Orchid still going, doors, knitting group,Textiles and Tea

 

Morning light shining across the backyard and through the orchid blossoms.

Tuesday started with an appointment with the audiologist because I was missing words here and there and wondered if my hearing was deteriorating. Turns out it's Ruth and Laura's wires. They're now replaced and everything sounds clear again.

I got lost both ways. I often overshoot the ENT  office driveway because it's set back among trees, like a lot of destinations around here. 

Today I was about to turn in the drive and realized all I could see were earthworks and digging equipment. So I drove on thinking I'd turned too soon. No. They're digging up everything in front of the building which is still there and operating with half a parking lot and no exit. 

So I  got to the appointment after all, very successful, and managed to get out again after edging back and forth with another car whose driver didn't grasp this narrow area was now two-way. We managed not to back into the ditch or tangle bumpers and I was off home. Up to a point. 

The back road I take home was closed, with a detour sign in place.  I followed this but evidently missed the end of it and had a lovely country drive around a local science lab campus. Eventually I found a fairly legal u-turn place and wound my way back to a road I recognized, then finally, to my surprise, reached home.

I'd just put lunch -- roast potatoes, baby broccoli and a patty of spicy plant-based sausage -- in the toaster oven, when Mender Mike arrived with the newly finished drawer fronts and doors.  

Before

After, looking like new, worth the money 

Certainly a lot less than buying new. 

Then I was off to Tuesday Knitting Group, a cheerful group working in everything from a  stuffed cat, to a finished item being modeled here, with a terrible picture from your wobbly photographer, knitted socks, headband, a needlepoint seat finally picked up to finish after many years on hold.

The stickwoven strap on the bag interested the librarian and I showed her this model bookmark for beginners,  

woven, using drinking straws. I've taught this skill to kids but P the librarian thinks it might be nice for her monthly senior crafters. It can be done in one session, from first learning to finishing. And I had a request to bring in my weaving sticks next week, to see how it works.

Convo ranged over hearing aids, getting lost in your own town, forgetting names, cooking for one, baby pictures, face blindness, bees, bereavement, assisted living and more.

Home to a pot of tea and Textiles and Tea with Ruth Hallows, an indigenous weaver from the Pacific North West, who introduced herself in her own language.  She works daily in the practice of the traditional style and form seen in ceremonial regalia. Further down you'll see a picture of one of her ancestors in full dance regalia.

There are only fifteen of these robes extant, all in museums in Europe and Russia, not available for the sacred dancing,  but modern indigenous artisans have reverse engineered them to recreate robes.  

Laws were passed outlawing this weaving, on pain of having families broken up. Ruth's great grandmother had to comply in order to keep her family intact. In the US these laws have been revoked. In  Canada they're still, shamefully, on the books, though not enforced. So now the artform has to be revived.

She teaches the traditional Ravenstail and Chilkat designs, of the Northwest Coastal People from whom she's descended.  But she asks that non-native learners respect the sacredness of the ceremonial robes and significance of the colors and designs and use their skills making other weaving, not copying robes.

There are very few people who currently have mastered these twining skills, executed with a loose hanging warp, all the pattern tension and definition created by the weaver's hands. She would like more people to learn and preserve these skills.

She showed a couple of works in progress and a workshop of women learning the skill.

Sponsored by WARP (Weave a Real Peace), this was a powerful episode. If you're not familiar with WARP, check their website. They're active in grass roots peace work and intersectional connection via the textile arts.

Here's her great grandfather in ceremonial regalia for dance.

Here she's showing a drum which features the ovoid shapes characteristic of this art form, seen in the textiles. Each ovoid influences the next and all belong in the whole. It's a metaphor for their philosophy of life.

Simple setup to learn a difficult twining art form

Here she's showing how a piece is started on that stick, the warp threads secured at the top and left to hang. This is a Ravenstail design depicting the return of the salmon.

This is a personal artwork depicting the concept of unmasking

And here's a big artwork in progress started last spring, to be completed early 2026.

 Happy day everyone, Tuesday here was action packed!