JoansGarden
LightNews LightNews
banner
joansgarden.bsky.social
JoansGarden
@joansgarden.bsky.social
3K followers 580 following 1.9K posts
Unique knitting patterns, hand knits. Love to garden (US zone 5). A rural southern Oregon blue dot in a red sea. Born and raised in Adelaide, came to the US for 2 years, 50 years ago. Life happens.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
joansgarden.bsky.social
JoansGarden @joansgarden.bsky.social · Dec 3
Find my knitting patterns at www.ravelry.com/designers/jo...
Find finished knitted items at www.etsy.com/shop/JoansGa... or artisans.coop/pages/seller...
Some good gifts there.
Also happy to take custom orders if you have something else you'd like knitted.
Reach me at joansgarden1 on gmail
#BSNM
A sampling of 9 blue hats from simple beanies to those with added creatures (bat, octopus, snail, flamingo, jellyfish) adorning them, but they also come in any other color. 4 knitted long, skinny lace scarves, each with a different lace pattern, and thin enough to easily fit inside a winter coat on a cold day, or just to look great on a warmer day. A sampling of 9 different sea creatures, knitted to look as realistic as possible.
joansgarden.bsky.social
Another commissioned hat finished. It was for a large head. I just hope I didn't make it too large! 🧶🦑
The pattern is available on Ravelry - Stranded Octopus Beanie.
A knitted hat using stranded colorwork technique, with an octopus design. The hat is in shade of light blue and white, and the octopus is dark blue shading to pink on the top and bottom edges. There is an octopus on each side of the hat, but only one side is shown here.
December 8, 2025 at 6:27 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
Just got these 2 hats finished and in the mail. Both were custom orders. 🧶🦑🦊
Both patterns are available on Ravelry.
A knitted hat in variegated dark blue colors featuring an mixed intarsia and stranded design of a red octopus and various other sea creatures. Pattern is Intarsia Octopus Beanie. A knitted hat in shades of pink and gray with an attached knitted bat with deep purple wings and light mauve body. Pattern is Bats in the Night Sky Beanie.
December 8, 2025 at 2:37 AM
joansgarden.bsky.social
I finally got around to fixing my favorite winter hat so that I could wear it again. I've had this hat for a loooong time.
A woman wear a bright red ball-cap style hat and dark rain jacket in a snowy landscape. A much older woman wears a ball-cap style hat, now a deep purple shade, with a fall landscape behind.
December 5, 2025 at 1:23 AM
joansgarden.bsky.social
Here it is December, & the crabapples are still lighting up this tree in the sun like Christmas decorations. Usually the birds have stripped them by now, but there just aren't so many birds around this year. They did get all the tiny crabapples from 2 other trees, & the Eleagnus & Mtn Ash berries 🌱
A small tree is covered in orange berries, glowing in the late afternoon sun. Behind the tree are the bare stems of a willow and the dark needles of a pine tree. In front are some dry stems of perennials and a groundcover of green and red strawberry leaves. #gardening
December 3, 2025 at 7:42 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
We thought the porcupine that I had seen in our yard at night with a trail cam had left when the neighbor began construction & felled the trees the porcupine was climbing. But no, he's been asleep all day in a remaining willow tree. It seems there are still some things to smile about. 🦊
A morning view over a tree lined canal with a low mountain range in the distance. In the foreground are 2 tall but straggly and leafless trees with a noticeable blob near the top of the leaning tree. A closeup of the blob in the tree show it to be a furry bundle with sunlight shining off the quills. Late in the day and the porcupine has not moved at all, but the sky is now cloudy and getting darker.
November 19, 2025 at 1:17 AM
joansgarden.bsky.social
This week's garden article - Nov 10th. 🌱 #gardening
A newsletter article on some last jobs in the garden for the season, and moving a large iris plant.
November 10, 2025 at 7:13 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
My garden column for November 3rd. 🌱 #gardening

Oh, & the result of the stewed pears experiment was that I decided these are really not worth canning & I now understand the reason that they are also called sand pears. The flavor is quite nice but the texture is not. I suppose I could try jelly...
A newsletter article on my neighbor's Keiffer pear tree and on my Staghorn Sumac plant.
November 3, 2025 at 9:36 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
#ShowMeYourKnits cable week. I used cables to turn this pussy hat pattern into an owl. You can find the owl pattern here. www.ravelry.com/patterns/lib... or I could knit one for you. 🧶
A hat knitted with light grey yarn, using cables to look like an owl's face, with large brown buttons for the eyes, and the cables ending in pointed ears. The same hat, knitted in a heathered darker brown yarn. The back of the hat, with a long cabled bottom border and garter stitch top.
November 1, 2025 at 5:01 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
Garden column for Oct 27th, 2025 🌱 #gardening
An article about cold weather and falling leaves, fruit that needs a hard freeze, shipping dormant trees in fall, and more garden gifts from neighbors.
October 28, 2025 at 1:30 AM
joansgarden.bsky.social
My garden column for October 20th. 🌱#gardening
An article about trees being cut, birds eating berries, picking apples, and planting bareroot trees.
October 21, 2025 at 12:07 AM
joansgarden.bsky.social
My garden column for October 13th, 2025 🌱 #gardening
A gardening article about disconnecting water lines for the winter, last minute harvests, planting trees in a new food forest, and ripening tomatoes on the back of a chair.
October 13, 2025 at 6:49 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
My garden column for October 6th, 2025. 🌱 #gardening
An article about protecting tomato plants from a freeze with floating row cover, a neighbor felling dangerous trees, and the difficulties of getting an area weed whacked when it is filled with gopher tunnels.
October 6, 2025 at 9:47 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
My gardening column for September 29th. 🌱 #gardening
An article that talks about digging the onions and potatoes before a rain, the other veggies still in the ground, and fruit about to ripen. Also ordering more plants and cleaning out a shed.
September 29, 2025 at 5:31 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
Some autumn leaves for #ShowMeYourKnits autumn projects. The pattern is available on Ravelry www.ravelry.com/patterns/lib...
🧶
A knitted beanie in a pale lemon shade with stranded colorwork green and brown leaves and wind currents swirling away from a lone tree trunk. This beanie, also a pale lemon color has stranded colorwork red-green-brown leaves flying about.
September 22, 2025 at 10:20 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
This week's gardening column, Sep 22nd, 2025 🌱 #gardening
An article from a newsletter about buying fruit trees mail order, and those being bought now that garden zones have changed. Also protecting tomatoes from fall frosts, with photos of tomatoes yet to ripen on the vines.
September 22, 2025 at 6:41 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
My newsletter gardening article for September 15th, 2025 🌱 #gardening
An article about lack of pears because they were incorrectly pruned, growing plum trees in a hostile climate, and the produce still being picked in the garden.
September 15, 2025 at 7:22 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
Garden column for Sep 8th, 2025 🌱 #gardening
A newsletter gardening article about making room for a new freezer to store more of the harvest, the lack of bumble bees in my yard but not in more distant yards, and mail ordering new plants. Photos of bumble bees in a neighbor's yard.
September 8, 2025 at 9:05 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
My newsletter article for Sep 1st, 2025. 🌱 #gardening
A gardening article about cucumber and apple bounty, the tomato varieties growing this year, success with corn, and being stung by a honey bee.
September 1, 2025 at 5:28 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
I'd been getting about 6-8 cucumbers a day, then it kicked up to 21 in 2 days, so I went recipe hunting. Minestrone soup with grated cucumber last night, followed by salad with sliced cucumber. Also made cucumber cake, & an addictive Indian cucumber/rice cake, plus lots grated & frozen for winter.🌱🍽️
A wicker basket with a tall handle sits on the edge of a raised vegetable bed filled with purple beet leaves and green nasturtium leaves. In the basket is a pile of about 10 cucumbers and several large and small tomatoes, all freshly picked. #gardening
August 31, 2025 at 5:32 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
A sweater for #ShowMeYourKnits. I knitted this one for a friend. This is Bev, wearing the sweater and a matching hat. I then decided to make the sweater pattern a free Ravelry download. You can find it here: www.ravelry.com/patterns/lib...
🧶
A smiling older woman wearing a long sleeved sweater with stripes of bright green and different shades of brown, with a bottom band of green pine tree motifs. Her hat is dark brown with green pine tree motifs. A stylized pencil line depiction of the same sweater with muted colors to show other color possibilities.
August 30, 2025 at 6:12 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
The sagebrush has some lovely patterns in it now that the new flower stalks have emerged. I planted a small area in my yard with what I think is Artemisia cana (silver sagebrush), although apparently there are about 10 species growing locally. It had all been cut down on my lot. 🌱🌿
The new flower stalks on silvery sagebrush are a very silver gray/green color and here form an interesting swirling pattern. #gardening The flower stalks on this sagebrush shrub stand straight up. A clump of several sagebrush shrubs with their straight, tall flower stalks contrasting with the darker green of a bitterbrush shrub behind them.
August 27, 2025 at 7:33 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
The news today is so awful I can't read it, but luckily I have figs, plums, cucumbers, & apples from the garden to keep me busy. Here's my garden column for August 25th. 🌱 #gardening
An article from a newsletter about apples getting ripe, and picking cucumbers and other garden produce. It also talks about the smoke filling the sky, and thinking about fall mail order plants.
August 25, 2025 at 5:02 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
#ShowMeYourKnits is baby week. I made these car booties several years ago. The pattern is Car Booties by MarinaKlin available on Ravelry. 🧶
A side view and a front view of baby booties in the shape of a car. The car is purple with a green hood, green buttons for wheels, and white buttons for headlights. It has a white windshield with wipers embroidered on in black.
August 23, 2025 at 5:42 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
It's sea buckthorn time! I've been picking every morning for a week, not an easy task. They say to freeze the stems & the berries come off more easily, but they fruit on old wood so I don't want to cut it off! I usually freeze them & add to smoothies. I tried jelly, & it set up beautifully. 🌱 🍽️
Sea berries (sea buckthorn, Hippophae rhamnoides). The berries are in thick clusters and tightly attached directly to the older stems. Hard to get them off without a few stabs from the thorns! #gardening Juice extracted, sugar added, and cooking down to the jelly stage. It jells very well with no added pectin, and remains quite tart, regardless of sugar added. To me, it has shades of orange and pineapple flavors.
August 19, 2025 at 7:24 PM
joansgarden.bsky.social
My garden column for August 18th, 2025. (This is from the Chiloquin News). 🌱 #gardening
A newsletter article about the abundance from the garden right now, and picking sea berries and aronia berries.
August 18, 2025 at 5:39 PM