Fiber Fool

Sorry if any of you get that song stuck in your head! Okay, who am I kidding, I had to share the pain ;-)

Really, though we have gotten to that part of the season where there are a few hours in the morning where I feel comfortable and then the remainder of the day is so hot I feel like a dirty, sweaty, sloth. So, I take advantage of the morning shade and cool and sit out on the patio. Some mornings I read blogs and catch up on e-mail (not so much this week) and other mornings I knit or sometimes spin or simply read. While I use a box to serve as a bit of a sunshade for the laptop it is still rather difficult to read the screen without turning the brightness up to max which of course drains the battery much faster so I’ve been leaning towards other activities on the patio.

I’ve been working on a new sock design for that Panda Cotton I picked up while Chris was here last month. I have poured through my various stitch dictionaries (I really should get that 2nd Walker one soon) and swatching with leftover Panda Wool from the Coyote Ridge socks. Each 24-36 rows I have a new iteration of a pattern - perhaps the pattern at a different scale, or some element changed or that. I’m on my 5th version which is now definitely a stitch pattern all its own. It is fun to play around with stitch patterns like that. I find I naturally come up with a few ideas just from charting something out, but I get even better ones after getting to know the pattern from knitting it. Not all the ideas turn out though! I have two versions in that swatch that are completely unusable. In theory the idea was awesome, in execution not so much (I haven’t totally given up on the idea it may be that I just placed things wrong, but I’m not going in that direction right now). However, what followed those dismal failures was beauty if I do say so myself.

Despite having come up with a fantastic stitch pattern for socks it isn’t right for this particular pair of socks. So, my Panda Cotton socks sit stalled out at the toes while I go with the flow and explore variations on a theme while I have ideas. Then it’ll be back to the stitch dictionaries and probably more swatching. Some things just shouldn’t be rushed! That is a good thing for me to remember.

Speaking of that little lesson - I spoke much too soon about the tomatoes yesterday! The variety that had only set one tomato now has at least 6 others set as of this morning. That was without playing hide and seek too so there are no doubt others on the other side of the bed or further into the jungle of vines. I think this gardening newbie is doing okay. At least once I mix up the diluted milk spray for the powdery mildew we seem to have brought home from the nursery (recipe in the new Mother Earth News).

I know some of you are probably sick to death of my garden stuff. But its my first year having my own garden and it is fascinating me. Not to mention a lot of the fiber stuff I’m working on is a long term project (spun stitches anyone?) so not very exciting to see updates on too regular or I can’t share it with you right now. *sigh* And the cooking thing just doesn’t happen when the house is 80 degrees.

Now, as I mentioned this is my first year having a garden so I have some questions. There are things I see around the garden and am sure they are a problem and don’t know the source or a remedy or I don’t know if some of things are just a normal thing no to be worried about. So I’m going to ask the questions and I hope you can help me with some answers. If you aren’t a vegetable gardener I’d appreciate if you could point people you know who might be of help to this post. Thank you :-)

Now, that top photo is of a young maple. It’s been in the ground at least 6 years, but probably a bit more than that as it was established when we bought the house. It has not looked good for some time and DH just limbed out the bad branches. It looks bad enough that I suspect we need to remove the tree. But is it a problem that would travel to other maple trees in the neighborhood (and our yard)? Would planting a different type of tree in that general location be a bad idea? If it is, how far away do we need to be when planting a new tree?

This is a lower eggplant leaf. I think all four plants (despite being in different beds) have this issue. It seems to be more or less contained to the first leaves. They looked like this more or less from the get go. Is it a fungal thing or an insect thing or both? Do I need to worry about it or just let it be? None of the eggplant are flowering, but I think the problem is more that the tomatoes have totally overgrown them and they aren’t getting a ton of light.

Speaking of tomatoes. I have a lot of yellowed leaves on the inner bottom. Is that a problem or is it natural due to the lack of light filtering through their dense foliage? Also with the tomatoes (in full sun particularly) they are just vining like crazy, flowering a little and setting almost nothing. Is there something I should be doing to aid in the fruit setting? We seem to have a fair bit of bees and wasps around, though I don’t often see them in the tomato plants. I know DH just feels anything we get out of the garden is a bonus and it is just the weed control of cover plants and such that we really needed, but I’ve invested sooooooo much time into all of these beds with the weeding and the watering and such that I really want a nice harvest. I don’t need a “peck of peppers” all at once or that, but I’d like to have stuff to share with friends and family.

Above are basil and radish tops. They are full of holes! I’m not concerned too much about the radishes as they will all be out of the ground before too much longer and it doesn’t seem to impact the radishes themselves. However, they are near the basil, which as you can see hardly has an untouched leaf. It is that way for every single one of the 15 or so sweet basil plants that are in that bed. I was especially perplexed because there seemed to be no munching on the globe basil, but it appears it too has been found. They are much larger and established plants so there are tons of unmunched leaves that we can still eat, but I’d like to know what can be done now or done differently next year (companion plant? predator introduction?). The two carrots that sprouted and have survived munching also periodically seem to loose almost all of their above ground green tops. Again they are in the same bed.

There is an astronomically number of ants all over so would they be the ones eating these things? We’ve seen them munching on the new peach tree’s leaves. Our development was built on lots of ant hills. I think to matter we need to see a reduction in our ant population. Anyone know how to do so? The previous issue of Mother Earth News had a recipe for a natural insecticide, but it has to be sprayed direct on the bugs to work I guess. If we just spray the ants as we see larger groupings of them will that brings us more in control of the population enough that these plants can grown enough that sustaining a bit of insect leaf munching won’t mean no harvest for us?

Along the insect line of questioning anyone know what the above is? It is the back end of the insect as it started to seek shelter beneath the mulch. He kind of blended in so that was the best shot I got of it. What is it? Is it good to have in the garden or is it a pest? If it is a pest what do we do about it? It was crawling around *very* near the crown of one of the everbearing strawberry plants, but I think I’ve seen them occasionally in the melon beds as well.

Then one more question on behalf of my dad. Because of the dairy the well water gets taken up in the barn and run through a big industrial treatment system that includes water softner salt treatment then it goes to the house. This means water from the outdoor spigot is softened with salt. Anyone know of a filter that can be put on the end of a garden hose or between the spigot and the hose to filter out that softner salt? Right now he is using the dehumidifier water and hauling water from one of the satellite barns that doesn’t get softened water for some reason, but it is quite the haul and they aren’t getting any rain really this year so their garden plants are almost totally irrigated like ours.

Thank you for any guidance you can offer up to this newbie gardener!

To make up for the boringness that has been my blog lately I offer up a couple instant gratification FOs…

Pattern: Iced Java Jacket (Seed Stitch Version)
Designer: Chris of Stumbling Over Chaos
Yarn: Cascade Fixation 4448 (from Nanytutu’s)
Needles: 2 Addi Turbo 16″ circs in US 3
Mods: Because I had US3s handy and not 4s I cast on 43 sts and knit about 24 of the plain st st rows. Next time I might go up to 45 or possibly 47 sts as it can be a bit of a struggle to get the sleeve on the cups from the area shops.

This was my jump back into knitting as my split finger was healing project. I know Knitter Sansablog had a pretty good laugh at me last week when I mentioned that it was nice to know that knitting with larger needles made a big difference on being able to knit. I do know that US3s are not really “bigger needles”, but in comparison to 0s and the ease with which the different sizes can puncture your callouses it is a big difference.

Pattern: Shifter Sock (see below)
Designer: Myself
Yarn: Cascade Fixation, 4448
Needles: 2 Addi Turbo 16″ Circs in US3
Gauge: 5.5″ per in in st st

I used the java jacket as my gauge swatch for the Shifter Sock. I then took measurements of the gear shifter. The stem portion was about 4.5 inches in circumference for about 1.5 inches and then it started to morph into the handle portion that was about 5.75 inches around, but it is not centered on the stem. In stead the stem morphs into the top almost straight on the back side of the shifter. This gave me the idea to make the cover like a snub-footed sock rather than a stocking cap as I was originally thinking.

I believe this sock fits both of our vehicles which are of different years and manufacturers. The elastic in the yarn gives you a lot of leeway, but adjustments can certainly be made to fit shifters that are shaped differently.

Shifter Sock Pattern

Use your preferred method of knitting in the round - 4 or 5 DPNs, 2 circs, or magic loop.

Cast on 24 sts, join and knit 10-14 rows of k1p1 ribbing (shown is 10, I’d go to 14 next time).

Knit 3 rows of st st.

Inc 4 sts evenly around the sock on nxt rnd.

Knit 3 more rows of st st.

Work your favorite short row heel method over 16 sts (or 1/2 the total sts plus 2) with 6 unwrapped sts in the center before completing the second half of the heel.

Knit 4 rows of st st.

Redistribute sts evenly before starting the decreases.

Dec Rnd 1: K1, ssk, knit to 3 sts before the end of the first half of sts, k2tog, k1. Repeat for second half of sts.

Knit 1 rnd, then repeat dec rnd 1 for every rnd until 8 total sts remain.

Kitchner the “toe”, weave in the ends and cover your gear shifter!

I think I may turn mine inside out, stretched nearly to the max and paint some hardware dip on the inside so it doesn’t slide around on the shifter.

I’m not funny very often. When I am funny it becomes the topic of conversation for 24 hours! Case in point, while getting ready for bed on Friday night I solidly rammed my knee into the corner of the footboard…

Me: Ouch! Break your knee cap while you’re at it why don’t you!
DH: Oooohhh! Don’t do that!
Me: Well, between my feet, my hip, and my guts the knee was feeling left out of the party!

In poor form I have giggled now and again all weekend about my funny. Not cool. But it still makes me laugh!

The feet have improved slightly. I had to be careful to not overdo though or I feel back at square one. I’m thinking now that it is tightness in my calves that is making muscles in my feet really tight and pulling stuff just a tad out of comfortable, but I’m not positive. My finger is more or less healed as long as I stay on top of moisturizing it though. Thanks Deb for the recommendation of chapstick!

I have had some fun mail recently. Chris turned me onto Swap-bot while she was here and I jumped into a couple photo swaps on there the start some ratings. I’m afraid I did not know it was customary to send little extras so I may have just shot myself in the foot as far as the ratings go. :-/ I hope my partners realize I’m a newbie and cut me a bit of slack! Doh!

The last lesson of the day? Don’t misplace your cell phone while its turned off! *sigh*

We went to the 8:45am showing of Harry Potter yesterday (pretty good, I won’t get into specific complaints as I’ll let you all form your own opinions). I know I shut it off when we sat down in the theater. We were early, I was knitting of course and I turned it back on briefly to use the calculator. When I turned it back on the battery was beeping low so when I turned it off I left it that way. I don’t often get calls and especially not on the weekends. We walked to a near-by restuarant. I want to say I saw it in my purse’s cell pocket while we were there. But really, all day yesterday there were no obvious tippings or flingings of the purse where I would have an inkling of the first place to call to see if they have one that got turned in yesterday. Despite being relatively sure that I left the theater with it, I’ll be calling them first as they open the earliers of all the possible places it could have fallen out.

This brings me to another note - don’t trust cell phone pockets in purses where the pocket doesn’t shut to secure the phone! *sigh*

On the positive side, I got to pick a few peppers this morning. One of the squash despite my worries on plant health appears to be flowering. And 4/5 watermelon plants are starting to vine vigorously! The 5th I moved so it is still recuperating from the move, but looking quite nice if I do say so myself!

Yes indeedy, you read the title of the post correctly - bet you don’t often think compost is beautiful huh? Well, back in early June when I visited Cathy before EPWM she sent me home with a lovely bunch of peonies. They lasted a good ten days or so and then they looked “done.” Chris was about to arrive so I was doing a last minute cleaning/straightening and took the vase and flowers out to the compost pile. I gave the vase a fling. There was just something about how all the peonies landed on the compost and the contrast of the pink of the still alive, but on their way out flowers against the brown of the compost. I *had* to run into the house to get the camera and take some shots. I took 56, believe it or not! And, I didn’t touch a flower/petal/blade of grass! These are some of my favorites…

The original flowers from Cathy were gorgeous and I’m sorry I didn’t get photos of them before they started their afterlife in the compost heap. But I guess this just proves SIL3’s theory that I’m definitely “goth on the inside.” :-)

Stop to see some beauty in the unusual subject this weekend and have a great one!