Urban Foraging

Today I explored an undeveloped hillside by my house, and found that it was absolutely overgrown with blackberries and tansy. Double score!

The blackberries will become more jam. More jam! All the jam! I will dye yarn with the tasty.

I left plenty of berries for the birds, and lots of flowers for the bees. Even in the city, the land bears wonderful treasures. I will harvest these with gratitude, using the gifts of the earth to feed my body and soul.

Self Preservation

It is the height of summer and everything is blooming, ripening, and flowering. There is so much fruit and so many useful and edible plants growing that you can't possibly use all of them. So now is the time for preservation projects! I have made two batches of blackberry jam so far, and plan to make a couple more. The figs and plums aren't quite ripe yet, but when they are I will be making jam from them also. I'm pickling beets and turnips, making sauerkraut, and I've harvested herbs from my yard and hung them up to dry. My kitchen looks like a witch's lair!

The other, less exciting thing that is happening with me right now is that my boyfriend is in the hospital with two broken heels. He will be in the hospital for quite some time, he will have reconstructive surgery on his heel bones and then he will be in a wheelchair for several months. At times like these it is very easy to get so wrapped up in caring for another person that I forget to take care of myself. Now is the time that I need to be especially aware of self-care. Last night, for me, self-care looked like going to the Dead Baby Downhill. The Dead Babies are a bicycle club, and the Downhill is a bicycle race followed by an after-party that takes up an entire neighborhood. There are many bands, many friends, many bicycles, many freak bicycles and many wheeled, bicycle-like contraptions. It was good to be around my people, and good to be somewhere other than a hospital room or home by myself.

Wonderfully, I unexpectedly ran into Caitlin Ffrench of We Will Tell You All Of Our Secrets who is a fiber artist and designer based in Vancouver BC Canada. I had heretofore only interacted with her online. She was just as wonderful and charming in real life as her online presence would suggest. I am a fan of her designs, as a visit to my Ravelry finished projects page will attest. It was great to meet her and talk about natural dyeing and our cats.

I'm feeling very fortunate today to have such a full life and be surrounded by so many wonderful people.

Tuesday Adventures

I know some people may go on adventure of a Tuesday afternoon all the time, but (much like Dolly Parton before me) I'm usually working 9 to 5. However, yesterday I took the day off and went with a friend and our kids to Remlinger Farms. It's a small amusement park near the foothills of the Cascade Mountain range. My friend Jolene has a daughter who is about the same age as my son, and they are buddies. Mom friend/kid friend combos are the best for going to amusement park outings. A good time was had by all.

Anyway,  Remlinger Farms is right down the road from Tolt Yarn and Wool, so of course we had to stop there before we started for home. I picked up a ball of Rowan Tweed, which is going to become Glenveagh Mitts from the Fall 2014 issue of Knitscene a ball of Twirl Petals, which is going to join a lighter ball of Twirl that I picked up the last time I was at Tolt and become an original design that's percolating in my brain; and three balls of YOTH, two Big Sister and one Little Brother. I don't have any designs on the YOTH right now, but it's just such gorgeous yarn and you can't really get it anywhere else so of course I had to grab some.

My friend's daughter noticed a waste basket full of scrap yarn under the ball winder. She asked if she could have some. She ended up coming home with a whole bag of scrap yarn - ask and you shall receive!

THEN my car battery died because I'm an idiot, and Veronika, the force behind YOTH Yarn and a lovely human gave me a jump and saved the day. It was quite funny. The whole shop was willing to help. It made me love Tolt even more!

Now it's back to work and back to reality for me. The weather outside is gloom and rain, and while there are some who would be disappointed by this, I will always be in favor of July days that feel like September. It makes my heart happy.

Summer Doings

I have neglecting this blog! Bad blogger! I had committed to myself to update it at least once a week, but I have been doing many wonderful summer things and it got away from me. Summer things that weren't really within the scope of this blog and also I'm terrible about pausing in the middle of adventures to take pictures. So. No photographic evidence. You'll just have to take my word for it.

This morning I was walking to the train and I saw some plantain growing in a neighbor's yard. Not the kind that looks like a big banana - the kind that's a weed that grows in your lawn. For some reason I don't have any growing in my lawn so I took some seeds from the plant in my neighbor's yard and sprinkled them on the edge of my back garden. Hopefully they will sprout and soon they will look like this:

If you live anyplace where dandelions grow, you are probably familiar with these guys. They are everywhere where I live. Except my lawn, mysteriously.

Plantains are a great edible plant, and you can also make a healing salve from the leaves. To make a salve, simply fill a jar 3/4 full of plantain leaf and then pour in olive oil to cover. Let it sit for 4 weeks, then strain the oil and mix with melted bee's wax. The salve will help stanch bleeding and reduce healing time. You can also put mashed up leaves on bug bites to speed healing and relieve itch.

Plantain leaves are edible, though they can be bitter and stringy once the plant is older. Younger leaves can be eaten in a salad. Mature leaves can be used for tea, or you could toss them in a green smoothie. Plantain is nutrient dense and really great for the liver and for digestion.

I love useful weeds!

Solstice

Happy Solstice! Or happy belated Solstice, I should say. Obviously I am posting this on Monday and it is no longer Solstice. The days have already started getting shorter.

But I do want to tell you about how I welcomed summer this year because it was quite lovely. I am more of a cool weather type person, but summer does have its good points. For instance: lots of light and many growing things.

Saturday I tended my garden, played outside with my son, harvested dye plants, finished my Sunlight Shawl for Sad People (I've got it blocking right now), and ate strawberries straight out of the garden. Perfection!

Sunday I spent cleaning my house and dyeing yarn. I have two wonderful pieces of news: the fig tree in my yard is healthy and growing and had lots of leaves to use for dyeing,  AND whatever was eating all my figs in years past has apparently moved on - there are still a ton of figs left and I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch but it looks like we might get a harvest this year!

I don't have a fancy camera, and unfortunately I had trouble capturing the color with my camera phone, but the fig leaves with alum and iron yielded a very cool variegated spring green and mossy green.

Calendula Conundrum

I had planted calendula in my garden specifically for use as a dye plant. However, I've been having problems with dry, itchy skin and I finally said enough! So I'm making calendula oil instead.

Calendula is wonderful for skin irritation of all sorts. I will let is soak in olive oil for a couple of weeks, then mix it with bee's wax and lavender essential oil for a healing and soothing skin salve. The lavender essential oil not only smells good, but also has anti bacterial and anti fungal properties. The finished salve will be good for rashes, dry skin, burns, and cuts. Calendula oil mixed with bee's wax also makes a great lip balm.

I struggled with the decision to use my calendula for medicinal purposes at first, but I decided that there are many plants I can dye with (especially at this time of year) but not so many that are so good for the skin. Anyway, calendula is a prolific plant so I will have other harvests this summer.

I figure that if deciding whether to use a flower for dying yarn or making salve is the problem I'm having today, then life is pretty good.

Two Patterns

I designed two shawlette/scarf patterns and they are now live on Ravelry. They are the first original designs that I've sent out into the world. They are my baby birds and they are now free, which is exciting and a little nervous-making.

They are Wolf Lichen and Back Garden. Please check them out!