Clasped weft, and taking it to the post office

Yesterday I was feeling up to weaving, and here's a sequence showing you what this clasped weft idea means. 

I decided to use the frame loom I repaired and it's working just fine, particularly the heddle bar.  I used three colors for the warp, the tan one being some yarn I spun 

Here's the heddle inserted ready to go 

This is how clasped weft works. Two weft threads instead of one, one looped over the other

Then you draw the thread across and it pulls the other color along, to where you decide to stop

You can make all kinds of interesting shapes by simply pulling the second, clasped,  thread over. I made it more complex by using three colors so quite a few different effects happen in what's really a simple piece.

It's a lovely technique which I haven't done for a while. I may make a band using this approach, too.

I had an irruption by Gary last evening wanting me to identify a plant, was it poison ivy? We have a lot, reasonable precaution. We also have a lot of Virginia creeper which he gets confused with it. 

I came out to look, because I'd removed a couple of poison ivy runners from my yard. But his plant, also one he'd seen at a neighbor's house, were something else. 

He's definitely planning on paving me a patio out front in the summer. I think he'll be around here quite a bit.  Meanwhile he gave me his relative/tenant's cell number, and his daughter's.  I've known them both for years but never had their numbers. 

He's now ordering window treatments for s couple of dozen windows. The new house is large! I seized the opportunity to remind him to retrieve his plants when he's ready.

Happy day everyone, I think my four windows and a skylight are enough to handle right now.

Before you go, please go to Marcia's blog New Decade New Chapter New Hampshire, and see yesterday's post. It's birdsbloomsbooksetc on Blogger.

She gives all the details on how to protest the USPS proposed interference in the elections.  You can email or write, in the comment period which ends early July. So please go there, get the info, and do that. 

Great resistance, and thank you, Marcia! Public service!

So bring back the Pony Express 6WS

They do say that wearing tight shoes keeps your mind off your troubles.  And my local tight shoes have driven out a little bit the grinding worry and fear that is our daily lot around this nation.

Partly it's funny, since I went from bring worried, about my hitches, to being trumpishly enraged, to being long suffering, to finding it too funny and trivial in comparison to the rest of the world, to dwell on.

It went thus:  At the end of December, the coupon book came to start the new year of HOA dues, new booklet, preprinted address label, all that.  Duly wrote out the January fee, two weeks ahead of the deadline, stamped, sent via local post office, and waited for it to show up in my bank account. Did likewise with utility bill.  All preprinted, return address, everything, first class, no danger of my handwriting causing problems.  And likewise waited for the bank account to indicate the payment had been credited.

And waited, and emailed the HOA to say I'd paid them, and so on.  Three times.  One line response: we have not received it.  Oooookay. Since it was first class mail, I checked with my local carrier, nice guy, who had the boxes all open, had clearly already emptied the outgoing box into his official plastic crate, unlikely he was the cause.  Talked to the people at the PO who assured me that there was no way of knowing why it hadn't come back, or got there.  That they handle millions of pieces, etc.  I forbore to point out that my town pop 20K did not handle millions of pieces at the end of December, nor did the next stop, Trenton, nor the final regional center, Plainfield.  Asked him to alert the Postmaster of the problem.  He glumly agreed to do that once he got in.

Then two days later, amazingly, both bills were credited to my accounts.  Same day, totally different agencies.  Which puts the question mark on the post office.  And my dark suspicions on the fact that having sat on the mail for over four weeks, said mail suddenly arrived, unharmed at its destinations. Two days after my complaints.

Not before I'd had alerts telling me I was in arrears, and had sent in replacement checks to cover the difference, and gone on to start setting up direct debit instead of this malarkey.  So now both have received two payments onto my account, the utilities now three payments, since I paid up twice...scream. Hoping they will credit me correctly. It hit my bank account at a low point, but I did not get into an overdraft situation.  And today a letter from the HOA telling me I must have overlooked them, and please send in thus much by Monday...drafted before they received my payment, I suppose. And sent first class, but we now know that's no guarantee.

This reminds me of a similar deal years ago, when my favorite magazine was arriving creased and battered and pretty much worn out.  When I complained to the then postmaster, he said, oh well, you are the only people in town with your last name, so it gets put by itself in a huge mailbag and gets tossed about.  Just normal wear and tear.  

I looked at him steadily like a mom eyeing a lying toddler, and said, well, how does that account for the crumbs I'm finding in the pages?  there was peanut butter this time, too.  Oh.  Rubs size 12 shoe around, well, I'll check up on it.  And from then on not a moment's trouble.  Magazine arrived in pristine condition.  I became the first reader of it.  I did offer to bring it in if they wanted to read it in the lunchroom, as long as I got it first...silence, redness.

And I wonder if someone just hadn't taken care of all the mail until they were alerted this time. I say alerted, but I was pretty firm and relentless asking how could this happen, and what was the point of first class mail, and why didn't it come back to me, etc.  Poor Rich, he was the unlucky guy on the counter when I came in.  I bet other people are being surprised the same way with letters suddenly arriving.

It's a total round trip of less than fifty miles, door to door for each of my bills.  Pony Express would have it there in maybe a day or less.

Meanwhile, since everything is Too Upsetting and I'm doing my Bit but it's such a little Bit, I decided to start on my first WarmupAmerica blanket section. They have to be 7x9 inches, so I decided, after making a cardboard template to avoid a lot of measuring, to work corner to corner, to have a better shot at accurate sizing.  Here's one side

And here's t'other side

 No real front and back, random knitting, some open work, a bit of Shaker, whatever I feel like. It actually doesn't look very random, and you see where I am on this piece.  It does take a bit of calculating to get the rectangle right, when to stop increasing, sooner on one side than the other, etc.  And blocking will help, I expect. But anyway, it's under way. Working corner to corner always makes even a plain stitch look more interesting and mysterious.

And the library is starting a knitting circle, Friday afternoons from mid February, so I might join in there.  Probably everyone needs to Do Something, and this is my thing for the good cause.