Happy solstice with Flowers

 The Christmas cactus has started flowering, and the color is different from the buds, as you see. I sent a picture to my cleaning family who gave me it,  so they can enjoy it too. 

Perfect timing for the solstice, so a happy Solstice to Northern hemisphere blogistas, days to start lengthening, and to Southern hemisphere blogistas, shortening, but there's summer coming right now.

And yesterday's mail brought the blessing of a President who knows what he's doing. My new batch of free covid test kits arrived, timed for the holidays

and in other news, my Arabic reader arrived, ready, I thought to help me stumble along.

Alas I found their notion of beginners isn't mine. On their first page they say of  course the beginner is expected to have a basic understanding of the language.. Honey, that's not a beginner. 

It reminded me of the construction kit in a Child's Christmas in Wales: easy for little engineers, oh, easy for Leonardo!

Jamal will have to wait for me to catch up, then I'll read his adventures. A stretch goal at this point. Maybe this time next year I'll be looking back kindly on my current ineptitude.

Meanwhile here's a lovely manuscript page with a Christmas Chi Rho, the abbreviation for the word Christ. It's a symbol and a devotion in itself, as is the X in Xmas, an early respectful way of expressing the Holy Name. 

And on to less reverent things, here's a seasonal puzzle you absolutely will get. As usual, post funny clues not the actual answer

Happy day, everyone, longest night comes right before the return of the light, good to remember.

And today AC's photograph is totally right for the day.

Photo AC 

Food ahoy, and a bit o' knit

Yesterday I noticed, shock!  Horror! I was out of things for lunch. Also dinner. And next thing this all happened.

Reading left to right, cooked squash and raw carrots thawing for soup -- see pot of broth simmering for soup, complete with giblets from the Christmas rock Cornish game hens currently in the freezer.

Then at the back of the stove baby bella mushrooms sauteeing in butter, next to the pot of basmati rice cooking for stirfry. Front left delicious smelling onions and scallions for stirfry.

and here's lunch, with more for today, stir fry

And here's a lovely silky squash, carrot, potato soup for dinner, several more helpings for the next week.

And afternoon tea with scone courtesy of Gary

My napkins get plenty of use as you see.

A bit of cording, to use up the current damped supply of fiber, and a new bit of knitting destined for an undisclosed location.

Happy day, everyone, try not to fall down, Sue,  or run out of great food! 

Great caroling, and timely greetings

I posted yesterday before the official first night of Hanukkah, so happy H, dear celebrants

And

Fervent thanks for my home state, from a born again, meaning naturalized,  Jerseygirl, who nevah pumps gas, nor takes nonsense. 

Meanwhile yesterday at the carol service, which, I realized at the last minute, was London time, five hours earlier than I'd planned. No time to get presentable, which why I kept my camera off 

Here's Jacqueline Bee Durban, host and MC

who was a load of fun, introduced a series of great clips, some pagan, some Christian, some just wintry, with carols in between which everyone could join in, muted, because the time lapses on zoom create chaos. 

Except at the end where she invited Christmas chaos with an unmuted rendition of the Twelve Days of Christmas, some people leaping while others were drumming and dancing and milking, just great fun.

It was exactly right for my down lonely mood yesterday morning, this time of year hard to navigate, especially this year with such losses. So that was my carol sing for the season, and it was great. Perfect timing.

Then this morning I looked out to see these little fellers in the best seat in the house, noshing on squash seeds and rinds

They saw me there, started to run then obviously thought oh we can take her anytime, and returned to continue their interrupted breakfast.

Speaking of animals knowing what's what, here are dogs modeling excellent theater manners

And I needed a little batch of cranberry muffins after the caroling excitement 

About learning cording, I learned it from YouTube, Sally Pointer to start, and I also searched on daylily cordage, having learned the term from her. If you do a search on "string" on this blog, that box at the top left, you'll find my early tries.

There are quite a few YouTube videos. Try it, you'll like it! 

I really like the whole process because it's so intelligent. It's a form of spinning, and the physics of it are the same.

Briefly, when you spin, here I'm talking as a spindle spinner, you first spin your yarn single in one direction, often clockwise, known as z. Then when you ply singles, you ply, that is spin, your singles together, in the opposite direction, known as s. The physics cause the resulting plied yarn to hold tight together.

That's exactly what your fingers do when you make cording, turning one set of fibers clockwise then drawing them, counter clockwise, down over the other set. 

Now they've changed place and again you turn clockwise what was the bottom group and is now the top group. Once you see and try it you'll quickly get it. 

That's why you see my cordage staying together, not unraveling.  If it unravels you know you did something you need to fix, probably you turned the top group in the wrong direction.

I'm always lost in awe at the people who originally figured all this out, thousands of years ago, with no tutorials.

Speaking of shock and awe, you'll be mad at yourself when you see the solution to the puzzle, if you were wrestling with word meanings, derivations, semantics snd semiotics, to find:

dynaMITE

wANT

mamMOTH

brieFLY

Yes, the words all contain insects. Patti (pictou) gave a huge hint in her clever comment.  

One of those puzzles which lead you instantly down an etymological rabbit hole, instead of seeing the words as just collections of letters.

Happy day everyone, don't make life harder than it has to be, it's hard enough already!

 

 

String and scones and things

I continued with the cording yesterday, now that the fibers were damp, much better 

There's a difference between using iris leaves and day lily leaves. You split them before drying then damping, and the day lily being long and narrow, has mostly long fibers, good for cordage. The iris is broader leafed and separates into smaller lengths, a bit trickier for cording but it still works. 

Quite a bit of what you see here is iris with a few lengths of daylily. And I've started to build up the wall of this piece, to make a straight sided container.

I'll use up the current supply then make more cordage.

 I found that my current Arabic course of twenty lessons only has seven on YouTube, so I had to look around for a new course. 

I'm now following this, from the beginning, and find it works as review, too, along with new words. Some really odd vocabulary, what with the words for secret, research, fail, sister, father, door, broadcast, repeat, pilgrim. Think of the dialogue you could have!

Since today's Sunday, I'm taking the day off from Arabic and trying to figure out the start time of a carol service I was sent a link for. It's in London, turns out, so I translated into their time, find it's not on, and wonder if it's already been translated into EST somewhere... We'll see. Oh, it's on now, must rush!

But first, Gary came over yesterday with scones! So my afternoon tea was lovely

Meanwhile another puzzle courtesy of Haggard Hawks

String things

After I packed up the gloves, which sister M. is very excited about, having seen a picture, ready to mail out, I needed a change of making.

So I brought out the painted bag of daylily cordage doings, and did a bit on the thing that might become a basket or maybe a table mat, once I decide.

I ran out of string, so I started making more, after damping a handful of dried daylily leaves

As you see, with varying success

Partly I was out of practice, partly the fiber was a bit brittle. So I left a supply wrapped in a wet towel in a plastic bag overnight and today I'll be able to do better, after I get home from the post office.

Once you start cording, you really don't want to stop. I had to, when my hands started complaining. Probably just as well, since I'm not too good at knowing how much is enough. 

My dreams were very confused last night, full of attempts to write words in Arabic and read English backwards. I think my brain is struggling!  

But it's being challenged, which is probably a good thing. I work a bit every day on the Arabic, and have trouble retaining the sounds and shapes with their meaning, but I keep reminding myself I've only been doing it for a week. A bit impatient there. No rush. I tell myself. My brain snarls that's what you think! 

Happy day everyone, try not to get into a brain fever! There's time. 

Day after thanks

 Thank you for all the good wishes yesterday, in fact

I had a lovely day, warm at home reading and knitting and receiving good wishes by text and ecard and email and blog, including Sparkling M's inspired foray into Arabic!

I had to be out in the morning to leave a clear field for the cleaners, who left me a Christmas card and this lovely little plant

A Christmas cactus, so long since I had one and I hope it will keep its buds. It's now out of the cellophane and foil jacket. So I did get flowers.

Then later Gary came over to visit, bringing this

 

A large share of his own birthday cake, from his daughter, his birthday being two days ago. He also was given a seafood dinner, eerie similarities. He's much younger though, s kid in his seventies.

So that was a lovely day, and more greetings this morning. 

Let's celebrate, while we're thinking women and Arabic, this wonderful scientist 

I finished the third pair of gloves 

and they'll go off as soon as the minor flooding in the neighborhood from the last two day rainstorm has abated.

Happy day everyone, enjoy your day, birthday or unbirthday. It's someone's birthday somewhere, may as well celebrate.

Happy 42Twice to me!

I made it to 42 twice. Even numbers today, date of birth, age, year. And I was born on a Thursday, so that's back again, wheee! It all seems very auspicious.

Notice how it rhymes there, I'm a pote and I didn't note, or poet and know it for readers in search of footnotes 

And here's the present I'm giving myself, to help with the on-line lessons.

So frivolous! 

Happy day everyone, enjoy every day whether natal or not. 

Textiles and Tea with hot chocolate and gloves

Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured this longtime Penland Crafts teacher, who talked about her life and teaching, showed the gallery where she sells her work, and her weaving as well as free arm machine embroidery. 

She also spins but says she's only an okay spinner, does it largely to please herself.

Here I accompanied the program with ginger walnut hot biscuits and hot chocolate
 

while I knitted the first of the next pair of gloves, showing you both sides here

Once the second one's done, I'll send off the current three pairs and see what's next. This year has been great for the Sock Ministry which I started in February and haven't stopped. Now I've added in gloves for a bit of variety for the knitter, so I expect to continue.

Meanwhile the puzzle is creeping on, and I've reached the point where I'm not shouting pieces missing, pieces missing, which I'm usually convinced of, for the first part of every puzzle.

Oh ye of little faith, puzzle on.

Happy day, everyone, we don't have to have all the pieces worked out before we can move on. Just as well. 

Today's the last day of this natal year for me. I wonder if I'll feel different tomorrow. .