I have no fewer than five posts in various states sitting in my draft folder. Five. One of which literally just needs two photos, but has been languishing because I am incapable of just taking photos in a reasonable time frame of a finished project. Why am I like this? I have no idea. So the posts sit, written, but with only a few (or no) photos.
Last time I wrote here it was just starting to warm up, and I was basking in the sun’s warm glowing, warming glow. A few weeks in and 35C temperatures with no cool down at night almost broke me, but didn’t! All I had to do was look at comparison pictures from the garden a few weeks before, and I shut my mouth and put up with it. Of course, the opposite problem happened – too cool and tomatoes and peppers won’t grow; too hot at night they won’t start to ripen. So the cool spring pushed them back, the growth caught up, and then the ripening slowed down. I write this on August 8th and normally I’ve started to harvest the earliest varieties, but no such luck this year. I’m still waiting. Since the heat broke though, I am eagerly awaiting the first flush of red (or orange or yellow or purple – depends on the variety).
The month of July was all about little projects – many little projects that I actually started writing another post about but is also unfinished. Here’s an example though:
Tiny pouches, based on Arounna Khounnoraj’s pattern in Winter Celebrations, which came out later last year. That book is full of extremely cute patterns, many of which can be done at any time of the year (like these!). I hand quilted mine with a very light batting, and added the strap. These perfectly fit some of my smaller point and shoot or toy cameras. I’m still playing wish shape a bit, because while I like the gusset on the top two, it does alter the shape a bit. I’m nutty about that partial starburst (whatever you want to call it), which was achieved with scraps from a bunting project.
These, of course, are all naturally dyed. The back is a rough linen which you can get at Ikea of all places that I really like to use. I didn’t take a photo of that so use your imagination, but I did hand quilt that too.
Other than that, the time in July has mostly been spent in the garden, and the community garden. We’ve been harvesting berries like mad – turns out the baby loves Saskatoons so we don’t really get to take any home because she eats them all, but other than that I have a few pounds of frozen haskaps and some blackcurrants, although not quite as much as I’d like to make a jam with. I love blackcurrant jam. I’m going to have to figure out what to combine the blackcurrants with to get a sizeable batch for canning. The haskaps is probably enough to do on their own.
Oh, and my pickled beets won third place at the local fair. That was fun.
I foresee August will be much the same, with one addition being I need to get an indigo vat going and dye a bunch of stuff I’ve been sitting on waiting for the vat. Now that it’s August I feel the time ticking, so time to get that going. Yes sir. That’ll likely be the big project for August, with the rest of the projects small, bite sized things I can do here and there in between gardening and mom-ing (which definitely takes up the vast majority of my time).
Oh! I did start working on a larger spin again! I’m excited about that, and I got a good way through my Cheviot I’ve been holding onto that I had milled years ago. Then both the footman connectors on my Kromski Sonata broke (they’re plastic, and 20 years old, they were bound to go). So until my replacements arrive that’s back on hold, but hopefully that’ll be back up and running again soon.
This post totally feels haphazard, much like my July. Probably like my August too. Here’s to a haphazard, fun, chaotic summer.