Gallows Court, Tuesday knitting group, Textiles and Tea

 Latest reading

New to me, this writer, whom I heard and liked on the Shedunnit podcast talking about clues. This thriller has a woman main character, the wealthy daughter of a deceased and feared judge, who has an interest in crime detection. I'll let you know how it goes.

Then the Tuesday knitting group met, the core four today, now that school's in session and people's summer free time is done.

One member took pictures of the stick weaving pages from Weaving without a Loom, and may get her husband to make weaving sticks for her. Meanwhile she took some straws to try that method, too.

Mainly knitting today though, headband, shawlette, sweater, socks.  Convo ranged over houseplants including a lemon tree, bringing plants indoors, travel, music sing-alongs, cremation, body donation, trees and plants as memorials, teaching, tests, jobs, the arts as problem solving skills, chess, marriage, weddings, and more.

Home to a pot of tea and honey toast, to accompany Textiles and Tea with Kyle McKeown Mansfield, jewelry maker and tapestry weaver. 

Her tapestries are small, a few inches each way, but the  designs are powerful enough to make them seem large. You see her here holding one.

left is silk hand dyed fabric with metal design

Here's a tapestry and a detail

She keeps notebooks of ideas some of which later become tapestries. You see earlier the finished tapestry from this idea.

The last is a screenshot of a link, so you will need to cut and paste to get to her website.

She loves color and is from a family of artists, so even though she has a degree in business, she gravitated to a life in art, and has sold her jewelry and accessories as well as exhibiting her tapestries. Up to now she's worked on a small scale, but is planning to weave bigger.

Happy day, everyone, dream big, weave big, be big!

Wednesday is the scheduled visit from the heat pump people, who will definitely make big inroads on my budget.

Resistance: this latest Banksy work, anonymous street artist in the UK, on the side of  courthouse has been ordered scrubbed. But the internet is forever, and art that upsets powerful people is powerful.  Let's make it go viral.

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Knitting group, octopi and penguins, happy new year of the dragon

 Gung hay fat choi!

Knitting group yesterday brought a mystery for you. Are you familiar with this, probably from the seventies? A member found it among her mom's stuff

we studied it and couldn't see the advantage over just crocheting with a hook. It claims you can use it for knitting patterns, too. Can anyone shine a light on this?

And lovely things came out, here a sweater in progress, sleeves to come, see the pockets?

 

A couple of babies are getting these amigurumi

And this is a great way to knit with black without tears, hold it with a bright color, and you'll get a city lights effect, works on both sides

Convo ranged over Ann Patchett, making safe toys, older people navigating well-meaning help, motion sensitive lights, Lunar New Year, playaway audiobooks, Tunisian crochet and heating in public buildings. 

You up for a puzzle? 

And for anyone who's ever hit publish then later noticed a typo

Happy day, everyone, dance like a dragon!

Knitting, iPod art, spaghetti sauce

Here's S's  current work in progress, full of texture, lovely to touch. She raises the bar for the whole Friday knitting group.

We all played with my woven cowl wrap thingie, and have not come up with a name for it, but someone did a search and found a knit similar to it, with a pattern. So I guess the designer had the same idea. 

R tried it on, proving it's a great unisex item, because he looked terrific in it, and liked how you can choose a few ways to wear it. He's thinking of crocheting one for himself.

Chat ranged over stain-lifting pens, Northern Exposure, eye doctors, mulberry trees, squirrels, grandchildren updates, back strap looms, donated yarn, posh French names for English food, when Norman French ruled, and peasant Anglo Saxon names for the same food, tiaras, diamonds, cufflinks, and book groups. Among other subjects.

I cooked a spag sauce to use Saturday, with the Misfits

hot Italian sausage, plant based, diced tomato and tomato paste. There's wheat rotini to go with it. Simple stuff.

About the chickpea fritters, I found they heat up just fine for a second meal, and a bit of dipping sauce is still good. My accompanying salads are getting plainer and plainer, just spinach and mixed greens with cranberries or today loganberries chucked on. I'm finding they taste better with less dressing on them. Maybe it's an urgent need for spring-tonic  greens that's happening.

And I did a couple of images on my ancient iPod, inherited from Handsome Son years ago and mainly useful for playing freecell.  Emailed them to my phone, screenshot them and imported them here. 

Happy day, everyone! Enjoy whatever subject crosses your mind! As you see, my knitting group is an endless stream of consciousness.

Photo AC 

Knitters ahoy, needles or not

Yesterday's knitting group yielded this enterprising work -- I- cord knitted without needles, on fingers. R is self taught, his current crochet in the background, needle free knitting in front. 

He was away with friends last weekend,  they wanted to try his crochet hooks, leaving him temporarily without, so he also figured out crochet without a hook.

he's unstoppable!

And here's the cross stitch wall hanging coming along. It's really lovely to see in person.

And Sandy has finished a Valentine's day sweater, intarsia and embroidery

there were other pieces, which you've seen before. Chat ranged over dpns and modern advances on them, Uber and how it's pretty good around here, not long waits, batteries, stopped clocks and County admin (!),  alcohol, courier stories and weather.  Always an interesting time.

One of the courier stories was mine. A courier/livery/errand small business I was consulting with to help get it organized after a successful launch, occasionally had snags where a courier was needed in two directions at once, time-bound legal documents often. That was part of what needed organizing. 

On this occasion, a package  needed to get urgently to a bank on my way home, so I sent the courier on the other delivery, and rescued the dilemma by taking the bank package  myself. 

I announced myself and requested that the bank officer be alerted to come sign and accept the  documents. She came down, looked around the bank floor, then turned to me and said indignantly "I was interrupted to come sign for a couriered package! There's nobody here! Do you see any courier?"  I offered her the package, and the signature sheet, and she still  insisted I couldn't be the courier. Showed her my business card and title, and she conceded. 

I think her fixed notion of a courier was a young male college student, because often they were. Or something.

Happy day everyone, from the lady with two knitting groups and no courier cred.

Twelfth night, end of Christmas

 Twelfth night 

Christmas ends today so I get to put away my tiny collection in one small box, modest decorations.

Yesterday's other, regular, knitting group featured crochet, cross stitch, knitting and, from this participant, fringe knotting. 

Here's our youngest member, self taught, who just finished a giant crocheted scarf artwork of many colors and has embarked on this crochet work now

He obliged with an action shot!

Chat ranged over health insurance, deafness, retirement, the American revolution, Empire Loyalists, genealogy, DNA findings, creating stitch designs from drawings, cake, and ice cream. 

Today I'm making apricot cranberry jam, vegetable stock, and planning on interesting recipes using the capers on order, bigger ones than my usual nonpareil size.

Happy day, everyone, and if you're in the path of upcoming storms, keep warm, dry and safe.

Knitting and struggling

 Yesterday's knitting group was small and full of talent. See Sandy modeling her latest, which I last saw on the needles.

And Meg's sweater, nearly done, pockets to be stitched in place.

I'd cast on, not enough to show you yet. Chat ranged over finishing projects before beginning new ones, disposing of items for loved people, weather, the transfer of a popular library maintenance man, the winter habits of pets, including Myrtle the turtle, installation of new smart meters, and quite a bit of technical discussion about the pocket placement of the almost completed sweater. 

Then I got a text from Handsome Son, help required with payment shifting. Bonnie asked if I had any tips to pass on about planning. The usual one, assume things will not be simple and will take much longer than anticipated. 

Handsome Son had hoped to polish off the three payment setups quickly once he got the info forwarded by me. I had to do the initial work because of being the owner.  The HOA one went quickly, but after that the other two not so much.

Anyway, we reckoned without his printer suddenly not working, so one form needed in hard copy, couldn't happen. And another, web based destination kept giving error messages saying that account # was already in use. Well, yeah, that was the point, to get in! 

In the end he came over after I got home from knitting, and my printer worked but needs ink. Then it would not work with his laptop. I ended up firing up my laptop I never use, finding the info in there, took a while, and ended up printing from there. and he got a very faint version to fill out. He did it anyway, both of us feeling the hell with them, let them struggle, too!

The last one, a website, was another issue, but finally let me in, not on my tablet, hinky, but on my phone. I was just at the point of getting in, new password, right screen to check, when my phone dropped the WiFi signal, a common problem with this phone.

Started all over again, with the tablet, this time got in, got to right screen, had Handsome Son do the rest. 

After all this, he went out to bring us pizza,sausage and pepperoni,  and ginger beer, which we richly deserved.  It evidently takes two to get through lousy website design. Also printers can be counted in not to work at will.

On the good household news side, both he and I got the new smart utility meters  installed yesterday with no, not a typo, trouble!  

And I received the township safety code certificate, which was supposed to be in the mail weeks ago, for the condo, attesting to safe practices, smoke alarm, co alarm, chimney, all that, signed it and sent it with the other items.

So some things do work.  But all this makes me wonder if a cabin in the woods would be desirable.

And today's poem is so good, in view of recent discussions on other blogs

Happy day, everyone! We got this, despite the times when we feel this has got us!