Multi celebration day to you! And other things happening

 Today's Mardi Gras, Lunar New Year and Ramadan.

I'm an earth tiger. I wonder how they get along with fire horses. I checked out Handsome Partner's sign, water monkey, and found it's not supposed to be compatible with any tiger sign. Hm.

And I finished the scarf. I really like it. Because its a soft yarn, it feels very good, too. Sometimes you get a surprise when a yarn that feels good in your hands is scratchy on your neck.

Closer so you can see the shape better.

Yesterday also involved food, the soupe du jour being cream of red lentil and sweet potato. And enough for several more meals.

This used up the lentils left over from the tofu earlier. Sprig of fresh peppermint. I'm surprised how well the peppermint is doing in the kitchen. I'd expected it to wither.

Then today eating all the colors

Toast with butter and garlic paste, same old soup,  pureed pumpkin with blueberries and honey. Getting up my strength for Tuesday Knitting Group.

Modeling a newly knitted vest from yarn she spun.

Same knitter with Resistance Hat

Our new members, a married couple crocheting together.

A muff in progress.

Various projects lying around and Toad's bathing suit in progress.

Accomplished crochet by the earlier crocheter

Lovely shawl soon to go to a relative, while her neighbor considers a new color contrast.

Lovely lively time, with a lot of laughing and talk ranging over pets, cats hunting, smart dogs, animal rescue, music, parking, knitting classes, houses, Goodwill, German porcelain, guard dogs, FedEx, and more.

Home again in time for Textiles and Tea, and kente cloth and 

He inherited from his father a large weaving company in Ghana. The first president after Ghana got independence in 1957, Kwame Nkruma, often wore the traditional kente cloth of the region. He commissioned it from Kwasi's father, because of the cultural significance of the fabric.

It's woven in cotton and silk in strips on narrow looms, nowadays, wider ones are in use, joined into the finished yardage.

Here's a giant piece commissioned for the UN building in New York, with the UN insignia embroidered on. The group picture shows officials in front of it, showing its size and importance. He wove this in three months with a team of weavers.  His father had made one earlier and both are now in the UN archives.

Here's a traveling loom he likes to use. This makes me want to weave immediately.

Left, traditional design, right, his own design.

Here he is at his home loom, all handmade. He explained that kente cloth has deep cultural and traditional significance, including colors, some kinds such as Ashanti, preferring neutral and earth tones and others like his, the brighter colors, from which the Ghanaian flag is derived.

Full Tuesday again, though next Tuesday a doctor's appointment will cut in to both the group and T and T. 

Happy day everyone, let's all do our bit.  Baby Juan was treated for bronchitis, but returned to the Dilley concentration camp. At least he's in the medical unit now, and let's hope there's medical care. I've now written to all my reps insisting they push for the release of all children from every ICE camp and to hold fast on no further funding for ICE till our demands are met, not just promised.

Lunar New Year, of the snake (trigger warning, picture)

 

The snake symbolizes wisdom and creative success among a lot of other things.  Let's hope for both of those.  

I love snakes, such beauty, and I also get that some readers fear them, so I'll make this a standalone post, and wish you a happy day. 

Spring greens and New Year

 A note on why we call it Lunar New Year, not attaching it to one Asian nation

 Yesterday was cloudy and mild, so I walked. And found hairy bittercress in full swing. I took a taste sample, yes, spicy like watercress, its relative. I have to pick my share before the rabbits see it off. It's their spring tonic, too.

And beautiful lichen on fallen branches. There's a lot down

 with recent storms.

Back home, while I watched the cow-flinging episode of Northern Exposure, largely about recovering from disaster and making art, I continued with the sampler of Tunisian crochet, to see if I could remember the knit stitch. That's the top few rows there, nice texture. The first few are in simple stitch.

The cow flinging was really great, about how it's not the product, it's the creating. As Chris explains, it's not what's flung, it's the fling! Words to live by!

Happy day everyone, remember the fling, however your fling looks!

Knitting group, octopi and penguins, happy new year of the dragon

 Gung hay fat choi!

Knitting group yesterday brought a mystery for you. Are you familiar with this, probably from the seventies? A member found it among her mom's stuff

we studied it and couldn't see the advantage over just crocheting with a hook. It claims you can use it for knitting patterns, too. Can anyone shine a light on this?

And lovely things came out, here a sweater in progress, sleeves to come, see the pockets?

 

A couple of babies are getting these amigurumi

And this is a great way to knit with black without tears, hold it with a bright color, and you'll get a city lights effect, works on both sides

Convo ranged over Ann Patchett, making safe toys, older people navigating well-meaning help, motion sensitive lights, Lunar New Year, playaway audiobooks, Tunisian crochet and heating in public buildings. 

You up for a puzzle? 

And for anyone who's ever hit publish then later noticed a typo

Happy day, everyone, dance like a dragon!

Happy Lunar New Year

It's the year of the rabbit, unless you're Vietnamese, then it's the year of the cat. For the Chinese, that figure in the moon is a rabbit. This year earth tiger, my birth sign, has given way to water rabbit, all about peace and prosperity. Sounds good.

Either way, cat or rabbit, good health, long life and good partying! Along with the many East Asian countries who celebrate.

Back home, I finished the pink mix gloves 

and did a bit more spinning. I decided that to satisfy my need to spin and to knit, I'd include the silk mix thread I've spun into the next gloves with some other yarn I found in the box under the roving. Blurry picture of same, dark rainy day.

It's a single, that's a single thread, not plied, so it works. I have no idea how much I need to spin, so I'll do it the way I did the vest of many colors. Just stop when I run out and spin a new supply! 

Serious spinners will be shocked that I've skipped the washing and weighting and drying and all the other approved steps before using the yarn. I did all that when I learned to spin, and when I was dyeing my yarn. 

But when the roving's already dyed, I don't see a downside up to now to skipping. I just knit sometimes right off the spindle. Gives a new meaning to just-in-time manufacturing.

About the terminology in this blog when I talk textiles. This is probably the downside to combining the two blogs, the art blog with this one. There the audience could be assumed to be was mostly familiar with the language if various arts, all of which are just everyday speech to me. In the combined blog perhaps not so much 

However I can't guess which terms are unfamiliar to readers. So I rely on you to alert me if you want an explainer, and I'll do my best. 

Just specify which words are obscure. I do try to guess, and often insert an explanatory phrase, but I'm open to hearing specific questions. 

Speaking of specific, the puzzle with all the ells is:

ILLEGALLY!  So you can now unfurrow your brow, very annoying when you've been assuming any puzzle answer is probably a noun. I did at first.

Happy evening everyone!  Celebrate if it's the start of your New Year and good health to all of us!