Wrong, right, wrong, arghghgh

This morning started with a 6:30 am call from the dentist's office asking if I could possibly move my time from 8 to 9. I concluded that either they had an emergency or someone hadn't made it out of bed. Anyway I agreed and texted Handsome Son to ask if he was willing. He was.

Then, neither mother nor son being fully awake yet, there was a who's on first text exchange.

 And so it came to pass, and as I expected, he prescribed a crown. No infection, no decay, no need for root canal, so he "shaped" meaning drilled and drilled and checked and drilled, made an impression, then fixed a temporary crown as they do, emptied my wallet, come back in three weeks for the permanent.

The only part that hurt was the payment. $1200, after a significant geezer, I mean senior, discount. 

So I've had yet another coronation. Porcelain with noble metal. Even my tooth has been ennobled. Bow please!  Sounds like the Mikado, bow, bow, to his daughter-in-law elect 

Moving on, it's ages since I made that trip and it was very nice, changes, interesting. Some people go to Croatia for a lovely change of scene. Some go to the dentist. 

Now the numbness is gone, my jaw hurts, dangit. It didn't before, but after being drilled and pressed and stuck open and generally dealt with, it's complaining a bit. 

I'm not, because he's a terrific dentist, very skilled, very calm, and I've sent him several friends who feared the dentist until they went to him and did much better. 

He also doesn't do more than he needs to, always a good thing when you're dealing with someone who knows a lot more than you do and it's all expensive.

Home again and I harvested the last of the honesty, this time strewing the seeds about to do what they want. That worked well last year. I'm sharing seeds tomorrow with the knitting group.

And I observed an interesting little insect strolling about on a daylily. It looked a bit truncated and at first I thought it was this 

This firefly doesn't light up, though its infant form does, so I thought maybe that's why its tail looks blunt, no light bulb.

Then I was kindly schooled by a Spoutible friend who said, no, no, it's this 

Ellen's a Senior Master Gardener so I didn't argue, and I think she's right. It's a grape leaf skeletonizer, but likes Virginia creeper too. There's no grapes for miles around but plenty of Virginia creeper, which is a pest, so he's welcome to eat as much as he can.

I also firmly stated that the lacy stuff looking like a spiderweb in my own daylily photo was a ring fungus mesothelium. Which it isn't, it's a dollar spot fungus epithelium. 

That reminds me of the Ahasuerus joke, in A Murder is Announced, so niche nobody even cares! Ed note: I can't get anything right today. I was mixing up two biblical names. Ahasuerus  was the vicarage cat. Artaxerxes was the joke. A the Third, to be exact.

On firmer ground I finished the bracelet with a sliding knot fastening. You slide it open to put the bracelet on then it only takes one hand to tighten to fit.

Happy day, it's okay if your passionate observations have an audience of one. At least it's better than the Dead Sea Scrolls that they're still unwrapping. 

Sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula.

More bracelet progress, knitting group and Textiles and Tea

I'm definitely getting there with the bracelets. I was asked today if I planned to give them away and I explained I haven't made s complete one yet! 

This is looking more like it and my hands are learning the moves.  By way of compensation, I did something easier,  a little drawing (!)

The split leaf philodendron is a good model, bold shapes and negative space.

The needlearts group was together for the first time in a couple of weeks, and there was a new member, learning embroidery, yay.

So we had knitting, crochet, spinning, and embroidery, some participants doing more than one fiberart.

Here's the Spurtzleur with a cop of yarn. She's planning to make a second cop then ply them. She borrowed the S from me when she wasn't able to get one for herself, all out of stock also Brexit and tariffs.

Here's a bunny in progress, from the knitter who brought us Frog and Toad 

 

And here's someone trying out embroidery for the first time 

And a tricky lace pattern in progress. The soft yarn that looks like cashmere is Italian brushed cotton 

A beginner in both knitting and crochet getting help from an expert whose own color work sweater in progress you see.

Convo ranged over knitting designers, dementia, German chocolate, air conditioning, embroidery stitches, Indian weddings, cats, the Episcopalian priesthood and more. 

Quick stop at the food pantry then home to a wonderful Textiles and Tea, with a tapestry artist

 She deals in serious themes of danger, climate change, political conflict and symbolism drawn from several cultures including the Judaic and Arabic.  

A wonderful designer and weaver, with brilliant compositional sense,  her works take months to complete. She spins and dyes her own yarns, and  works in series. The slides you see are each drawn from a series. 

The top slide is from her Ghost series and is a virtuoso piece of illusion. 

Happy day everyone, this kind of work makes a person feel humble as well as happy.

Bracelet undergoes reassignment, buds

So much cooler, windows open today.

After hours of torrential rain and flood warnings, though long-term we're in a drought, I got out briefly on the deck to show you a couple of things.

The little flower that came up right next to the gatepost turns out to be a coreopsis, tiny flowers with big color. There was one last year around here, so this may be its offspring.

And since it started raining again and I didn't want my phone wet, I quick took a couple of bud pictures 

The hibiscus is definitely going to pass last year's three blossom total 

And the zinnias will soon be ready to pick a couple for little bouquets. One there on the left may be red, always interesting to study daily. I planted only the dwarf ones this year, probably better for pots.

The potatoes are all going well, but too rainy to add their picture. All in all, pretty hopeful.

On the craft front, I declared the bracelet, if not done, as done as it's going to get, braided one end and it's now a handy scissor fob. 

I learned that perle cotton isn't good for this kind of project, too resistant to knotting, just slips away and tries to come undone. I've learned a lot one way and another. Still going, though. I'll try just embroidery floss.

Also still waiting for the antibiotics to arrive. Promised for Monday but who knows, holiday weekend. I need them in hand before I call the dentist about the tooth which has crumbled further, since I take them one hour before appointment. 

However nothing's really hurting, just some pressure, which might also be sinus reaction to the weather. So I'm trying to stay calm and occupied, and I'm starting another bracelet or something without the perle cotton and we'll see. 

I did some weaving this morning, always nice to have the loom ready to do a few inches.

 I've been amusing myself with puzzles online, mainly the math kind where the comments fill with furious arguments about the terms of the puzzle and how there's a better answer etc.  It's amazing how worked up nerds can get 

I'm pretty good at spotting puzzles that ask for logic rather than computation and usually know when there's not enough information to derive an answer. And the trick ones, like the one my teacher gave us and I've never forgotten from age 11.

We were doing mental arithmetic where she read out the question and we promptly  either shot up our hands or clasped our heads depending on aptitude.

It was a rapidfire addition which I'll improvise:

What's 3x6x4x8x2x8x5x6x0?    Some kids got the joke because she rattled out the number and dwelt on the zero. Some panicked after the first couple, some zoned out. It pays to listen to the end. 

While we're at it, how long is the 92nd Psalm? 

See end for answers if I remember to insert them 

Happy day everyone, unclasp your head if it applies, the world's full of puzzles. My nephew, the one I taught the macrame bracelet too, was a dab hand when younger at questions. What color is blue? How high is up? You know the sort of thing.

Answers:

Zero.  And a minute and a half. Sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula 

Blessed cool, bracelets and Lively

So much cooler today, and tomorrow more so.  Last night we had lashing rain and high winds with thunder and lightning. 

I looked out to see the solar lantern swinging wildly back and forward as the Japanese maple was whipped about.    Both looked fine this morning.

I even got a bit of gardening done, pulled out and disposed of a lot of vines which were choking shrubs out front. Evidently the torrid weather just suited them. 

And I made a little bouquet.

Daisies, lemon balm, wandering dude, English ivy.  The daisies are a bit tired after the heat. But there are plenty of zinnia buds, and the hibiscus looks promising, with multiple buds. Out front the little patch of black eyed susans is budding up. And the daylilies are about halfway through blooming.

Today's reading is a great, if harrowing, Penelope Lively. Note you can choose your spelling.

It's thoughtful, unsparing, analytical and prime Lively.

And I am determined to get the hang of the bafflement of the easy, easy, beginner, your cat could do it, knotted bracelet.

I have finally found out what's getting between me and succeeding. These are points none of the videos mention. I think they seem so obvious they don't think about it.

One, you need the right thread. My weaving cotton wasn't very knottable. Now I'm trying a mixture of perle cotton and embroidery floss, working better. If I had more perle thread I'd use it. Paracord, of which I have none, might be even better. 

Two, nobody shows exactly how to tighten the knots. I made the mistake of tugging both ends equally, which made the knots lopsided and pulled the wrong color to the surface. Once I grasped that you hold the anchor thread firm, and slide the other thread up while tightening it, things improved.

Three nobody explains the path of the thread as it travels across, in the candy stripe design. Does it go over or under the last thread?  I got this eventually, on bracelet three, which you see. 

Four, this was my own mistake I invented, I kept forgetting which was the traveling thread and started moving the wrong one before I realized this. This is how threads get all out of order and you can't make stripes, and you get a lot of practice in unknotting.

I have developed some expertise in unknotting at this point and I'm bloated with pride that I have, by George, finally got the candy stripe design, more or less.

Wobbly but more recognizable. Diagonal stripes are emerging. And I'm finding knotting isn't hard on my hands, a big plus.

Happy day everyone, it's okay not to get it right away. Anyway that's my story.

She's right, you know, sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula.