Tuesday and textiles

I had a bit of time before I left for the knitting group, so I sat outside for a few minutes of doing nothing but look around.

The cosmos are going all out, with all kinds of insects busy around them, including this monarch 

At the Tuesday Knitting Group, the Spurtzleur was at work, finally. M brought in a piece of Shetland roving, and learned in no time. She and I have been trying for ages to get this together, roving and Spurtzleur.

She spins with a wheel and a spindle and is now enthusiastic about this new spinning tool.

Another member suggested to the librarian that there be a separate series of classes for people to learn in order to feed into and grow our group. She even offered to teach a crochet series, and we all had our input into what when and where!  

Here's a donated box from which participants can get supplies, and the library will provide crochet hooks. I'll add to the supplies, with less chunky yarn 

And we'll have a display of our own projects for a few days in November, so I'll pick out a couple of items. P. the librarian is very enthusiastic!

Other talk ranged over the difficulty of linen spinning, M having gone to a workshop and found it very hard on the hands,  rehoming the  recorder, the difficulty of online music meetings, so much difficulty! And Diwali, so much fun.

And a report on Rhinebeck, not very flattering -- not enough sheep! Too commercial! Too huge! Anyway not to the taste of the person who went. She much preferred the sheepy  Maryland Sheep and Wool and the NJ much smaller one, but with the requisite sheep breeds. Different audiences.

This was such a rich meeting, new learning in spinning, new beginner classes planned, project display in the works. 

At home again, Textiles and Tea brought 

A teacher, owner of ETC,  a textile center in Oregon, tour director to Egypt and Sweden, next stop Peru. She also designs and weaves. Her linen and lace classes are among a range of weaving skills she teaches. Her hairy studio assistant is on duty with her.

I included this because I like to see the guest's surroundings

HGA (Hand weavers Guild of America) prize-winning linen and lace hanging.

 

Observing a worker in Egypt demonstrating a technique. 

Every week there's an interesting fiber worker on HGA's Textiles and Tea.  Suzie, judging from online comments, is a beloved teacher.

I knitted a new fingerless glove while I watched. Another rich Tuesday, following my love of textiles and the people involved in them.

Happy day, everyone, follow your bliss or whatever you like to follow.

Micro seasons, butterfly migration, America's test kitchen,

So we're up to page two, season three, in the microseasons journal.

Just making deliberate observations each day, enough for a few words for the day, is proving to be a great focus, little pressure and a lot of pleasure. This might suit me better than those rambling narrative journals some people love to keep.

So today's observation is of a flurry of activity in the butterfly bush, many small cabbage butterflies, tiny brown ones, several species of bees,  and, spectacularly, two monarchs dancing and feeding all day. 

Since they will be migrating in a few days, I expect they're fuelling up before the thousands of miles they fly south. They fly high up in the air for migrating, like flocks of birds. 

The first time we went to Cape May, in early October about fifteen years ago, we were in a seafront hotel, four floors up, and there were thousands of monarchs flying over the sea,  resting all over the building facades as far as you could see, all over our balcony. It was a rare, unforgettable experience. Total silence, just movement, a moving blanket of orange and cream and black.

Cape May is a good resting place for migratory butterflies and birds, both before they take on the open ocean south and when they return in spring. 

They follow the coastline south for a long way before heading inland toward their south American destination. On the trip north in spring, it's a sheltered and  food rich environment, with both salt and fresh water marshes, plants and insect life.

We don't get the enormous flocks we used to, so we treasure the sightings we get.

Swallows, swifts, hummingbirds, left weeks ago. 

Closer to home, America's test kitchen book is proving to be a mixed blessing. There are some good food ideas and tips, a useful section on equipment, see, someone invented a tea machine!

And sources for tools and foods. Including the notorious cinnamon..

But, big but, it's too big. Very heavy to handle. The type size so tiny I really can't read it, and the printing ink they used, no doubt very ecological, smells so bad I don't want it near the kitchen. 

Open a page and there's a waft of something between rotten eggs and boiled cabbage. It's truly awful. If you owned this book perhaps you'd leave it in sunlight to deodorize.  

I did get a few ideas as you see, then it's back to the libe. A good idea that didn't work for me. I wish it had come in a couple of volumes, to be more manageable and readable, but I expect there were production and shipping considerations in the way of that.

So there's the House of Boud today.

Nature study, and surprises

Yesterday my neighbor came over to collect me to come see something. Got my hat and shoes, sizzling hot, and he showed me this

I had no idea groundhogs could climb. Turns out this one learned in a hurry when the two cats next door encountered him. He's pretty high up, declining to move. 

The cats went indoors, but there were humans still out. He sat tight.

While we were watching him, from the butterfly bush, this monarch fluttered right into my face then off into the bush, which he'd meant to rest on.

And here's Friday night's supper, crisp romaine, beefsteak tomato snd ribbon of mayo.

Cherries for dessert

And this morning, summer breakfast, yogurt and apricot, peppermint. Scottish Breakfast Tea.

Eating all the colors. 

Hilarious exchange on Twitter today, Brits moaning endlessly about the extreme heat they're suffering. It's about 80° f.  True, they're not used to it, but you've never heard such complaints. 

The best: you Americans only have a dry heat, you can't feel it! We have humidity, it's awful. And you have air conditioning everywhere.

A number of US people kindly explained. I didn't have the heart to pile on by saying I don't even run the ac at less than 82°. Or that friends who live in dry heat can, too, feel it.

It's all relative. And Brits do love the weather as an endless source of grievance.

In other news I'll post a doll update as soon as I've written it, and there was a great Textile Museum presentation this morning on sericulture, or what the captions called Sarah culture. It's about silk. Mulberry silkworm silk. 

That's going to get its own post, too. Too much to squash everything into one post, you'll get in a blur.

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Fall sights and adventures

For the latest adventure with my stitching friends, go here.

Since it's harder for me to drive to Cape May the way I used to, to watch birds and walk and see the ocean, because of the distance and the wildness of the traffic nowadays, it occurs to me that this place might be my new getaway.Only and hour and a bit away.

You can arrange quite simply to go stay a couple of days, not expensive for full room and board, and complete with wonderful building, animals, labyrinth, friendly people, very safe and welcoming for a single woman, resident cat and dog, well, this might fill the bill.  And the chief nun in charge of hospitality already said, oh, just call me, we'll fix it up any time you want to come, always room for you.

I've been looking for a place of this kind, for a couple of days now and then, low stress to get to, affordable, and friendly. People to talk to when you want to, but they'll leave you alone when you need to, because so do they.  So this discovery might be yet another great thing my embroidery guild has done for me.

And for funny and nice sights nearer home, take a look:

Gary's Last Rose of Summer, next door on the truck waiting to be planted. Possibly waiting for me to get back from my adventures to help with the planting.  He assures me this is positively the last shrub he's buying.  Yeah. 

And marigolds in the front yard of neighbor and keen gardener Lakhshmi, with and without monarch butterfly, first monarch I've seen this year.  

Very few butterflies about this year, but many amphibians.  Go figure. Happy to see this one, though.