Another great Tuesday

I had a different friend drive me today to the Tuesday knitting group,  usual friend not well. It was a great session, with two new members, and an array of skills. 

One member was making starters -- a bit of knitting set up ready --  for several of her work colleagues she's starting to teach beginning knitting. Another was knitting socks in her own handspun as well as a commercial self stripe. Another learned to knit on the spot and was moving on to the purl stitch before we left. Another was getting to the waist of a topdown color worked sweater,and she's going to teach knitting at the library next month. And a new member brought all kinds of items to show us including beautiful tiny knitted and beaded purses, which can be worn as pendants.

The teacher prep wearing her own handmade crochet and knitted cardigan, and get those organized knitting needles 

Foreground handspun, in action self striping yarn 

Ready for the waistline design 

Wonderful tiny purses, lovely to hold

Talk ranged over summer travel, miniatures, band weaving, woodburning, back to the land, driving, Maine, the V&A, introverts, hearing aids, sweet woodruff, quilting, long draw spinning, short draw,  and a lot more.

Then to the post office to send off an artwork, and home to Textiles and Tea with Kira Keck, based in Michigan.

They're a weaver, embroiderer, mixed media worker, exhibitor and workshop teacher, still very young and already with prestigious fellowships and residencies behind them, including Cranbrook. Take a look.

It's exciting work, full of references and experiments in color and texture, mixing weaving with needlepoint and fabric printing, and interrogating the lesbian experience in textile form.  I came home too late to catch the intro slide, but you can see their website at kirakeck.com, which explains their philosophy and approach.

Meanwhile back at my weaving studio, well, table, I've set up threads ready for a second band after the loom arrives and after I do my first band. 

Five pattern threads, four blue, one green outside edges green. Ready to go.

Happy day everyone, get weavin!

Food and fiberarts, such a sustaining day

This morning I made a Spanish rice and beans dish from Spain on a Fork, with substitutions galore and it came out fine. Mine had more liquid but it cooked down further and tomorrow it will look like Alberto's picture.

Mine subbed mixed greens for bell pepper, curry leaves for bay leaf, diced tomatoes for tomato sauce, Better than Bouillon for vegetable stock, black beans for kidney beans and brown jasmine rice for Spanish white rice. It made four meals and was really good. The Better than Bouillon was great, thank you Sandra and Mary for talking about it.

Here's where the cotton seeds are as of today 

100% germination, and they need to be indoors till warmer weather. 

Then on to the Tuesday knitting group, and all kinds of interesting stuff going on.

Toad got his bathing suit, needs some finishing, so this is a try on

And here's a silk camisole, plus a closeup to show you the stitch pattern 

This sweater is racing ahead, beautiful choice of contrast for the yoke. It's pale blue and reads as off-white against the darker color, really great color design choice 

Then she learned the lucet, two views. She caught on fast, as did another participant who tried it. Both now fancy owning one, so Beka should pay me a commission.

Chat ranged widely, over travel in India, driving in the mountains, Sikkim,  building a trebuchet in the basement, the trebuchet at Les Baumes that the public can fire, music, quilting, tai chi, cotton seeds, shoelaces, No Kings, Earth Day, Stand up for Science, shoulders, orthopedics, physical therapy, and much more.

Home to Textiles and Tea and weaver Emerson Croft, pronoun they.  A teacher/director of the weaving program at Berea College Kentucky, the work skills college which teaches crafts with output to sell to help support the program, they're endlessly inventive and playful. 

Emerson explains they have no minds eye,  that ability to visualize, so the creative work happens in the making.  And humor gets in all over.

Being non-binary, Emerson  first had an impact as a student on the baby blanket design from the college weaving program. All pink and blue and they suggested more inclusive colors, which the weaving studio now routinely uses and sells.

I've included a bit about the college and its sales aspect, artisanal small production items 

Emerson as a student with the inclusive baby blankets 

This was a great episode with a gifted thinker and artisan, and I wonder if I can get a broom from Berea. I can use one.

Happy day everyone, mine was full! Roger that, sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula 

Elderhood, Tuesday Knitting Group, Textiles and Tea

Current reading is the fascinating 

About aging and the medical profession, it's about getting up to date on the facts of aging rather than the assumptions. It's very readable and with plenty of planning ideas as you notice physician and patient interaction.  

My own doctor is careful not to attribute to age alone any new symptom. She may be unusual in that.

 Before anything else today, please contact all your MOCs to demand they put the brakes on the madman in the white house, lower case while he's in office. They must support the military in refusing illegal orders.

And on immigrant rights, there's a proposal to reduce the deportation appeal period to a clearly impossible 12 days. Please go to Chop Wood Carry Water and use the links Jess provides to make your wishes known, on both issues. Thank you.

Meanwhile an interlude of friendship and civilization, with the Tuesday Needlearts Group.

Here's a familiar WIP 

A camisole in progress, blurry image, wobbly hand

 

This is a marvelous cardigan design of four rows mohair, four rows fine wool

The baby blanket in progress

Toad has a body!

Here's a spiral sock in progress, using the knitter's handspun yarn.

Much laughter, and sharing of projects and advice,much of it conflicting (!) and the book above which I've requested my library to acquire.

And here's great new library program 

Talk ranged over everything except the news, since everyone needed a respite. It includes travel, Malta, sweet woodruff, cotton seeds, which I shared around for planting, aging, taxes, Easter hunts, high school reunions, tatting, health, auto shows, crime fiction and more. 

Textiles and Tea presented 

He's an innovative weaver in many weaving patterns and approaches, ikat where he dyes both warp and weft, waffle weave, wet felting, paper weaving, framing, dyeing. He exhibits, sells and carries out commissions. He's also a full-time middle school art teacher lucky kids. 

Here's his home studio, from which he was speaking today 

 

And a wet felting project his students made

Above commissioned pieces in a restaurant, below massive ceiling panels woven in cotton 

Here's adventurous weave patterns 

Ikat, where he paints both warp and weft in a freewheeling style 

Definitely an art teacher everyone should have!  Check his website.

Happy day everyone, I certainly had one,, complete with a Gary irruption wanting advice on a new hoodie with a transfer image which separated from the fabric when he tried it on. I undertook to stitch it.