Crochet success, pond walk, and third party Freecycle

Beautiful morning, and I was out early, walking, and feeling more energy. It's a particularly rugged allergy season and I have to take all kinds of drops and compresses and pills, to cope with terminally swollen itchy eyes and sneezing. I try to take as little as I can manage without, because it drags me down. It's a balance. 

Anyway today's better and I had a great walk without wanting to lie down on the way back.

There were many rings on the surface, turtles and frogs, also water striders. And you may detect a golf ball in the water.

When I was taking out the garbage I spotted this perfectly good stuff left there. Probably wouldn't fit on the truck, or maybe too expensive to move it.

So I put a picture on Freecycle as a drive by, giving location and explaining it's not mine. 

But chances are I'll get emails asking me various questions and requesting I hold it, and other things people think up. 

I'll disregard them, not get into an email exchange. I've done my bit and it's going to rain so I urged anyone interested to get over soon.

While I was in Freecycle I saw this wanted post 

Hm. Maybe the gilded look is spreading beyond Washington? Ew.

I have turned a corner with the crochet.

I now know what I'm doing. That broad bit at the bottom wraps around the back of the heel, and will be stitched. Now I'm working the sole of the foot.   

It wasn't only the stitch that was tough, but doing it with accommodations for what is now functionally a partly disabled hand. 

This work isn't pretty but it will work as a proof of concept and a template for a future project. I'm very pleased with what I've learned here.

And look what came in the mail. Comic relief.

This cracked me up. An exclusive club I don't qualify for! Could they be more oblivious of people's feelings? Medics certainly have a different way of seeing the world. I'm guessing it's my age range that's expected to be falling to bits.

Also my age range is probably why I'm getting many many offers to take the condo off my hands. For cash. Fast. Easy. Three texts and calls just today.

On the other hand, my doctor's office called this afternoon and announced that the recent blood work is normal. So there!

 In other good news: in NJ as of today it is illegal for stores to use variable pricing. That's where their surveillance shows your personal shopping information and charges different customers different prices for the same product.  So yay us. 

And, because of cyclobadstuff, I did check with Misfits about sourcing of produce and they tell me their records show no instances of involvement with the sus sources. So far so good. I'm still cooking what I can't peel though.

Today's reading, among other books, is this gripping story, historical fiction, of a young girl in a Venice orphanage, abandoned at birth by a young woman who couldn't keep her. 

The orphanage has a music program, and after flute, piano and voice, she turns out to be a violin prodigy who gets Vivaldi as her teacher.

It's very well written, understanding synaesthesia and its relationship to music and the drive of a child born to play. I'm liking this.

Happy day everyone, my new neighbor just showed up to borrow my stepladder, which just arrived back from Gary! Her (and his) granddaughter is available to help her hang drapes so she's seizing the day. 

Lily King, kitchen moves and dyers to the world

I just finished Writers and Lovers, the Lily King novel, which blew me away. I can't believe a novel about writers, among other tragedies, could be this gripping.  I usually find writers writing about publishing so exciting, nearly as good as grating carrots. 

But she's no everyday writer. She's powerful and I really recommend you read this.  I'll look for more of her work. 

This came out a few years ago, and it looks as if she brings out a new novel every few years, so I'm hoping there's another soon. She crafts sentences that just come at you, and knock your breath out.

Gary was reclaiming his plants this morning, very happy about how they managed in his absence, especially the snake plant that finally got going.  And he pruned large sections of his butterfly bush, because that too had flourished to the point where he had to stoop to walk under it.

He's thrilled with my morning glories, and I'm hoping for seeds so he can start some too.  And now he's thinking about a hibiscus, after seeing mine. If he has room.

I've started moving things out of the kitchen bit by bit before the repair work gets started. I don't have a date on that yet, but better do it bit by bit, because it's heavy work. And I'd rather do it myself so I know where things are. I think we've experienced helpful people putting things away so you never find them again. 

Like Handsome Son clearing the table a while back. Took me three days to find the salt. He'd filed it alphabetically with spices, instead of on the salt and pepper turntable with half a dozen salt types. Logical thinking which baffled me. But he assumed I had one salt, and probably one pepper. 

I have a ride to tomorrow's knitting group, and I had to organize a project to take with me. I resurrected this 

Late July, I thought I'd be wearing this by now, but one thing and another.. 

There was a presentation a couple of days ago,  Master Dyers to the World,on great dyers in India and Pakistan in the eighteenth century and earlier, by George Washington University Textiles, given by Lee Talbot.

The subject was the Bible of dyeing of that period, 

As usual with museum and collection presentations, the interest was largely in the provenance and quality of finished items. So it's not a place to learn about process or sourcing, or the social position of the makers. However, they do label their slides fully enough to give us place, techniques and current location, to follow up on.

The large tent with dyed woven hangings was the kind of moveable palace used by rulers in the Mughal period in India, conspicuous consumption. Often this kind of display was meant to convey the power of the ruler.

As dyers from India -- this was long before Partition, so India meant the whole subcontinent, including present day Pakistan -- developed high-level skills in dyeing and block printing cotton textiles, they dominated the market. Then came the industrial revolution, and Britain passed protectionist laws to prevent Indian textiles from being imported, in favor of the British textile industry. 

You see how Indian design had centered European taste and clothing for their export market. There's a lot of design from the subcontinent designed for Western tastes. And they catered to the developing Japanese market, their uses of textiles for wrapping as well as clothing and wall hangings. Thailand also imported from India.

I have a great catalog raisonnee from the Met exhibit a while back, on the history of textiles, which points out that Indian cloth, dyed, stamped and resist treated, was a key barter commodity in the flourishing spice trade.

This presentation was a look at one part of the skills and connections of a worldwide trade.

Happy day, everyone, so much to do!

More crochet, and walking exploits

Exciting showering this morning, then later a walk to the mailbox with HS, then still later a solo trip across the street to a neighbor's house. It's all go, this unassisted walking life.

HS is going home tonight so I've tried out everything while he's around, and it's worked fine.  

Meanwhile I got out the crochet and changed colors, now a bright white. 

I'm thinking irregular stripes in green, white and blue. The tension seems to be working better now, and the warmer weather is friendly to my hands, so I can work a bit longer each time.

In the midst of my listening to Heat and Dust read by Julie Christie,

Gary came in with a cactus that looks a bit over watered to me. He decided to move it outside the fence, and I didn't argue though there's rain in the forecast.  It might be sheltered under his butterfly bush.

Happy day everyone, May the Fourth be with you!

Sometimes it's good to not do something, as in watering cactus. I'm not very skilled at refraining, full disclosure, though not surprising. Anyway do this 

And here's the haggard Hawks puzzle solution 

Daffodils, creeping Jenny and bees

The season is moving forward in the daffodil community. Early daffodils have faded, mid season are just past their prime and the lovely late delicate daffodils are budding ready to open.

Here you'll see late daffodils in bud and the red tulips Gary planted starting to open. This has been a great year for bulbs.

And the next visitor, after the hairy bittercress has been around for a few days, is a favorite of mine, which showed up a couple of years ago. I think maybe this creeping Jenny hitched a ride on another plant. 

In some places it's an invasive nuisance but here it's a plant I like to see, which will form a carpet around the pachysandra, sometimes climbing right over it, and there will be small yellow flowers.

On the occasional warm day, bees are already out and about, and thanks to Chris, I'm reading a great book about all kinds of bees 

It's a serious study, but written in a way that total beginners on the bee scene can follow and learn. I know we have a few local species, and this year I plan to learn and identify more, as soon as they show up.

So that's where I am today, later I'll catch Textiles and Tea, and show you human made structures.

The crocheted piece so far is a monument to determination rather than art, but I'm learning with each stitch, so it counts. My story and I'm stickin to it.

Note to self 

Sez Ted