Thursday, December 7, 2023
Wee Wildflower Gifts and Easing in Sleeves in Seamed Knitting
I have a new project (technically two) hot off the needles. Anytime someone I know has a new bundle of joy, I feel an ovewhelming urge to knit something tiny to welcome the little one to the big world. In this particular case, the arrival of said baby also meant a promotion to Big Sister for an older sibling. As a huge fan of the Coastal Knits book and also the miniature versions in Coastal Kids, the Wee Wildflower pattern has been in my queue for quite some time. It's such an adorable piece, and it has POCKETS.
This seemed like the perfect time to whip one of these up. In the case of the big sister....well, that's a big deal. Clearly, only two sweaters would do (matching, of course). I was thrilled to find a suitable yarn in my stash that had enough yardage to complete both sweaters, an indie-dyed polwarth and silk blend. Now, you may have heard of Second Sock Syndrome. This is where you finish one sock, and the other feels like an absolute slog, and it takes you forever to complete it. I feel as though this affliction is even more serious when it manifests as Second Sweater Syndrome. Therefore, I always reccomend that if you are knitting two of anything and those things are not the same size, ALWAYS DO THE LARGER ITEM FIRST. This makes the progession of the smaller item feel as though it is going faster than the first (as it should), and if you struggle to maintain project focus, the additional motivation in this approach is critical.
One of the features of the Wee Wildflower patern is that it is knit flat and seamed. I expect this may scare off a few knitters, but I promise it's not as hard as it seems (see what i did there?). There are some advantages to seamed knitting, one of which is that seams in knitted garment add structure and support the stitching. Where it *can* get a little tricky is sewing sleeves into sleeve holes, especially when the 2 circumferences do not match up perfectly. The first time I did this, I had not distributed the stitches very well. It was a disaster, and I ended up taking it apart. There is a much better way, and I would like to share my preferred method.
I start by marking the midpoint on the sleeve, and identifying the top and bottom points in the armhole. Then I loosely put the sleeve in the armhole.
Next, I line up the midpoint of the sleeve with the top of the armhole, and the ends with the bottom of the armhole, and then I secure these points with sewing clips.
Next, I work my way around the armhole, stretching and securing the sleeve so that it is eased in to the full space of the armhole and is also evenly distriubted throughout. During this process, I will stretch, inspect, shift and secure until I am satisfied that the sleeve is properly positioned and stretched evenly all the way around.
At this point, I secure a piece of yarn and sew the sleeve in place using the mattress stitch and removing clips as I go around. I have always been pleased with the results when doing it this way, and I haven't had to pull it out and start over, like I did before I started using this technique. The sweaters are complete now and have been gifted. I hope the recipients enjoy the sweaters as much as I enjoyed crafting them. Next up on the needles are a few Christmas presents...stay tuned!
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
The #1 Plant Every Apocalypse Garden Needs
A few years ago, my son had a school project involving cells, for which we acquired a bag of 15-Bean Soup that was then glued to a paper plate in a representation of mitochondria, ribosomes, golgi bodies and various other cell organelles. Well, this happened to be in the spring as the temperatures were warming up, and on a lark, I took about 5-6 of each variety of bean and planted them in my garden. Just 'cause I felt like it, really. It turns out, I am not the world's best gardener, and my little experiment went largely forgotten until it was time to harvest items from the garden. I will admit that there were many casualties of overgrown weeds that year. Many of the bean varieties were crowded out; I don't think any of them were watered aside from normal rainfall. Despite the flagrant neglect, imagine my surprise to find that there was a very healthy population of the black bean variety.
Having been impressed with the hardiness and yield of this handful of beans, I saved my small harvest and planted an enire row the next year. My goodness. Have I mentioned that while I enjoy gardening, I am overall rather new and not very good at it? My (very minimal) effort yielded 4 cups of dry beans. I never would have expected that black beans would be a good crop for Maine, but I was pleased! What I found most impressive was how I could completely ignore these plants and still have what I consider to be a successful harvest. This year, I planted 2 rows of the black beans. Here they are, living their best bean lives, suffering my neglect, yet still producing for me:
We did have an unusually soggy growing season this year in Maine. I tried to choose a day to harvest when they would be mostly dry. I ended up with a respectable amount in my Hannaford tote bag.
(Note that I invested in the weed barrier cloth this year)
Because the pods were still a bit damp when harvested, I did cycle them through my dehydrator to dry them out. Alternatively, you could pull the plants and hang upside down to dry out, but I am limited on space, so dehydrator it was for me. Then, I let them sit like the patient little harvest they are until I had time to deal with them. I shucked them a little at a time over several weeks. My 2 rows of black beans yielded 12 cups of dry beans, which is about the equivalent of 24 cans of black beans from the grocery store. I also planted one row of Flambo beans (from Johnny's Selected Seeds), and that resulted in a little more than 4 cups of dry beans. Right now, they are sitting in a jar, although at some point, when I am gosh darn good and ready, I will can them up. The beauty of dry beans, though, is that time can be whenever. Last year's bean harvest didn't get canned until about May, and they are just fine. I do like canning them up, as they at that point only need to be put into a recipe or reheated, without all the soaking and planning. However, whether to store dry or can the beans is really a personal preference.
So, why do I suggest that dry beans are a top crop for my apocalypse garden?
1) Easy to Grow. First of all, they are super hardy. You can be busy with obtaining clean water, fighting off zombies and tending and protecting animals (or working, for a non-apocalypse scenario) and not worry that your crop will not produce or will go by while you're off doing other things. Life happens. So should your garden.
2) Beans are a fabulous source of protein. While most of the plants in my garden are lacking in this area, beans really step up. If you couldn't count on the grocery store to provide your nutrition, obviously you'd have backyard chickens for eggs and maybe a few scrawny roosters for meat. But if you had raccoons, foxes or fishers feasting in your yard, the beans could help round out your protein content of your home-produced food while you waited to hatch and raise replacement chicks.
3) Cooking Versatility. From bean dip, to soups and stews, to salads, quesadillas and burritos...there are lots of ways to use beans.
4) Easy-to-Harvest Seeds. Once you buy your first beans (or save some from a bag before cooking dinner), you need only save out a handful of beans at the end of each season to be able to continue growing them indefinitely. No waiting on seed orders long after society and the Postal Service have collapsed.
5) Ease of Long-Term Storage. If you don't have time to preserve your harvest or if you don't know how or don't own a canner....you'll be just fine. Simply get the beans dry and collect them and store in a cool, dry location. They will last a long time with almost no effort, and they are very forgiving. If preservation is a skill you possess, you certainly may can them, but if you don't have experience with it, you'll get by just fine.
6) Improve Soil Quality. Beans are nitrogen fixers, so they help enrich your soil with nitrogen. This comes in super handy on next year's planting, if you plant your heavy nitrogen feeders, such as tomatoes, cukes, squash or cabbage, where your beans grew the previous year.
In all likelihood, we are not anywhere near one plant being the lynchpin of survival, but I do hope you'll give dry beans a try in your garden anyway. They are super easy, super delicious and pack a big nutritional punch as well.
Having been impressed with the hardiness and yield of this handful of beans, I saved my small harvest and planted an enire row the next year. My goodness. Have I mentioned that while I enjoy gardening, I am overall rather new and not very good at it? My (very minimal) effort yielded 4 cups of dry beans. I never would have expected that black beans would be a good crop for Maine, but I was pleased! What I found most impressive was how I could completely ignore these plants and still have what I consider to be a successful harvest. This year, I planted 2 rows of the black beans. Here they are, living their best bean lives, suffering my neglect, yet still producing for me:
Because the pods were still a bit damp when harvested, I did cycle them through my dehydrator to dry them out. Alternatively, you could pull the plants and hang upside down to dry out, but I am limited on space, so dehydrator it was for me. Then, I let them sit like the patient little harvest they are until I had time to deal with them. I shucked them a little at a time over several weeks. My 2 rows of black beans yielded 12 cups of dry beans, which is about the equivalent of 24 cans of black beans from the grocery store. I also planted one row of Flambo beans (from Johnny's Selected Seeds), and that resulted in a little more than 4 cups of dry beans. Right now, they are sitting in a jar, although at some point, when I am gosh darn good and ready, I will can them up. The beauty of dry beans, though, is that time can be whenever. Last year's bean harvest didn't get canned until about May, and they are just fine. I do like canning them up, as they at that point only need to be put into a recipe or reheated, without all the soaking and planning. However, whether to store dry or can the beans is really a personal preference.
1) Easy to Grow. First of all, they are super hardy. You can be busy with obtaining clean water, fighting off zombies and tending and protecting animals (or working, for a non-apocalypse scenario) and not worry that your crop will not produce or will go by while you're off doing other things. Life happens. So should your garden.
2) Beans are a fabulous source of protein. While most of the plants in my garden are lacking in this area, beans really step up. If you couldn't count on the grocery store to provide your nutrition, obviously you'd have backyard chickens for eggs and maybe a few scrawny roosters for meat. But if you had raccoons, foxes or fishers feasting in your yard, the beans could help round out your protein content of your home-produced food while you waited to hatch and raise replacement chicks.
3) Cooking Versatility. From bean dip, to soups and stews, to salads, quesadillas and burritos...there are lots of ways to use beans.
4) Easy-to-Harvest Seeds. Once you buy your first beans (or save some from a bag before cooking dinner), you need only save out a handful of beans at the end of each season to be able to continue growing them indefinitely. No waiting on seed orders long after society and the Postal Service have collapsed.
5) Ease of Long-Term Storage. If you don't have time to preserve your harvest or if you don't know how or don't own a canner....you'll be just fine. Simply get the beans dry and collect them and store in a cool, dry location. They will last a long time with almost no effort, and they are very forgiving. If preservation is a skill you possess, you certainly may can them, but if you don't have experience with it, you'll get by just fine.
6) Improve Soil Quality. Beans are nitrogen fixers, so they help enrich your soil with nitrogen. This comes in super handy on next year's planting, if you plant your heavy nitrogen feeders, such as tomatoes, cukes, squash or cabbage, where your beans grew the previous year.
In all likelihood, we are not anywhere near one plant being the lynchpin of survival, but I do hope you'll give dry beans a try in your garden anyway. They are super easy, super delicious and pack a big nutritional punch as well.
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