Morning diamonds, car doctor at work, doubling down

 Great overnight rain, leaving diamonds everywhere

and a chipmunk scurried out from the cherry tomato patch when I was checking for ripe ones. He may get there before me.

Gary added me to his list yesterday when he heard my tale of car woe, and fixed the pressure on all the tires.

He'd already planned on doing a couple of cars, so put mine first. And reminded me that he would gladly drive me to the dentist if I needed him.  A prince.

And I played with the sock yarn for a while, reading labels and choosing some to make a pair for moi. Found one beautiful blue mix whose label indicated handwash, dry flat.

Clearly not one to donate, the chances of the recipient's being able to do that being pretty much nil. So it's for me.

Not a snag in the hank, wound up flawlessly. No hidden felting.

Turns out it was originally marketed as super wash, for non -knitters that means wool treated to survive machine washing. 

However, it's an alpaca mix and they found it felted and shrank after a few washes, so they relabeled it.  Evidently alpaca, which is very different from sheep's wool, didn't take the super wash processing successfully.

Bottom line: mine! Next issue is whether there's enough for a pair. One skein and one ball. There are various ways of determining how much yarn you have.

You can weigh it if you have a gram scale. I don't. You can unfurl it and measure the length, are you kidding? 

Or you can come up with something I've fancied trying for ages, to make sure you have matching length socks: knit both at once. No, not that ghastly magic thing, endlessly sliding back and forward on circular needles like a human piston rod. 

This is casting on two separate projects, starting toe up. The Boudian Method, pat. pend.

This way you can see how the length is going, and start the cuff in good time. It's better than knitting one lovely sock then running out before the other matches and having to sub. 

Not that the recipient is likely to roar with rage, she's lucky to be getting them, but all the same it would be nice to match. 

And the luxury of knitting a solid color after months of stripes designed to eke out inadequate amounts of beautiful yarn, is not to be sniffed at. It was fun but I fancy a change.

And raise a loud cheer for a historic podium, noted by a historic lady

This is almost certainly a downstream benefit from Title IX, the legislation that gave girls a fair deal in school and college sports, and resulted in a surge of terrific young athletes getting a chance. Largely in the teeth of male spite. 

One of my friends, before Title IX,  in high school a regional girls tennis champion, she and her doubles partner swept the board,  wanted to play on the college team. 

There was no girls team so she applied for the boys team.    The ptb at the college, abolished boys tennis rather than admit her or create a girls team. After Title IX, that would never fly.  

It's not just for the athletes. It's for all girls to see more and more evidence that they're part of society, not just the audience to male activity.

My soapbox is getting worn down. So here's an idea. I ran out of Kleenex, and subbed a toilet roll. It'll work. 

And if it looks a bit funny, what's it to you, feller? Oh sorry, my outrageometer suddenly ignited. It does that. I blame Twitter and Covid.

Yesterday there was a Textiles and Tea with Kathie Roig, double weaving.

Nice shading and color blending, painted warps.

One interesting question came up: if your loom could talk what would it say to you? Joanne already anticipated this with her yarn comment!

Happy day everyone, you're valued whatever you do, however you look, however you feel! 

Cheer on Ukraine, too, ready to strike back in a counteroffensive, yay.

Early one morning, Sock Ministry, now it's teeth..

Early this morning, window open all night because I can, and here's the late summer view

My little yard, then left toward Gary, right toward Aditha. Mourning doves giving background music.

And yesterday was a day of consultation with the dentist after my tooth collapsed Sunday night, then with the doctor about whether to do the Prolia injection Friday for osteoporosis, because of this new situation. 

After a miserable day of passing time till my late afternoon appointment, I finally got to the dentist, who said a crown is needed. First dental work in years. Usually they clean, xray, empty my wallet, wave goodbye. 

He tells me the Prolia isn't an issue since he's not touching bone. Apparently if they extract a tooth, that's different. So I expect my doctor will get back to me today to let me know.

This is shaping up to be the Summer of Expensive Doctors, this week being the most: 

Monday dentist,  $1100, Thursday eyedoctor, $3000,  final post operative checkup, Friday rheumatologist injection, the only one covered by Medicare.  Gosh, hardly time to knit. Or to figure out how to keep up with the medical bills.

Handsome Son will drive me to main dentist appointment, end of next week, because it's long and I think I'll be tired out, not good for driving home, otherwise I could have got step one done yesterday.

But the good news is that yesterday I drove to the dentist, two towns over, traffic, complex intersections, and home just fine. I was exhausted from the general doings and slept as soon as I got home.

And the car did one of those loud clanging alerts and flashing screens on exactly the same stretch of road for the third time, nearly sending me off the road in surprise, all to say low tire pressure. Not a blowout as you might think from the hysteria. But I wonder why the same stretch of road, yet again. Seems woo-woo.

The other good thing is that the injection and possible aftereffects will be a week in rhe rearview mirror by the time of the first crown appointment.

Also the thriftie is in that neighborhood, so after the second crown appointment, maybe I'll stop in  and check the leather bags for that slipper-making I was talking about.  Just a carrot for the falling-apart donkey here.

Meanwhile on that most miserable day, the mailman brought two parcels, and a surge in good spirits, contents for the Sock Ministry, courtesy of Joanne

The two wooden tools are an old darning egg and and a future nostepinne, for winding center-pull balls of yarn.

Wonderful plans here. And the donor agreed I could legitimately divert some yarn to a sock or two for the knitter, having made a lot of pairs to donate. I've been very careful to use the Ministry-donated yarn only for the people it's intended for, despite some temptation.

The other good news yesterday was a shout-out from the Knitting Ministry sisters' newsletter, very nice to keep the knitter's spirits up

All in all, on balance a good day after all.

And I watched the end of The Crown, definitely best season yet. It was so much better acted, directed, everything than Season Three.  I think the actors were a level up, just very moving. I even began to feel for Charles, amazingly. They're a pretty grubby bunch, all said and done. Great drama though.

And here's a piglet taking her bath at the Squirrelwood Sanctuary. 

This was a while back. Now all grown up, she could nicely wear the tub as a hat.

Happy day everyone.  Keep well, make sure, if you're in the US, that you're registered to vote. Good vibes to Ukraine on their upcoming counteroffensive. 

 

Nature, wild and tame, homeschooling

 The honesty never came back this year after several years of faithfully reappearing each year , and almost all the neighboring honesty was destroyed by the fence project, so I was glad to find at least a few seedpods lying about as I was out walking 

and back home just dropped them into the honesty pot in hopes.

Since my accidental gardening was so much more successful than my on purpose gardening this year, I'm starting a new policy of non-involvement. Things seem to go better when I leave them alone.

And here's a little insect I last saw ages ago on this very clump of grass

Perpetual motion, not very good picture. His colors are startling, so vivid. I believe they're a warning to birds not to eat, a defense mechanism of some sort.

Here's a better picture

No milkweed for miles around, so I'm not sure why he keeps showing up.

And some people like them enough to get their tiny red eggs and create a habitat for them

Homeschooling according to the dialog. The youngster explains it's a class pet!

Not that the homeschoolers I'm familiar with around here actually sit at a table at home with a parent teaching as if in a classroom. Usually the idea is not to translate the classroom idea to home, but to unschool, hiring teaching talent, and taking trips and expeditions to learn subject matter and develop thinking skills.

The reason I've come into contact is that around here homeschoolers usually form alliances and hire teachers for subjects the parents aren't up for. 

I used to teach the occasional young student art at the studio, with parents staying out of the way. I'd explain what we were doing and why, in case they had to report to the regular school authorities on progress. 

I had one student I really loved, great little kid, wonderful sense of humor. His mother was a physicist, and taught various sciences to their group at a rented location in a church basement. 

I used to avoid the parents wanting to hire me to do exactly what, and only what,  they dictated, on the grounds that if you can't teach a subject, no background in it, it's better, when you hire, to let the teacher do the teaching.  

One of my friends got caught up, briefly,  in a group that wanted her to teach art to their rules -- one week shading, another week perspective, another week color theory. To kids aged six to eight. No logical sequence, no art integrity, no age appropriateness, just stuff they'd probably seen in bullet points. She was an experienced class art teacher, and I think they lost a good chance there. But this can happen.

I never taught perspective as such, it being an architectural rendering concept not a fine art one. I used to teach seeing, and perspective would follow naturally.  No need to beat it into shape.

And the groups who said I had to sign on to their religious beliefs in order to teach their kids an hour a week didn't get far with me!

There are different reasons for homeschooling, some religious, some where kids are outside of the usual range of abilities or temperaments.  

A kid operating several grade levels above her age can't very well be accommodated in even the most flexible public school program. Age seems to be a big factor in class placement.

Likewise some kids on the autism spectrum just can't fit in, even in special needs groups, and are bullied. Anyway parents make different decisions. They don't all subscribe to the industrial education complex which works for a lot of students. 

It must be Labor day coming up, turning my thoughts to schooling, long after it no longer affects me. No more August shopping for school shoes!

I'm looking for a parcel of yarn from Joanne about now, my fall knitting program about to start. That's the good news.

This is the year of bodily breakdowns around here. This week sees the final  post-surgical eye checkup , then the first of the twice a year  osteoporosis shots, which I'm doing with trepidation, but some hope it will be effective. Then last evening a chunk of molar fell off.  It doesn't hurt, but it's added an expensive dentist visit probably next week, sigh. Always something.

I really have to get a social life that doesn't mean a round of doctors! And I'm a relatively fit person, amazing how they take over.

Anyway happy day everyone! May all your health issues be the result of falling off your skateboard at age 90!

Sunday, miscellaneous thoughts

 I was thinking idly about cross stitch, as one does, yesterday, and wondering if that was another seeing ability restored to me by the cataract surgery. One of the curses of severe astigmatism is that it confuses the outlines and directions of what you're looking at.

Mostly I adapted , but anything built on diagonals such as cross stitch, is, except for big gauge work, close to impossible. Not that I felt it as a big loss, it not being a favorite stitch. But it was annoying in the same way as my bafflement with kumihimo, many part braiding, same diagonal and directional problem.

The recent studying of braiding brought this to mind, and I realized this isn't half the issue it was a few weeks ago.

And I also realized I can probably dust off my birding binoculars, same reason. 

I tested yesterday and they work a lot better. I don't see one and a half jumping birds now, yay. Just bird by bird. 

This serpentine train of thought came about after I'd been out walking and saw the fluttering of what looked like a couple of warblers. 

A bit early for fall migration, but nothing has been on schedule this year anyway. We have some year round warblers, yellowrumps, but these were much darker, flitting about like butterflies ss they do.

And of course, having given up my binoculars years ago because of the vision issues, I couldn't get a close view 

Home again to one of my favorite pages in Peterson's guide, Confusing Fall Warblers. If even Peterson got confused, fine for me to be, too.

I still don't know what I was seeing, except they were much darker than yellowrumps. Since we live bang in the middle of the Eastern Flyway, could be anyone. Particularly if storms have blown them off course. 

Anyway my binoculars can come to the Preserve with me again now, good. And I may or may not bother with cross stitch, jury's out.

In other unimportant news, I seem to have run out of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, but there's still the writer giving very funny interviews and well worth tracking down. 

He's all over YouTube at book events.

And, to show I can be as trivial as anyone, remember the titanic struggle I had with the mouthwash bottle cap a while back? Where I concluded that it was a bad batch since the interior prongs were too long ever to slip past the other bit? I opened a new bottle yesterday, just squeezed, turned, it opened. Because the prongs were about half the length of the faulty ones.

I rest my case. And my prongs.

Today's art is my contribution to a lovely project online about walking, collecting s few natural objects, arranging them and posting the photo online. It's part of a calming process, so people can enjoy just a few minutes' respite from stress, the person walking in nature and the people seeing the results.

The project is particularly being directed to people in the UK who are facing an ever worsening daily situation.  Many people I know simply don't know how they'll face this winter's fuel costs. I feel for them, having just seen the cost of my cooling for the heat wave months of July and August. But at this point I can manage my bills, more than they can. 

Meanwhile here's my woodland collection

Extra credit for identifying the leaves!

Happy day everyone, hope we can see things straight and true, not one and a half wobbly versions, in every sense.

Finger loop braiding, more soup shared

I should have known I'd get involved with yet another fiberart skill. This one's finger loop braiding, great way to create lacing and bands for various uses. You pass long loops back and forward, cat's cradle style, to create strips.

I found it on Sally Pointer, but she was doing a braid of multiple loops, bowes as they called them in medieval times, way above my pay grade. So I searched for a beginner one, five loops, and found good old Morgan Donner had made a video.

This one has a tutorial from a medieval manuscript. And you see a team of friends making a fairly advanced version.

 But before I start making loops and attaching my loops to a doorknob for tension while I learn how to braid, I thought I would get that upcycled denim vest done.

Still attaching the lining, here to an armhole

The combo of soft old denim and silk is great to stitch, making stitches vanish into the weave. It's working nicely. One more armhole, and the hem, and it will finally be done. Also I need to clear the decks for sock yarn incoming from Joanne, on its way.

Meanwhile the Misfits  butternut squash is now soup. Along with a homemade stock, carrots and red lentils, chickpeas added at the end. I now have choices of soups in the freezer, for when I just can't be bothered to cook.

Sprig of flowering thyme, half a wholewheat pita.

Butternut Boy, even as I was ladling this out, was already on the deck making short work of the seeds and rinds.

Dragging them about and leaving a mess for me to clear up.  What else are humans for, anyway?

Happy day everyone, knit on, braid on, cook on, read on, stay cool if that applies, here it does.

More shoes, Pantone art, The Crown

Yesterday I discovered this wonderful native American archaeologist, on YouTube, showing how to make sandals from broad leaf yucca, with laces from narrow leaf yucca. 

See her video for the whole process which you can definitely do if you have access to yucca, which I don't. 

It's very thoughtful and takes the foot, size, pressures in different parts of the sole, need for protection from sharp rocks, all that, into account. Shoes for dry country.

And she makes the cordage for the laces more simply than the Sally Pointer neolithic approach. Instead of twisting then bending one group over the other, she starts with the u shape but rolls the two sides in parallel, then lets them curl up together 

I had to try this, looked so labor saving. Forgetting that she's a lifelong expert, with literally thousands of years of family experience.

So I tried with daylily leaves

Best I could do. Then I tried the paleolithic way

This worked better. It occurs to me that I can make shoelaces like this for sneakers. Hm.

I haven't made it to the thriftie yet, driving not quite ready, but there will be leather slippers in my future, maybe with daylily thongs to fasten them.

This weekend, though, the library is in range, and today I'm picking up The Crown, season four. I seem to remember giving up on season three after the Aberfan episode, too much like voyeurism. But we'll see about season four. 

And today's art is the ever changing display of accordion books, this one the Pantone collection

Happy day everyone, I guess it's the weekend though my days don't vary that much.