Soup's up and the bathroom's done

It's soup weather and I made a pot of soup with all the vegetables, plus vegetable broth, flavored with Better than Bouillon, smoked paprika, turmeric, cumin, lemon juice, salt and pepper. It's very good. 

Chickpea, mushrooms, spinach, kale, carrots, potatoes, chives, onion and garlic. I think that's all the veg spectrum in a bowl.

And Contractor Mike finished up the bathroom, which, newly painted, partly tiled, bathtub in use now, is so much better.

That insert in the wall is one Mike installed years ago at my request. It pops out and gives access to the plumbing behind the shower in the other en suite bathroom.  I also had him create a couple of other access panels like this, to save sledging walls in a plumbing emergency.

The bathtub is officially open 

Here's the insert, ready for use. See how low the step is, very useful.

And here you see how he hung the shower curtain to hang low enough to catch splashes.

He did a lot of detail work, new door hinges and switch plates, new caulking round tub, toilet, door, vanity. He kept finding just one more thing to improve before he finally declared it done. He's a meticulous craftsman.

And to our payment meeting, he brought homebaked pumpkin bread and a hot baked sweet potato. He's the family cook and we snapped tips and hints while doing business.

Someone commented yesterday on how lucky I was to afford the changes in the house. Hm. The more frugal I am, the luckier I get.  

I've been saving for years for this. Then all the savings were wiped out when I had to replace the heat pump at the condo. 

I started saving again. Then I applied the proceeds from selling the car to this end, and all's well. More planning and saving than luck, I'd say.  But it's all good. If it looks effortless, that's fine.

Yesterday I found this little guy waiting to either get indoors or be stepped on. 

I moved him to safety and hibernation. 

And here's a glimpse of the kind of passing scene I love, created by early morning sun.

My fall and winter project arrived, from Gina B Silkworks, UK. I had pictures but removed them when I read the small print. She's had design theft, so I respect her patent. She has a YouTube channel if you want to see.

Tiny acrylic looms for creating woven leaf shapes.  I had thought of making them from cardboard, then decided it was better just to get the real thing and buy from an artisan. 

So watch this space. The little woven pouch I started will be finished soon. And these new tiny products are portable for the knitting group when I get there.

Happy day everyone. This about sums up where I am just now

 

Nor'easter incoming, but soup and flowers

I had a nice chat on Thursday with Jeff, the Misfits driver and we agreed the delivery software was rubbish. 

He said there's a meeting soon and they've had so many complaints about the new software they're thinking of reverting to the old one. He too doesn't like being unable to message his customers. 

So I promised to push again for change and he left my box and wished me a good day. 

Strawberries for jam, perfect with the yogurt, this batch with vanilla, lemon juice and amchur, great flavor.

Eggs for upcoming quiche when the cheese supplies catch up. Potatoes for parboiling and roasting with the remnants of the chicken.  This served several meals then made the stock for my nor'easter soup.

Pumpkin, kale, potato soup, seasoned with shawarma spice mix, salt, Better than Bouillon and cayenne.  Bits of chicken and homegrown chives for garnish 

Lemons because I need more zest and slices. These are beautiful, too big for the supermarket.

Couple of treats got in there, too. A person needs treats now and then.

Thank you for all your bio offerings. Such a talented and varied group, and the invitation's still open. 

The nor'easter will be with us for a couple of days. 

My storm prep consisted of securing the outdoor chairs, bringing in one lightweight item, taking out the trash and recycling, and picking flowers. 

I figured they'd be flattened by wind and rain, so maybe a bouquet was a good idea. Chrysanthemums and Autumn Joy sedum.

Vital for your spirits.

Happy day everyone, stay dry if it applies. I wish we could share the rain around with states that are bone dry.

Every day please 

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.