I’m a bit slow on the craft blogging part of this blog at the moment but here is a little of what we’ve been up too.

Craig has been sick recently so is making good progress on his first sock knitted using magic loop on my knit-picks needles (purchased through Vintage Purl in NZ).

Since this photo has been taken he’s actually just about finished the leg (the ones I knitted for him were 11″ long, he wants these even longer). He may need to get sick again when he starts on the other foot though

Now I had decided to start myself a raglan top-down jumper (my first). I got this far:

And decided that it would look horrible as it’s all in garter stitch and I had no idea what I was doing and where the garter stitch would end in the jumper and the stocking stitch start once I joined it in the round. So a did some tinking (that would be knitting backwards) and began all over again in stocking stitch. I also stuffed up the first lot of increases and they looked messy so I’m not too upset about starting again. I’m doing a V-neck and I think I’ll pick up stitches around the neck once I’ve finished and knit on at least a small ribbed border to match the sleeves and waist.

Also, my knit-picks needles came in a horrible clear plastic zip case that was horrible to try to organise in so I went hunting to see if I could do better. A trip to The Warehouse resulted in a binder with a few pockets, ring binder and notebook. I added a display book that clipped into the binder for loose pattern sheets and some zip-lock pockets (from diary organisers) that also clipped into the binder and now everything is nice and neat, accessible and portable.

There is even a mesh zip pocket to put my stitch markers, stitch counter and measuring tape etc and nice business card pockets that fit my ruler, sewing neddles & crochet hooks, a pen holder for my two pairs of bamboo DPNs, a pocket that fits the little plastic pocket I have all the changeable needle tips in (and a larger zipped pocket behind all that for misc bits. The plastic zipp-lock pockets hold all my circular cable lengths nicely.

Ok so here is the post where I overload you with photos of our new place.

 So this is the back of the house. The land goes on further behind me and off the right of the image (which you’ll see soon), to the left are trees, mainly pine, some tea-tree and tree ferns. The roof you can see sticking out on the left is the wood chopping area (I have some more plans for this space I think <insert evil laugh>). There are loads of small & medium sized raised beds, mostly surrounding fruit trees or along the deck space. We are going to replant these with our kitchen essentials. Those items that you want to grab to make a meal even when it’s raining outside (like this morning).

 

You can just see the glass house in the right hand side of the image, Fern (the lamb I was looking after) and I cleaned it out the other day. The floor was a carpet of weeds and peppermint (the smell got really heady after a while of me walking on and crushing the leaves). But it’s now all cobweb and weed free and ready for some serious planting to begin. I’m going to start the spring seedlings off soon so that we are ready to go with some early spring vegetables when spring finally arrives.

Looking back behind me (away from the house):

We are thinking it would be a good area to tether a pair of goats to, and there are some lovely secret spots to climb into under the trees up the back.

 The land goes down the slope to the driveway (off to the left) and the main fenced paddock, sheds and chicken house are up to the top right where you can see the red. I believe that is one of the olive trees, and a copse of bananas just behind the white electric fence tape. There are quite a lot of fruit trees, all in great need of love, including apples, olives, bananas, plums and figs (there may also be peaches and a few others but I’m not sure) oh and grapes as well. In the bottom left you can see what will be the perennials bed (here is one a bit closer in):

The bed is edged in rocks, has a good rich top layer about 6″ deep but the usual NZ clay soil under that. This bed will hopefully include:

 

• Globe Artichokes
• Asparagus
• Chicory
• Dandelions
• Ginger
• Kumeras
• Rhubarb
• Rocket
• Sorrel
• Yams
• Parsley
• 5 or 7 year beans (penny beans)
• Chives
• Fennel
• Garlic (to harvest the tops only, not the bulbs)
• Lovage
• Lemon Balm (and maybe lime balm if we can find some)

We could probably like quite happily of this bed if need arose, but we wont have too because beyond that will be the 4 rotating beds. There needs to be a little bit of terracing done to them and a lot of digging.

And this would be the main fenced pasture land, it’s horrible pasture and not fit for horses, sheep or cows just yet. We are planning on putting some pigs through to turn it over, followed by the chickens then we will sow it with good livestock food like rye-grass and put in some herbal banks. It will take about 6 months for it to become usable pasture (I’m told). The pigs and chickens will be giving the same treatment to the rotating beds space before the hit the freezer.

Now for those who have been wondering, this is Fern (with Sparky):

(she’s actually all black but I put on a little felted cover to keep her a little warmer). She’s gone back home now but she really did give us a great peak into the reality of owning animals and what you have to do to keep orphans or abandoned babes alive (and we got her at 10 days old). She had to be bottle fed, 4 times a day at 5 hour intervals (we actually got it mixed and had been feeding her 5 times a day, oops).

Ines brought Luka over to see her right at feeding time:

It was rather cute

I think that should just about update everything now.

Not only have we moved from our 1 bedroom studio apartment, but we’ve moved into a 5 bedroom house on a total of 10 acres (I think I may have mentioned this was happening), we have gone from a 2 people and 1 cat house to 2 cats, 4 people, 1 horse, 4 geese, 2 ducks, 5 chickens 2 roosters and are currently baby sitting the sweetest week old Suffolk lamb.

Now as soon as I find the box with my cameras I’ll take some photos to share the wonderfulness that is our new home. 

We’ve been moved in for 5 days and already started on the big gardening plans. I’ve cleaned out the little green house near the house ready to start our spring seed raising, we’ve plotted out the large vegetable garden (made up of 4 plots and 8 beds which will rotate on a 4 yearly cycle). The entire experience is amazing. Banking the fire over night and bringing it back to life in the morning when I get up, popping on a jacket and gumboots and wondering down to the chook house to let them out. They aren’t early morning layers we’ve discovered, nor are they producing many eggs, but the joy of having them is enough for us right now.

It’s all very exciting, and I’m totally exhausted and have to run now to give Fern (the lamb) her last feed before bed.

We have been so busy since my last post, so this one’s going to be a long one with lots of photos, no actually, I’m going to do a few posts and just back date them

But for today’s post… We are moving! We’ve found a 10 acre rental property just 20 minutes walk from our current location. The landlords are lovely and keen for us to do whatever we want (as long as we pay for it and don’t expect them to, which suits). It’s a very exciting time. There is a 5 bedroom house which we will share with Buffie and Kain. There will be a craft room and an office so lots of space for everyone. Buffie will be bringing her horse Sparky, there are already some chickens, roosters, geese and ducks on the property. We would like to add to these flocks and also introduce some sheep and possibly a cow, and I do believe Buffie mentioned she’s going to buy me an Angora bunny (I think she’s hoping I’ll spin her up some lovely soft yarn, which of course I will - although I might need more then 1 bunny). Anyway… the move takes place in 2 weeks from tomorrow. Before that, Buffie and I will be going to the house to make curtains (the landlords have commissioned us to do them, yay so an entire house of curtains that we get to pick, again, suits). 

SOO EXCITED! At last we will get to put into practice some of our research and book learning, and not on a tiny scale like we have been doing.

Now, look at how our garlic doth grow:

And here you can see the onions and leeks in the other raised bed:

Now for some backdating of posts.

 

I’ve finished Craig’s socks! I wrapped them up and gave him them for Yule (actually yule is tomorrow as far as this post is actually concerned, heehe).

Before wrapping:

Unwrapped:

I did manage to get him to take them off the other night, he wore them to bed and I placed my icicle feet between his warm thighs and then get a very sweet “Here honey, present for you” and he slipped off his socks and passed them over. <insert evil smug grin>

The longest night is almost upon us, and in the spirit of the year we are having a masked dinner here at Earthsong. To this end, we’ve decided to make our own masks.

We went out hunting in chemists and craft stores for plaster of paris, finally found some in the hardware store and have had an awesome two weeks (on Wednesday craft nights, and the odd night in between) crafting our masks. I don’t have any photos of the finished pieces though I’m afraid.

We cut up bandages into strips, covered them with plaster of paris and then set to work layering them onto the faces. We did around three layers I think. Ohh, and we put vaseline over the eyebrows, upper lips and along the hair line to ensure the hair didn’t stick to the plaster.

After the layers were completed we lay down in front of the fire to help the plaster dry.

A few of us thought we would all go as The Endless (from Neil Gamiman’s Sandman comic Endless Nights). Craig was Dream, I was Desire, Buffie was to Delirium, Kain was Destruction, Ines was Death, Robert was Despair and Luka was Destiny. (I’m afraid I had a migraine for most of the day and missed the majority of the actual event on the 21st).

 He you can see Helen blow drying Kain’s mask to help speed up the process (and some finished pieces in the background).

Hehe, this is how we looked after mask removal, lucky it washes off easily.

Ohh, and a very fetching photo of me (the straws were so I could breath while Craig covered up my noes and moth, very uncomfortable I must say.

We went over to Waiheke Island to take part in the World Wide Knit in Public Day. We hadn’t been to the Island before so had a nice ride on the ferry, we had hoped to do a little tour of the island but it rained so we just saw a small area which was lovely.

Other members of my knitting group (KnitRangers) were also in attendance (being that a bunch of us met at the ferry terminal and popped over together.

I also met a very cool pair of leather shoes that I’d love to make:

The only big downside of this day was that I knitted all the way to the end of the leg for Craig’s sock and couldn’t remember if it was 10″ or 11″ long so had to stop before the end of the day and had nothing to knit for the remainder of the day (thus there was a lot of eyeing off of other peoples projects and a note to self to bring more then one project along next time).

So drying your dishes with a hand towel is actually unhygienic, and putting the dishes away after washing them is just too much work so in the spirit of hygiene and time saving, Craig and I spent 2 days in the workshed building a plate storage and drying rack. It also stores chopping boards and placemats. The intentions is (was) to build a shelf extending out from it with a bar to hang our cast iron cooking pans on.

 Beautiful no?

I had a serious spinning bug recently, my wool still hasn’t come back from Jumbuck Carding so Rochana gave me a bag of green Romney from Tally-Ho. Buffie laid her eyes on it at declared she loved it, which is lucky ’cause I’m intending on knitting her socks with it

I’m impressed with my spinning at the moment. I’m starting to turn out a much more even thread with very few slubby bits. I do need to find another method of feeding out the wool though as my RSI likes to flair up in my left hand and when it does I can’t spin, crochet or knit (or squeeze a drink bottle). So anything I can do to lesson that particular motion would be good. (I know have 2 completed bobbins of this wool ready to ply).

Craig’s been out in the garden today building raised beds ready for some garlic, onions and leeks. He’s just a brilliant job.