Freecycling right and left

Today was chop wood, carry water, change the bed, launder all the laundry, make up the bed, take a walk to keep my legs working, and upload last night's pictures to Freecycle.

Handsome Son is moving right ahead with his decluttering, and my living room proves it. I didn't have much luck with the last group I showed you. I thought the holidays, all of them, might mean more free time. Evidently not, so I'll have to try again.

The boxes the declutter came in have gone to Gary, and today he brought over homemade soup his new friend made ;) and left with a crate for his dishes.

Anyway here's what's up 

This went within minutes of posting. It's a cassette player recorder. As you see I plugged it in to show it works.

So we'll see how this goes. It's a workday so people might see these postings this evening. All good.

 There are four little cigar boxes, but one showed up after I took the picture. And I realized a bit late that the tool in the basket is for clay. So I noted whoever wanted the clay tools would get that added in. 

Not totally organized, but that's what happens when it's not your stuff and you don't know what half of it even is.

I like the anticipation of Freecycle and the happy people carrying away their claims.

Happy day everyone, another day of total confusion in the news, so other than nagging my MOCs and posting comments on various wrongheaded bits of legislative proposals, I'm literally tending to my knitting. 

I like this yarn quite a bit. I'm guessing it's hand wash, so maybe the socks will be for me, can't give them to the Knitting Ministry, not fair. 

Happy day everyone, tend to your knitting whatever form that takes. The more I read of Elderhood the more fortunate I feel, good health and good doctors keeping it that way. I wish everyone could say that.

Pods and company and freecycling

 Yesterday was full of entertainment. The Pod arrived, after Gary had moved several cars to accommodate the truck. 

But instead of using the space provided, the driver, finding they'd loaded the Pod backwards, stopped at a congested point up the street to unload, drive around, reload and finally after much grumbling, put it in the right parking spot, near the curb, not sticking out as he'd planned. They walk among us.

I was busy roasting a chicken to pick from for several meals

 Shortly after, the Misfits truck arrived

After this interesting tracking message

They haven't had cilantro for a while, so it's great to have it again. I love it in sandwiches, or anywhere, for that dark flavor

Plenty of oatmeal for granola and bread, must bake bread again. I have a recipe for butternut squash cake, so instead of the inevitable soup, some of the squash will go there. 

Then a neighbor, good friend/ contractor /artist /cook stopped in before they leave for Christmas, with home made great treats.

Peppermint bark, Italian almond cakes. And a lovely  catchup time of gossip, during which we reorganized the lives of all the neighbors to our liking.

After that I rested a while just as well, because another friend came by, with Gary, and edible home dipped presents for birthday and Christmas

And she accepted one of the black gesso mixed media artworks! We were both so happy! She narrowed down her choice to three and we talked about them before she went off with Three Sisters, of which I probably have no picture, it  predating cellphone use. And I forgot at the time. I might ask her to send one when it's in place. She's the survivor of three close sisters, so she really likes it.

All in all, a fairly packed Shortest Day. Here's this time a few years ago. Instead of bright sun and dry streets, we had 25" of snow in one day. I live in that purple band

Condo building completely snowed in, nobody in or out for two days until the small cat plows opened up the entrance enough to let people out. Many feet of snow had blown against the building, up to my second floor condo. All in all, I'll take this year.

Happy day, everyone! I hope yours is also full of good entertainment and hilarious neighbors. 

Ottoman fiber arts, Freecycle and granola

 Yesterday the Textile Museum and others presented a really intriguing program on the movement of textiles and artisans around the Ottoman Empire and beyond, largely because of  political forces. The map gives an idea of the general region discussed.

Dr Phillips wrote the book and is the sort of seemingly effortless presenter who has terrific knowledge of the  techniques, history and languages involved in her subject.

The slides are dated and labeled and sourced well enough to tell anyone interested quite a bit about this aspect of textile history, also some etymology, bringing two great interests together for me.

The weaving structures range from tabby to twill to samite, which I had thought was a cloth, but it's a weave structure.

This weaving uses angora goat hair, and I believe the word is related to Ankara. The item name, velense, derives from Valencia, and indicates the journey of the Jewish weavers expelled in the 1492 expulsion of the Jews. They took their skills and materials east and you see an example here. A lot of things happened out of Spain, that year, as our indigenous people know all too well.

Indian makers influenced the use of silk and precious metals in their very expensive cloth,  which, when artisans had to economize in hard times, were replaced by cheaper metals and threads.

Dr Phillips gave a special shout out to the photographers doing the setups to get these images for her book.

here, in India, modern weaving still uses traditional band designs, on a more modern loom.

Here are some researchers' deconstructions of the weaving

This one is interesting, because the original calligraphy, st the top,  was squashed up, even omitting syllables, to fit into a preexisting design size, lower image. There's surmise that it was a rush order, to celebrate possibly a  victory or an accession to power, maybe both, with a short  deadline. Even then this happened!

This was a real adventure with an expert, into a textile era I knew little about, but now would like to know more. I messaged a thank you note to the speaker.

Meanwhile, back to the present, yesterday I had a great urge for granola and next thing I knew, I'd made a batch. Almonds, cranberries, avocado oil, honey, cinnamon, lemon zest, whoa!

As I was picking out clothes yesterday, I noticed yet again a few items I like and never wear, so I took them out, posted them on Freecycle, and within a few minutes was reminded that there are odd ducks everywhere.

The three items on the right make a nice outfit, and the crop tops go with the rayon pants very well. I have another pair of these pants, no need for both, in fact I've been thinking of converting them to a skirt, lovely deep pockets,  but wide legs that can make me trip, but that means plenty of fabric..The tunic is a linen mix, the shirt cotton and the pants rayon, the crop tops  knitted cotton. Mainly  Indian and Indonesian, the rayon pants fair trade. The blue top has applique I painted and stitched on.

The odd duck messaged me very quickly saying she was interested in picking up. No indication of day and time as requested. 

I looked her up, found she was a brand new account, so instead of ignoring her, I figured she hadn't quite got the hang, and messaged that she needed to note my request and give estimated day and time. I'd noted the town name twice in the post, to help estimate if the distance was worth it.. 

Whereupon she got back and said she'd done that. Which she hadn't. Then she messaged twice more, once to say she lives in a town about an hour north of here, and hoped that was okay by me. I wondered what it had to do with me and the price of bananas, when her third message arrived, and explained she couldn't drive this far.

Yes, you see where this was going! Looked like she hoped I'd not only give her the things, but do a two hour round trip in the process. Evidently she confused free cycle with a free delivery service. So I  didn't continue with the pen pal exchange. 

Meanwhile a very stable and businesslike, different,  lady messaged with day, today, time, whatever I wanted, and the parcel of things was gone in an hour to a happy free cycler.

Happy day, everyone, look out for people who are not quite with the rules, and crafty, too, they're everywhere, everywhere, I tell you!