Spring Seeds

As I was driving into town today, the car's thermometer read twenty-two degrees below zero.  That's a pretty normal temp hereabouts, but even here it is a bit TOO cold for the end of March!  It amazes me sometimes, the optimism that it takes in order to build fires against -22 degrees while at the same time planning for putting seeds into the ground to grow in a mere two month's time.

On Sunday, I went to a seed swapping bruch at Maple and Me's.  You can admire my valiant restraint as you notice that I only came home with 7 packets of seeds!  I should have expected such a thing.  Faced with a table full of so many varieties of unprouted plant live, so many different beautifully manifesting hopes for the future, my "I'm not going to plant anything this year except perrenials" somehow evaporated...  You see, this summer season is about the deep preparation that will support the next few decades on our land: pigs, pastures, perrenials, prep.... and now peas!  Peas give fix nitrogen into poor soils and can be direct-seeded even this far north.  And they're yummy.  And fairly simple to grow as I recall.  So that justifies two of these seed packets.

Another three are flower seeds from a dear friend's garden in Junea (she just happen's to Maple & Me's mother): primroses, day lillies, and blue poppies.

The other two packets I managed to come home with are some beets from Pingo Farm, a local farm that has been breeding vegetable strains from Russian seed stock to do well in our Zone 1 climate.  They have sweet peppers and cantelope and watermelon and tomatoes too!!!!  Next year.  Next year.  Not this year. 

And I also brought home 9 summer squash seeds.  Assuming a 100% germination rate, that's perfect for three mounds, which can be placed away from the pig pen/garden to be, and only require hauling in a pickup truck full of topsoil and/or manure - I'll use the rest to get going on the flower bed by the house.  These ones I will start in the house just as soon as I remember to stop by a gardening shop for some good soil.  Squash plants in the 4-5 inch range transplanted in late may do well, I'm told.  We have one more year's subscription to Calypso's CSA veggie share for this summer - thanks mom! But I find that we never get enough summer squash for the mounded dinner plate full I crave once or twice a summer.  Besides which, the freeze well and are great in winter soups.

So that's the story of why I broke down and brought home seeds.  That, and despite my place-my-energy-into-prep-work-it-will-pay-off-down-the -road intentions, I really can't quite imagine a summer without something growing which means that I'll likely pick up parsley and calendula and cilantro seeds along with that soil.

In other news, hiding down here at the bottom of the post where the Darlin'Man is least likely to notice it:

There are three birthdays in my family within the next month, so I've been busily contemplating all the things I will make.  And then last night I sat down and put a dent in my man's gift.  Though, I am a little concerned that I'm losing what little hipster cred I have by opting for nicely, perhaps even traditionally, sized cross stitches as opposed to the oversized one that are popular on design blogs. 

Writing with Wax

The wall opposite the loom.
Shelves for cloth and also romance novels.

Saturday I stayed home all day.  I finished the taxes, and then I spent the entirety of the rest of the day in the studio with NPR.  I even made Raif cook the greens for dinner so I could keep playing.  Making.  Art-ing?  It was so so lovely, and so so necessary for me.  I spent the first portion of the afternoon cleaning, sorting and re-arranging.  The studio recently acquired a bureau that had been in the guest bedroom, and my recent clean-and-declutter of the downstairs yeilded a surprising number of things that actually belong in the studio, surprise surprise!  So I got everything re-arranged into a sort of functionality and aesthetics that I think will continue to serve me until I get the massive wall-o'-shelves built that I have planned.

And then.  I played around writing with wax on cloth.  You see, I had the brilliant realization that I could use modified batik techniques of wax resist dyeing to get text onto cloth without using either time-consuming embroidery or the super-tech scan images into computer and print onto cloth stuff that are so frequently featured in publications like Cloth, Paper, Scissors and which quite frankly intimidate me.  I decided that for my inaugural experiment I would write Jane Austen quotes because, well.  Really what else WOULD I write?  (Full Disclosure: I am actually working on a super secret project that cannot be revealed until the end of August when a certain person or two who may or may not read this blog may or may not have received their wedding gift from me.  And because I wanted to brag here about how fun it is to write with wax on cloth, I'm doing some side projects.)

"You pierce my soul.  I am half agony, half hope.
Tell me not that I am too late.
Tell me that such precious feelings are not
gone forever."

  Jane Austen fan club FAIL!
I attributed the above quote as you can see to Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberly, hero of Pride and Prejudice; while in actuality it belongs to Captain Wentworth, the hero of Persuasion.
  Um.
Oops.
Anyway, I'll cut off the bit that attributes it to Darcy, and the quote will still be lovely.
I also wrote a few truly P&P quotes including Lady Catherine de Bourgh's masterpeice : "Heaven and Earth!  what are you thinking?  Are the shades of Pemberly to be thus polluted?"

I have plans of making a few fellow Austen-adorers very happy with cloth crafted applique etc pillows or framed art quilts featuring said quotes.  Stay tuned!  

So, how did I do this, you ask?  Simple.  Take a piece of cloth.  Heat a kiska of beeswax over a candle flame.  Write.

Pysanky tools: candle, kiska, beeswax.  Found here.

A kiska (shown above, in three writing thicknesses) is a traditional ukranian tool pretty similar to the traditional indonesian tool used for batik.  For the Easter holiday, Ukranians traditionally make Pysanky: beautifully and brightly colored eggs with traditional motifs done by wax resist over-dyeing.  I learned to do them in middle school?  I think.  Anyway, I haven't done them sine, but I may do so this year.  The kiska is basically a tiny metal funnel, and it dispenses melted beeswax the same way that a quill pen dispenses ink.  

The next step is to dye the fabric and iron off the wax, when the writing should show in muslin-colored relief against the dyed fabric.

~

And finally, a last gratuitous picture of the studio space, with its newly created reading nook.  There used to be really messy piles of fabric here :-)  While I think that in all reality, I am not likely to all that frequently USE this reading nook for its intended purpose, the studio being cold in winter and me intending to be pounding fence posts in summer; just looking at it and imagining a cup of tea and a romance novel makes me very very happy.  Besides, the upholstery matches the dressor.  And really, its as much for my husky as for me.  She was visiting with me yesterday and attempted to jump up into the  (different) armchair I had drug in there last weekend when my sister was over.  It is a lovely armchair, but it rocks and is on a swivel base.  Misha got up into it ok when I was holding it steady for her, and curled up for a bit.  But when she tried again without my aid, it moved and totally freaked her out.  I think long term, a small sofa for dog-curling and kids-playing (or mom-napping?) will be in order.  For now, it is the thought that counts.