Tuesday Knitting Group, Textiles and Tea, Anthony DiRenzo

The high winds Tuesday made driving quite exciting but it's a small distance to the library for the group.

I have to show you this newborn size shrug! Ready for a baby shower next week 

Tiny! This just covers the baby's back, like a micro shrug.

The maker, a new member, was wearing a sweater she'd knitted herself

And here's gloves, handspun and dyed and knitted by M

I'm working on a shawl made from pinloom woven squares 

It's mainly about using up the squares I made in a weaving frenzy. I made a summer vest with another group, in a fine thread.

It was a good afternoon, talk ranging over newborns, patterns, Norwegian yarn, the  Red Bank arty community, dementia, autism, deaf blind finger language, my cousin Marie, expensive knitting conventions, Quebec, birthdays, measles, New Year celebration, embroidery, and more.

Home in time for Textiles and Tea with Anthony diRenzo , a former Montessori teacher of fiberart and Spanish, now a recognized teacher of fiberart to Middle school and Montessori teachers and workshop presenter. 

He studied in Oaxaca, and spins, knits, weaves, dyes and designs. He has had his students weave scarves using low and no cost rescued yarns. They're donated to homeless Lgbtqia youth.

He gets the materials partly from volunteering at FABSCRAP , a great Brooklyn-based nonprofit, which rescues fabric, notions and other fibers, left over from designer workshops. 

They recycle and save masses of surplus fabric from the landfill. They're a kind of Misfits for the garment trade. I've written about them before and I was so happy to see he makes great use of their resources 

 He's a great teacher and social activist, as we'll as fiber artist. 

These are rigid heddle looms he acquired and set up for student use,see the different approaches in progress

 

Small samples he wove before deciding on a bigger application

Cochineal dyed wallhanging

Great day again, last Tuesday of the year. Looking forward to more next year.

Happy day everyone, enjoy Tuesdays. And other days. All of them.

Misfits and outcomes

 Monday was the confusing holiday change for Misfits delivery, usually Thursday. But I remembered to get the coolbag and ice block out.

Quinn showed up, gave me a wave and left the box.

I really like that they name their drivers on the tracking program. It's quite a small team. 

So this week they were unable to send my apples. And I got rainbow carrots, expecting plain, but this is fine. Canned goods, some for the food pantry, coffee to give me a reason to get up, along with your comments on this blog, that is.  Blueberries to go with the yogurt, bread for a lazy baker, plant based spicy sausage stuff,  beautiful brown eggs, walnuts to add into various baked goods, soon banana bread, olive oil, cavatappi for mac n cheese, well, cav n cheese, also soup. I like soup with pasta added in.

I steamed all the carrots at once, and used quite a few to make a big pot of carrot, cavatappi and cannellini soup.  The Three Cees.

I omitted the purple carrots because of Mitchell's experience. You can see quite a few containers here, ready to fill and freeze. This pot made about nine meals. I'll add ham dice when I reheat the soup.

I like having a rapid hot meal available in the freezer in this weather. I get tired in cold weather and less eager to cook.

My plan to bake banana bread didn't come to pass, a bit more than I felt like doing after taking care of the groceries. I mean, there's books to read!

Happy day everyone, cook all the things. Or read a nice mystery. Life's short. Sez Ted and Big Ursy.

Boots, bowls, croquettes and mysteries

Chapter One Boots

So I retrieved the frozen boot, removed the bag of ice

which had taken on the shape of the boot interior. Next time I'll keep the ice to reuse, didn't think about this till it had thawed.

Then tried both boots on. Definite improvement, and to help preserve the new size, I rammed in an old pair of keds, which I could force in well and will be able to retrieve okay.

So far so good. I may need to treat the right one again. I may reserve the spray when it arrives to use outside in milder weather, Quinn, ty.

Chapter Two Bergamot Bowls 

So Sunday I painted them with a favorite light gold metallic acrylic, then drew with black marker.

I'm quite pleased. They look like thin walled pottery. I decided not to preserve the natural interior, since without lids, the scent would evaporate. So I painted the lot.  The top picture is nearer the actual color. 

This was a nice experience. I have two more lemons to go, and maybe I'll do the decoration differently.

Chapter Three All Purpose Croquettes and Bars 

These used up the last of the Christmas corn and one remaining potato, mixed with caramelized onions and garlic, steamed cabbage, ham dice, ground flaxseed, a bit of flour and an egg, minced parsley, mashed chickpeas.  Seasoned with salt and paprika.

And a sauce of yogurt, garlic, lemon juice. 

The tablet was open to a recipe I departed from so completely there's no point in referring to it! But it did give me the mashed chickpea idea.

The garnish is a sprig of peppermint I have growing in the kitchen, still quite aromatic despite the waning sunshine.

And later I made a batch of peanut butter granola bars because I'm tired of toast for breakfast.

Chapter Four Great Mystery Short Story Discovery 

I just found this and she's a very entertaining read, a Victorian era detective with her sidekick Ivy. It's a Sherlockian approach, deductions from clues, and really good.

Happy day everyone. I certainly had one. Make all the things.

Balance and boots

After snow and ice meant no outdoor activity beyond trudging to the recycle, I thought I'd better keep up my strength Saturday, and did a thirty minute resistance and balance workout with April and Aiko.

April used 8 lb weights, I used 5 lb and Aiko used 2 lb. It was certainly warming, and I felt more cheerful after it. 

And I thought why not try the ice idea, thank you Ellen, for stretching the right boot, the one more in need. 

I found a Ziploc bag, to my surprise, half filled it with water and for safety put it inside a plastic loaf bag, not wishing to soak the boot. 

Putting it in the boot was tricky because the design of this one doesn't open up completely. There's a kind of inner lining holding it together. Anyway I managed it.

And here it is in the freezer for a day. So we'll see.  I already tried ramming a plastic glass into the toe of each boot, and hadn't tested whether it worked on this one.

But I did wrestle the glass back out of the other boot and found it had worked okay there. 

Fairly happy foot there. One down. 

Happy day everyone, One foot after the other does it.

Bergamot bowls and intervening activities

Friday I achieved quite a few tangential tasks. To wit: I was going upstairs to assemble, that means find, the various tools and materials needed for the Decoration of the Bergamot Bowls. 

On the way up I noticed ny new boots that I'm trying to get used to. They're new, stiff and I haven't worn boots in years and have to get used to something up around my ankles. So I've been practicing a bit each day.

Then I remembered there are stretchers that will help. An online search revealed that the expensive ones are almost as much as the boots even without shipping, and the cheapies don't work. Oh. But there's a stretching spray the posh people use with the expensive stretchers. 

Another search, I was still on the stairs, revealed you can get pretty much the same spray product arriving anywhere till mid January, and costing any old amount plus any old equal amount for shipping. Then I tracked down the same spray, free shipping, arriving in the next couple of days. So that's set up.

Then I continued upstairs, original goal still in mind, and while I was rummaging around for a brush, found a retractable pen with a dry ink thing. Set it aside because I had an idea about it.

Then found various metallic paints, tissue paper for papier mache for the Bowls, white glue and a spray bottle with dilute white glue in it that I'd used to apply handmade paper to lampshades, you've seen them.

Finally made it downstairs, replaced the ink thing with a spare I had which happened to fit well enuf fer gummint work and I have a new pen.

I washed out the spray bottle and kept it for other uses. 

And then, not before time, set up the Bowl Decoration Department.

The procedure is to tear up the tissue paper, which happens to have arrived wrapped round the boots I started with above, to everything a season, and apply using the dilute white glue and a decent brush. 

It's okay because the glue is water soluble, no harm to the brush if you wash it promptly.  And, pausing only to bathe my eyes because I'm sensitive to white glue, I got the first coat of papier mache applied. 

This needs to dry, then another coat, before I get to the painting. I'm thinking gold metallic and black. So far, so fun. I love this process as you see the tissue blending in to make a new surface.

Other important issues, I'm listening to a guy on YouTube getting all happy about words and language in Shakespeare. This was after I'd been hearing Dr Reyes,  Filipina professor of language and meaning schooling a BBC presenter who, if he had only one foot, would have got off on the wrong one. She was calm, excellent and very cool.

I love etymology, always looking up word origins and tracking down trains of thought. When Handsome Son was here, somehow Henry VIII and chicken got into the convo. Don't ask me, I only live here.

Whereupon I said that reminds me, I watched the Bishop's Wife again. HS looked completely baffled at this leap, which seemed obvious to me.

So I explained, Charles Laughton played Henry in a classic movie. He was married (complications there, but anyway) at one time to Elsa Lanchester who plays Mildred in the BW.  See, quite clear.

My mom used language in her own way, not with unfathomable pathways of meaning but her own stamp on words and expressions.  

She would say he was so startled he sat up boltright!  Or, that spider's harmless but he can give you a nasty bite. And oh, there was such a human cry!

As Dr Reyes says, language is flexible, adaptable to culture and people. Especially some people.

Happy day everyone. Remember it pays not to stick to doing one thing at a time. Around here anyway. Fluffinia says dryly, yesh, that's her mantra, until she gets another.

 

Christmas day, good food, good company, candles on the hearth

No pictures, too busy cooking together, then eating together then chatting, then eating again and so it went. The main meat was ham, so there will be leftovers for sandwiches and maybe soup.

Handsome Son came through so well, provided all his share, and we had a lovely array of food, all simple, all good. Ham, mustard, snap peas, corn, roasted mushrooms and potato dice, then Dutch cookies and chocolate Santas in foil all if which I've smoothed out for some reason I haven't figured out. Probably to make something. And there was ginger ale and eggnog.

The other day, talking about making, I was recycling a box and found a lovely small piece of corrugated cardboard, which I promptly set aside thinking that will make a nice little loom. 

And burst out laughing. Who else but a maker would instantly see a bit of cardboard as a tool?

 Back to Christmas and Handsome Son, he was intrigued by the bergamot bowls and handled them, surprised how sturdy they are now they're dried and ready to decorate tomorrow.

They're very tough and sound like pottery when you rap on them.

As you see they'll work better as bowls. The ones on the left fit one over the other but the lid almost covers the base, so that isn't a good fit. And the color has darkened to orange.

I still have two lemons to go, so I can apply what I've learned to them.  One great discovery I made was that when you take them off the molds, there's a rush of lemon scent, wonderful. 

Next I decorate the outside, stay tuned, but leave the inside so as to keep the lemon scent going.

About going,  the cactus put out one rather feeble blossom, almost withered before it opened, on Christmas Eve.

She's doing her best but doesn't feel too well.

After Handsome Son left with his share of the leftovers, after he'd finished playing with a game on my Advent calendar, I fell asleep, combination of food, sugar and activity.

Then the evening was about receiving more greetings and embarking on my Christmas gift to me, an R F Delderfield saga, A Horseman Riding By.

Its about a young man wounded in the Boer War who returns to England where he's inherited a scrap metal company, but has a preference for a country life. That's as far as I've got, but I think this will be great reading over the next couple of days which promise a snowstorm.

And when I needed to rest my eyes, I listened to a seasonal audiobook. 

An oldie, but good. The English narrator has a wonderful voice and delivery and the worst pronunciation of American place names ever! He just plunges at them, very funny.  But who's counting.

Happy day everyone, I hope your day, Christmas or Thursday, went well.