Michigan Hand Dyed Yarn!

Kaitlin Maday is a Michigan yarn dyer who has some amazing yarns available.  She specializes in self striping, variegated and tonal yarns, accepts special requests and regularly creates new color combinations.  If you are a sports fan or enjoy shows such as Dr. Who, Outlander (based on the books by Diana Gabaldon and showing on Starz), PBS' Sherlock, Harry Potter and more Kait may just have a yarn with you in mind. Here are some of my favorites:

Gryffindor

Hufflepuff

Highlighters

 ...and more from Kaitlin's online shop (Mintrain Hand Dyed Yarns)....

I made grow bags from landscape fabric a few years ago.

Here are the links to the Youtube videos:

Part 1:  46 seconds- This video shows you how to get the landscape fabric, available at most garden centers, ready to sew.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wQbfb0i0Yo

Part 2:  Sewing the bag using a serger:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqyOE7ZK1yg

The following article takes this portable gardening idea to a whole new level
http://www.remodelista.com/posts/a-movable-feast-berlins-community-garden

 

and also this one:  http://www.gardenista.com/posts/moveable-feast-a-pop-up-farm-in-brooklyn

 

Bay City, Michigan

Fireworks!

Happy July 4th!  Enjoy the Fireworks!

Fiesta Tumbling Planter

Click the picture to learn how to make this great planter!

  My kids made this great planter for me on Mother's Day.  With the advent of sites like ehow, makezine and pinterest, not to mention youtube, there are so many ideas floating around for do it yourself projects it's hard not to get the urge to get creative yourself!
   I just love this one.  The planter looks impossibly balanced with flowers spilling out all over the place, but building it is very straightforward.  Click the picture above or in the right column to see the instructions.

Scrappy Woven Fence

   I needed to devise a way to keep our dogs out of the herb garden or else move it to a different location where they couldn't get to it.  It took quite a while to achieve the messy mix of sage, thyme, chives, lavender, lilies, poppies, etc that I call my herb garden and darn it, I don't want to move it! 

I made this fence like apparatus using 48" coated metal garden stakes( 99 cents each at Meijer's) and strips of fabric I had in my craft room.

Click picture to go to instructions on making this fence.

Peas growing up the fence.

 Around the base of the fabric fence I put cheap fence edging.  This serves the dual purpose of keeping the dogs out and providing a trellis for peas or beans to grow on.

Partial fabric fence around my raised garden bed.

I have a semi circular raised garden bed that I made with cement blocks.  The holes in the blocks face up to keep the dirt in the bed.  I filled the holes with good garden soil and planted beans in them.  The fabric fence will provide a trellis for the beans to grow up on.

My Grandma's Hoya

Click picture to go to How to Propagate Hoya

My Grandmother had a Hoya plant in a wine bottle on her water heater my whole life.  As a matter of fact, the picture above, which was taken just recently is THE SAME PLANT in the SAME WINE BOTTLE that my grandmother had!......More amazingly, my mother, who is 84, told me that that very same plant was in my grandmother's house for her whole life too.  Your Hoya has the potential to become a member of your family it will live so long.  It will probably outlive you.
   When my grandma passed in 1981 my mother inherited the Hoya.  My dad was the one with the interest in plants so he took care of it, moving it indoors and out with the seasons. He built a planter box for it (explained more in How to Propagate Hoya link) and kept it in a sheltered spot on the porch or in the heated garage during the winter.  Every once in a while it would bloom but not often.
   Now I have the Hoya and I put it in an east facing window that has filtered morning sunlight.  I fertilize it with houseplant fertilizer when I water it.  I think I have found the ideal spot for it as it has bloomed twice this year already with multiple blooms each time! 
  Since this plant has been such a part of my family's history I decided that each member of the family should have a plant of their own from a cutting of the original so I began this propagation project.  Click the link above or in the right column to see how I'm propagating the Hoya plant.  So far so good!

The furry foliage you see is from the African violets.

The unopened flower looks like wax.

The bloom on the bottom isn't opened yet.

After blooming DON'T remove dead flowers!

 The flowers rebloom from the same point.  The spur that is left when the flower drops off is where the next year's flower will bloom.

See the healthy roots in the blue bottle?

The blooms in the front of this picture are African violets, which like the same light conditions as the Hoya.

Violets and Hoya happy together!

Love, love, love the colors!