Juneuary Tea Towels

My loom has been empty for a while so what is that best thing to get back into weaving?  Tea towels!  I started the project by getting out the cottolin cones; there are lots of small amounts perfect for a striped warp. 

I separated out the cones into two possible colourways, a pink/red and a wild mix of colours which really appealed to me.  The colours are turquoise, orange, pink, periwinkle, lime and dark purple.

I did the math to find out how much yarn I had left on each cone.  For cottolin there is 3200 yards per pound, and I figured that each cardboard cone weighed 0.4 oz.  But I wanted to make sure that my math was right so I pulled the warp using the smallest cone which was the turquoise and counted the ends.  There were 2 more threads than the math predicted but better too many than not enough.  I went ahead and pulled the warp as I felt that my math was good enough to pull the warp with no problems.

And yes, there was enough yarn for the warp to my slight surprise; it is always worrying when the cones start getting empty.  The tea towels are going to be colourful!  I used the dark purple to separate and define the stripes of colour and to give the tea towels a more cohesive look.

I didn’t finish the cones so I’m already thinking about the next tea towel warp where I can use up the rest of the cottolin yarn.  I’m thinking ribbons of stripes with large stripes of lilac and lime. 

The greenhouse has undergone another transformation from seedling propagation to food production.  The greenhouse is full of tomatoes, cucumbers and hot peppers and we still managed to squeeze in some chairs!  The tomatoes are in 5 gallon pots and are being trained up heavy twine that is attached to the ceiling of the greenhouse.

There are already tomatoes!  The greenhouse tomatoes are already over 4 feet tall and the tomatoes that we planted outside to hedge our bets are only two feet.  But it has been a cool start to June, hence Juneuary.

Garden Shed to Garden Room

Staying very close to home this summer was just the impetus we needed to jump in and make a huge change to our back garden.  When we first bought the house in 2012 my husband built this lovely garden shed in the flattest spot in our garden.

This also proved to be the sunniest spot in our garden.  Our house has a lovely back patio, but it loses the sun quite early on in the day and frankly it's windy here!  We are smack dap between the local glacier and the Pacific Ocean, so we seem to always have a cool breeze.  We decided to take down the shed and build a garden room/green house.

Once planning permission was approved my husband started taking apart the garden shed, board by board.  

Between Ngaire and Michael the shed was apart in no time.  Ngaire and I had the fun job of pulling out all the nails and carrying the boards and plywood away.  It was a super hot day and I must admit those sheets of plywood are heavy!

The next task was to get rid of the grass and this sod cutter was just perfect for the job.

Michael had to move all the underground sprinkler lines from under what was going to be a gravelled area.

We were well into week three by the time we were ready for the gravel to arrive.  We had it dumped on our driveway.  We had to move it around the house, dodging the veggie pod and through the gate to the back garden.  This was no mean feat for Ngaire and I. 

Meanwhile Michael was leveling and setting in the base in place for the greenhouse.  Our plot tilts both sideways and forward and this proved to make his task slow to say the least.

Then it was dig, dig, dig to set the base and the concrete piers underground, inevitably he hit rocks, lots and lots of rocks.  Big heavy rocks....it seems we were plagued with rocks!

The base is set in place, the landscape fabric is spread and the gravel strewn about.  Now Michael is setting the steps in place.

We had decided to use some concrete slabs that we already had for the greenhouse floor.  We did have to buy more, but using what we had was a lovely bonus.  Ngaire was the floor setter and I was the gopher, keeping her supplied with pavers and sand.  She did an amazing job!

We were ready for the green house by the fifth week and then we waited and waited and waited.  We expected the greenhouse to arrive in six to eight weeks, the reality was much longer and we only got the greenhouse a week ago....but it's worth it!

The patio furniture fits in beautifully.

Sitting in this lovely warm space is going to make our winter so much more enjoyable, we get a lovely view down the garden and the trees in the distance.  What happed to all the garden tools from the shed?

Michael was able to reuse the hardiplank from the garden shed and build this wonderful shed to house some of our tools. It snugs right up to the house under the eaves.

Pretty nifty isn't it?