Tradescantia, after a couple of tries, and other gallant misses

 Yesterday, in the middle of lunch, turkey meatball sandwich, pita bread, Gary erupted into the house, and said that red plant I've been talking about giving you?  It's happening now. I said, great, and I have an empty ceiling hook in my bedroom, let's go.

So we trooped upstairs, and first he checked the hook, said no, this won't work, no anchor. Then a little moth flew out of the plant and he ran downstairs for a glass and paper towel to catch and release it outdoors.

Back to the ceiling, he brings over two cases of anchors and screws, trying to match sizes, and I said, wait, there's another hook in the other bedroom and I think it has an anchor.

Back upstairs he checks, wrong kind of anchor, more exploration of solutions. Finally he did find a ceiling anchor which will work 

And I'm now, after a couple of false starts,  the custodian, possibly owner, of this lovely thing. I need to prune it a bit, since it's been outside all summer, growing fast. I'll use the prunings to start another plant.

Then I went to the knitting group, no new projects to show, but small group chat ranged over hiking vacations in Pennsylvania, flu shots, I-cord edging for knitted items, pockets, passwords, and camping. 

Happy day, everyone, be ready for the sudden appearance of plants and people in your life. And let's remember the humanity of civilians being oppressed right now.

 

And hope a few flowers can bring a little spark of hope

And remember Ukraine, still fighting

Proxy gardening, dyeing, the old time movies

Neighbor Gary has extended his vegetable garden along my fence, cucumbers and peppers.  He needed more acreage, so I suggested he just continue along the fence.

When the sage flowers fade, this lovely housing is what they leave behind

Then natural dyeing happened, to the tee I got the blueberry juice on, and, since I had only a few blueberries, I added in a bag of red onion skins from the freezer, similar color.

I just simmered everything together for several hours

Then rinsed off the debris from the shirt,  till the water ran clear

I'm going to do white sashiko stitching, with swirls around the original blueberry stains 

It's a pinker color than you see here. I didn't use a mordant so we'll see how colorfast it is in practice. The color is pretty solid, not patchy, surprising, since I didn't use any preparation.

Later I left the share of chocolate dipped cookies next door and visited, lovely people, and how I wanted to be home and not have to talk...Aditha is going to replace the curry plant which died, from her flourishing collection.

And I came across a old Lubitsch movie from a novel I'd read many times, Cluny Brown, what a gem. Funny, old fashioned in a "nice movie" kind of way, stars galore. Perfect lightweight summer watching.

I seem to have found a whole lot of this era of movies, from the black and white period, mercifully not "colorized". So I may see more.

Sashiko stitching today, bit of knitting, maybe stitching on my vest which is patiently waiting. 

Happy day everyone, with art from survivors of colonial oppression. Art saves!