Departures of a palm and other good things

Yesterday Gary and friend came to collect the tall palm, and the next door tenant seized the chance to make him take another big plant he wanted to leave there. Timing.

The palm is reclining in there, on two seats.

 Shortly to be joined by a large pony palm 

Here's the open space left

And the rearranged plants looking much more compact. I like this.

Meanwhile the wheeled platform I'd made for the tall palm is now reassigned to my  box of weights. They're under the coffee table so that I remember to use them. Now they're movable, too.

This was great. Turns out the other pony palm belongs to me. I thought I only had custody.  So we're all done with the plants.

Then Tuesday Knitting group, and a lively group with new and returning members.

I started a new knotting project with more threads. This could be any width, really. Another participant watches me a while and plans to try this herself.

 

Marvelous sock knitting, expert level, and she's always happy to show beginners how to get going.

Here's the beginning embroiderer, no longer a beginner, doing very well.

This expert knitter is wearing her own work 

So's this one 

Knitting, knotting, crochet, embroidery, all in action.

Talk ranged over cat behavior, afternoon concerts, English pronunciation, poutine, Montreal, social media, Ravelry, early cellphone use, group chat, diamond rings and more.

Then home to a pot of tea, and Textiles and Tea with a fifth generation weaver, closely associated with the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

Here she is with her granddaughter, another weaver

Here, underneath, an overshot piece woven by her granddaughter, on top an overshot piece woven by her grandmother. 

Here's part of a retrospective exhibit for her 85th birthday 

She makes garments too

 Early pictures of Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts 

She survived the 2016 Gatlinburg Tennessee,wildfires which ravaged large areas and many homes

Her home and car were incinerated, the car melted and running down what had been the driveway. She lost a lifetime of looms, yarn, everything.

In response to my question about recovering from the fire her granddaughter showed pictures of weavings from after the fire, with pieces of the melted car incorporated. 

Frances gave the weavings for permanent holding to a local exhibit venue, just didn't want them around her after she worked through the losses of all kinds 

Look her up, she's a treasure, an artist and weaver, a survivor and a historian, from a long line of similar women.

Happy day everyone. I certainly had one.

Thrill packed Tuesday

The day started with packing a couple of woven items for a friend, to be mailed on the way back from the Tuesday knitting group, which didn't exactly happen, read on.

Since there's a thriftie stop in Wednesday's plan, I needed cash from the bank. Then I realized ah, I can get cash at the PO when I mail the doings. Two in one. 

Meanwhile the Tuesday group met, with projects in knitting, including knitter-spun yarn hand dyed by another knitter, crochet, and embroidery.

Chat roved over home projects -- playhouse for grandchildren, refurbed and painted -- vacation, tech workarounds, tai chi, Stratford Ontario summer theater, paneer, sourdough bread, honesty seeds, mosaic crochet, Izzy dolls, amigurumi, heatwaves, YouTube and more.

Then off to the PO to mail the package and get cash. The poor lady explained nothing was working, computer down, she couldn't do anything till it came back online, who knew when.

So the trip to the bank was on again. That worked, cash now in purse, and the friend driving me,  determined to get the package to its destination said she'd send it from her PO after dropping me off. Which she did, reporting that it took a couple of tries for them to get it done, too,and surly to boot.

Then a bit late to Textiles and Tea with a marvelous New Zealand weaver, Agnes Hauptli , originally German, now very established as a weaver and teacher in NZ. The comments were packed by NZ weavers and her students, what a loyal turnout.

Look at her work, the finest of threads, silk and alpaca, elegant cloth. She rarely makes more than one of an item. 

One exception -- one time she was commissioned to create one hundred scarves from cervelt, the most expensive, deer sourced, yarn in existence. She did that one 

She wove the self portrait she uses as a headshot. What a force of nature and such a laughing happy woman, it was end to end fun.

As was my Tuesday, come to think of it. Wednesday is the dentist and the thriftie. It's all good.

Happy day everyone, life's a workaround.

Testing, back to the drawing board. Wherever it is.

 Just trying something from the phone

Waiting waiting, from the fire tablet

As you see, it can't get over the last mile, and play.

I've been experimenting with videos, to see if I can ever upload to here. Or anywhere. At one time to upload to blogger you needed to go via your YouTube channel.

Now there seems to be an option to go direct to blogger.  Which sort of loaded but won't open from any source.

But several hours of trying and not getting anywhere have reminded me that Google, owners of YouTube, and Amazon, owners of the fire tablet, don't play well together, and that Amazon's playstore is hopelessly disorganized. 

I bought a camera app to improve my tablet's usefulness for video and can't find it to install. Amazon's instructions clearly don't apply to my tablet though they assured me it was eligible. Maybe Handsome Son can help me track it down.

I learned a lot, found I'd inadvertently opened a YouTube channel, and was  able to upload a trial video through a website giving me a one-time guest access to YouTube Studio, which opened up the works. 

This requires the YouTube Studio app, which I then installed more than once on my phone, before concluding it wasn't going to operate more than a couple of commands, none letting me in to upload. I can edit, title, describe the crummy little test video, but I can't do much else. 

I'm guessing my phone's too old. Sigh.  But I did learn quite a few things even though I don't have much to show for it. 

It reminded me that the fire tablet is neither Android nor not, so a lot of made for Android options don't run on it. I wasn't aware of this when I got the tablet which still serves me well anyway for a lot of functions.

And though I don't particularly want to start a regular YouTube channel, I notice a lot of videos saying how easy it is! Just use what you have!  That may not apply to me.

I also tried to upload a short video to Spoutible, buffering endlessly. Zero for four. I need to learn more.

EXCITED ED NOTE  I concluded the Spoutible video was too long, learned to edit it and tried again. It worked, it worked.  I really needed that bit of success. 

Because torrential rain is forecast today I decided against the knitting group, likewise the DVD pickup at the library and the package of knits to the post office. I may bake a chocolate cake in case Handsome Son drops in tomorrow. If so, he may help me with errands. TBD.

In other news, the mirror has been picked up from the dumpster and the other piece is now being rained on so I've removed the post.

Today's Textiles and Tea featured Svetlana Turov, a Russian Canadian felting artist who works in mixed media, adding precious stones and minerals to her work, sometimes painting into it, though her dyed colors are intense. 

She's featured in books sold at the Hermitage, on the history of felt art, and writes on it.

She's a force of nature! Her husband has favorites among her work and would like to keep them, but she insists the energy has to get out there!  Check her website. Felting of this kind is labor intensive and beautiful.

Happy day everyone. The rain lasted a few seconds then went away, so much for forecasting. But I think it will be back.