Bathrooms, Textiles and Tea, late and early flowers

The Bathtub Adventure is in progress, after landing on a week with long-standing medical appointments I had to rearrange. It is ironic that the work to make the bathroom accessible, finally, conflicted with actual health care appointments. 

It's gone very well, and here are a few interregnum pictures. The insert is now curing for 48 hours, and on Friday it will be finished then tiling and painting will follow.

Chunks cut out of the tub

The insert door is to make the tub work for tub bathing. It locks and seals in place by hand, no tools needed

Those gaps have caps when it's finished, to look more streamlined and be waterproof 

Similarly here's the door in place without caps, until it cures completely.  The step is wide enough for your foot, also has a skid proof finish. So you can get in and out with minimal striding, no reaching your foot over the step.

Mike is a lovely craftsman, leaves everything looking beautiful, not a speck of dust when he gets done. 

He's very pleased that after much searching he was able to get tiles to match closely the ones in place. They don't make them any more, and we're only retiling a section around the toilet where some tiles got broken, helpful amateur work, don't ask.

Anyway he went to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store in Pennsylvania, donated a lot of door hardware and tools and found half a box of the right tiles. Score! 

Today we still have a few late flowers 

and these arrived, for next spring, to be planted near the front door 

They're blue, so I'm hoping for a mass of blue as I come up the front path.

Once again I need to weed that same old patch, now with different weeds from the ones I pulled earlier. I was going to do this tomorrow but had a labor saving idea.  

I checked the first expected frost. Late next week. So that's when I'll pull the weeds, so they don't return this year, and plant the bulbs. Also finally clear the flowers from the patio, since their season will definitely be done. 

Textiles and Tea was unusual this week, with Neil Goss, a true free spirit, an environmental artist, who forages, dyes and weaves works to leave outdoors and eventually join nature. 

He also teaches and creates gallery work, but his outdoor pieces are really his mainspring. He likes community participation in his weaving, here at the backstrap loom he built from a bunch of sticks in traditional fashion.

He does have a traditional floor loom in his studio, a Macomber, on which he created a number of the pieces you see. His work all has a personal narrative but it's not vital to know it in order to get a lot out of seeing it.

When he does a weaving residency, he invites people to take part, add in items, try their hand at weaving, a great test of a weaver's patience and control issues, as he notes. 

He's a generous person and artist, and very aware that he's a white man working in an indigenous women's art form. He also acknowledges the Cherokee people who lived in his region on the land which is now his home.

Check him out. He's a force of nature.

Speaking of art, I just Freecycled this material to a local artist who's very excited to try it out.

This is paper backed silk chiffon which can go through the printer. You peel off the paper and have a beautiful transparent image to work with. 

I used to scan and print sections from my watercolors then use the silk in stitching. It's a marvelous visual experience to have your own work apparently floating in air, released from its original form.

Now that I have none of the electronic equipment needed, and have moved on, it's fun to give another artist a try at it. It's like image transfer raised to a new power.

Happy day everyone! I hope your day is raised to a new power, too.

Sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula 

Small annoying stuff fixed and cake

I tried a new experimental cake based on the one Dolly's character in Steel Magnolias made. It seems to be going around, in honor of Dolly.

It's one cup self raising flour, one cup sugar, one can fruit cocktail. I had to adapt to what I have. So mine was whole-wheat plus baking powder and salt, sugar, 

dried cranberries, fresh apple dice, yogurt, milk, walnuts and lemon zest. I don't have a pie pan of the kind they want, so I used my all-purpose loaf pan.

Despite all this, it came out quite well. It went well with a cup of coffee for breakfast.

The lemon zest was a big part of why I like it. It's certainly sturdy, not having the texture you'd get with eggs and butter, but fine. 

I froze some for the next time Handsome Son comes over, and see what he thinks. He liked a similar apple cake I made a while ago. Here's to you, Dolly, anyway the part you played.

Speaking of experiments, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to describe a total boneheaded fail.

It's the apple cider vinegar. Weeks of saving and fermenting apple cores, stirring daily until they started to smell vinegary. Finally the day came to drain and preserve the liquid for more fermenting while discarding the apple debris.

So, completely absentmindedly I drained the jar into a sieve. And let the liquid drain away while the apple debris stayed safely in the sieve. Arghghgh. A moment's distraction was all it took. I may try it again when I get over my mad.

And other things I was annoyed about. First I hadn't got on with the embroidered jeans. So I finished it with outlines of the front pockets, whipped through the over stitching.

Done but not overdone.

Then I finished a second section of the weaving. This yarn does not like weaving. It's cotton,  braided rather than plied, so it has more tensile movement, springs off the loom, doesn't pack down. 

I'd forgotten this, but now realize it's why I couldn't keep the even tension when I tried the long warp. There was plenty of tension in the weaver, though. 

It's a great yarn for knitting or crochet, and it made a nice triangle scarf, which I'm pleased with.

I'll make a third woven panel then join them to make the kitchen mat, and move on. 

Meanwhile there was another annoying tiny thing, the fact that I most often need a kitchen cloth when I'm on the other side of the kitchen from the only spot I can stack cloths out of the way.

Solution: use the trial friendship bracelet samples, create loops, stitch them onto the corners of the cloths which can now hang in a cabinet handle near the action.

Then when I ran out of bracelet bits, a side bonus, used them up, I crocheted loops for more cloths.

Totally first world annoyances sorted while I listened to an Andy Carpenter audiobook involving dogs and murder and mystery.

As to the successful friendship bracelets, they're all on their way to some Navajo kids who wanted them in time for Halloween and after.

Another item that's left is the bookcase that used to be at the foot of the stairs and now there's no room. I couldn't find any other place for it, Handsome Son didn't want it, so I put it on Freecycle.

It was gone in less than an hour from posting. It served me well for years and now has a happy new owner.

The honesty harvest this year has now taken over from the little bouquet scenes.

And here's one reason I love my neighborhood 

A bunch of nice kids playing with a model airplane which made great loops.

Happy day everyone, what do you like about where you live? I hope there's something. And I'm not asking about boneheaded own goals you've scored. That can remain classified.

Mrs Soprano lives!

Friday was the Chair Installation Day, and Cody and his sidekick arrived and set to work.

How it works is pretty easy. You hold onto a switch thing indicating which direction, up or down, and it starts up slowly then gets up to speed, slightly faster than an athletic snail, and you ride sideways. 

At the top you push one of those paddles under the seat to turn the chair so you're facing the landing, and you get off, remembering your purse and carryon.

There are two remotes, so you can send it up or down, carrying stuff without a person. I could have used this the other day when I lugged up a big wandering dude, indoors for the winter. One remote stays downstairs, the other upstairs. The tech showed me how to use the seatbelt to secure big items! He knew.

I've been thinking about this for years and I'm glad it's finally done and seems to be working fine.  They are located about 40 minutes away, pretty good if service is required. 

That was one of the things that knocked some makers out of contention. One, based in Massachusetts, couldn't service where I live. Good to check because you don't want anyone other than techs trained on your brand tinkering with it. After I'd learned a bit and watched many videos, that service question was the first one I asked. 

So I'm all set to come down like Mrs Soprano and terrify people. Or, more likely, come down waving and screaming and eating cotton candy. You gotta take your fun where you can.

Interestingly, I priced these chairs many years ago when it still seemed possible for Handsome Partner to use one. They were almost as expensive then as this one now.  Maybe they were rarer then, but the various makes were comparable in price. 

And while the installation took place I went off for a nice hike to the pond, maybe to prove I can.  And to look for ducks.

I think this might have been a puffball. 

It was a beautiful day, great for walking and tossing stray golfballs back onto the course. These players are wild hitters but very strong.

And there were ducks, one male and three female friends. 

The "beef" plant stuff makes good burgers, mixed with egg to bind them, no spice needed, they're well seasoned. Just broiled and served with three bean salad, or, today, lovely roast diced potatoes and malt vinegar.

Since I'm weaving again, I ordered two more loom clamps from the Woolery, nice artisanal people to deal with. This is how they acknowledge an order 

This enthusiasm reminds me of Ivy! All joy all the time, that's Happy Whisk.

Happy day everyone, there's usually some reason to scream and wave and eat cotton candy.