Freecycling and the circle of life

The art I've been free cycling is part of my end of life planning, as you probably observed, seeing the winnowing around here to make it easier for Handsome Son after I die. The art falls into a different category, though, since free cycling is a way of getting good original art into new homes. 

The latest round went to the same person who took the last group, and we had a great exchange about it. Here are the pieces, from my black gesso, handmade paper and copper wire period.

it's a series of faces, where you can change the narrative by hanging them differently. Here it goes from realistic to abstract. Hung in reverse order, it brings the realistic out of the abstract. 

The recipient is hanging all my art on one wall, very happy with it. This series was bought from an exhibit, and I found the buyer left it to me in their will, so it eventually came back again! I hope it will stay put in its new home. The new owner has been an art docent at MOMA and the local art museum, so, good hands.

I'd far rather my work go out like this than have a  scramble to get it out after I've gone. People might as well be enjoying it. And I have three floors, so the upper stairwell, where these pieces were hanging, isn't a daily view. I won't feel deprived.

I'd offer choices to local friends, but I've found they're very reluctant to take pieces they like because it feels bad, pushing me off the stage! I don't mind, but they feel a bit weird. 

Meanwhile, the Izzy gang is growing

And the Christmas/Thanksgiving cactus is happy

While the rain has finally stopped, after days of downpour, leaving the Japanese maple wearing diamonds

Hard to see here, but a lovely sight. Take my word.

Finally there seems to be enough water in the ground, but I've been frugal with water ever since I learned from Jane Goodall about the lives of women and girls in Africa spending most of their days carrying  water for daily use. Girls can't get to school because they spend hours daily just securing and carrying water.

I don't live where this happens, but I understand why digging wells is important work for incoming helpers in those regions, how life changing it is to have water here, literally on tap. I assume the planet's supply must be finite, so I economize. 

I quit using running water to rinse dishes and wash fruit and vegetables, a bowl uses less,  finally started taking my doctor and a rehab nurse's advice to shower less frequently, and briefly. The showering is about aged, delicate skin, rather than water economy, but it fits into conservation.  I can see from my water bill how it's working.

I'm listening to the audio book of

Where Tey's detective Alan Grant, temporarily out of action from injury, detects a historical puzzle instead of current crime.

It's about the bad rap Richard III, the last Plantagenet king, has had, showing that the depiction of him as a villain is largely based on  hearsay and the writings of a later regime. 

The Tudors, with a tenuous claim to the throne, and much to gain by blackening Plantagenet memory, were the main perps. Shakespeare gleefully fell on the popular myths because -- more dramatic. More clicks. Sounds  familiar in this age of disinformation. And it's surprisingly timely to read this now, when people are still credulous and willing to believe what suits them.  

Happy day everyone, don't believe everything you hear, well, you don't, this is a self selected thoughtful group.

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?

Knitting group, and a lottery-winner calico kitty

 Yesterday's group

General clutter created by Boud

See the sweater and the waiting felted bag

Now in action, that bag is great,  both made by M who loves the blue, grey end of the spectrum.

And for a change of pace, here's K with fine-gauge cross-stitch, for a new grandchild

Chat ranged across the Civil War, recent deaths of very old people, also A.S.Byatt,  Henry VIII, Car Talk, Izzy dolls, for whom I found a couple of different face colored yarns in the library stash, gong bathing, Gwyneth Paltrow, why women lie about their age,  and  other family arguments. The usual wide range.  There was also some incidental chat about the projects we were engaged in.

Happy day, everyone, go to e's blog Life in Progress and admire her beautiful calico  kitty, newly arrived chez e.

Bread, cheese and winter, oh, white rabbits, too

Lovely mail lately, starting to look festive around here. Note one of the cards is a handmade and stitched artwork. Thank you!

And the latest newsletter from CSJB included a shoutout.

This is how to keep your volunteers cheerful say thank you! I don't do it for that but have to admit it definitely helps.

Yesterday's misfits box was very basic

Bread, cheese, honey, cocoa. All you need when you think about it

And in the course of breaking down and tying up the misfits box for the recycle, the Leaning Tower of Sisal happened.

Symbolizing  the eternal human  struggle for permanence, defeated by the inexorable destructive powers of nature. Bear with me, I get a bit carried away in the presence of Art.

Happy December, everyone. This is when I  start to think of all the Sagittarians, to wish them happy birthdays, Quinn, Gary, Janee, Tarang, Mare, Anthony, for a start. Happy trip around the sun, everyone.

Katheryn Howard, Izzies and cake!

 Yesterday brought a gift from a lovely lady, so welcome. Fruitcake! I love fruitcake, and anyone who doesn't perhaps hasn't had  good fruitcake.

At its best eaten Yorkshire-style, with good cheese, here cheddar. And since it's full of nutritious fruit and nuts, it's also breakfast food. Around here, anyway. Thank you!

It's keeping up my strength to knit Izzies, see the first finished of this group, with more to come.

One of the things I like about this is that after you stuff the doll,  you sculpt the shape with needle and thread, and transform it into a little person, hands in pockets. The intended recipients, Friends of Pine Ridge Reservation, have seen this picture and are happy with the proposed dolls.

When I'm not knitting along to Click and Clack, I'm reading another Weir, another doomed Queen

I like the settings Weir describes, how they got around, on horseback or in a litter, so slow, what they wore, the food, and  the whole period ambience, especially the fear, of the King's power and illness against which they had few protections. And they were all so young, marrying in their early teens, grandparents by their thirties  sometimes. It's a gripping world to enter.

Happy day,  everyone, misfits arrives later today with ordinary food, no fruitcake, but I'm already supplied.

Winter is icumen in, and Car Talk

This was yesterday morning, first snow of the season. My walk later was brisk, icy wind, happy to get home and warm.

Today's in the thirties, tops. Oh. 

And here's my latest podcast find. I used to love NPR's Click and Clack, long gone now,  and found out yesterday that there's a podcast to accompany my knitting.

This and The Daily Fail, and How to be Fine will complete my podcast requirements.

And here's yesterday's Textiles and Tea with a rugweaver who loves upcycling old cotton and linen fabrics. He's a beloved teacher, judging from the masses of wishes and memories in the comments, working in the building you see below. He's also written several well loved books.

It was a cheerful episode, and he's clearly a good teacher, refraining from the thicket of technicalities many guests plunge into. They assume they're speaking to experts, and forget that it's intimidating to the eager beginners in the audience to blind them with terminology, and might put them off completely. 

He didn't do this, translating weaverspeak into everyday language as he went. He's also a spinner, and promised to come back and talk about that, since it never got into this session.

Happy day, everyone, weave on, spin on, knit on! Metaphorically for most of us.