Dye Another Day

Mid September...we've had our first mild frost, and it's officially fall. The regular garden maintenance at work is finished, and it's too early to start cutting back and garden shutdowns. The boss talked to the garden team last week and told us this, and he was really sorry, but we were going to have a few weeks where we wouldn't be working every day, starting with this week having yesterday and today off.

He really did seem a little concerned, like he hoped we would be OK and not starve because work was slow. I said I totally understood that was how the industry worked, and I was happy to have a little extra time to do my own stuff. And in my head, I'm going "Yes! Perfect timing! Thank you!"

So much going on outside of work between now and the end of October! All fun stuff, happily. It turns out I may have not one but two natural-dyeing classes to teach at the local guild, and today when I'm out doing errands, they will include picking up a parcel of yarn for the class, making an extra couple copies of class handout notes, and getting some dye supplies. Then Sunday I had a visit from someone I've done a couple commissions for, and she had a few more commissions she wants me to do, the biggest one with a deadline of beginning of November. Which coincides nicely with my prep time for the guild Ex and Sale. And of course there's Rhinebeck in mid-October. I've started a shopping list, and will be making reservations for dinners and sightseeing for our group in the next few weeks. We're planning to go to the Vanderbilt estate out there - Mom and I went the first year we did Rhinebeck, and the others haven't been at all, so it's time we revisited!

This weekend has been all about the dye pots again. There's a group my mother is part of, all multi-craftual, talented women, who are getting together and doing a series of KAL-type things, only not all knitting. Weaving, woodwork, embroidery, who knows what else. The current project coming up is knitting, though. One woman has a book with gorgeous stranded socks and slippers, so they're going to do that - only since most of them have done natural dyeing with me, and one has a dye garden, they decided to have me come and lead a workshop there, and natural-dye the yarn for their projects. And they are very enthusiastic! It was supposed to be 5 skeins each, but there was some extra, and so many possibilities with mordants and baths, that they ended up with 6 skeins each, and a bunch of things where they're going to split skeins between people because they couldn't decide between possibilities...I was there from 8am to 6pm, and we must have done a dozen colours on over 40 skeins, including woad and Japanese indigo from the garden. It was super fun, and lunch was a pot-luck, with spaghetti and salad, and fresh homemade cheese curds one of the women makes from their cows' milk! You know a good time was had by all when they're already planning next year's session...

I was supposed to do my mother's share of the skeins for the project, but saved that for the next couple days while I dyed my own stuff at home. Less crowded dye pots, and more leisure to plan. I think it turned out to be a good couple days' work:

Isn't the red something? I finally got around to using some of the pokeberries I've been freezing. Mashed a couple litres of them and soaked them in vinegar overnight, soaked an alum-mordanted skein in vinegar overnight also, mixed the two solutions and the yarn after straining the berries out, and simmered (covered, thank you!) for an hour or so. It boiled a little towards the end when I wasn't watching, but doesn't seem to have harmed the result. The other skeins going away from the red, include onion with copper mordant, dried coreopsis with alum, greenweed and onion with alum, rudbeckia with alum and iron/onion/woad, greenweed with alum overdyed with woad, rudbeckia with alum and iron, and two shades of black walnut, no mordant.

Summer School

Well, two days into school, we pretty much know what to expect. Just watch me disappear for a while again, I think. Lots of projects to do - at least they'll be interesting, even if they do take up a lot of time.

Our first little assignment in Urban Agriculture was to plan a garden based on the premise that we want to have a BBQ for 40 people, and get the veg and herb ingredients for the planned menu (given to us) from said garden. Not so bad, I've got most of that done already. But there will be more assignments. And, you know, the usual. ID quizzes, midterms and finals, outdoor lab time and logbooks.

The kicker is going to be the five (count 'em, five!) big projects for the Construction and Maintenance classes. To be done in the next 2 months - most are due the week before exams, so end of September.

Number 1 is a group project, which involves surveying (with theodolite and measuring rod) an assigned area of campus, drawing the scale map and two overlays, one noting possible drainage issues, and one drawing up recommendations to improve it.

  Numbers 2 and 3 kind of go together. For number 2, we have to design a front yard, using our CAD program, then do all the estimating for materials and labour to complete the project. For number 3, we have to put together a maintenance package for the homeowner in our design, with information on care for their new plantings (minimum 12 different plants).

Numbers 4 and 5 both involve creating manuals. One is a safety manual for 10 different types of equipment of various sizes, powered and not. The other is a quick reference manual for growth, description, and care of 25 of the plants we will be studying this term.

There's going to be a couple trips off campus, too. One is to a farm that grows and sells wild food - I forget what the name is, but they were profiled in the Citizen earlier this summer, so that's pretty exciting. A few of us are already into wild stuff - we were nibbling on purslane and serviceberries and stuff while weeding the vegetable garden yesterday. I think there's more purslane than legit veg in some spots; maybe we can add it to our market offerings (the class garden center is open Tues and Thurs, 11-1pm, offering plants, and vegetables as they ripen).
Our second trip off campus will be to the Cancer Survivors' Park near Hurdman Station, to do maintenance, then we're stopping at the Arboretum in the afternoon to do an ID quiz walkabout.

So, yeah. Lots to do. I think my policy is going to have to be to start on as much as I can right away, and just keep plugging. Apparently there were a lot of stressed students in the final stretch for the first group...

January Semester, Week 1

One whole week of back-to-school completed. Despite the fact that outdoor work isn't precisely an option this semester, it looks like this is going to be a busy and fun session.

Construction class is divided into 2 parts. It seems we'll be making Adirondack chairs in woodworking (let's see if my carpentry skills have improved since high school...) and for masonry, we're doing what the prof refers to as 'lego for grownups'. He's got about 4 projects lined up, put us in teams of 4 or 5 people, and each team gets to assemble and disassemble each project, as well as keep logbooks and time-sheets, cost out the work, and have each member take turns being the crew foreman. There's a stone bench, a waterfall, a barbecue, and a light pillar, all to be functional, all to be done without mortar, and we're encouraged to take his basic plans up a notch, in terms of creativity. And some of the projects will be used for the garden show in the spring, which the second-years are organizing.

For further creative exercise, there's Design this semester. By far the most fun to shop for, IMHO. Besides the textbook and CADD software, we need all sorts of fun stuff for drawing - colored pencils, circle templates, tracing paper, gridded vellum, compass and triangle, Sharpie markers, drawing pens...Definitely looking forward to this one!

We've also got a course on interior-scaping (with a nod at tropicals and indoor plant ID), green walls, and green roofs, a nursery class which is starting with winter twig ID and continuing through starting seeds and transplanting, our second urban agriculture course, which is covering a range of concepts and topics - bio-remediation, sustainability, vertical gardening, business practices, organic certification...

By contrast, our second maintenance class doesn't sound nearly as interesting. Appropriate to the season, it's all on snow removal and salt management - and litigation. The prof basically stated that if you work in snow removal, you will get sued, and so we have to learn all the things to record to prove that we did our best - not because we might win the suit, but because our insurance company will appreciate our efforts, apparently, and maybe charge us less money. Terribly depressing, and rendering snow removal a job to be avoided. I think I'll try to keep winters for designing, instead.

English class is all about the prep for our co-op semester - resumes and cover letters and such, useful if not exactly a gripping topic. By the end of the month we'll be starting to apply for co-op positions already. And my elective is Geology of the Ottawa Area, which I figured would be useful in understanding the soils around here, as well as adding a nice base of knowledge to the interest I had in rock collecting as a kid. All online, though, except for the intro class, so it will be a matter of setting aside the time to work each week.

So many projects and assignments everyone's talking about, though! I feel rather as if I'm in water that's only ankle-deep right now, but watching a huge wave coming towards me. Here's hoping the schedule gets a little less imposing as we get into it.

See You Later, I'm Off

I'm thinking it's entirely possible that this will be my last blog post for the next week. Things are about to get crazy.

Tomorrow night I leave town for Rhinebeck. Packing is...um...sort of done. I still need to make sure I print a map, pack the appropriate knitting needle/yarn combinations, the last-minute toiletries, and school study materials, and get some American money out of the bank. But the restaurant reservations are made, at least.

And why am I bringing school stuff to a wool festival? Because I have 3 midterms and a quiz next week. Yup. Plus an English assignment due Monday - a business letter in reply to a call for companies interested in re-landscaping a fictitious City Hall. (We talked the prof out of a quiz the same day), and some research to do for Garden Club. This is why I will be disappearing. I expect I will be spending most of the time in the car and in the hotel room this weekend with a book open. I even (unusually for me) checked the hotel website to see if there was any indication of WiFi available. Found nothing, so I will have to likely do without internet - but the laptop's coming anyway. A sad state for me to be in!

Eh, bien, off to the shower and bed for me. It's been heavier labour at school this week, planting shrubs Tuesday, and digging and hauling dirt and gravel today, and I have a few sore muscles. The walkway is progressing nicely; all the digging is done except for removing the top layer of dirt/stonedust at the center, and we've started putting down gravel base at the sides. I will be very happy when all this preliminary stuff is done and we can start doing the fun stuff - re-laying brick patterns!

See Amanda Run

See Amanda. See Amanda run. See Amanda drying yarn and blocking pillow cover pieces.

Only to discover the pillow top is on the small side. Hmm.
See Amanda run around stacking interlock pieces Wednesday, attending the inaugural garden club meeting at school, learning to drive a riding mower Thursday, and then dashing off to Deb's to make measurements and pictures for an assignment (on interviewing clients and getting the needed information, presented as a theoretical garden/landscaping renovation.)

Also, see Amanda succumbing to the lure of Chapters and purchasing both the new Knitting Traditions and Knits Holiday magazines from Interweave.
See Amanda catching the nasty cold going around at school. See Amanda navigating the Friday Safety lecture and quiz with the help of Tylenol and ginger tea. See Amanda looking ahead to Saturday demoing spinning all day with the prospect of a wedding reception that evening to go to...

Yeah, that was my week. Hope everyone else's was good. Tomorrow's demo is back home, at the official store/studio opening for Johanne's alpaca ranch, L'Ourse Qui Danse, in Godmanchester, Quebec. She wants me there to spin, and show off some of the natural dye colors, since the idea is that I may be teaching workshops on those topics at her store/studio. Just hope Jo doesn't mind me coughing and blowing my nose, and croaking. But unless I feel a heck of a lot better tomorrow, I'm going to try to avoid the reception. Very thankful (appropriately) this is a holiday weekend, and I have two days after tomorrow where I hopefully don't have to go anywhere, and someone else can cook and let the cat in and out, while I rest and do homework, and try to catch up on knitting...

Piling Up

I have no idea how some people manage to keep homes or workspaces relatively tidy. I suspect they have either less stuff or more space than I do. Last week I did a bunch of cleaning and tidying - and this week, apart from the decrease in feline dust-bunnies in the corners, it looks worse than before. My excuse right now is an influx of things.

The last few days, there has been dyeing going on. OKG Vendors' Night coming up in 2 weeks, and I've been filling in a few gaps in the stock. That means there's a drying rack in the bedroom, partly hung with skeins of yarn (the other half is devoted to the wool socks I washed the other day.) The last of the skeins just came out of the dyepot,  so I will at least be able to tidy the pots away soon. Will post pics when I get some taken.

And then there's the school stuff. I lugged an extra few pounds home today. Not only did our textbooks finally come in, but the garden harvest, having been duly weighed, measured, and analyzed, was put out for us to take home what we wanted. So I came home with carrots and parsnips and beets and celery and eggplants, in addition to 3 new textbooks (softcover, thankfully.) Counter space and table space all quite occupied now!

I'm not anticipating much tidying going on in the next few weeks, either. Thanksgiving, then Vendors' Night, then Rhinebeck (I get to go! My profs for the Friday classes are willing to let me make up those days elsewhere!), then the OVWSG Ex and Sale beginning of November. And fitted in there are assorted assignments, quizzes and midterms...ah, well, I'm sure it'll all get done somehow!

Tomorrow - must remember to bring camera to school - we're planting trees. Big ones. Apparently world tree day was last week. This should be fun.

Back to School Shopping

Got my supply list for school yesterday. School shopping is going to be...interesting. First time I've had a shopping list that included a hard hat and steel-toed boots rather than a lab coat and notebooks. Happily, it looks like only three textbooks are listed, and most of the equipment will be a one-time purchase. Now to go see where in Ottawa one finds some of these things...

Along with the list came the Code of Conduct, which says classes are mandatory. I'll have to talk with the teachers to see if they'll mind me missing one or two days - 'cause I really want to go to Rhinebeck this year! (After all, I missed last year, and this year's been booked since before I decided to go back to school.) And there's a dentist appointment scheduled for a Monday, which I might try to move to Christmas vacation, and the OVWSG Ex and Sale, which I have to set up for on a Friday afternoon...

Up late last night mordanting the new batch of yarn and fiber, so I can start dyeing it tonight. (It's evening work because that's when power's cheaper.) My bathtub has a rack of damp skeins and smells of wet wool and a touch of iron - perfume to my nose. I could take the rack outside to dry things, but I don't know how larcenous the squirrels here are... I've just signed myself up for the OKG Vendors' Night October 15th, so some of this week's work will probably be going there. (Come out and support a poor student! Preview pictures coming later this week!)