Misfits box, azalea gone wild, weaving stage two, and burgers

 Today's Dove sighting

Still patiently sitting, the calm before the feeding frenzy.

The weaving is moving along, and today I unrolled the panel and realized it's plenty long enough for a skirt length, including waist and hem allowance. 

See the skirt I handmade a while back, laid on top, for length

I woke up this morning thinking about weaving pockets for the skirt, rather than knitting them. 

So today I figured that when you want another item off the same warp threads, you just leave a space and continue. Which is what I did.  

I left enough warp to have a fringed hem and maybe pocket. I've no idea if the weaving police will get me for this, but this is where I am. Pocket under way.

Once the pocket's done, the two current pieces will be freed from the windowsill and finished.

Then I'll do the same thing again. Once the current Sock Ministry pair is complete, I'll send it off then get to work on the knitted parts of the skirt. 

I'm spinning a while each evening to keep up yarn supplies. The colors will work nicely with the woven sections, I think, all rich but not shouty.

And, not having enough to do, I found an interesting idea for burgers using ingredients I have, so that's what happened

Onions, garlic, mushrooms, walnuts, chopped fine with a knife, since I don't have a food processor, unlike the YouTube lady. 

I started the pan with avocado oil, salt and chicken stock powder, then added in the doings. Fried ten minutes, then into a bowl to cool, with panko, an egg, ketchup because I don't have Worcestershire sauce, unlike the YouTube lady. 

It's chillin now in the fridge till I get some out to cook for supper, using a pita bread because I don't have sesame seed buns, unlike the YouTube lady.

The Misfits box arrived, and was hoisted into the house

The contents arrayed on the counter for forthcoming attractions. The apple juice and fancy raisins will go into a planned chutney, to go with a planned fish curry, using some of the tilapia in the freezer. Take that, YouTube lady!

After all this, the day having started with early morning fasting blood work,  I was ready to get into the sunshine and walk about admiring the quarreling birds duking it out for nesting rights, and this azalea

Which is not a giant cake, though you may wonder.

And now my time's divided between reading this

And this

One an eBook the other a bookbook.

So I think I'll get a cup of tea and wander out to the patio to do that.

Happy day everyone, enjoy all the things!

 

Victoria and Agatha

Current reading, between finishing the Winterson essays, the Alice B Toklas, and the Pollan book on LSD, is this biography

Which I may not finish. It tends to be full of the biographer's personal opinions, as much as the history of the person. She did thorough research into Christie's writings, voluminous as they are, quoting a lot from her Mary Westmacott novels, less well known than her Christie ones.  Like a lot of writers, the interesting parts are the books rather than the life, writing being a solitary pursuit.

Christie was a more complex personality than meets the eye, with an interest in the occult, and a wildly self-contradictory stand in women's lives. 

She had been brought up to believe marriage was the only possible life for a woman, yet she let nothing stand between her and her ambition to write. 

She did marry twice, to unfaithful men, though it's not certain whether she knew her second husband had a long time lover and continued to throughout their marriage. 

She largely financed the archaeological expeditions on which his archaeologist friend was also involved. It was common knowledge to everyone on the digs that he had the relationship, but maybe she chose not to know.

I haven't got far enough to see how this biographer handles that chapter, and may not, the book being a very slow, only modestly rewarding, read. 

Last night's movie was excellent, to my surprise. 

I checked it out because of the interiors and costume design and found it was very well done, acting excellent and I recommend it as a drama even if you're not interested in royalty. The power struggles are gripping.

And here's a montage of the general design

Good actors wear costumes like clothes, not like getups, and these actors do that. Screenplay by Julian Fellowes, nuff sed. It's good.

Then this morning, early sun with my breakfast of tea, biscuit and a ripe plum.

And last evening, a bit of painting

I've been looking at paintings by Dufy lately. You can probably tell.

Happy day everyone, trying to keep breathing this week. 

Tomorrow I call to arrange payment to the surgical center, just found out the doctor's office took only his fee, not both. And start the preparatory eye drops, for which I think I need a chart and alerts on my phone. 

I'm trying to look ahead to when I'll enjoy better vision. Bt the time of the second eye, I'll be an old hand at this. At least that's the plan.