week five: compost death star!

i have been doing a lot of thinking about compost. it's not that i don't love my worms - i really love my vermicomposting worms. they just can't keep up with all the kitchen scrap waste we produce in our house. they are voracious little eaters, but we've come to find out that if we feed them too much at once it attracts black soldier flies to the worm bin. and while everyone says black soldier flies and worms get along fine and can be friends in that bin, that is not our experience. our experience with black soldier flies led to the untimely demise of our first beloved batch of worms (rest in peace), which you haven't heard about on this blog because it was too traumatic for me to discuss. and i still don't really want to talk about it, so suffice to say we replenished our worm colony and we stopped feeding them so much.
so we have been having a backlog of compost build up in our freezer (we keep a ziplock baggie in the freezer until we can put food scraps in the worm bin), and it became apparent we needed to start another composting system. if i had a little more space and wasn't renting a place where we live quite close to our neighbors, i think i would start a regular old compost pile in the yard. but i'm not sure how long we're going to be renting this spot and i'd hate to leave the landlord a pile of decomposing matter in the backyard if we move out. so i wanted to keep our compost bin contained.
i did a lot of internet research and read some excellent books from the library on different methods of composting, and i got excited about the compost tumbler as a system that was well suited (and fun!) for us. it's a self contained barrel that spins on an axis, thus providing ample aeration that is crucial to expediting the composting process. it keeps pests out, and looks a little more managed than a pile. plus you don't have to dig into it and turn it, which i think is one of those things i would avoid doing.
i wanted to build a compost tumbler myself, and there are great tutorials out there for how to do it, but i realized that it would take me a long while to scrounge up recycled materials to build with and borrow the tools necessary, and our freezer is filling up all the while, so i made the decision to buy one premade. i chose a compost tumbler i wanted, the cheapest model i could find, and went to purchase it online - because there doesn't seem to be anyone (besides costco - and they don't have the model i wanted) who sells compost tumblers here on o'ahu. however, as i found out through numerous online sellers and amazon, shipping to hawai'i would cost me more than the tumbler itself! so i had to scrap that idea.

purely by chance, (and maybe because i was a little bit obsessed) i found the CompoSpin compost tumbler, which is actually a spherical compost bin ball that rotates on a base. they carry it at costco online, but not in the stores here, so i found a seller on amazon that was willing to ship to hawaii for not too much money - this composter ships in pieces that you assemble, unlike the other models - and i bought it. i was super excited to start composting in my new ball (and i was eager to make some room in the freezer) so i anxiously awaited the estimated shipment arrival date, and i waited, and i waited. and finally i contacted the company who told me the only way they could ship to hawaii was by parcel post and it might take up to 6 weeks. which burst my composting bubble, but thankfully, and surprisingly, it arrived this weekend on our doorstep.


Death Star Composter from Willie Maze on Vimeo.

marty and i breathlessly assembled it (a really fun process of snapping pieces together) and brought out our squirreled away bits of food scraps we've been hoarding to fill it up. it turns out to quite resemble the death star. here's the video of that process, watch for the impromptu cameo appearance of our friend, brutus.

week four: posture wrist rest

now that i have a job where i spend most of my days in front of the computer, i'm noticing the repetitive strain on my body: namely my wrists, neck and shoulders. i remember years ago i had a nice squishy mini-beanbag pillow-type thing that i rested my wrist on while handling the mouse, and that seemed to help. if i can, i'd rather make something myself than buy it, so i got an idea when my new laptop battery came in the mail padded with some squishy foam inserts.

since i already had the sewing machine set up from finishing the 'ulu quilt, i decided to whip up a quick wrist rest.
i took one of the foam inserts, folded it in half, and stitched up a mini pillowcase out of scrap fabric. i stuffed the folded foam into the pillowcase and finished the last edge by hand. it was a quick and dirty process, but i'm pretty pleased with the results. while the texture of the foam is not quite as appealing as whatever those little beads were in the manufactured wrist pillow, it is significantly lighter - it hardly weighs anything - which is a definite advantage considering my shoulder bag weighs nearly a ton with my laptop and all the other junk i carry around in it (another possible factor in my shoulder tension).
i finished the wrist rest off with a reminder to myself, figuring i'm going to be seeing it periodically throughout the day. my friend megan and i have started a practice this year of checking in for 5 minutes once a day to ask each other 5 questions that we want to be held accountable for. one of my questions is "how is your posture?"

i'm hoping this little reminder will help me stick with that commitment.

week three: 'ulu quilt

they say you have a year to give a newly married couple a gift. i've taken that advice a bit liberally and this gift is maybe a year and a half after the actual wedding. but hey, it's handmade! and what a great opportunity to continue celebrating your marriage.

so i read somewhere that the 'ulu (breadfruit) tree symbolizes marital bliss. i have never been able to find that reference again, so the specifics of why that is are lost to me, but i have a lot of respect for the 'ulu; its abundance and versatility made it a great companion for polynesian voyagers to bring on the long canoe journeys across the pacific. if you've never had the opportunity to eat 'ulu it can range from potato-like (and makes great chips, mashed, steamed, baked), to sweet-fruity dessert-like, depending on the variety and ripeness.

anyway, the seed was planted (so to speak) in my mind >2 years ago to make an ulu quilt for my friends jake and nicole's wedding. what better wish could you give someone for their wedding than marital bliss?

i chose the fabrics at fabric mart, a store in our neighborhood with a dizzying array of aloha prints. this is also the store i got my lovely curtain fabric and the camouflage water-repellent fabric i used to sew a cozy for our little bbq grill (these projects apparently happened when i was in blogging hiatus-mode). they've got pretty great prices, and i have to say i respect them for having a website called fmart. 
i misjudged the amount of fabric i'd need for the wall hanging quilt i was making. well, no. what actually happened is that i was bullied by the filipino aunty in the store into buying less than i knew i needed for the project because it was the end of the roll and she was giving me a deal on it. and i guess because i'm chinese i totally played into that. my thought process went something like "well, it's about 3 inches less than i really want for this quilt, but it's a deal..." so i made do.

the process of cutting out a pattern for hawaiian quilting is really fun - like cutting a fabric snowflake. i decided to do the breadfruits in a lighter green to accent, and made up a hexagonal quilting pattern that i think makes them look real. other than that the process is pretty tedious, pinning and then hand-appliqueing and hand quilting inside and out of your design. this is the second hawaiian quilt square i've done, the first was a lehua blossom for my mom. 

while i'm counting this as one of my 52 projects in 52 weeks, it obviously did not take me a week to make.  it took me quite a while to complete, and i'll dispense with excuses about that and suffice to say i'm excited to send it to them. so if you're a friend who has gotten hitched in the past, um, several years and you haven't gotten a gift from me yet - don't lose hope. 

week two: egg carton sprouts

i know it hasn't been a week yet, but i'm making up for getting a late start, so here's week two of the 52 weeks project.

we had a backup of recycling during our holiday travel time, so i guess i had inspiration to reuse materials that were stacked up in the recycle bin. i was looking at our egg cartons, thinking about possible uses other than returning them to local egg farms, which is also awesome.

the other day at kokua market i impulse-bought some dried green peas, because i was thinking about how much i love fresh pea shoots - remember that post? they go great on salad, in spring rolls, just grazing...
so i got the idea of using the egg carton as a tray for sprouting peas. i figure it's biodegradable paper, and it should hold up for the week or two it'll take for the sprouts to grow. i used some potting soil i had leftover from various other planting projects and was pleased to note that the little closure flap on the egg carton fit like a puzzle piece into the little open area on the top of the carton, so i could use both sides for planting.

after planting the tray of pea sprouts i decided to use the egg end for starting some sunflowers i've been meaning to plant near our laundry line along the backyard fence (sorry temperate-climate friends, it's totally still planting season here). but for those of you who have frost outside right now you can do this project in the window sill.

one year, 52 projects

i am inspired by marty's new year project - posting one minute of video every week for 52 weeks - so i think i'm gonna start a project of my own, or rather 52 projects of my own, in the spirit of cultivating domesticity. plus it's a great way to get back on the blogging bandwagon after falling off during my stint of working on an organic farm on the other side of the island.

ever since we got home from our whirlwind tour of the continent over the holidays, i've been obsessing over little diy home improvement-type projects, trying to utilize stuff we have around the cottage for new purposes. to start the year off right, since we are already in the second week of january, i'll be posting two this week.

week one: herb-infused olive oils

we had a big bottle of olive oil from costco kicking around in our tiny kitchen, and infusing olive oil was a project i sort of intended to do before the holidays to give as gifts, but you know - better now than never.
our backyard garden was quite bountiful after all the winter rains, so we harvested some rosemary, basil (which was going to seed and needed to be trimmed back anyway), and chili peppers. well, no that's a lie - the chili peppers came from maile's farm because those red-butt birds ate all our chili peppers while we were away.

anyway, we also had a *few* empty sake bottles laying around because it would be a pity to recycle bottles that pretty. which we boiled to sanitize, and then stuffed full of rosemary, garlic, basil, and chili peppers.

and now they are sitting for a bit to get nice and yummy. i don't know much about how long they need to infuse for, but i figure we can start taste-testing in a week or so. 

i think these infusions may make a cameo in our misto - one of my favorite new kitchen utensils. it's great for lightly greasing the grill, breads, pans, etc. and i can't wait to make grilled pizza with our herb-infused oil. i also scored a big bag of plastic pouring spouts from ross recently, so i'm in the process of re-purposing every alcohol bottle into something new and pourable.