Tuesday knitting group and a stunning Textiles and Tea

The knitting group was fun. Again. New member and one onlooker. Here's some of our projects 

B.  working a sock in magic loop

My sock in progress on double pointed needles

Various projects, shawl in assigned pooling, silk camisole, colorwork sweater

My narrow band weaving was examined and approved. 

Our chat ranged over learning to knit -- the new member was promptly signed up for knitting classes taught at the library by one of our group-- medical events, school reunions, birthdays, fibers, opera, ai in medical use, vacations and more.

Once again my ride announced that she was the designated driver -- arranged with the usual friend, then explained to me! My regular driver (!) was involved in home reno, and couldn't leave the contractor.

Home again to an amazing Textiles and Tea, with a mixed media weaver using precious metals - if it looks like gold or silver, it is -- semi precious stones and a wide variety of industrial and art materials in his work. He's also cute, but I digress.

The last two images are details of the portrait above, one of a series in progress.

He's a winner of prestigious awards and for a young artist, very much established on the international scene. Several of these works were commissioned by collectors in Dubai and embassies in the Middle East. They reflect the culture and expectations of the region. He's currently based in New York, but is originally from Limoges.  He's working on a piece for this year's Art Basel. 

So that was Tuesday, full of adventure in textiles.

Happy day, everyone, weave gold! First spin your straw..

Dismissed and glad, also socks

Last week Gary arranged to drive me today to the ortho who did Hippolyta a year ago, annual checkup. I called him to confirm this morning and he had forgotten. But he said he'd still do it. Then he and another neighbor showed up at the door -- she was taking over! Fine by me. 

And the surgeon told me my X-ray this morning was excellent, asked a few questions, manipulated my joint around, and said, all's well. If you feel like it you can come back in five years. I pointed out that this was a bit optimistic at this point but he said, correctly, you never know! 

So I did a happy dance on the way to the car.  Yay me.

And while I wait for the longnameshuttle which is in transit, to start weaving,  I started a pair of socks, using yarn I found while I was sorting out what to use in the weaving.

I think almost all my yarn is variegated. This one has cheerful colors and it's machine washable, fine for the Sock 'n Glove 'n Whistle Ministry.

Once home I took a walk to the pond and saw the first turtle of the year, cruising around, head above water, then diving and showing their underwater skillz.

A heads-up for May 1, on Friday. Traditional day for workers to celebrate, even a canonical Catholic feast day, St Joseph the Worker. This year there's a national shutdown on work and spending. Some people simply can't take the day off, but we can all do something. Sand in the gears. Make employers notice. Make everyone notice.

This blog will honor our workers and send my part of the message to big money. We'll go dark on Friday.

Happy day everyone, let's hope your joints are jumpin'.

Mystery plant revealed and weaving goes on

I spent the morning threading up for a new woven band, and have a design picked out from Susan Foulkes book. 

From this

To this 

I think I'll wait for my new Sami Stoorstalka Gehpa shuttle

to get to work on this. The Sami are people in northern Scandinavia, and these shuttles were originally made from reindeer horn. Mine is some modern substance.

And I got a surprise in the living room. A while back I brought in some azalea to force bloom. And today it did. 

Outside the azaleas are barely beginning.

The rain stopped and I got out for a walk to ease my aching back -- threading is engrossing and when you stop, you realize you can hardly straighten up.

And here's the dogwood, and miniature violas

Then, on the patio, one of my app-owning friends tells me, this is Sweet William.

It was probably among the seeds I strewed last spring, since I believe they come up from seed in the second year. I love Sweet William, so I'm hopeful.

Lovely day today and another Guinness movie planned this evening.

Happy day, everyone, watch what you invent, it may surprise you. See plot of TMITWS sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula. They're not planning to create anything other than havoc.

 

Saturday was wall to wall rain

So I read and watched YouTube and read and wove this, ta-daaaah! One side then the other 

I learned a lot from doing this, and I'd really like one of the shuttles the Durham Weaver uses, which is multipurpose -- shuttle, pickup stick and beater all in one. I was juggling several makeshift ideas to do what it does in one pass. I must find out what it is.

Anyway I'm quite pleased with this first try.

And I had an afternoon matinee with Alec Guinness 

What a marvelous movie, Guinness playing multiple roles, well, an all star cast. 

Happy day everyone if wet.

ANZAC Day 2026

 Please join me again in our annual honoring of the brave troops, mostly teenagers,  who crossed the planet to fight in World War One, and fought on this day in the Gallipoli landings, against impossible odds. Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The day is now enlarged to encompass all those who died in wars, and the hope of leaving war behind forever.

 Thank you, Australian and New Zealand friends,  their compatriots, survivors and families. I will never fail to honor your courage and generosity. 

Weaving thrills and spills, and other Friday stuff

Today I needed to get out for various errands -- pick up movie from the library, leave donation at the food pantry, mail out art at the post office, and the first friend I asked came running over to explain why she couldn't drive me! 

She's suddenly dealing with multiple doctors for sudden multiple issues, serious stuff, and today was a doctor appointment an hour away. I didn't know she was in this situation, and she was so sad, said she'd much rather run errands with me! But she did get a sympathetic ear anyway and I think that was good. So Gary came through, and all was accomplished.

 I've been trying to get my weaving started, having decided to remove the threaded piece that came with the loom, maybe use it some other way. 

And I ran into every beginner issue you can imagine, and some you can't. 

From finding one of the pattern warps, important one, was too short and having to replace it, not easy wrangling all the threads to replace one, to accidentally sliding the heddle off the end of the threads and having to rethread almost completely, to rethreading wrong, to being interrupted at a critical point to help a neighbor with some information, it was thrills and spills.  

And the thread isn't packing down well -- it's braided rather than plied, next time I'll know. My hands kept locking up, making it really tricky to do fine threading and getting the tension right. In the yarn. My own tension was pretty high.

However, I persisted.

And it's under way. I've learned how to stabilize the warp threads -- that's what those knitting needles are about -- and to follow the pattern you see on the right. You can see the diamond shapes starting to appear, yay!   Vroom, vroom.

In other news I heard of a shawarma spice blend yesterday, to go with tofu, so I made some, had all the ingredients to hand, 

And I'm doing a test run for supper

I like my own mixes.

Happy day everyone, mix your own. Spice, martini, whatever floats yer boat.

Information and actions from Earth Day, tofu, loom, Misfits

I came out of the Earth Day online rally last night with new information on what's happening in Newark to stop further pollution, and links to help. There was  encouragement to speak up, every voice matters, from distinguished national weather scholars and officials from earlier admins when the gummint took the environment seriously. It was an evening well spent.

Sleep having decided to blow where it listeth, I woke at 2am ready to go. So I made a cup of coffee, slice of olive bread and downloaded Margareta Magnusson's book on old age. She's the author of Swedish Death cleaning. 

She wrote 

during the pandemic, when she was 86, and a good bit frailer than I was at that age. 

But she had a resolute good humor about difficulties. Always an artist, she was interested in so much, even when her physical horizons shrank. I just checked and found she died only a couple of weeks ago at 91. She had an interesting life well lived.

It was a quick read, after which I slept till the reasonably hour of 7am.

Today's Misfits, so here's the bag outside.

At the moment the boxes and ice blocks are going to Gary. 

Meanwhile, I needed lunch and made red lentil tofu, cooked in a sauce of scallions, soy sauce, Worcestershire, apple cider vinegar and ketchup. This was so good. Enough for two more meals. From half a cup of red lentils, one cup water, salt. 

Plain mixed green salad, plenty of flavor in the sauce. 

And, before Misfits, came the loom!!

They're serious about beginners -- it arrived ready threaded and started! 

So maybe I'll do something with this before I get onto the pattern weaving. Or maybe I'll adapt and make it into my first patterned band, whoa. As you see it has multicolored warp threads. There are possibilities there. And the heddle is a different dent (warp threads per inch) so it doesn't duplicate the one I have.

This is a nice deal, heddle and shuttle included, aside from the work they did, in case the buyer didn't know how. Maybe this is self defense against multiple calls for help! 

Then Misfits finally arrived, Ramon, on the afternoon shift, driving a nonpink truck.

Cans for the food pantry, enough bread for the foreseeable future as well as the loaf I found in the freezer when I was in there for something else.

 Fusilli because I like curly pasta, lovely Envy apples, they've been excellent lately, potatoes ready to parboil for roasting, Bananaz to ripen a day or two, yogurt to go with them.

 Lovely brown eggs for all kinds of plans, including egg 'n chips -- fries-- quick meal, chocolate covered almonds because times are haaaard, and I expect they're nutritious.

What a great day. 

A bonus -- I'm packing a small framed artwork to ship, and having a bit of a time finding packing materials. So the bubble wrap from the eggs and the packing paper from the loom will be pressed into service. 

Happy day everyone, do all the things then lie down.

Still mine, dammit.