Wind, porch games, embroidered jeans

It’s really windy these days, and strong winds always make me nervous.

I needed something uplifting – so I painted my toenails forest green (darker than I expected), I put on my crochet pom-pom barefoot sandals and I went out on the porch to read.

I found the sandals in a Facebook craft page. I am wearing my block print kaftan from Senegal, and the background is our 70s deck chair (both second hand, from a local classifieds website).

Boris has a new favourite game – word association (he has never heard about it, so he invented a version of it on his own), and now he wants to play it all the time. I have many other things to do, so I don’t feel much like playing. But he has no one to play with because of the social isolation, and he gets really bored sometimes. So I suggested that we reserve an exact Association hour (3 p.m.) on the porch, and now he is planning how we will play, what snacks and drinks will we have during the game, etc. Actually, it turned out to be fun 🙂

The flowers seem to like the windy/cloudy/sunny weather. I decided to risk leaving them outside for the night, and they seem to take it well so far.

In general, I haven’t had much luck with bulb plants. I guess that’s because many of them need to be outside – and I avoid gardening in the yard, because it’s too wild and grassy, and the soil is very hard. Another reason is that in winter and spring it’s really cold here – so I keep plants inside to protect them, hoping that they flower sooner. Unfortunately, the result is that some never do. But still, others surprise me – like these montbretias.

One of my biggest gardening fails started last autumn. I’ve read that most bulb plants could be planted in September or October. I usually plant them in spring, but last October it was really warm, so I decided to try and plant them. They grew really fast, but during the winter there was not enough light inside, so most of them withered – and others grew feeble and were not able to bloom. I think I learned my lesson, and I won’t make the same mistake again.

I have always loved embroideries and denim, so I use this combination a lot in my work. I make embroidered jeans and bags for my shop, for myself and for my friends, often using up-cycled denim and embroideries.

I saved my friend Zhenya’s favourite jeans from falling apart, patching them with embroideries that I salvaged from various second hand items.