August Garden, Overgrowth Removal

Garden, , , ,

DSC07392  The crepe myrtle, yellow flowering bush, decorative asparagus, and bougainvillea in front of the fence are so overgrown that they are taking over the sidewalk.  One of my great uncles who moved to Texas around the turn of the century loved it because, “Everything grew so well.”  It is true that many things grow very well, and then, to keep the plants within bounds, one needs to cut them back.

DSC07442 And so I cut them back.

DSC07440 You can see some of the cutting, as well as a clearer sidewalk.  It was like cutting a tunnel through the green.

DSC07441 This smaller crepe myrtle has also been cut back to size.  A lot of trimmings from several bushes lie to the left of this bush.

This is gardening by removal.  This is rather like weeding in the air.  The timing may be poor, but, I had to uncover the sidewalk.  Other bushes were simply too big for their setting.   These bushes  will continue to grow.

 

 

Crocheted Assorted Kitchen Items

Crochet, Kitchen, , , , ,

DSC07430 I crocheted these items for the kitchen with Premier Home 85% cotton, 15%, #4 crochet yarn.  I bleached the blue rimmed green one in the upper right in hot water, and dried it in the dryer with my kitchen whites. I did not wash the others, yet

.DSC07432  I made the blue multicolored mat on the right in triple crochet.  It is very suitable for a hot mat.    I included the small blue, green, and white double crochet coaster for size comparison .  I like how the Premier Home ombres look  in these radial patterns.

I made the yellow mat with five rounds of crochet, from center out,  two round of single crochet, a round of double crochet, a round of triple crochet, and lastly, a round of single crochet.

Conclusions:

  1. This Premier Home yarn is standing up to use very well.
  2. Double crochet and triple crochet with this Premier Home cotton, with its short runs of color, look great on these radial little mats.  The colors look great, and they are flat.

 

It Is Not Worth It To Pre-shrink Size 4, 85% Cotton Yarn

Crochet, Science, , , , , ,

DSC07404 The yarn on left  is an entire skein of the same Premier Home 85% cotton, 15% polyester, size 4 yarn, except, I boiled it, and dried it in the clothes dryer on hot, in order to preshrink it.  The entire skein on the right is in its original, unshrunk condition.

DSC07402 I boiled this yarn in the pot for 15 minutes, and let it sit in the hot water for another 30 minutes, after which I squeezed it out, and placed it in the clothes dryer on a hot setting.  (Its confining thread came off, resulting in the jumbled yarn that you can see above.  I dried it about three more times on hot confining the yarn in a sock, and after this placed it in the sun for two more hours.

It took me an hour in front of the TV to untangle it, and make it into a ball of yarn.  I wondered if rolling it into a ball would undo any shrinkage, because of a very slight residual dampness in the yarn.

I wanted to test at least two things:

  1. Did boiling the  yarn make any difference in the crocheted outcome as seen in these coasters?
  2. How much difference did the crochet hook size have on the coaster size?

To test the shrunk yarn against the pre-shrunk yarn, I made six simple double crochet coasters, three with the preshrunk yarn, and three with the pre-shrunk yarn.  For each treatment of yarn I crocheted one coaster, in order of increasing hook size, a G hook, an H hook, and an I hook.  Two yarns times three hooks, gives the six coasters.

I measured and weighed the coasters, after which I washed them in hot water, and dried them several times on hot, until they were dry.  The coasters ended up looking like this.

DSC07418 The top row of coasters is made with the pre-shrunk yarn, and the bottom row is made with the unshrunk yarn. The first column is made with the G (red) hook, the second column is made with the H (orange) hook, and the third column is made with the I (yellow) hook.  It is clear that the hook size made more of a difference in diameter than did preshrinking.  (Other observations and figures bore this out.)