Packed day yesterday.
Textiles and Tea was a really outstanding basket maker, who has been involved in African art and has great respect for African basketry skills. He's wildly inventive, as you see!
with whole wheat pita, to make sure of all the sauce.
I was weaving and stitching, with interruptions, more like irruptions, from Gary, who's laying new floors, I know, I hear the tappity-tap at all hours, and winnowing as he goes. He just shows up, knowing I'll help rehome stuff. He tends to shop aspirationally, very good items, then somehow doesn't use them.
Such as
Nearly all of them I put on freecycle, got fast takers and a waiting list, and they're now on my step ready for their new owners.
Amidst this, I've been stitching, and here's where I am,
with this in progress
Weaving is happening every morning (except today, eye checkup, dilation, all that, this morning) and yesterday there wasn't anything to show you, because I'd spent my weaving time tightening warp threads and pawing through roving, nothing pictorial happening. I think I'll use only wool roving, for the warmth,"not the cotton. It's already feeling very good, though my skills are still a bit wobbly with the big heddle.
With back strap, if you use a rigid heddle, it's suspended in mid air in the warp threads, no resting place, so you lift and hold with one hand, feed weft with the other. I don't have a big enough shuttle for this width, so I've been handfeeding the weft. I may create one, though, a bit dodgy hand feeding.
Here you see my somewhat artisanal results to now, and here I thought you'd like to see the back strap loom setup.
Yesterday I was talking languages elsewhere, mainly fluency, or the lack, and I included British and American English. They are very different in use. I mainly write American style, but with occasional nods to my birth language.
It reminded me of a Russian home health aide, helping with Handsome Partner, who said, well here at work I speak American, and at home Russian. You and A. speak American to me, but in the evening, when everyone's gone, do you switch to English? We explained that they're very similar, but pronounced and emphasized differently, not quite different languages.
In a way, yes. When we relaxed into our natural speech, it was different. It's hard for people who hear me and think that's soooo Brit, to realize that it's far from my comfortable range, which would be close to unintelligible to friends here. They don't notice the thousands of daily adjustments I make for their benefit, just notice the places where it's physically not possible. Not complaining, just observing.



















