Announcements of various kinds

New readers start here:  if you have been reading strictly in htttps://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com, you  may only now be aware of the parallel blog I've been writing yea many years, too.  Welcome here, if this is your first entry into these hallowed, or something, halls.

My art life has been changed radically by the pandemic, and I think it's more interesting to fold the two blogs, this one and Art, the Beautiful Metaphor, together from now on.  Nothing will be lost, just instead of posting to two blogs, I'll post everything to one place. Here.

Anyway, that's the plan.  If I hear passionate objections, I'll listen and see what I should do.  Otherwise, this is where we are from now.  And specially thank you to readers who have patiently followed both blogs and commented there, too.  A special crown of diamonds awaits you.

And today is a partial reveal!! of the spun, plied, knitted, woven, and now sort of modeled jacket, which, until I'm able to spin again, is to be a nice vest ready for spring walking.  This is where people who have been reading only Field and Fen might want to pop into Art, the Beautiful Metaphor, to scroll back and catch up.  It's at https://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com    No, Blogger won't let me put up a link to my own second blog, we've tried that, and it only sends you back into your own blog if you have one, and nowhere if you don't.  So it's cut and paste, sigh, sorry.

I started this caper back in early October and thought it would be a winter project. At that point I had a basket of roving, fluff, really, in all colors, from Goats Magosh, cheap ends of excellent quality roving in all kinds of fibers, wool, silk, alpaca, mixes, all kinds. I guessed right about the length of time it would take, and there's still a way to go before it's an actual jacket. But as soon as I get the stitching together part done, it will be a wearable item.  Because knitting and weaving have natural selvages, there are no raw edges, which is why I can do this.

Anyway, here, this morning, finally, finally, got the woven front lapels finished and steamed, so many ends to weave in

And the various parts resting together here, before I go on to tack everything ready to hand stitch.  Notice the fronts are designed to be longer than the backs.  That's because my fronts take up more space than my back.  Also when you put on any tailored top, you always situate the shoulder seam behind, not on, your shoulder.  That's how they're supposed to work. So the extra length allows for that, also for room under the arms.

You can hardly make out the lapels up there, because the patterns are all so noisy, but here they are turned back so you can locate them

Then I tacked lapels to fronts, back to fronts, lapels to shoulders, and was able to sort of try on to show you, though the tacking came apart a bit with my contortions trying to get pictures.

And to crack up laughing at my solo attempts to show you how the back works.  Nicely, I think. The underarms fit comfortably over a sweater.

 The length worked out exactly as hoped. And the neck space. And shoulder width. All in all, good outcome.

So here's how it works, tacked up and waiting, but wait, there's more

Remember way back I used my potholder loom to make pockets?  I suddenly remembered, and here they are in situ.  After the whole thing is stitched together, they'll be added, with plenty of stay stitching to allow for frequent use.

I'm determined to be wearing this before the US daylight time change next weekend.

Meanwhile, life does go on in Field and Fen world, and, since I had ended up giving most of the banana bread away to various children, leaving only a couple of pieces for Handsome Son's visit tomorrow, I baked a pan of cornbread, as you see.

This afternoon I get to choose next Friday's Misfits Market box of produce, always an exciting event in a pandemic.  Things happening!  Stuff to arrive!  It doesn't take much to amuse me at this point.

A lot of people's post-vaccine planning involves movies and restaurants, neither of which interested me before and don't really now.  It reminds me of the old joke about the patient coming round from shoulder surgery and the surgeon telling her "It went great.  We'll have you playing violin in three weeks' time!"  To which she says, "That's amazing! Thank you.  I've never played violin before!"

To be honest, to an old widder woman living alone who has outlived her cats and most of her friends, that would be me, it won't make a whole lot of difference. Except for one huge one, the release from the fear gripping every move for the last year.  That will be welcome.