing season continues to be this successful once I get them in the ground!

I'm trying several new plants this year!  In addition to lettuce I've got Swiss chard and spinach in the ground!  My broccoli seedlings aren't quite big enough yet, so it'll be another couple of weeks before I can plant them out.

I've also got a whole bunch of herbs going this year that I didn't have last year.  I get really tired of swapping places between not having fresh herbs on hand when I need them, and buying them so I have them but not using them up quickly enough.  I really hope that I'll have planted enough basil this year, and that it does better than it did last year! 

My mint is coming up nicely, and much to my surprise and delight I discovered that two of my parsley plants survived the winter!  Yay!  I had piled all our dead leaves into the garden last fall, instead of bagging them, and I suspect that's what did it. 

My peas seem to be doing nicely as well!  This is what the first shoots looked like a few weeks ago . . .

and here is what they look like now!

I'm very much looking forward to fresh peas in a few weeks, and I'm definitely looking forward to mid-late May, when I can start planting out everything else!

Way too much handspun cotton!

This is not even what I started with - I had already wound several yards off onto my niddy-noddy when I took this photo!  This is actually about a year's worth of cotton spinning.  Several years ago I bought a pound of cotton sliver, and have been slowly working my way through it  I don't have any particular project in mind, and it'll be a very long time before I'll really be able to use my loom again, so I had figured it would be OK if it took me forever.  I don't think I'd accounted for losing my ball-winder, and then wanting the bobbin for something else.  I'm not even going to speculate on how much yardage is here!  Do you have any idea how sore a shoulder can get from having to manually wind off this much thread?

Why I stopped knitting

 

I had mostly stopped knitting (and spinning!) about 7 years ago when I came down with an acute case of Bouncy Toddler.  My daughter had a tendency to treat Mommy and all of her stuff as a jungle gym/trampoline, with no regard whatsoever for what I had in my lap, or what might happen to it (or her) if she landed on it.  All pointy sticks were packed away, and rarely saw daylight.  Because I worked nights, there really was no time that I could knit safely - what little free time I had needed to be spent on other things. 

Unfortunately, she never really progressed past the Bouncy Toddler phase.  She was diagnosed with autism at 2 1/2, and has continued to jump into my lap with her typical lack of concern/understanding that there is something sharp that might do her damage.  Until she has been hurt by something, she doesn't recognize that it can hurt her.  Fortunately it only takes once, and she'll avoid that thing like the plague - but I'd rather she didn't have to learn about 2mm lace needles by experience :(  These last two years have been better, as we have found an ADHD med that reduces her tendency to Superball off all available objects.  It also makes a big difference for her in school - always a good thing!  As a result, I have been slowly rediscovering things I had to set aside those first few difficult years.  I'm glad I've been able to come back to these - I really missed spinning!

 

I still have a lot of unspun fiber stored away, which should keep me occupied for quite a while, as long as I don't decide I really need to make something for which none of the fiber I have at home is suitable.  I hope it will be many months before I get to that point.  I'm all in favor of The Bottomless Stash, and I understand quite well why it's necessary to have several different types of tops or roving, and at least one full fleece of every different breed one comes across.  Right now I just can't afford it - I need to spin what I've got before I can justify spending money on fiber.  I count myself lucky that most of the wool I have can be spun into a variety of different yarns, and I still have enough dye that I'm not limited to knitting with white (with the exception of one gorgeous black Navajo-Churro fleece - but that's another blog post).  I'm luckier than some - at least I already have everything I need!

So I'm still spinning my three-ply sock yarn - two bobbins down, one to go!  I finished my Cookie A. Clandestine socks and have started a pair of plain-vanilla wool socks for my son.  In the spirit of "don't buy what you can make," I've been knitting warm socks for the household instead of buying them.  I also have a growing basket of socks that need darning that I will get to one of these days.  If I can fix it, I won't replace it.  I do admit to procrastinating on the sock darning - I don't expect it to be fun! I am, however, getting some assistance with my sock knitting....

"Please account for any period of inactivity longer than 6 weeks...."

I've been neglecting my blog terribly!  I'm sorry!  December tends to be a busy month here as it is for many other households.  I cannot, however,  in good conscience put all the blame on December.  The biggest culprits have been my knitting needles, which have been mostly dormant for the past few years, but are now waking up again.  Yes, I've gotten back into my fibery pursuits!  All my activities seem to run in cycles, which is why I never get rid of craft supplies, even for things I haven't done in years.  I know (through experience!) that some day I'll get an urge to do that particular craft again, and everything will come back out! 

I'm getting to know my knitting habits better as years go by.  In fact, my knitting and handspinning preferences are quite well matched!  I prefer to spin fine yarns.  I know a lot of spinners complain about not being able to produce that irregular "beginner's" yarn after they master consistent spinning - I am not one of them!  I have come to realize that no matter how quickly chunky yarns knit up, I just don't like the look.  I also know that I will never have the patience to knit an adult-size sweater, especially in the finer yarns I prefer, so I don't even try anymore.  I really love socks!  Now that I've discovered how to knit both socks at once I no longer suffer from Second Sock Syndrome and I find that socks are the perfect portable project, and because they can be finished so quickly I get a much greater sense of accomplishment.

I have discovered that while I love color, I do not like doing colorwork in knitting.  I generally knit continental-style, but can also do English style, so fair-aisle is pretty easy (one color in each hand) - I just hate weaving all the extra ends in!  I find the need to stop and start the different colors to be a distraction - it messes with my "rhythm" while I'm knitting.  I have therefore turned to texture as my preferred design element.  Recently I've been seeing a lot of monochrome variegated yarns, many specifically meant for socks.  These are great for textured knitting patterns because the subtle variations in color add visual depth and interest but do not compete with the texture.  I cannot justify spending money on yarn when I have several pounds of wool in my house waiting to be spun.  Fortunately I also have dyes!  Sometime in January I will be dyeing sock yarn!

 I have discovered Cookie A.'s sock patterns, and am impatiently waiting for my birthday in February when I'll be able to afford a copy of her book,  Sock Innovations.  Fortunately she also has a number of patterns available for free at Knitty.com, so I will have plenty of projects to keep me busy until then.  The photo here is her Clandestine pattern, adapted to be knee socks by starting with a slightly larger needle and adding four pattern repeats for length.  Because her socks tend to have slightly different instructions for the right and left foot, I decided not to do both socks at once until I was used to how she works.  This is the finished right sock-  I started the left sock yesterday.


I have discovered that I was not the only person getting frustrated with trying to knit fine yarns with blunt-tipped needles!  I love my Addi circs, but what was meant to be a plus (smooth round tips that won't split yarn) is a real PITA when you're using size 1 needles with fingering or lace weight yarn.  I think this frustration is one of the reasons I had put knitting aside for a while.  All the various decreases in texture knitting required several tries before I could get those nice round tips under my tiny yarns!  I went looking for sharper tips, and found that KnitPicks had gotten good reviews on all my required points (small needles, sharp tips, smooth joins between needle and cable), so I ordered several pairs (2,1,1-,0) just before Christmas and am impatiently waiting their arrival.  I'm dealing with the Addi's until then, but I know these socks will be so much easier once I have sharper needles!


Finally, I have discovered Ravelry! This is Social Networking for fiber people.  No matter what you're interested in there's probably a Ravelry group for it, and if there isn't you can make one!  I haven't really started participating in the discussions yet because there's so much still to read and look at, and I always prefer to take the temperature of an online group before I start posting.  I'm going to try not to get sucked too far into it - after all, I already have enough on my plate with these socks!