but what about the kitchen?

I have a small tradition of gardening on Remembrance Day (or, this year, its weekday substitute). I get the day off, and because it's not a family-themed holiday — usually, not even a long weekend — I have no plans except puttering at home. (This isn't a problem. I quite like puttering.) So, gardening.


It's mostly just a matter of raking up the leaves from the path (I leave the leaves to decompose over the winter in the garden itself) — our neighbourhood is full of mature oak trees; absolutely lovely in the summer, but it's paid for in the fall — and weeding. A couple of years ago I planted the spring bulbs, but this year I was not nearly that organized and so, no bulbs. I neglected the garlic, too.

But what about the kitchen? you ask.

Did I mention that the roses are still blooming? The yellow 'Graham Thomas' has come and gone — it was lovely, perfect, bowl-shaped like a peony, which of course meant that I loved it — but 'The Fairy' and 'Amber Rose' are still at it, despite my ceasing to deadhead sometime around September.


They are so lovely, and so surprising, that even Pd has commented on them. Not that he doesn't notice them in August, say, but they are so exceptional right now, in this cold, that they drove him to comment.

And the kitchen? you say.


Also, I've been knitting. I finished my cardigan; it hasn't been blocked but I've worn it at least a dozen times. (I finished it right before a cold snap, so it got pressed into service right away. I'm too impatient for blocking; what if I want it, and it's still wet?) I made little striped leggings for the Spanish Inquisition.

They were leftover yarn from the stash — the white is Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino, and the grey is (I think) some BMFA Woobu in (again, I think) Valkyrie. Anyway, they are soft, lovely and warm, and you have to imagine them slipping over little black boots; they are absolutely adorable.

And yes, that is absolutely a (defunct) cell phone in her wee little hands. She kept trying to grab ours, and playing with them, so in the end we gave her one of Pd's old ones that was going to go into the donation bin. She is perfectly happy with it. She's too young to actually play on the smartphones, so she just likes pressing the buttons and holding it up to her ear; the lack of interactivity doesn't faze her. It does make me wonder, though, if we spend too much time on the phone with her around.

 And what, you say, paragon of impatience that you are, about the kitchen?

What, the adorable picture of the baby wasn't sufficient distraction for you? (Obviously not.)


I was going to blog about it, but then things got busy, and complicated, and tiring. We've been working on it on weekends and most weeknights. It's amazing: what feels like a treat at the beginning (take-out every night!) begins to feel more like an interminable purgatory of the stomach (oh God, please oh please can't I just cook?). I can't wait until 100% of our kitchen appliances are inside. Right now we're running about 50-50: the fridge and the dishwasher are in, but the stove and exhaust hood are not. (And in case you think we prioritized the dishwasher — well, yes, we sort of did, but also mostly because it's one of those built-in ones, and so we had to build the cabinets around it; it couldn't wait until we were done.)

The tentative schedule was this:

Week 1: Demolition (of everything — cabinets and floors)
Week 2: Tiling (and between weeks 2 and 3, grouting and sealing said floor)
Week 3: Construction

There were small things in between, like electrical work and painting. We didn't finish sealing until the last day of week 2, but that still hewed to the schedule. And then, I figured — how hard could it be to build Ikea cabinets? We're pretty handy and can run up a Billy bookcase right lickety-split. So how hard could it be?

In case you ever need to know this: Ikea cabinets are not Billy bookcases. Billy bookcases, for example, do not need holes for plumbing. Also, the ease of building a kitchen is directly proportional to how straight your walls and floor are. This is not a problem in condos, or new builds, or old houses that have been taken down to studs and then rebuilt. Unfortunately, our house is none of those. We did think about levelling out the floor — but then, as Pd pointed out, our walls would look crooked.

As for the timeline ... we are currently in week five. Week 6 starts tomorrow.

there is a kitchen in my den.

No, really.


The big box in the centre, the one that says DOMSJÖ, that's the sink. Next to it, the open box, is full of hinges. The two piles next to that are, I think, drawer innards. Everything else is cabinets and doors and suchlike.

All in all, 112 pieces. They cheat a bit, though; every hinge is a "piece," so that open box is technically something like 30 pieces.

IKEA was (still is, I think) having a sale, and you know, I could never resist a sale. (Joke. Mostly.) Although — we bought everything all at once, including some appliances, and I did nearly choke at the bill. It's not the most I've ever paid for anything (hey, we have a house. And a car), but those things involved loans and bank managers and monthly payments. This was just us, our savings and a conveyor belt full of stuff. It was a little ... breathtaking. Literally.

But hey, come on. You must have known this was coming. It's been over a year since we've ripped up any floors in our house. Our crowbars were getting itchy.

one last hurrah

This morning it really felt like fall — not even early fall, but fall fall. I love early fall: the cool, crisp mornings, the earlier nights, that feeling that you're stealing time when you stay out, trying to catch that last light.

I hate actual fall. It's cold and dreary and I can never find anything to wear. I've dug out my wool socks but it's too warm for sweaters, too, so I freeze in my t-shirts (even the long sleeved ones), or boil in my t-shirt-plus-jacket. This morning I woke up before the dawn, and when I left the house I saw leaves — note the plural, not the singular — drift to the ground, and when I got to work I was still cold, and so: it's fall, actually fall. Unhappily so.

In any case, I really wasn't expecting to post about the garden again. I mean that in a good way: I have, as mentioned before, nothing that is an autumn bloomer; everything is supposed to go into dormancy soon. I suppose the cooler (but still sunny) days were good for them, though, because the garden has actually been blooming: one last hurrah before winterfall.



The 'PowWow Wild Berry' echinacea. Two blooms means that it's not a fluke, I think. It's not as wild and fervent as it would be at, say, the height of August, but then, what in the garden is? The echinacea is a repeat bloomer, and can bloom into October — but generally only when it's established. So this is a good sign.

And the 'Amber Sun' roses, after a period of dormancy — I had stopped deadheading because I wanted the bushes to start preparing for winter — well, they had a little resurgence, too.



And so did 'The Fairy' roses, which haven't bloomed consistently since late July, but now have masses of buds.



And finally, I saw this on the last remaining rose, 'Graham Thomas.'



I took this picture last week, and the bud hasn't opened, so I hope I'm not counting chicks prematurely. This rose is the only one of the five that didn't bloom, which is already a much better average than I could have hoped for. It still seemed reasonably healthy, though — and it has a branch — vine? — that is reaching near five feet, its nominal grown-in height, so I think it will be fine. But flowers would be lovely. They are — they should be, I am hoping that they will be — a buttery yellow.

Into the fall

Fall is my favourite time of year — the crispness in the air, the deeper, darker colors, the clothes. I'm not a great fan of what comes next, and November is never not depressing (much like March) — but the transition time, right now, the still-hot days and the cool nights, is perfect.

Fall knitting, too, is deeply satisfying. It's the timeliness of it. Mid-winter, all you want to do is knit fast as you can, before hypothermia sets in — and Christmas knitting is only gratifying after it's done, not during. I never knit sweaters in the spring; there's just no motivation. And summers are for socks or shawls or other small things, something to take the edge off and keep your hand in, but small enough that you aren't sitting with a pile of delicious alpaca in your lap — because, trust me, nothing woolly is delicious in 40-degree heat.

But now! I am already well on my way. Before August ended, I had cast on a small cardigan for the Spanish Inquisition — Olivia Petit by Connie Chang Chinchio. I love the back detail.


It's lovely in the original cream, but I had quite a bit of Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend left over from another sweater project, so in it went. It's 70% merino, 30% silk; super soft and warm but not, unfortunately, machine washable — I'm less picky about that in my own sweaters, frankly, and as I was anxious to get started and the yarn store had yet to get their fall yarns in, I decided to overlook that small deficiency — and it is super adorable. I knit the 12-month size; the Spanish Inquisition is on the small side. It's a little bit big on her, which means that it's perfect.

The super cute buttons are dyed mother-of-pearl from Fyberspates. I happened to be on their web site (investigating their yarns, of course), and they were, simply, perfect. One thing I have not been able to source to my satisfaction, in Toronto, are buttons. I'm sure that perfect buttons — perhaps even the perfect button store — exist, somewhere, in this city, but I have been unable to find them. I even deputized my mother — so far, nothing. I have lucked out, here and there, but these are the only buttons I've used so far that are both perfect for the project, and perfect by themselves.

It's been very cold in the mornings this past week, and particularly this weekend, so we've already put the sweater to use. I would say that she loves it, but honestly? She doesn't really have an opinion about clothes. Shoes, on the other hand, she definitely has an opinion on: they belong in her hands, or in her mouth, but not on her feet. Never, ever.

And now, something for me. This is a sweaters' worth of Fyberspates Scrumptious 4-ply in "Water."


This is a yarn I've been meaning to try for a while, but haven't been able to find in North America. (WEBS carries it now.) It's 55% merino, 45% silk — do you sense a pattern? It's because I love things that drape, and nothing drapes like silk (or bamboo — but that's another story).

It is going to be a Pas de Valse — actually, it's already most of one; I've only got most of one sleeve and the crochet edging to go. It's a surprisingly fast knit. (I know, this isn't the best in-progress picture ever. I just wanted to capture the beauty of the silk stockinette. This colour is perfect for a blue-grey obsessive like me — incidentally, the colour in the photo above is slightly more accurate. It's getting harder to take photographs in natural light, now.)


I originally knit this pattern when it was first published, out of some BMFA Wooboo (which is 40% bamboo). Unfortunately it hasn't held up very well — the yarn was a bit thicker than called for (it had originally been for another project), and I had had to do some re-calculations on the fly, and so it was always a bit on the larger side. Now it's a bit misshapen and droopy. I love it, though; it's a staple of my fall wardrobe, so this year I decided it was time to knit a new one. I'm very excited.

I haven't decided yet what I will knit after this is finished. Socks? A shawl? (A lace project in the winter is never remiss. I may knit shawls in the summer — but fall-winter is when I start them.) It's too early to think about Christmas, so this knitting time is all about me, me, me. It's not often that I can say that anymore, so I will revel in it while I can.

weekly bloom: into the fall

I'd meant to post at least once more in August, but last weekend (and then this week) has just been a mess of epic proportions — personally, professionally, emotionally — so, no. (Not to fret; everyone here is healthy and hale. And the storm has blown over, more or less.)

Since the last "weekly bloom" post (which was, eek, much longer than a week ago), nothing much has happened. The good: all of the plants I bought in the second round have survived, even thrived. The mystery orange coneflowers have even re-bloomed. The purple echinacea have not, but there is lots of new, vigorous growth — I didn't deadhead them, because I actually want to encourage seeding for next year, and it looks, at the very least, that the two plants are well established and will come back. Even the Oriental poppies have been throwing out new growth, and one of the hellebores, which looked like it had died in the July drought, has come back. So the garden is good.

But nothing is blooming, per se, except for the 'Amber Sun' roses (which went through yet another round of profusion a week ago. I am deeply in love with these roses). So you haven't missed much.

This is what the garden looks like now:
Unfortunately, a lot of that greenery are weeds. I'd meant to do some weeding on Tuesday, but the torrential rains put a stop to that. So the garden is a little bit scraggly, a little bit neglected — but nothing is dead, and it's easier to subtract than it is to add. In gardening, I will take my victories where I can get them.

This is going to be the last weekly bloom post, though. The garden is pretty much at the end — some of the echinacea are holding on, but there's a crispness in the air now, and it won't be much longer before the garden dies back. (The only fall-bloomer I had planted were the Japanese anemones, and they did not, unfortunately, survive the drought.) There will probably be some more sporadic gardening posts, but I think the beginning of September is a good time to put the weekly gardening post to bed for a while. And it's fall, and there are so many other things to write about; I've already started my fall knitting. For example. And isn't it the perfect time to start writing about cozy things?

Thank you for sharing my garden with me.