a joyful mystery and other bits...

in which our plucky heroine appreciates small beauty...

One never knows what feral vegetation will turn up in my yard. So far, there has been feral plums, feral roses, a feral grapevine, and currently, if smaller, there is now a feral petunia. Recently noted this bright spot of pink in the middle of the weedy dustland in the center of the yard. Can understand the previous feral denizens, as squirrels and birds often eat fruit of various sorts leaving behind seeds and "fertiliser", but petunias do not create tasty enticements for wildlife... I will simply enjoy it as a joyful mystery!

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This was a weekend that Thora of Blue Cedar House came down to help, but rather than much yardwork, there was much driving about and shopping: There was a trip to Ikea, for new kitchen dishpans, wooden hangers, and "Björksnäs", an unexpected but excellent folding chair, which will also be great for SCA use. There was a trip to the feed store, to replenish the chook chow, and acquire a Much Better yard rake, with springy steel tines instead of the Terrible Plastic garden rake of Uselessness that i've been struggling with for the last umpteen years. There was a trip to Uwajimaya in Beaverton, to purchase the annual gallon of soy sauce, where the produce department somehow had $1 organic mangos !!! (I bought half a dozen, currently in the fridge for cold fruit salad to ameliorate the triple digit temperatures tomorrow)

The yardwork was limited to some moving of currently underutilised planter boxes, changing out the chicken bedding, and a much desired clearing up of the front porch, which no longer is a repository for empty flowerpots, and the salad table is now ready to be refilled with fresh compost and soil and replanted.

There were various small sewing projects completed. I took in a pillowcase to make it better fit the camping pillow for little Laurel. Added buttons and buttonholes to the front of my bathrobe, and also detached and reattached my bathrobe pockets, so that they are no longer down near my knees, but up where my hands can actually reach them. (RTW clothing is so peculiar)

oh, and somewhere in there I also bought a new box fan for the living room window, to replace the one I dropped, which caused its stupid plastic fan blades to shatter.

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This tabletweaving started July 10, finished August 10... not bad for a project that is mostly spare time pickup work... wool woven trim will decorate my SCA Norse apron dress, and also the new Norse forepart for Thors's garb. Over the next few months there will be assorted SCA clothing projects being worked on and completed, as I am both making some "fancy" outfits for my Blue Cedar House pals to wear this winter and some new clothing for myself as well. there will be blockprinting and tabletweaving and embroidery oh my

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	85" tablet weaving	overdye dress	bag to Goodwill
2	Byzantine scroll	bathrobe buttons	shelf and fan
3	x	bathrobe pockets	-
4	x	x	-
5	x	x	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

Tuesday tidbits

in which our plucky heroine resumes usual programming...

My current scribal project is moving along nicely, and if all goes well should be done tomorrow. I sketched in all the details, then inked them with a .005 Micron pen. Then I added the calligraphy referencing the actual award, for the Order of Three Mountains. Once that part is successfully done, then I start on the painting. The painting takes a LOT longer than the writing, so I always do the calligraphy first, in case there are any problems. I am hoping that I will be able to add the tiny painted gold lines that delineate the "cloisons" in the design. As always I try and do at least one new thing each time I paint a charter or scroll...

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partialy painted
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So in the interest of adding one or two more popover dresses to my summer wardrobe, since the heat wave continues unabated, I found that for some unknown reason I cut out oddly-sized not-popover pieces of my two chunks of rayon. WTF! Whyever did I choose to cut out pattern pieces that bear no apparent congruence with the actual sizes needed for the garment?! I might dip into my one precious piece of Nani Iro double gauze if there is enough, since that would be much less annoying than piecing together the lovely rayon.

Instead, the rayon could become a popover blouse, as I have a concept brewing for transmogrifying my easy popover pattern into a woven top... The narrow front center panel could become a kind of button band, to allow a decorative button front. It would be easy to add sleeves, in the same way that an SCA undergown or tunic has sleeves. Might be possible to patternhack in a collar. If this works, I could even make a jacket from some of the handwoven wool, and add handknit sleeves. Food for thought anyway...

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And speaking of handknit, I found this graphic online about needlefelted steeks, which is absolutely a brilliant idea, so I image searched and traced back to this blog here  Though the idea of knitting is not at all appealing in this heat, eventually it will be cooler weather, and my desire for a new sweater might just cause me to start looking through the yarn and digging out the graph paper

Monday musings

in which our plucky heroine struggles with despair...

I remember when I was a young woman, and it felt like the world was in terrible danger, but there was also an undercurrent of hope that things could be changed for the better, if we all could only figure out how, and could all do what needed to be done... None of the current young people I talk to feel that way any more, either do any of the older ones, or the elders, or the old old people who were alive during WW2. Indeed, there is so much gone wrong now in so many different ways that sometimes it is all I can do to keep upright and still standing.

Yesterday I started reading this article, which only confirmed my perceptions, and filled me with grief. We could have shifted things, but somehow it all went wrong. Sometimes I don't know how to continue, but I keep on anyway, doing the best I can to live a life that makes sense, that is thoughtful and kind, that brings beauty and creativity to the center, that uses as close to a sensible amount of the resources we all share...

It may make no difference in the end, but it makes a difference to me. Every once in a while I get a glimpse of where the choices I make have made a tiny butterfly wingflap of effect in the life of another person. Not huge, but enough to go on with...

Just finished reading this short essay by a preschool teacher, whose wise words were a bit of an anodyne against the despair.
I have purposefully made a decision more than once in my life to choose to live, during hinge moments when there was an obvious alternative. Not going to go back on that decision. Going to make the best I can of the life I have been creating, in the times I have been given to live in.