Concierge Misfits, tiny bouquet, silk art

The seasons seem to be colliding, not unusual for this time in this region.

So I nipped out and picked the really last tiny bouquet of the year.

Jeff the Misfits Driver, is now giving me personal concierge delivery. He rang the doorbell, and asked where was best for the box indoors. This is above and beyond, so my appreciative words to HQ must have got back to him. Nice guy. 

Strawberries to go with the yogurt, and now Chris has told the story behind Chobani, I'm happy to buy it when it's available. Next week my old standby is back though.

Apples are the usual midmorning snack, one of those habits that get permanent. The cream cheese was one of those sold out items I put on my wait-list and got lucky. Excellent on that seedy oaty bread. The birds like the bread, because I shake out the emptied bag and they get the seeds left in it.

The cold brew coffee is an experiment, to see if it works hot, too. And as a possible flavor in baking.  The fudge brownies are just because it's been an exciting and tiring few days, or some such malarkey.

Bananas are for breakfasts on toasted seedy bread. 

And I made a giant quiche, not much cheeses available, so it's Parmesan and feta cheese, with a lot of scallions, garlic, kale and spinach and the usual ten eggs. I reheat by broiling for a minute or two, really good. This week my cheeses are available again so I'm stocking up in my next order.

I also made a large pot of soup, using broth from the chicken, and a lot of the three bean salad plus potatoes and chicken pieces. Between this and the quiche, the week's meals are fast food.  The three bean salad and dressing worked fine as soup ingredients.

I'm so pleased with the bathtub. Contractor Mike tells me the tiling and painting will be done by end of day Wednesday. 

Door in place but not screwed down 

Door out, in the usual way I'll use it. I tried stepping in, and that step means only a small distance to raise my foot, and I can put both feet on the step. Inside there's enough height that the shower curtain will contain the water.

Meanwhile the stair-lift is in use carrying stuff up. I needed to take the filled gallon containers of water from outside before frost gets here, and they needed to be available for the upstairs plants, which I'm terrible at watering. 

So the chair carried them up for me, so easy. I can carry one in each hand but it's not a good idea to climb stairs without holding on to a rail.

While I was upstairs setting up the water, I remembered Ellen was asking about examples of how the silk transferred images worked. So I found these, all hanging around upstairs. 

This is a silk transfer of a scan of sashiko stitching and a painting, overlaid images.

Here the appliqued dancing shapes are cut from a silk transfer. They're appliqued onto a silk square I dyed.

Parts of these soft sculptures are pieces of image dyed silk. There's also molded and painted handmade paper. 

So there's a few of the ways I used the fabric. Collectors now own some artworks with pieces collaged and stuffed, in hanging works. 

It occurs to me now that if any US blogistas (sorry, can't run to out of country shipping) want either of the 2D pieces as a little present, let me know. The sculptures can't travel, though.

Meanwhile I'm eagerly awaiting some new really tiny looms from an English artisan for a different experiment in weaving. Also two more clamps from the Woolery for more successful long warp weaving with the frame loom.

It's all good. I couldn't get the Mary Pipher book on aging Pixie mentioned, but I did read Women Rowing North.

It's easy reading, anecdotal, with ideas you can think about and try on for size. I'd recommend it if you're comfortable with the Noah's Ark mindset. 

Meaning the assumption that everyone has a partner, and that singles ought to just get.on and get one. She gives almost no recognition to the large and growing population of single ageing women and the issues they face. 

Some are widowed, some divorced, some never partnered. Their lives and plans are very different from the partnered, particularly straight partnered, who seem to comprise the world she's addressing.  And most of her subjects are statistically likely to be alone in their last years.

But given that caution, there's still quite a bit of value in reading it. I wondered if she'd written this back in her Ophelia book days, explaining how dated it is, but, no, pub date 2019. So I did give her a fair try.

Anyway, happy day, pick out the parts of books and life that work for you and go for it. 

Sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula 

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 

Hot weather prep and more purple, also a new idea

 Here's where we are 

I went out walking early this morning, to beat the heat, and met a few parents hauling kids to the school bus stop, in varying moods. You can tell who's a morning person.

And my neighbors' flowers are in the purple mode, just now. Maybe Mary's right and it's purple season.

The last one is my front yard with purple vetch, blossoms still closed because it was early.  It's supposed to be a weed, but I love the foliage and don't pull it till it's spent.

Then pre-heat cooking, two quiches. I figured it's no more work than making one, so why not make two, I had plenty of eggs.

I used dandelion greens, bought for the purpose, and the rest of the mixed salad greens. I'd frozen the dandelion greens, and did my  labor saving way of not-chopping them. 

Just take the bag out of the freezer and bang it about a bit on the counter. It shatters into little flakes. This works for other leafy greens too, chard, kale. 

Three cheeses: mozzarella, Parmesan and sharp cheddar. 

Note the trusty Corning pie dishes, I really like them for this recipe. It's crustfree, and the slices are fairly thin, so they make good cold food.  The dishes have served me well for I dunamany years.

A slice or two followed by fresh strawberries was lunch. Pretty good.

I continued with the band, no need for a picture again, and I find I've started to learn to stay calm, in a slow no-rush rhythm, and the weaving shows it.  I'm learning the nature of this yarn, new to me, too.  

Every yarn has a nature, even commercial yarns and especially homespun yarns, and you get the hang of how they work by experience, so this is all happening all the time I'm working.  Texture and feel are at play. Anni Albers would approve. See, Boud, I told you!

I found a great young YouTube weaver

and tiny house person who is so inventive, a skilled spinner and weaver. And she was surprisingly using a craft loom, cheapish, with a kind of heddle I'd never seen, to create beautiful woolen bookmarks you really want to feel.

The heddle is  a simple wood block with slots, alternating deep and shallow, to change the shed just as a thredded heddle does. Except you warp the loom and then just click the heddle on and all the threads drop into their assigned slots. No threading. I have to investigate this. Maybe make one.

 She responded in minutes to my question about source -- the heddle came with the loom. I saw a couple of similar items on Etsy. Hm.  No, no, not another loom. First I'll see if I can improvise something with what I have. 

Happy day everyone, new ideas always pouring in, how to choose, so many ideas, so little time..

Every day please

No ice is good news and food happens

 An older person's view of the weather forecast

No ice! This is big.

Lately I've been cooking good meals but not photogenic ones. Ground turkey with cannellini beans, that kind of good stuff, and my food designer never turned up, again, so you didn't get the benefit.

Yesterday I did make something to show you, very simple, not up to anything elaborate at the moment, a tired time of year.

Broccoli/tomato sauce with penne and a lot of Serrano peppers diced in, big grind of long red pepper.  Enough for three meals, always a plus, that I can heat and eat.

This probably has an Italian name, penne primavera or something. 

Yesterday saw a bit of free cycling, lights which I've had around for ages, wrong size for outside, my original intent, wouldn't charge adequately indoors, my backup plan, too late for a return for refund, my backup backup plan. 

So they went to the first of a horde of requesters, within a couple of hours of posting. Even without pictures, sometimes the site won't, though when that happens I offer to email them.

And, the Izzy dolls moving right along, I did send for a different shade of possible face-colored yarn, and this arrived

Looking like clay or something, and at first I didn't realize what it was, since the package was so shrunken you couldn't read the words. I did find "yarn" and all became clear. Vacuum packed! After I managed to find a way in without cutting the yarn, it sprang to life

 

Made in Turkey, like a lot of yarns. It seems to be a  thriving Turkish industry.

Happy day, everyone, whatever mysterious packages it holds for you. Like the surprise big Izzy, the result of picking up the wrong, too big, needles, but what's a manufacturing glitch between friends?