Winter has arrived

Winter Solstice, Yule, Te Maruaroa o te Takuroa, Matariki, Dongzhi, Longest Night, Sabe Cele.

Solstice is upon us, and as I’m sure we’re all very aware, winter has well and truly arrived! June 21 will mark the longest night of the year.

Winter Solstice is known by many names and celebrated in many if not all cultures. The longest night followed by the re-birth of the sun, in the Northern Hemisphere it’s Christmas time but not so for us in lil old NZ. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a party though!

There’s many things about winter that I love, many that I don’t so much. One thing I love about our climate here in New Zealand is how distinct the seasons are. I’m from the South in Central Otago and down there the seasons are more distinct with hoar frosts locking the region in cold freezing temperatures without sun, sometimes for weeks.

A hoar frost in Central Otago.

I get such satisfaction from the transitioning of the seasons, the fun and sunshine of summer, fading into winter, the long cold nights made not so bad by wood fires. And eventually into spring again, still cold but reminding us that summer is coming back soon.

Winter is perhaps my favourite season, but I too am often one to complain about the cold. Especially in these wonderful 100year old Wellington houses! On the positive side though, it does provide a quite reasonable excuse to pull out the knitting needles more often!

As part of our winter traditions, it is time to lay down the garlic crop for the following summer. Planting garlic is a favourite thing of mine, it’s so exciting to know that i’m planting something that will grow if only slowly even in these cold temperatures!

If you want to plant your own garlic, you need surprisingly little space as garlic grows quite compactly. Firstly:

–You’ll need to buy some garlic from the market (or store) that is grown in New Zealand. This is because it’s generally nicer and hasn’t been fumigated so it will sprout.

-Break the garlic into cloves removing most of the papery covering

-Prepare the soil

-Lay out a row and poke a clove into the soil about a fingers length apart til the end of the row

-Go back over the row and push the cloves further into the soil and cover with soil, i like to make mounds so that the rows are easily seen.

-Wait until Summer Solstice, or when the green shoots have grown up and died down before harvesting, drying and braiding.

Planting the garlic cloves…

5 rows planted (one stick missing), will probably get more garlic and plant in between the rows too as they’re so generously spaced!

And the rest of a garden got a bit of attention too!

What are your favourite things about Winter? Are you celebrating the solstice this weekend?

Make Do & Mend –

No recipe or pattern this time folks just some old fashioned contemplation! Recipes coming soon though 🙂

Awhile ago I ordered this book:

Make Do & Mend: Keeping your family and home afloat on war rations.

An interesting concept, I hadn’t really ever considered the impact of the war past the tragedy and obvious military themes but actually the huge rerouting of much of the industrial capacity meant that households went without a surplus of many things, clothing, fabric, energy, food, any waste of these things was considered abhorrent as that wastage could have gone towards the “war effort”. The book is a cute wee thing with a collection of war time brochures and posters broadcasting how to live with less, a rather relevant topic I thought!

With the current debacle going on in this country about mining national parks it has been hard to escape the thoughts that even though I oppose mining, I still consume large quantities of resources pulled from the ground in someone elses country!

Nanatech is about many things, it’s about having fun, celebrating and remembering the past, it’s about bringing back essential skills that might be starting to slip from our lives but also it’s about living more lightly and with less, there are some great skills that allow things like clothes to be mended and remade to make them better than ever before without having to buy new ones, saving money and resources, a win win!

I’ll leave you with some light living tips from the wartime!

From “The Battle for Fuel”

*Never light your oven to cook a single dish. With a little planning you can easily prepare an entire meal while the oven is hot, as well as a pudding or tart that can be eaten cold the next day.

*Use a small bowl for washing up, heat the water on the oven while it is hot and do the whole days dishes at once

From “The Board of Trade: Every Woman is her own Clothes Doctor”

* To legnthen a dress, let in a band of contrasting colour material of the same fabric weight from the waist to 6 IN below and bind the kneckline and hem in same contrasting colour.

Because I needed another hobby….

not!!!

Like my mother, I too have recently taken up quilting, actually it’s all her fault, and by her fault I mean she was really generous and bought me a jellie roll of fabric! I know a jellie roll? Wierd aye, my weird craft terms get lots of funny looks because I forget other people don’t know what a jellie roll is!!

SO a jellie roll is this:

(a bazillion little bits of fabric all rolled up really nicely, and i say do no i repeat do no unroll it until you have to, this will create a mess, I would know, and that is why you get a lovely commercial picture of a jellie roll, not a picture of mine :D)

Yeah, I’m planning on making this quilt….

or maybe I should start with this one….

I think I’ll go for the second option! The pattern seems easy enough, I’ll post a link to it on the “patterns” page too, so if anyone else wants to give quilting ago you can have a peak!

I will keep everyone up to date with how this project goes, I cannot ensure there will be success, only laughter as I attempt to yet again learn yet another craft in my attempt to cram as much crafteyness into my head before age twenty!

Stitching and Bitching

Stitch & Bitch (phrase): Used since WWII to refer to social knitting groups in which there is much crafting, gossiping, drinking of tea and consumption of baked goods.

Nanatech is having it’s inagural stitch n’ bitch in Wellington this week! We are introducing these nights as a way for crafters (not just knitters!) to get together and have a yarn (okay sorry that was a bad and forseeable pun).

If you don’t have a craft you are also more than welcome and if you would like to learn a craft please come along and share what you’d like to learn and we’ll see what we can do about finding someone to teach you.

We will have on hand a variety of crafty things including a couple of sewing machines and a spinning wheel.

The whole aim is to have fun, craft and talk about whatever we feel like! We’d love to see you there! And if you’d like, bring a plate of something yum to snack on! Details found here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=361563583606&ref=mf