Wednesday was another day of interest and surprises

House cleaning today, so I left them to it Handsome Son gave me a ride to the library, and I took in the current gallery show.

Rashmi Choudhary is an Indian artist and I have excerpted her artist statement to do her more justice than I since I don't know a lot about Indian art, other than the strong traditional structure to it.

It's intricate, finely wrought work and I just selected a few pieces to show you. I was impressed. There's an atmosphere around this work. And notice that the visitor's book is handmade. It was lovely to handle.

Then to my pleasure, Handsome Son said not to bother with a ride service, he'd come back and pick me up, since he was free 

Then he stayed the afternoon with tea and cake, making inroads there, and catching up with the news all round. That was an unexpected pleasure.

While we were out, I picked up this year's flower seeds from the dollar store. Smaller selection than last year, and more expensive, but still a good potential flower area.

And the public puzzle is seasonal. 

Home to a clean house and tea, flower garden set,  and visiting with Son, it doesn't get much better. 

Happy day everyone, I certainly had one.

And I ate all the colors for supper, mango chunks, mixed greens, feta cheese crumbles, toasted baguette.

 

Packed Tuesday, but first, cake

Here's the banana bread recipe, from the Sunset book, 1984, with food stains, notes, and afterthoughts 

The last one ought to be legible. I add in all kinds of whatever I have around. I often use walnuts, but some of this is going to a neighbor whose boy is allergic, so I omitted them.  Doneness test is the usual prod with a skewer, nothing special.

The Tuesday knitting group was very lively, with all kinds of convo and projects, knitting, stick weaving, spool knitting, a toad, a resistance hat, a  sweater, a shawl, socks, a band for a muff.

Terrible picture because we were both wobbly at this point, this being an overhaul for the beginning stick weaver 😉 not a beginning spinner --she spun and dyed that yarn,

The last three pictures are in case you're interested in how that knitted shawl happened.  The contrast color comes up at intervals and the knitter gets to be creative with it, so it looks like embroidery.

Convo ranged over art as therapy, language development, Noam Chomsky, splicing yarn,job seeking, nonbinary identity, pronouns, dyslexia, learning styles, PEI (yes, Marie!), and more. It was lighter than it sounds.

Home to a pot of tea, slice of pumpkin banana raisin bread and Textiles and Tea, with rigid heddle loom and inkle loom weaver, Gretchen Fancher 

 

Card weaving too, on the inkle loom 

And her 16 year old cat, Silver, on the sofa, photo bombing the session.  She, Gretchen, not Silver, is an inventive heddle loom weaver and teacher, who was originally a knitting designer who moved into the small portable loom world. You see the beautiful fabric she creates, mostly useful items.

Freecycling also happened today, with a bunch of spatulas, scarcely used because they're too heavy for my aged hands, so we'll see if they get into better hands.

Happy day everyone, feel free to rest after you've baked your banana bread. And I, the granddaughter of an Irish woman from Tipperary, forgot to wish you a happy St Patrick's Day! Oops 

Rainy day and a good friend, lanyards and cake

The day started with a trip to get scheduled lab work, courtesy of a good driving friend who treats me like royalty, it's amazing. Opens the door, ushers me in, drops me off then parks then comes to join me. 

Considering yesterday I was heaving debris around and walking a distance to do it, quite a contrast. Speaking of which, report on the day after a strenuous effort: fine, no aftereffects, hip is fine.  I think the exercises are working. 

Then home to a house and pot of tea, pouring rain all day out there, and my bread not being available this week on Misfits, I baked.

Banana, pumpkin raisin bread, well, cake really. Whole-wheat flour.  Pretty good. 

I think I'll give some to the driving friend for a review. Not sure it's sweet enough for most tastes. 

Yesterday's finished the spool knitted lanyard and attached the whistle. 

When the second sock is finished and the second glove, I'll send a little parcel to the Sock 'n Glove 'n Whistle Ministry.  A button -up cowl, gloves, two pairs of tube socks, whistle on a lanyard. I might be running out of whistles, all going to good places. 

I really liked the French knitting foray, especially making the spools. I had to review how to get the knitting going though. It's been a long time. I can see continuing this. 

And my self care currently involves reading and listening to historians on the Renaissance period. It was just as scary then, with demented people getting into power, but it's a long time ago, and they had great dresses.

Did you see the Oscar dresses? Some really elegant marvelous designs and stitching skills. 

Happy day everyone. Keep resisting and keep caring for yourself, including staying fit. That really helps me, anyway, feeling physically capable helps with a lot of emotions.  

Yes to that sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony.

The ides of March, French knitting and diy

The Ides of March today -- it's all go, Friday the Thirteenth, then Pi Day, now it's the Ides.

Anyway I finished that narrow spiral sock,  

and, while I was polishing it off I was thinking about French, or spool, knitting. I'd been reading Noreen Crone-Findlay' blog, Tottie Talks Crafts.

She's doing 100 days of creating knitting spools and little looms, along with her son in law. I suddenly thought why not make one with exactly what I have. I'd just replaced the tissue box in the bedroom and thought I'd make a spool.

This worked pretty well. Then I thought I might as well make the classic wooden cotton reel with nails tapped in, as  in our youth. 

I searched everywhere, and couldn't find any nails, anywhere. However in the course of searching I came across my little trusty folding Japanese saw, and remembered I planned to prune the overgrown butterfly bush. 

So I pulled it out of the cabinet, causing a landslide of plastic bags and small tools. And a little box of nails fell with them.

Anyway, all the neighbors were out and it was a windy cold day, perfect for cutting down the butterfly bush, from about twelve feet to what you see between the garden chairs.

So no helpful neighbor was going to run out and insist on doing it and ruining my fun. I love a bit of outdoor strenuous work. Then I swept all the debris off the deck, and we're good.

Finally, home again,  I found wooden spools and chose one, put on rubber bands to secure the thread, nobody said you had to use up the thread before you can knit on it. Then I tapped in the nails and set up the new, less Rube Goldberg, spool, and cast on.

This will probably be a whistle lanyard. Yellow for resistance.

This has been a productive day, one way and another. I think I'm in pretty good shape, considering the task of dragging several enormous, twice my size, craggy branches out about a hundred yards to the trees.  My hands are tired and a bit crampy, but otherwise all's well, as handsome Son often texts in the morning.

Happy day everyone, haul stuff around. Or just point and let someone else do the heavy lifting.