In The Craft Room
There has been some progress on the craft front this week. As we approach the end of the kitchen renovation we’ve been able to put our living space back together which means I can get my wheel out at last! I started where I left off by picking up my Fellview Fibres advent calendar. I started off spinning them individually with my default spin but it wasn’t really giving me any joy so I spread the remaining rolags out and thought about how they might work together in a yarn.
First up is this gradient-style spin which has been a really lovely project to ease myself back into crafting. I’m aiming for a heavy lace, but I’ll just see what it is at the end. It uses rolags 8 9, 17, and 18. I’m not sure what my next one will be, maybe something using those darker rolags, 4, 6, and 10. I’m not great with colour and tend to play too safe (dull). What would you put together?
In The Garden
We’ve had a lot of rain this week so there hasn’t been much actual work in the garden. I did manage to get my maincrop potatoes in before things turned too bad. I’m still harvesting a few leeks and the early potatoes I planted back in Feb/March and left in the polytunnel have really shot up this week, I need to get those bags topped up with compost.
I did check on my compost bin this week. I’m a compost novice and at the end of last season I had a bit of a sludgy mess which was disappointing. I haven’t added to it over winter and have left it to slowly do it’s thing and after turning it over this week it now looks like this.
It’s a bit woody in places but I think this looks about right, right? It’s taken since 2020 to get it to this point, so around two and a half years. I’m not really sure how long it’s supposed to take but I’m pretty happy with the (small) amount I have here. I guess it’s time to start getting it filled up again. I wonder if my slow worms will be back this summer? I didn’t turn it much last year because I didn’t want to disturb them, so I’m giving it a good turn regularly now.
In The Kitchen
We are very nearly at the end! It’s been two and a half months without a functioning kitchen/dining room. It’s been very stressful at times, and I was really starting to tire of microwaved things, but here we are.
I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out and what a difference it has made to how I feel about my home. I’ve been putting this project off for a few years so I had really run the old kitchen into the ground and I felt quite depressed about the space. It’s obviously still a small space, but I’m finally enjoying cooking again and the light, both real and artificial, is so much lighter and brighter.
In Other News
That’s it for my round up this week. We did have a trip to Hay on Wye to trawl for books – it did not disappoint! We also discovered the Hay Distillery which is a lovely local venture. They make their own very lovely gins so we took the opportunity to have a few birthday cocktails! I’m not usually one for cocktails but we’ll definitely head here again.
Ceulan Fibres 
Your compost looks beautiful! But 2.5 years? That’s a little long to wait. Maybe add a bin? You can cook one while you’re making another.
Your kitchen is a study in awesome! It’s come out so wonderful! Your light is amazing, and the vast amount of counter space is so useful.
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Thank you! Yes it’s taken a while with the compost, although I don’t think I’ve been particularly focused on it and we don’t generate a lot of waste. I think I’ll make a bit more effort with it this year and see what happens now that I can see that it does work.
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Congrats on your composting. I’ve been trying for years and never am successful. I got a tumbler so it would be easy to turn the compost but it just doesn’t work well. I don’t garden enough to really care. Your new kitchen looks great and I can believe it will be a much happier place to spend time in. With your spinning, just saying … if you are interested in the Sea Glass Tee or Sweater – creating some dark yarns and some light yarns is the perfect combo. How neat that you can basically create your own “magic ball” of the colors transitioning without having to tie knots.
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Ooh that’s an interesting pattern, thank you. I could use up several bits and pieces of handspun on a project like that.
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Your spinning is very nice. Such lovely colors you have to work with. Your kitchen is gorgeous. SO bright and light filled. I can see why you are looking forward to getting back in there to create lovely foods.
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Thank you and yes it’s been lovely to be back cooking!
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When I had my farm I built a 2 bin compost so that one would be ready to be used while the other was “cooking”. If I remember, it should be green stuff, brown stuff and moisture…but no meat or bones. It should take 2.5 years and I always thought mine was done when it turned into rich black dirt.
Your new kitchen is really nice but I know how difficult it is to remodel and try to function at the same time. It looks like it was really worth it.
Your gradient spin is awesome…love those colors. I would choose 5, 11, and 19 next…..so fun to see how they turn out. they are all gorgeous rolags.
Happy Birthday to whoevers birthday it was!
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I’ve been making the compost ratios up a bit but it seems to have worked, I was worried it wasn’t getting hot enough. Good call on those three, I missed 19 with the other two but that would be lovely.
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Well done having finished compost. I was an idiot planning my veg garden and have the compost bins down between the fence and greenhouse so there’s almost no room to try turning it never mind shovelling it out when it’s done. Mines been 11 years in the making I just realised and I’ve never used any from it! Anyway…sorry back to your blog the kitchen looks great, so great your oven is in I’d thought it was a sink at first glance, clearly not fully awake 😂 I’m not sure I’d know how to combine the rolags, I suspect I’d spin them into minis and then worry about it when it’s yarn. Best of luck with it though.
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I like your gradient spin. I’m also not great with color, but that looks good to me. How wonderful to have your kitchen finished. And your compost looks great! Ours struggles because we always forget to put the leaves in. We leave the leaves on the ground for the critters over the winter, but if we’re going to compost, we will need to rake enough to add in.
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