Chop Wood Carry Water Find String

Today I did laundry before I ran out of clothes and before temperatures get into the high 90sf, when I won't want to put on the dryer.

Then I made a gallon of laundry liquid because now I was completely out of it. 

Then I got on with my Band! As you see, this is from the cover of the band book and has been the goal. When I started seems like ages but it's only a couple of weeks ago, I wondered if I could get to that degree of competency. It's a cover band, you might say.

It's working out pretty well. This is a traditional Sami band. Here's where the loom is good. 

I can easily work just one motif then leave it, more easily than unhitching the backstrap. This motif is 22 picks (lines) long so it's good to rest regularly. It stays right where it is till I get back to it.

And now despite my saying I don't have to find uses, a couple of bands have found uses, as you see.

Here's a terrific tutorial from Ash, where she demonstrates hand stitching very well. What I like most is that she knows the difference between blanket stitch and buttonhole stitch. My people! 

Most self taught, even school taught, learners don't, and they haven't learned the different functions of the two stitches. I've even been told it doesn't matter.

To an experienced hand sewer, it's like saying to a carpenter that a claw hammer and a ballpeen are the same thing. Anyway, I'm happy in the presence of an expert who knows what's what.

About the string. Gary was just over. In search of green string. Which I provided. 

Anyone fearing he'd be gone need not. The move yesterday was just the breakables. In two weeks the bigger stuff goes. Meanwhile carloads of boxes are moving. Also carloads of houseplants, hence the string.  If he's moved by late June I think that's a good estimate.

Meanwhile stand by with string.

Happy day everyone, bands, socks, string, it's all good, sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula 

New band striking up, and cotton

I'm about to weave the band I originally had in mind when I thought about this whole bandweaving idea. I now have more knowledge and skills and I'm hopeful. 

Sorting the warp threads after deciding on colors 

The heddle threaded and ready to mount on the loom.  This design is a Sami traditional one. You'll see.

These bands aren't exactly for anything other than the experience of making them, and if they develop a use that's fine, but it's not a goal. They can just be. 

I'm studying the great fiberartist Anni Albers just now. I was able to get her classic book on hoopla, and it's brilliant.

She talks about the intersection of art and engineering in textile arts, and how we're lacking in opportunities to experience texture, in a predigested world full of images and readymades. 

She taught at Black Mountain College, in the 1940s, as a Bauhaus proponent, after she was obliged to escape the Nazi regime in Germany, along with her husband. What a powerhouse she was in art.

She experimented with weave structures, unusual materials and had great respect for the ancient textile artists of Peru and other civilizations. 

Originally a painter, she was forced into the fiberarts by the sexism of the contemporary painting world, denying her opportunity, and her own physical disability limiting her movement, and she triumphed. The fiberarts world gained a genius. 

Meanwhile, speaking of fiber, my cotton plants are doing well, soon to go outside, a couple promised to another gardener. 

She grew cotton last year and I got the cotton bolls from her, but the seeds I harvested are doing better than hers this year,so I'm giving back.

Happy day everyone, grow all the things or get them from your friends.

Flower filled walk and Misfits

Before I went walking I did a bit of finish work on my bands and here's the collection to date, most recent at the top

I alternated the places of the knots so they'd lie smoothly.

Little rabbit so young he didn't realize he should run, squirrel on the fence alerting him

And here's a natural gargoyle in a tree root.

Ramon is in charge of Misfits delivery today 

Usual cans to share with the food pantry, beautiful large brown eggs, for a quiche or two, with leafy greens already in the freezer, chocolate chips and bar because they're nutritious. Or something. 

Strawberries, cherries, apricots, for eating fresh or as jam, depending on how they taste. Bananaz maybe strawberry banana smoothie..

Spaghetti for when I can't think what to make, always easy with diced tomatoes in the house. I have plenty of cheese, too, to make a tomato-cheese-egg bake for the no-idea days. Spicy plant sausage likewise.

Meanwhile supper chez Boud on Misfits day 

Two egg two cheese omelette, with fruit.

Happy day everyone, the larder is filled chez Boud. I hope yours is too. And I'm sure you share, sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula.

Misfits and a weaving Discovery

 I started on the second woven lanyard and found a surprising pattern. The first lanyard worked like tapestry, weft faced, mainly I now realize because the warp and weft were the same yarn. And it was quite broad.

When I started working with a much thicker yarn for the weft, this happened 

I love this narrower band, and the birdseye pattern that developed. So cool. Exactly the same warp, same heddle, same plain weave, but the difference was amazing. I can see getting into more of this exploration. 

The width, I think, is a function of how far the heddle is from the working thread. I'm learning a lot. But as you work, you get closer to the heddle and this can affect your width. 

And as you're reaching further to work, you need to roll up the developing band and rethink the heddle position. There's quite a bit of decision making in this apparently simple process.

I heard back from the Knitting ministry, yes they'd like them. So we're on.

Then Misfits arrived, afternoon shift 

Start to finish, which includes sweeping the kitchen floor and flattening and tying the box.

Canned goods for the food pantry, and two bags of apples, I ordered one, but I'm not complaining, chicken thighs, bone-in, good for eventual soup,  spinach and scallions for a salad, peanut butter because the granola bars are becoming a staple, bananas to slice into yogurt. I had to go for fat-free yogurt, my whole milk yogurt was sold out, everyone's catching on.  

I'm doing a lot of roasted veggies these days, with seasalt and olive oil. Just diced and roasted. Lunch today tiny potatoes, diced onion, spinach, broccoli and carrots. I'm definitely adding onion in from now on, a nice flavor lift. Yogurt beaten with lime juice and sugar with blueberries for dessert. 

It's all good. Happy day everyone, it's a good day when you make a discovery.

Lanyards and Misfits

I'm about two thirds through the bandwoven lanyard to go with the anti-ICE whistle.  

You see here how I've improvised a way to advance the warp and keep it from unrolling as I work my way up. I've rolled and tied it on a handy shuttle, the ends of which I slide through loops on my backstrap (in fact bathrobe) belt, to keep it taut. 

You have to do this to be able to  reach the heddle as the work lengthens, while still keeping tension on the warp threads. 

And Misfits, it's Thursday as of this writing.

Rameer, with a seasonal hat and a cheery grin and wave as always 

And here's the haul. Canned goods for the food pantry, rainbow carrots to steam, a surprise since I expected the regular, Tony's Chocolonely, to share with the soup-bringing neighbor, broccoli because it's been a while, feta cheese to sprinkle over steamed broccoli.

Bananas because I can, beautiful brown free range eggs which I now have a lot of, not realizing I'd ordered them again, plenty of coffee because I got to the last grain yesterday and that wasn't a good thing, pure cane sugar, fair trade, to beat into yogurt with banana slices and for other purposes, as they say in Congress.  Aren't those apples beautiful? One-a-day morning break. 

As usual it's hard to know why these foods are discounted, because they look fine to me.

I'm getting used to seeing a space outside the door, no longer thinking my car's been swiped. The refund for the auto insurance arrived, very welcome. 

Gary came to collect his begonia and it's looking good. I suggested a bigger pot, because it's really outgrowing the one it's in, and he may or may not do it. Then a few minutes later came dashing back in search of car keys he dropped somewhere, but not here 

Happy day everyone, sometimes it's good when there's nothing there, car, begonia, whatev,  you know. This doesn't apply to car keys.