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 

Monday, Monday, Misfits and bananaz

Early morning walk on Monday, windy, and the narrow way I walk between houses and trees was a wind tunnel that morning. Fine on the way out, being blown gently along,  then not so much coming home and battling against it.

The light was sharp and bright for pictures, and I just took several random shots because all the views were lovely.

Home to send text greetings to wish friends a happy Thanksgiving and to say I'm thankful to have them in my life. I like to tell people how I value them, because I don't think most people get much of it.

Then Misfits arrived in the afternoon, the smallest box evah, and yes, look -- Bananaz!

Bananas for bread, sandwiches, smoothies, shipped a bit green so they'll be ready in a couple of days. 

Some conjoined mushrooms in this batch. 

Mushrooms ready to be sliced and frozen in meal size containers. Two boxes make six containers of slices.  I have various plans. Maybe some at Thanksgiving, some in omelettes, some with tofu and rice. 

Blueberries for desserts, yogurt likewise except a dab in soup and maybe pastry or crackers,  it's a good leaven. Aluminum foil is recycled. 

Did I mention that Misfits supports food banks all over the place, and my membership, which I took out as an alternative to shipping, goes toward feeding people? 

This week I needed few items, well stocked already. Every now and then I have a small order. 

In the US we have Thanksgiving coming up on Thursday and I have my annual reminder that people are not always unhappy to be alone on the holidays. Some people treasure that quiet time. 

So before inviting solo folk over do try to find out if they'll enjoy time spent in your family's company.

I had a couple of miserable Thanksgivings in the homes of friends whose family all talked to each other and, after greeting me, ignored me for the rest of the time. 

Don't assume your grown family will be hospitable to your friend. They may resent an outsider and make it plain. After a couple of those experiences, I would politely thank and decline invitations.  I liked my solo day.

Once I had the pet care service there was no need to explain -- from mid November to New Year was peak booking season. My mid December birthday had to wait till January!

Likewise don't assume your solo friends want you to drop in on them at Christmas because well, it's Christmas! My solo sister some years ago, when she lived in the city, had planned a lovely day with a good book, nice fire, cat and dog, glass of wine, to recover from a high stress job.

Instead she was bombarded with people "just stopping by for a minute on the way to xxx". She said she spent the day pretty much giving out her Christmas treats, and washing glasses while her friends polished off her Christmas wine! No wonder she retired to a small town that wasn't on the way to anywhere.   

And, if you wonder why she let them in, the harsh truth is that single older women can't afford to stiff-arm people, when it's clear they're home in a tiny house, window next to the sidewalk. A lot of people are  transactional, and supports are tenuous.

Anyway just a couple of pre-holiday suggestions. 

I did make those peanut butter granola bars, and they're very good. Handy for a snack or breakfast.

I substituted honey and molasses for the syrups in the recipe, added in ground flaxseed, good opportunity, used the pumpkin spice you saw me make, instead of cinnamon alone.

The bars are crisp and chewy, really good. This is great for breakfast. 

I was called on recently by a former student to advise a relative about natural dyeing. After a career in various helping professions, she's training to be a death doula. 

She wants to learn natural dyeing for -- shrouds. That's certainly unusual. I emailed her with a few beginning suggestions, and she plans to keep me updated on how it goes. Never a dull moment!

Speaking of which, the chickens were out, yay, they're still here, out at dusk so the picture isn't very good, but they have grown dramatically. Still peaceful, pecking and cheeping.

At this point, happy day, feel free to count your chickens!

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!