Misfits box arrived, and rugs ahoy

The change back to a Friday delivery worked nicely. Box arrived about noon, in excellent condition. Missing two items, one of which they'd noted and refunded already. But it does look as if FedEx moves faster on Friday.

And here's the latest box

Please note, dear Salty P, that it's Vermont maple syrup, only the best..

And these are new to me, not the sweet potatoes, but the little variegated fingerling potatoes. Like rainbow carrots only potatoes. These might only need steaming and a dot of butter.

As usual quality is fine, and there's now a little bag of trimmings in the stock bag in the freezer. I found a couple of freezer bags already labeled, which saved writing and sticking. I have found that no matter how sure I am that I'll remember, I won't.

And the floor is mopped and swept, counters wiped cutting boards washed and dried, knives wiped and away and another frenzy of prep draws to a close till two weeks hence.

Yesterday's Hajii Baba club rug presentation was given by Lawrence Kearney, long time a poet and professor, and rug collector, now a professional auctioneer of rugs for Skinner auction house, Boston.

He showed many slides with not much detail, but they ranged from the eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. The sources are from Anatolia east to China. 

Some as you see from the one way design, are prayer rugs, some runners, some composites and one a patchwork of woven pieces, like a quilt. 

There are animal and flower motifs, and some mysterious shapes that might be charcoal heating things, he didn't know, very honest about it. Some designs are Navajo in feeling, some startlingly modern.

I'll just show you a string, and you can enjoy the designs and maybe get ideas from them.

He explained that workshop rugs are more commercial, while tribal and village rugs are locally made for local or individual use.

This is not all the slides! He was so happy showing them and chatting that after two hours I couldn't see any more and had to leave. 

He might still be there, exclaiming look at the colors! See the intricate borders! 

He's a real enthusiast, and I enjoyed the images without getting a whole lot of technical information. Info's probably overrated anyway!

Back online and the library takes a bow, snd fall colors

WiFi finally returned, no idea what that was about. Since I'm a guest on a friend's signal, I don't know. Could be anything  from an IP failure, truck hit a cable box, friend's dog bit the router, no knowing. I'm so grateful to have this huge favor, I'm not asking. But you do miss it when it's down.

I drove to the library to catch up on internet needs, and here it is. No indoor pictures these days. 

There's an open space with a fountain playing in nonpandemic times, they'll come again, paths in red pavers, very calm setting. 

This is where hundreds of us gathered to watch the total eclipse a couple of years ago, great to see it in company. I walked around the square today while I was there on a lovely day. Great skies, turkey vultures flying, too high for pictures.

The building is open with precautions. Easy to maintain distance. It was a good change of scene, which I probably need more of.

Then, at home, another walk later, just to look at leaves. Including poison ivy, of which we have almost enough.

I watched a Hajii Baba rug presentation this evening which will need a mass of editing, so many slides. After nearly two hours I left the meeting, starting to get blurry. Wonderful images, though and I'll work on that tomorrow. The presenter was so in love with the subject he couldn't bring it to a stop!

Home wifi out

 Just a note, WiFi has been out since last night. I'm at the library now but it's not conducive to blogging because the light level is so high I can hardly see my screen.

Back as soon as I can!

Catching up with Textiles and Tea, Thyme, and pasties from scraps

Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured Michael Rohde, a chemist turned weaver, who's been active for decades in textiles.

He's very much a devote of the exact, the calculated and the grid. He used to make rugs, and has switched to tapestry. He dyes his yarns and uses very meticulous calculation to get exactly the shade he wants.

Interestingly, when asked about his influences, he talks only of his technical teachers in weaving, not of the fine arts, ideas from which are very evident in his work. 

As you see the pictures, you'll spot borrowings from Josef Albers, Georgia O'Keeffe,  and Chuck Close, among others. I cracked up when he was talking about small tapestry looms and referenced Archie Brennan only in relation to the little pipe looms he created!

Archie Brennan is a towering figure in the world of tapestry design and development, revered by seriously fine tapestry designers, including Sarah Swett and Rebecca Mezoff. 

It's all about where you put your focus, I suppose. Anyway here he is, not many images, he was pretty talky.

Here are the Google Earth images 

he zoomed in to copy for this piece

And here's another blown up pixel idea in action

This below is interesting, cochineal dye used here

So there he is, and there's more on his website. He has two studios, one for large one for small work.

Meanwhile closer to home I arranged to get the Fit tires inflated later by my lovely neighbor, who doesn't know he's getting an apple pasty once they've cooled.

They look like Halloween masks in a way. I found a couple of pastry scraps in the freezer and thought I'd use some of the apples I'd diced and frozen.

While I was out I noticed a little offshoot of the thyme plant, probably a root which had traveled several feet, and suddenly sent up a new plant.  You might call it the march of thyme..

So now there's a thyme plant in the kitchen, very handy. I'll refrain from any further terrible thyme jokes. But the kitchen clock is right up there on the right, okay, I'm done.

Dentists, pumpkins and cats

Today was the annual dental check-up at which I get x-rays, cleaning, polishing, dentist chatting about his grandchildren while looking in my mouth, then he says nothing to do here. So they empty my wallet and I come home.

And, exactly like this time last year, in the exact same stretch of road, a loud clang which nearly sent me off the road, announcing low tire pressure. I guess the Fit has decided that this, too, is an annual occurrence. 

On the way home was the farm, with cute figures, pumpkins to pick and other fall ideas.

Here's my haul. 

Misfits is not due till Friday, managed to change back the delivery day, and I ran out of fruit. I tend to panic without fruit. Also tomatoes. The pumpkin is a sugar, pie, one. After it's served its purpose on the step, before the squirrels eat it.

And here's the wooden cat getting into the act, testing various ideas. No, I didn't make it. It's folk art, except made with power tools. I found it at the dumpster. It likes my step so it's lived here for years. The daisies are Montauk, the very last thing to come into bloom in my yard. My couple of square yards.

Thoughts too deep for blogging, ty Bill, and birdfeeders

Many thoughts today, about extroverts and introverts, current discussions online, with many participants unaware of the meanings. The Bill in the title above is Wordsworth, but you knew that.

And the successful DNS attack on the empire of the criminal enterprise formerly known as FB. Right after a major expose on national TV last evening by a whistleblower. 

But it's too much for the laborious one-finger typing which is how I do my blogging on a phone with a tiny screen.

More important in the existential sense is the ladybug that rode home with me in the car and is now flying free, reminding me that I may as well put out the bird feeders.

 The front one is settled into the Russian sage, so it feels safe to birds not used to a feeder right there. See the suet block hanging in there?

And the back one has an extra added basket I set up for birds who like suet but are not too adept with the no perch feeder.

They're used to feeding here. So are the squirrels. Very few squirrels around this year, though. Chipmunks put in their first excitable appearance yesterday. As long as they stay outdoors, it's fine.

Back to my book. 

Vegetable stock and figure face

I finally got that bag of clippings from Misfits vegetables out of the freezer to make stock. Added salt, olive oil, simmered quite a while.

Then I strained out the exhausted veggies, and strained the liquid once again, through fabric, in case of grit, you never know.

I tasted it and it's much like the vegetable stock I've bought from Misfits readymade. So I got a couple of quarts ready for soup. I've been meaning and  forgetting to do this for ages.

In between bouts of sneezing, something flinging new pollen around, despite wearing a mask for walking, I've managed a bit of stitching. The beginning of the trapunto work.

A local friend says these are sculptures and I should say so. I've avoided the word, from experience of nonart people being put off by arty words and not enjoying the works. We'll see.

Friend C. of embroiderers' guild  days, sent me a wonderful link to a fiber related online magazine, Tatter. I spent a while on the essays in volume 1 and was very impressed.

Here it is

While I was browsing I saw this essay about rag slippers and the significance of them.

These are more like flip-flops which I can't wear, but I realized I can make a woven pair from fabric scraps, using my weaving sticks. 

I'll use the same shape as the knitted ones many of which I've made. They'll end up quite different from these in the picture, but the same thing, if you follow me.

Thank you C! Loads more to read and learn from in Tatter.

Speaking of rose of Sharon..

The seeds are here. Already. They must have caught a following wind.

They  need to he soaked for 12 hours. I'm going to reserve some, just because. 

The germination takes 7-60 days, it says! Sounds like hedging your bets!

But I'm ready to go. See the pot, newly dampened soil.

My across the street neighbor stopped over earlier to double-check about separating her potbound Boston Fern. I confirmed that she could literally saw vertically through the roots, soak it well then  repot each half. 

I'm glad to say she didn't offer me half. I originally gave her this one, the great grandchild of my original one, fed up of the endless debris coming off it, pretty or not. So I'm happy it's living with her. She's about two years overdue to divide it. 

Also two more tiny moringa sprouted in the wrong pot, so I've transplanted them. At this point I'm using a teaspoon for my gardening, everything miniaturized. 

Fingers crossed for successful germination of the Rose of Sharon, everyone!

Treading lightly on the earth continues

 I'm in the process of changing my Misfits day from Wednesday  back to Friday in the hope of better choices and delivery. 

So this means a couple of extra days before I get the next box, next week. Which I'm using to see if I can get ahead of the vegetables in the freezer,  by means of soup. 

Hence today's leeks, yay the last of them, spinach, parsley, onion, garlic soup with diced yellow potatoes added. Chicken stock cubes, Old Bay, salt. After it's blended I may add in a bit of hot sausage.

And the many times rewashed and reused self sealing bags, draining.  Enough plastic comes in uninvited that it's years since I bought containers or bags. I wash and reuse parchment paper and tinfoil, too, unless it's been around chicken or sausage. 

I've been doing this for many years, back to the first Earth Day, when people ridiculed it, with dismissive names like cheapskate. Times have changed, younger people are more aware, and it's ages since anyone made dismissive remarks. So in this way, at least, things are better.  

Take joy where you can find it! While I was writing the labels for this post, predictive text, seeing the word reuse, helpfully suggested I meant apple streusel. I might consider it. I do have apples in the freezer. Not right now though.

White rabbits and plant freedom

 It's October already, not sure how that happened. 

Yesterday was a fallow day for writing. Slow thoughtful day, not a blogging day. Blogging can get to resemble a treadmill, particularly when people expect a post and ask where it is! Now and then it just isn't.

Yesterday I declared my freedom from plants I don't like, and started by heaving the aglaonema that was basically dumped on me by a neighbor. I might offer it on Freecycle. 

And I think the staghorn fern has reached the end of its days, after a few good years, another dumpee, never a great specimen.

There's a sense of relief that it's okay to return to nature, or other homes, plants I've had enough of. Also a first, since I've always felt obliged to accept every plant neighbors were tired of, rescue fashion. I'm rethinking my rights!

And yesterday I got an id question about a pretty flowering plant which seemed to have shown up in a friend's flowerbed by who knows what means. I guessed it was a Rose of Sharon, some of which self seed wildly.

 Right or wrong in my identification, I also found they can be started from seed. Now this interested me, so next thing I've ordered a few so I can finally get the rose of Sharon I've been wanting for years.

Viz

I

 had one which was trampled out of existence during the last renovation before it got going, after months of waiting for it to arrive from the nursery and finally start the previous year.

This way, perhaps I will have something to transplant next year after the fence is replaced, if it ever is. It's at a dead stop now, waiting for supplies. 

I have a cold or an allergy or something dragging on, maybe I should skip the knitting group today for the sake of social responsibility. If it's a cold, not to spread it. I'll see how the morning goes maybe.

I was planning on watching a program about the history of Quakers in NJ last evening, then the speaker sent out a handout ahead of time. Dryest, dullest thing, not my speed. 

So I skipped the Zoom and did a bit of exploration on YouTube, much more interesting. And I found that a lot of what I do and how I proceed with art and living is quite Quaker like, interesting. I might become a Quaker at large, not being interested in group things much. I'm going to check in the next local Friends Zoom meeting. 

I certainly always admired the spirit of Fox, the founder, a friend of King Charles. He is said to have gone into the king's presence with his hat on and was reproved for it. 

Whereupon, true to his principles, he replied "Charles, thou dost not doff thy hat (the crown) to me. I do not doff my hat to thee." Good job he was a friend. It wouldn't have gone down well otherwise. Such dignity and walking the walk though. No title for another human being, courtesy but no special privilege even to a king. Thrills my little egalitarian heart!

So that's what a fallow day will do for a person! No end of trouble you can get into.