Soup, banana bread and Textiles and Tea

Today was about doing laundry, since I ran out of clean clothes while I wasn't looking, and making soup because I like a supply around 

Cream of kale and rainbow carrot soup, with chicken stock mix and homemade vegetable stock, turmeric, ground flaxseeds, curry powder, salt. There were onions in the stock already. Toasted baguette. Very strengthening! 

And since I'm seeing handsome Son for rides to the doctor and post office tomorrow, banana blueberry bread because he'd be all sad if there weren't any.

Then there was Textiles and Tea with Greek musician and weaver 

A wonderful artist who weaves and uses the rhythm of the shuttle to sing to and set to music, some of it her own songs. 

Now working in New Orleans via Canada, she revisits Greece most years, taking her loom everywhere with her.

She does live performance of singing and weaving with backup music and raffles off the woven piece at the end of the evening!

Bay Area blogistas, she's touring your area for two weeks in April. You might want to check her website and see if you can get there. She's a dynamo.

Usually working in cotton fiber and plain weave, she makes wall pieces and yardage, and her music is a big part of her process.

During this episode, participants made all kinds of excited plans for a loom orchestra, to rehearse on Zoom and perform at the next national gathering! 

Everything from drums, a knitting section, an all age spool knitting section with spools doubling as percussion, the ideas went on and on, great fun. So watch this space!

Here she is singing and weaving, the clack of the loom providing rhythm 

She likes to literally connect people with fiber, where if she makes and gives several scarves from one warping, she'll tell the recipients about each other, a great way to create a fiber community.

She's a spontaneous weaver, once she's established the colors and fiber, she designs freeform.

This episode was like a party! Such a multi talented woman.

Happy day everyone.  Do everything all at once! Without personal injury is best.

More weaving, banana prep

Still in recovery from recent feasting, Saturday was about soup from leftovers, including scraps of game hen, then fruit, yogurt and granola bars. Dialing back the fat and sugar a bit. And making broth from the remains of the game hen for future soup. 

Quite a bit more weaving Saturday, and I  think this warp length might make two lanyards. I added in a lot of extra length when I measured the warps, just in case. 

I also added in an extra photo Saturday, scroll back if you missed it,  to show how the other warp ends are secured to give tension. I'm really happy at how well my diy rigid heddle is working.

And if you want to see much better bandweaving footage, go here

Durham Weaver is lovely and so's her voice. She's on YouTube. And has written the standard books on this subject, so she knows what's what.

It was time to mash bananas, since they'd arrived at just the right speckly ripeness. Three lots for the freezer for future banana bread. One cup, 3 bananas,  mashed for each loaf.

Apparently for Misfits the banana project is a big deal. Test marketing only -- I'm not far from HQ, so I'm in the testing region.

Major  producers such as Dole, for now, rather than indies, to reduce the complications, detailed questions to me about my order. 

Evidently you can't pack bananas with other produce because it outgasses and can push other fruit to ripen en route in the box.  This could mean berries or other soft fruit would be past it when they arrived. 

So there's a special breathable banana bag outside the box. Maybe these issues are the reason they haven't included them before. 

Father Richard's audiobooks are a good accompaniment to my current weaving. After I finished weaving Friday night, needing to rest my back from steadily maintaining tension, I did a bit of crochet, thinking there are various ways to make whistle lanyards, while Death in the Parish played.

It's really about wanting to bandweave rather than make lanyards, but one thing leads to another, as astute readers here will have observed.

Happy day everyone, helpless prawns of fate.

Still my flag, thick and thin 

Glove One done, Ikigai

 I found an audiobook to knit by

which accompanied me through Glove One and untangling the remaining yarn ready for Glove Two. After I'd done that I fell asleep for a while, the usual result of being unoccupied with a task while an audiobook plays.  The narrator is so calm and restful it's like having a cat reading to you.

Then later, the first glove is finished

Thank you for the kind comments about the little gallery of a few of my fiber art pieces. Here's a bit more about some of them. And since the light's better, maybe a couple of better views. And an explainer about the sawblade loom.

I thought Ceres deserved a better shot. I was too tired to climb up and get her off the wall then, but now I've managed it and here you can see her better.

 

Technically, this is one of the better fiberworks I've made. Ceres, aka Demeter, goddess of corn and other grains. 

I started at the top, adapting a complex Victorian knitted stitch pattern called Wheatsheaf. 

This is knitted, two-dimensional, then I moved into crochet for the full belly, and you see that it becomes three dimensional as the roots develop. This was a single skein of yarn.  It's about grain and fertility, as you see.

And the rigid heddle piece is the only one I did before giving the loom to an eager beginner. There are tons of experiments in this piece. Then I concluded this loom was too restrictive for what I needed to do, and passed it on.

Charleston, one of the red pieces, I wove on a cardboard loom I made, partly because I don't like red. But it's not what the artist wants, it's what the art wants. 

So I tried to make it frivolous and silly, with ribbon and interesting patterns, leaving the top of the warp bunched like shoulder straps on a dress good for dancing the Charleston. 

The dress needed red. The weft threads are mostly fuzzy, not out of focus -- some are hand spun, some are unspun roving.

And here's the saw blades, donated by contractor friend Michael, which I used for the circular parts of some works. They're too blunt for his woodworking, but you still have to handle the points with care.

I used some hand spun to show you how I threaded the warp. Back and forward over the teeth, progressing round the circle. Then you start weaving from the center.

Here's the back, showing how you just catch the teeth. Once it's woven you slip one or two threads off the teeth, a bit tricky,  and the rest come off more easily, giving you a circular weaving and an empty loom for the next project.

Anything can be a loom. 

Rainy here today, but I did a bit of indoor exercise, and made broth from the remains of the game hen, ready for soup. 

Then I made a pot of soup, game hen broth, diced tomatoes, chickpeas, fusilli, enough for six meals starting with Sunday supper.

Happy day everyone, the best loom of all is the enchanted one, our brain, where the magic shuttles work.

First soup of the season

 

Leek, potato, tomato, chickpeas, chicken broth. Seasoned with sea salt, basil salt, long red pepper, smoked paprika.

Six more meals to come.  It's not very cold yet but I thought I could handle a bowl of soup.

I finally wrestled a huge container of lemon balm out of its place on the patio and emptied it. I have to put away the pot and dump the contents. I had thought I'd contain it in this pot because it's invasive. 

What happened was that I gave it an hq from which it sent out tendrils everywhere. So I'm trying to get rid of the main supply. 

It's a relative of mint, so you can see what this means. Now, the peppermint and spearmint I'd like doesn't do well at all. I'm nursing along a little pot of peppermint now and the spearmint has vanished. 

I'll never lack lemon balm though. Tiny plants everywhere.  And it's certainly resistance exercise to drag that massive thing over and empty it.

Happy day everyone, my Wi-Fi is very dodgy today, constantly going out, so I'm writing as I can.

Sunday, Sunday...

I've had better days than yesterday. 

I realized I really have to replace my three bathroom faucets, over 30 years old and builder's standard. 

They're all getting difficult to turn, corroding, generally aged out. They're not leaking, which is why I haven't rushed to fix them. Then I checked the price for even modest replacements and the potential plumber's bill.  About three times my estimate. 

I want to hire a plumber because local friends have done enough lately, also I've done better with an expensive plumber than with willing but less experienced friends. I can't do the contortions required myself though it's not that skilled.  Soooo, big sigh...

Then while I was moaning about this I thought I'd melt some butter in the microwave for pancakes. I'd made a little supply of strawberry sauce with the last of the strawberries getting overripe. So pancakes with strawberry s. seemed like a good idea. Melting butter is part of the recipe. So I did, using the same butter, dish, cover, everything as usual.

Whereupon the microwave literally shot flames out. I unplugged and checked the back, and found the panel completely blackened, oops, could have been a fire. I also found the label saying this appliance was made in 1995. Another 30 years of service coming to a close. 

Now I have a heavy thing to dispose of if I can lift it. And I'm deciding on whether I need to replace it or whether a different appliance might be good, or whether a new replacement would last long enough to be worth it.

Hippolyta is a bit achy this morning, lack of walking because of rain, and I was about to reheat my rice bag then remembered that was one handy use for a microwave. Ah.

So I posted a request on Freecycle, my usual shopping outlet. That's where I got the current microwave, many years ago, in excellent condition from a nonprofit whose staff used it to reheat lunches and tea. Their boss gave them an upgrade and they Freecycled the perfectly fine as-new one.  

All this is so first world compared to what a lot of my countrypeople are enduring. But I think a brief whine is okay now and then.

And there's Foyle. Last evening I watched  the anthrax episode. At least I don't have anthrax. And I didn't burn down Notre Dame, nor throw a military snoozefest in the rain.  So there's that.

Happy day everyone, cold rain here again. The flowers like it, good for them.  And there's a sparrow out there breakfasting on little bits of pancake leftovers.

And the first daylily came out yesterday, among the lavender 

I think these are seedpods from the vetch growing all over. Officially a weed, I like it, along with day flowers, various creeping viny things, bittercress,  sorrel, with which I'm blessed. This used to be farmland and it still supports all the plants that used to drive farmers mad.

I think I'll make soup today. Mid June and soup weather, doesn't seem to compute. But I have stock and chicken bones, so I can see a tomato chickpea soup in my immediate future.  And crisp tofu katsu sticks maybe.

When life hands you lemons, make chicken soup sez Ted and Big Ursy. And it's Bloomsday, and I finally did finish reading Ulysses. 

The reveal

 The cooking and baking day yielded 

Carrot, sweet potato soup 

Whole-wheat, oat and chickpea bread with cumin seeds

Cordial from fresh limes and lemons with turmeric, honey, ginger and molasses, seen here draining 

Mayo in the background that didn't emulsify but did taste very good, so it works as an extra flavor, a spoonful trailed over the soup bowl to serve.

So now even if I have no interest in cooking for the next few days, I'll still eat well. Supper was a bowl of soup, slice of new baked bread, glass of cordial. The cordial is quite intense, so you dilute it to drink.

Happy day everyone, I hope everyone is holding up okay. Ted says sit in the sun, it's good.

Remember you're somebody's guiding light 

Photo AC