Tuesday Knitting Group, Textiles and Tea, Roxie Fricton

Tuesday was about waking early, still dark, early breakfast, some weaving,

Near the end of the potholder pocket.

Then a nap. No need to get carried away. The luxury of being older is being able to get up as early as you like, knowing you can sleep in the day if you need to.

The knitting group was the core members, with new projects and old.

This is double knitting, such a talented knitter, just learned the technique, now working like a veteran.

Foreground a glove in progress from yarn she spun and dyed, background a piece of cotton fabric being hemmed as a table napkin.

I started a glove and forgot a picture till I got home. 

Home to Textiles and Tea with Roxie Fricton, a young weaver still in graduate school but already doing public large scale projects.

Here's A large piece which she wove in patterns resembling the texture of the original building it's based on and displayed in. She dyed the fiber with magnolia buds to acknowledge the magnolia tree by the entrance.

She's from Appalachian family background and is interested in honoring their Scottish-origin coverlet tradition of overshot weaving,  while making her own ideas count. 

She works in cotton, in various weave pattern on a four harness loom.

This is painted warp style portrait work, left Vita Sackville West, right her sometime lover, Virginia Woolf. 

Here's overshot gone wild! Many optical illusions and mixes of color.

This is overshot to resemble wallpaper torn  onback and revealing the underlayer.

She's a lively and very analytical researcher and weaver, still very young and with a bright future.

Happy day everyone, join me in celebrating young people showing us the fiberarts are in good hands 

Unexpected partners, quiche and red chili oil

There was quite a bit of cooking on a grey cold Monday morning,  crust free spinach quiche and red chili oil. I've been thinking about both for a while, and thought well why not both? 

The red chili oil is from Yeung Man Cooking on YouTube and the  quiche from a long ago internet friend (Patti, if you're reading, it's Diane's recipe!)

So many spices in play for the oil. I subbed long red pepper for the Chinese red pepper he used, caraway seeds for tahini seeds, didn't have star anise, nor ghost peppers, but I used jalapenos, same idea.  I don't make as much as he does, because it lasts a while for me. 

I used the jar my berbere had been in, without wiping, since the remaining berbere would add heat, fine.

On the right you see spices and seeds toasting in a dry pan, other items waiting around. 

Meanwhile on the other counter

The doings for the quiche. I added in mashed firm tofu with the cheese, and beat the onions and torn up spinach into the egg mixture. Worked a treat.

Here's the chili oil, red because of the red pepper in it, and the quiche ready for the oven, 350°f  for twenty minutes.

Here it is, smelling great and ready to serve 

And here's lunch 

This really was excellent, even if I do say it myself. The spices were mellowed by toasting and sauteing, and the onions and garlic, too. 

The idea just occurred to me when I realized the onions were cooked in the oil for flavor then strained out, so there they were ready to use, no need to make another lot for the quiche. A rush of brains to the head.

I was thinking about old language after the first footing discussion, and the Viking influence on the region I'm from. 

You see it in place names

And Norse words were common in the language of my childhood, particularly in the country. 

If you were tugging in the thumb latch on the back door, you'd be told "Don't rive at that sneck!". And playing out: if you go up fell, don't fall in 't beck! Translation if you're playing near the hill don't fall in the stream.

When I went to the uni I had to drop a lot of terms that the other students didn't understand, being from non Norse regions. And some pronunciation, too. 

We lived in Gribdale, outside of Great Ayton, famous for Captain Cook. The next village was Little Ayton, known to us as Canny Atton

but when I asked a farmer about that a couple of years ago, he being a new resident from the south, he was baffled. And there's Chop Gate, said as Shop Yat, and I hear that pronunciation is gone too.  

Times change and we change with them. 

Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis. That's as accurate as I can get it without researching, but I don't remember who said it. 

Probably a Roman complaining the language had gone to hell since all the foreigners moved in.

Happy day everyone, you say you!

Memories of Marigold as long as we're reminiscing. This was her last night, age 16. 

Walking returns

Sunday morning was cold and windy but very bright, so I got out walking before returning to the sofa to read and weave. 

Before I left, I did a  few minutes' farmer's carry with 5lb weights, wearing my boots, around the living room. It's a gradual process, but Sunday was dry, so I wore Tretorns for walking. They're a bit too big, always something.

Chilly chairs for snowmen 

Look at the pale gold of these beech leaves, hanging in for most of the winter 

Creepy shadows, cue scary music. It's like good tree, bad tree.

Crowds of kids later in this area, kicking balls, throwing spirals more or less, having a great time, girls and boys all playing, reminded me why I like living here rather than in a  quiet,  little retirement development.  

A lot of my friends live in them and like it, I'd hang sooner, but there, you do you, they'll do them. I love the energy of kids fizzing about.

Happy day everyone, fizz away! Sez Ted and Big Ursy 

And here's dear G fizzing away with me on a recent visit. She's one of the few people this 5'2" woman can tower over, I love it.

Belated New Year, cardboard art, weaving

Handsome Son visited Saturday, bringing shortbread and ginger ale for the New Year, adding to the tea and banana bread I provided. 

Since the first person over the threshold this year was a blonde woman, we missed the first footing. But HS,  the dark haired man arriving a bit late with food and drink, was close enough.

For people unfamiliar with first footing, it's a tradition in the North of England where I'm from.  It brings luck if the first person over the threshold in the New Year is a dark haired man bringing fuel, food and drink. 

Usually men would leave their houses before midnight, with the items - piece of coal, bottle of Scotch, slice of cake -- and chat in the street until they heard the ships' sirens and bells and, locally, pans beaten with spoons, sounding in the New Year. 

Then they'd be welcomed in with a glass of something good and a kiss from the lady of the house. Local legend has it that it had to be a dark haired man, not a Viking red -blond, this being the territory where Vikings raided. Not inviting one in!

We enjoyed our belated observance as a good start.

Speaking of cardboard as an art material, here's a wall piece I made from the insert in a Misfits grocery box 

And the weaving is progressing while I listen to A Pocketful of Rye.

This determined enjoyment and making is protest against the regime. 

Happy day everyone, make your protests heard by your MOCS.  

I got weaving

The main event on Friday was the weaving I set up.

I'm pleased about how this worked out. I used that piece of corrugated cardboard for a loom and realized a good way to set up the even warp threads was to insert skewers right through the channels in the cardboard. 

When I ran out of skewers I used small knitting needles. Then I warped up the loom. You'll see the warp threads run right over the back, too.  I wanted a seamless pocket for a potholder, so I set it up that way on the loom.

I used cotton warp thread, and wool handspun for the weft. It came out as 6 epi, ends per inch. That's the weaving equivalent of stitches per inch. 

As you see, I used a crochet hook to draw the weft through. After a while I switched to a size 4 Tunisian crochet hook,  which worked better.

Saturday Handsome Son is visiting to get tea and his share of banana bread. Out of one loaf I get a couple of slices. Mostly it's a shared thing with son and neighbors.

The reviews for it are pretty good so far.

Happy day everyone, get weaving, whatever that means in your life.

Sez Ted and Big Ursy