Watercolors and Misfits

Summer is when watercolor painting appeals, and I do tiny to small landscapes, just playtime, not expecting much. I might assemble the month's output into books. 

I did get a new set of watercolors because I liked the physical layout but the colors are a bit meh, so I added in the old better quality tubes which had hardened. I cut off the metal and I'm using the pigment like pan colors. I'll replace some of the pans with this better pigment.

Recently I scored another set of storage drawers at the dumpster, which stacks nicely on the other one I found at the dumpster, and with useful deeper drawers.

Art materials and crafting tools can go here. 

Enough of this frivolity, I had fasting blood work early this morning, friend drove me there, not one of my better times. 

The techie needed a couple of tries to get anything. Tiny thready veins. I was already feeling a bit loopy from hunger. Then home again to egg and toast, the last slice of bread before the Misfits delivery. Talk about just-in-time inventory.

The driver friend plans to give me echinacea from her overgrown front yard across the street. I think I'd rather have planting than the patio idea, after thinking about it. Better grow than pave over more land. In September we'll do it.

And a Misfits rental van again showed up, not the usual authentic pink Misfits van, but the driver was, I think, Ronaldo, and the food, in two boxes, why, was  fine. As is Ronaldo.

Cans for the food pantry, added to what's already set aside for them. Olives, cream cheese and honey wheat bread for  great afternoon tea sandwiches. These are the best olives. Very Downton Abbey. I leave the crusts on though. That's how I got curly hair.

Yogurt because it's a staple, and will go with the blueberries and Envy apples. I will stew the fruit with that brown sugar because my faith in raw produce is on hold for now. I'm also finding I really like cooked fruit if it's chilled. I thought I didn't like it when I had it growing up, because it was a hot dessert. 

Potatoes to roast, with chicken breasts which I'll pound and bread, with Cajun seasoning. Beautiful free range eggs and block cheese for more quiches with leafy greens I already have. Many bananas for banana bread and smoothies.

Life in the food lane I'm glad I can afford decent food.

Happy day everyone, enjoy what you can when you can. Paint silly pictures. Here goes nothing.

Clean air and walking while the walking's good

Today's bouquet, more susans, daisies, zinnias 

That sounds like the cast of a southern novel.

Good time to walk to the pond, after a few days of not managing because of weather.

There were frogs leaping everywhere, and the hot, then wet, weather has brought on the invasive phragmites grass, ready to choke the waterway. See it there, advancing on the water?

And all the way home I could hear this Carolina wren shouting jerkee jerkee jerkee wheeee 

There were dragonflies, mostly darners, who stay dead still, posing, right up to when I lift my phone, then outta here, so you need to take my word for them.

Today's reading is 

I must say Max Daniels' readers have presented me with a variety of reading, all good. This one's a murder mystery, clean summer fun.

It's a Sydney, Oz, based narrator writing in first person about a Boston based cast of characters with an on-site adviser who becomes a character in the novel the Boston narrator character is writing on an  Australian literary scholarship. With me so far? Hang in.

Real locations, main characters meet in the reading room of the famous library, hear a scream, later established as a murder happening, and they form a detection gang. 

So far, so interesting. Definitely recommended as a layered work with sliding effects thrown in.

In other breaking news, I'm thinking of ditching the current Tunisian sock, which is developing into a scratchy fabric, but looking for other yarn to keep on with the concept.

It has to be easy care, for the recipients, so I may steal back some yarn from the weighted warp experiment, and substitute other yarn.

The weighted warp is still going to happen. I can't let Penelope down. Or the Scandinavian women who wove the linen sails for Viking ships this way. 

Thus enabling the men to invade my ancestral land, rape and pillage and generally act like really bad visitors, but nevermind.

Happy day everyone, live now not thousands of years ago.

Tuesday with knitting and reading and flowers and Textiles and Tea

Tuesday is always fun, and packed.

Yesterday I did a little here goes nothing painting/drawing

Something about July makes painting and drawing happen.

And I'm reading a series of books none of whose authors I knew before they came recommended in Max Daniels' column from Modern Daily Knitting. All good so far.

Currently it's 

I don't have much interest in weddings or in bridezillas but to my surprise I absolutely had to find out how this came out. Credit also for good writing, good usage and general literacy, rarer than a person might think.  Great summer reading.

And look who showed up this morning 

Angel Eye hibiscus. This afternoon Breck emailed a request to review it. Do these guys read my blog? 

Then this afternoon the Tuesday knitting group was fun again, two new people, one returning person and all the usual suspects. 

Skilled knitter helping a novice get organized 

This is a bunny in progress. Difficult pattern.

Cotton sweater under way 

This beginning embroiderer has reawakened my inner stitcher 

Here's a total beginner, doing her first slip knot 

And here she's well under way 

Our sashiko stitcher returned with the finished work 

This is a truly superior knitter, with yet more beautiful socks and wearing a sweater she made.

It was a lovely afternoon with convo ranging over music performance, weaving, honorific titles, confidence, sewing without a pattern, travel, jetlag, tatting, conferences, textile history, thrift stores and more.

Then to the bank to yay, deposit my real estate senior refund. 

Then home to Textiles and Tea with brilliant tapestry weaver,  writer, drawloom weaver, Joanne Hall. 

Just marvel at her work.

This sky series is about Montana, the big sky state, and was commissioned for a public building there. 

It was the Montana weavers guild who sponsored this episode of T and T, very proud of her.

Making any tapestry is demanding. Making giant ones single-handed is an amazing feat. This one is in a hospital in Texas, featuring Texan wildflowers.

This was her first work on a draw loom, many years ago

This is a cartoon, the artist-created tapestry pattern that goes behind the warp threads as a guide

and here's a  tribute to her American and Swedish heritage

And a whimsical wooden shoe design.

She's such an artist, good humored and a great teacher by all accounts.

Happy day, everyone! I certainly had one.

We got air! Sunshine too!

Today we're back in clean air, and energy and walking 

What a difference when you can't chew on the air.

At home I put the Splitleaf in various locations, ending up like this, with the coleus for company.

It's paying for its keep by disguising the bare patch.  It's squashed up against the house because it's so unbalanced it won't stay upright. But there are roots coming out so if it sinks them in, it will solve its own problem.

And look, thistle flowers, now birds and butterflies should show up 

And the hibiscus is ready to explode 

The sweet William are having a second act. I left them after blooming to drop seed, but here's what's happening 

I didn't know they did this.

Meanwhile I did get a walk, a bit out of shape from being in the house, but I spotted a job for the site manager to take his mind off fun stuff in yards.

I notified him with nearest house number and requested action.  Teehee.

Further on, the daylilies are over but the feverfew or whatever these aster type flowers are, have started.

About HOA site managers, I've known a few it being a revolving door job usually either to be promoted if competent or let go if not. Unless you're connected then you get promoted without being competent.

It's a job that attracts quirky characters who get bees on certain areas. One went mad about window coverings -- all supposed to show white outside, no matter what color inside -- then was gone before anyone responded. 

Another decided porch lights, style, brightness, were his thing, issued all kinds of instructions and buying options, I wondered if his brother in law was in the business, and moved on before anyone changed anything.

Our current manager is in fact pretty competent and quick to get real issues, downed trees, dead geese, dumping, sorted. But he's a parking nut. Sends out pictures of how not to park over the sidewalk, etc. 

Those of us who've been here a minute know to just let it go, not get airiated about it. Yorkshire expression, the meaning probably clear. 

So I've given him something to do, like distracting a toddler.  Here's a downed tree, let's see what you can do with it.

I think I'll paint a bit today. Just in the mood.

Happy day, don't sweat the small stuff.  Most of it's small stuff.