Good neighbors, good food, Textiles and Tea

Yesterday I looked out to this welcome sight, good neighbor Gary cleaning snow off my car. He stopped by later before he went out, to see if I was okay and did I need anything, and he will start my car today. Meanwhile he endorsed my plan to skip my meeting, roads icy, unless it was vital.  

I made the  promised pasta with puttanesca sauce, blue cheese crumbles on top.

Quite a few meals here, probably the last of the  pasta  will go into a soup. I forget the name of these curly pasta, but they're very good for this sauce.

Later I made a small easy  supper, starch day! Roast potato in a cheese crust, chopped hardboiled egg chucked over.  In the toaster oven.

You're best doing this with parmesan and Yukon gold potatoes. I had sharp cheddar and no name yellow potatoes, worked fine anyway.  Also best cooked in a glass  pan, to preserve the crust.

And Textiles and Tea featured a weaver who, among creating  complex double weave  structures, also upcycles by not only cutting old fabric into narrow strips to reweave, but actually harvesting silk thread from old kimonos to reweave. You'll see two examples of this in the pictures. She also does all kinds of other complicated weaving as you see.  And dyeing.

All these layers were woven in one process, at the same time

See the shuttle, left, holding silk thread? And on the right, a strip of the original kimono edges the new weaving. She does that to honor the original weaver.

I'm definitely impressed by the up cycling aspect of her work, though it's only a small part of her practice. I fancy trying that. Of course! 

And I finally bought one of my all-time favorite novels, hilariously funny, great characters, The Reluctant Widow, by Georgette Heyer. 

Disregard the corny illustration, they always play up the romance which is almost the least of it in Heyer's comedies of manners.

I've worn out a couple of paperback versions, and the type is a bit small, so I kindled it, despite its never going on sale. Pushing the boat out here!  But on days where plans about going out are foiled by ice, a great read. It's so funny I have to put it down to laugh here and there.

And are you up for a puzzle?

Happy day, everyone,  puzzle and keep warm in the northern hemisphere, dry in the southern.