Daily activism, Tuesday Knitting Group, Textiles and Tea

Tuesday's activism was to message both my senators, Kim and Booker, demanding that they vote NO on the Clarity Act, which has no proper guardrails on the Bitcoin, and which comes up for a vote Thursday. 

It's before both the Senate Finance and Agricultural Committees. I have one senator on each.  US blogistas, please do likewise, even if you have no senator on either committee. Pressure adds up.

The Tuesday knitting group was a real party, with a new member, the return of one who has been MIA, and the usual suspects. 

And one member brought in sample cotton bolls she'd grown! 

She gave me a couple which I will gin -- remove the seeds buried in the fluff -- save the seeds and try them next year, then card the fluff and use it in papermaking. New adventure.

She also brought in her Ashford Joy traveling spinning wheel and let me try it out. I was pretty clumsy, but the wheel is beautiful. 

She makes it look easy! In the background you see its traveling bag. I priced the wheel, very $$$$,  one cheaper second-hand one lasted no time at all on eBay.  Maybe the spindle continues to be my spinning tool for now.

Meanwhile the toad of Frog and Toad, is finished and waiting for his stripey bathing suit.

And here's a member wearing two of her knits 

While busy on a third

And now a third group member is joining in with Driving Miss Boud, each taking a week, it's generous, also hilarious. 

Tuesdays are all go, home just in time to make a pot of tea and catch Textiles and Tea with Vicki Assegued, a wildly creative freeform artist in fibers, using a huge range of techniques and materials, including garage sale buys. 

she's a generous and great teacher of workshops and exhibits widely.  She designs as she goes, and refers  to testing each new material as she works as auditioning. Great concept.

Happy day, everyone.  Tuesday even had comic relief,  from Freecycle, the gift that keeps on giving

To be fair, the entry was about a red punch bowl and glasses, and the green ladle went with it.  The caption went astray.

 

Update on legislation and bathtubs

The bills in the NJ state legislature I mentioned got  swiftly through the Assembly and Senate and will be law as soon as Gov Murphy signs, which he will.

Here's the doings

So far, so good. 

On the bathtub front here's breaking news. 

Michael the artist friend contractor, came over Monday afternoon, remembered our conversation from years ago and was willing to get the kit, study all the videos -- he's thorough -- fix it, match and replace the few broken tiles, repaint the bathroom and recaulk  the tub. 

Solving a whole lot of problems at once. Even with materials and labor,  this is going to be affordable, yay. I told him no hurry, fit it in where he can, I have another bathroom anyway.

We also had a good catchup of news since before the holidays. All good. 

Happy day everyone, and try to do all the things! Or get someone else to..

Activism anyone can do, part 23,879, and more

There's a GoFundMe underway for the thug who murdered Ms. Good, his name spelled differently from other reports. They cite his mounting legal fees and other expenses. 

It's against TOS to raise funds for expenses created by violent crime, and they claim this heavily armed enormous man was in fear of his life against an unarmed woman attempting to drive away. 

So I reported it. Anyone can. 

And I got an acknowledgement. This is part of the email in the box this morning. It's possible this attempt is being made by some unauthorized person wanting to scam people, too. His name is spelled differently from news reports.

Either way, it needs to go away.  

And, this being a cleaning family day, I got a Lyft to the library.  Hasan arrived in three minutes, in a very new looking car, I like Lyft. Especially since I discovered Uber had donated $1m to the person in the Partial White House. 

Later edit:  the homeward-bound Lyft driver, not Hasan, another,  ran a red arrow and shouted at me when I protested. Several other issues. I've blocked him. But I don't think he's typical.

I finished the public puzzle which had a couple of pieces in wrong places, once they were moved, it was done.

I did this little corner of this

 joyful picture!

Outside not so joyful. The renovation they're doing on the square seems to be all about removing grass and paving everything in sight. 

This afternoon I'm going to get in touch with friend contractor Michael and see if he's interested in doing the bathtub using a kit we can get locally. I'd rather contract with him than unknown installers, wonderful as they may be. 

And here's the current state of the church gong bergamot boxes.  

Pro tip: oranges past their best are way easier to work with. They even turned themselves inside out while I was scooping out the pulp. They're willing to be molded on the glasses, too. This may explain Sally Pointer's success with windfalls.

Watch this space! Bergamot boxes and bathtubs, sounds like one of those carefree novels, beach reading, it's all go. 

An old idea resurfaces, and a new project

The $$$$ tub to shower idea isn't the only way to go. I checked into various versions, from complete tear out and rebuild, to prefab shower inserts, to revisiting an idea I had years ago.

I wondered if it was possible to just cut into the bathtub wall, remove a section leaving a step over, and cover and waterproof the raw edges. At that time Michael the Talented Artist Contractor was very dubious, and we didn't find anything available on the market to work for us.

Anyway now, years later,  there are quite a few companies doing this work and installing the kit, and I can get it locally, and will definitely investigate the best way to go. 

Like this 

And it's many $$$ cheaper than the reno. So I may be able to get the bathroom retiled and painted without going broke. Anyway that's where the thinking is right now. Old thinking not as impractical as it sounded at the time.

And the current making project consists of continuing one of the items that arrived yesterday.  

If there's enough yarn for a cowl, that's what it will be. If not I'll think again. I also repaired and rebuilt underwear but you probably aren't eager for pictures of that.

Thank you whoever recommended this book

I think it's been made into a movie which I don't plan to see because I've got the characters vividly in mind and I bet the movie won't correspond.

It's a book that's wonderful mostly, a bit chick lit here and there but who cares, it grips, that follows interesting people occupied in and around books, writing, selling, reviewing. 

The action is mainly on Alice Island in New England, hard to get to, largely a summer resort place but the characters live there. Not one of those affluent-family-at-summer-home tropes.  

The literary background is second to their lives, hearts, connections, births and deaths. I really encourage you to read it if like me, you hadn't even heard of it when it was a bestseller.

Happy day everyone, and let me know if you have any info, or experience, on the potential mayhem of the bathtub.

I have deleted the coverage of the nomadic textile presentation after finding the presenter doesn't permit recording. I took that to cover screenshots, too.  Just in case you notice.

About politics -- I don't come to blogland for armchair political opining. So I limit my coverage to a few pertinent actions we can take, and  acknowledgment of what blogistas are doing. I'm involved, not trying to ignore our situation, but not wanting to make more noise.  

I have taken to scrolling past blog posts, nothing personal, that include complete cut and paste of the newsletters I already follow.  Just sayin'. 

Great textile day with boxes

In the middle of the online Asian textile presentation which I think will be on YouTube too, highly recommend, the mail carrier arrived.

He waited patiently while I finally got the front door curtain open, it sticks, and handed over a Treasure Box from a blogista who had gone to some trouble to manage doing it, her day to day not being easy. Much appreciated, P. 

Long story, but it's about unused sock yarn and some unfinished projects from a skilled knitter. 

Complete with the needles. And pattern. I spent a while sorting and playing. There's yarn for a couple of pairs of socks, and a few balls which will be enough for lanyards to go with anti ICE whistles. 

What a day! This yarn is very nice quality, and I have some ideas.  I already have a good destination for the blue piece on straight needles. 

Earlier I'd started on a bergamot box. To show my brain feverishly trying to remember bergamot, it presented me first with bento, then with vertigo. No, I don't know why either.

What I do know is that this orange was light-years easier to manage than the lemons. 

It agreed to go on the jars, no argument. So we'll see if I get a box and lid. The smell of the orange in the boiling water was heavenly.

So that's Saturday. 

Happy day everyone, No Kings!

Foraged oranges, pasta measuring, plumbing thoughts

Friday's walk was mild, and loud with birdsong, and Happy New Year to the concrete rabbit. I wonder if his hearing is affected by ear loss.

I found abandoned fruit on my walk, and brought home two oranges.

I'm allergic to (eating) oranges, and these look like the windfalls Sally Pointer used for bergamot boxes, so I figured they're worth a shot.  Anyway they came home with me. Watch this space for potential boxes.

At home I saw this van in my former parking spot, and took a picture because it reminded me of vague ideas about getting one of my bathtubs converted into a walk in shower.  

They were working next door and I may ask, if it was about renovating, if they liked the work.  I notice the van refers to bathroom renovation, rather than plumbing repairs.

Right now I have no problem stepping into the bathtub to shower, and don't need to sit.  But that day may come. I do have that sliding bench thing I used after surgery, but I wonder if renovation might be good. Aside from the $$$$ involved.

Anyway shortly after that, Gary came dashing in to find out if I had a plumbing emergency, was I okay. Not my house, I explained, not my monkeys. He had a couple of good suggestions about bathroom contractors but agreed about the $$$$ side. 

Today's cooking involved peanut butter granola bars, breakfast for a few days.

And I was looking at one of those handy hack videos and here's one I never noticed 

I never realized those openings are measuring devices for pasta. I thought they were drainage. I must try this.

And one thing you really need to avoid, in online shopping, is clicking the wrong tiny box on your screen.

Years ago I was trying to order one bottle of malt vinegar, my favorite, and instead got a lifetime supply of single serve packets of same. I gave quite a few to the food pantry, but still have more than enough.

I like malt vinegar on roast potatoes with chicken, so I'm frequently reminded about this ordering miss. And wonder if I have a malt vinegar SABLE. Supply Available Beyond Lifetime Expectancy. This usually applies to yarn.

Happy day everyone, there's worse things than too much vinegar.