A pizza from my brother.

Well, sort of - he dropped off some veggies on his way to check on DNiece#1's cat (she and her mother are off on a gap-week trip) and I quickly knew what I wanted to make:

Very simple:  bits of mozzarella, slices of tomatoes, and scattered
bits of basil added both before and after baking.

The original quantity; I did not use all the tomatoes and basil.
The cucumber was lovely.  Still figuring out how I'll cook the squash.

Luckily I had some fresh mozzarella in the refrigerator and a bit of pizza dough in the freezer that I kept meaning to use, but had not yet.  It was the right amount to bake in my cast iron skillet.

Of course I made the weekly soufflé for my parents, this time with a side dish of squash, tomato, onion, and basil.  Veggies from the local farmer's market; basil from a pot my mother has on the front porch:

Work was very busy, and I had three side assignments with deadlines:  An article about contracts, AI, and the metaverse; a cybersecurity test question writing exercise (which goes for a few months, with weekly quotas); and creating reference collateral for a professional association's library.  I also have to finish writing a short article about a Supreme Court decision about trademarks - it's at the top of tomorrow's to-finish list, as I'm partly done.

Yesterday my mother and I went to see the Ruth E. Carter:  Afrofuturism in Costume Design exhibit.  Fascinating to see not just the costumes and her mood boards and fabric samples, but also learn the process behind the designs.  Very scholarly and thoughtful, and so many elements considered!

I've been working on the test sock, and proceeding with the commissioned blanket (just a big piece of what looks like checkerboard filet crochet) while my finger healed from the tiny, sharp needles needed for the sock.  Heel turned and transition to leg pattern achieved, so it's round-and-round for a while until I do the top finishing.

Then I have to make another sock.

Scarves and blankets and bears, oh my!

I am working on a couple things that I cannot post about, one because it is test knitting (several of us are struggling with part of the pattern, but persevere) and one because it's a cybersecurity thing and I have to get clearance.  It's fun - but secret!

I can show the scarves and a blanket I left in Texas to go to Warm Up, America:

Yes, you've seen the scarves before.
Except the one on the bottom, that I made last weekend.
Sorry about the colour, I didn't realize it was so yellow.

The purples-and-pinks blanket is progressing, and looking a little less like a wad of knitting:

I won a prize from the Center for Knit and Crochet because I tested a pattern they created from a toy in their collection.  I told them I'd do either knit or crochet, whichever they needed, and they sent both!  So I did both:

Then I felt guilty because when they announced I'd won yarn from their random drawing of test volunteers I hadn't finished putting the bears together and sending my notes.  (I did send some via email.)  So I did that quickly, before my prize arrived:

I'd planned to make the bears fraternal, but I did the crocheted one first and it turned out the sample knitted one is in red, and I didn't want to appear that I was copying.  So there will be another pair in red with blue faces - once I get a few other items finished!

Just a quick one.

I had a quick weekend in the Dallas area, going to a couple plays, seeing friends, and enjoying some almost-normal time again.  The two plays were:

Both are farces, and both productions were really good.  I know two of the actresses in "Boeing Boeing" but had not seen them onstage, just in virtual productions, so when I heard they are in the cast I decided to try and see the show.  I checked against other productions I wanted to see and opening weekend overlapped the closing weekend of "A Flea in Her Ear", which has two people I know in the cast.  So that pretty much determined when I'd be there.

A couple other shows were "maybe" but without friends in the cast, and no group outing to see them planned by locals, I decided to leave Saturday open to visit friends.  I had a good, and long, lunch with a couple I hadn't see since well before the pandemic.  Wife showed up with a couple bags of yarn she was divesting from her stash, which my hostess and I divided after returning to her home.

Then we went up to Fiberlady to visit.

By the time we got there only FiberGuy (his shirt reads FiberladyMan) and Fiberlady were there, so I got to have a relaxed visit with them.  And bought a bit of yarn.  I wore the top I'd made from their Swirl, and I want to make more of them.  So at least one shirt's worth of yarn came home with me.

I ate some treats:

Breakfast from Sweet Hut.

Lunch at El Noa Noa, enchilada and tamales in chili sauce,
very Tex-Mex.  Yes, I polished off the salsa.

The outgoing flight was storm-delayed, so I almost missed curtain for the first show, but they held it!  My return flight was very late on Sunday, so I had a sleepy Monday, but it was a very, very good weekend of friends, food, and fun.

Just do the things.

I attended an online fiber people hangout this afternoon.  A hundred or so of us gather most Sundays at the invitation of somebody we support via Patreon, to chat and to see what he's been doing (brocante-ing, or a vendor show, or developing a pattern, or whatever), and if you don't feel like being "live" you can sit and work on a project and let the discussion flow past.

Today our host showed some yarn he has been spinning, and said that he'd been stuck for a while, but it's Tour de Fleece season and he hoped he still remembered how.  Yes, he does, and we ogled the purple-with-flecks-of-pink two-ply yarn wound on the niddy-noddy.  Discussing how he approached it, the host said he let go of the need for perfection, and focused on just doing the thing, and relaxing into the rhythm, and simply making thread, and yarn.

This reminded me of a memory that FB showed me, from this date in 2013, when I posted:

It's not quite the same, and yet so very similar.  Sometimes loving what you do, and being inspired to do something, don't align, and sometimes they do, and sometimes it's not the main thing you're supposed to be doing, but doing a bit of it can be refreshing - and soul-satisfying.

So I have my job, and do as I should there, and next week I find out how well they think I am doing (annual review time = report cards for grownups), so it's a time of tension and wanting to do some things and not others, and well.........

I volunteered for a couple pattern-test projects.  One I didn't finish, but there was no deadline, and I have been working on it this weekend.  This is for the Center for Knit & Crochet, and I offered to do either pattern, since I knit and crochet, so they sent both.  I decided to use some leftover yarn, and then realized I was doing the knitted bear in the same colour they had used, so I restarted and now have twin blue bears.  I'll do a separate post about them when CKC allows me to do so.  I did find a bunch of errors in the patterns, so scan and emailed the corrections, as well as emailing one immediately in case others had a question.

The other is socks and fingerless mitts for a designer whose patterns I've looked at, and purchased a couple, but she is very big into using beads and I am not big into beads.  This pattern is heavily cabled with NO beads, so it is right in my pleasure place as to knitting.  I don't like working on a deadline, and had those bears first, so I am behind the others.  On the upside, this means several of the errors in the pattern, or places where clarity is lacking, have gotten sorted.  However, the designer wants to see the socks and get feedback within three weeks from the cast-on for the socks, and the mitt a week after then, so I need to catch up.

I had a problem in that I generally don't buy solid coloured sockweight yarns, because I'd rather do plain quick socks which means a patterned or wild yarn works quite well for not-boring socks.  I found a skein of blue semisolid from Bombshell Dyeworks that will not hide the pattern, so onwards to the testing!  This will also be a blog post once we're permitted.

I've also been making soaps again, as some new moulds arrived.  A friend on KnitTalk posted about his designs because she makes chocolate, and he advertises for that purpose, and she saw some with knitted designs.  I looked and saw they are large enough for soaps, so:

I am also trying to finish that purple-and-pink blanket so I can leave it with my friend to deliver to Warm Up, America! at DFW Fiber Fest.  I'll see her next weekend, and can work on some of it while we're socializing, but it's large and unwieldy and won't do for theater work.

Time to get back to knitting - things are on deadline!

World UFO Day

I have heard that we are now to refer to "unexplained anomalous phenomena" (UAP) instead of "unidentified flying objects" (UFO) for what many people think are alien visitors to our planet.  I think it's going to be a long time before people change what they call those.

For fiber people, and other creative types, a "UFO" has another meaning:  "Un-Finished Object".  This is something that has been abandoned, or set aside, for one of many reasons.  Although I want to make progress on the pinks-and-purples blanket, and I was accepted as a sock-and-mitts pattern test knitter, I decided to pull out a UFO of my own and see about making progress.

The yarn is from Woolworths, so you have some
idea about how long ago I might have begun this.

I wanted to get to the end of the current skein, but won't tonight because I have been doing other things today.  It goes back in the bin while I work on the two deadline projects, and because it requires enough attention to not be mindless knitting.

My parents' anniversary was yesterday, so in addition to our weekly soufflé (their request for anniversary dinner) I made some fresh blueberry muffins and dropped them off early in the morning, so they were waiting when my parents got up for breakfast:

I made a half-batch of six, and kept two.

This week I had a number of work deadlines, and of course reading for my class, and I signed up for the Mark Twain House & Museum Reading Challenge.  I will count the same books as for my already-in-progress reading challenge, and since the books we are reading for class are literature, I've decided that I can count the ones I read in full.  We just finished Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in the original 1818 version.  Fascinating to read as it is so different from anything you see in the movies.  Our instructor was not born in the USA so she read the book before seeing any films, and discussed how it gives a different perspective.  I quickly decided that I had to look on the book as standing on its own, and not as a precursor to any film, since it really is different.  I recommend reading it if you like such things, and remember that it was written in the early 19th Century (era of Jane Austen, to get an idea of the writing style prevalent then) so it won't be the sort of science fiction most of us are accustomed to read.  Also, the book was heavily revised before the next version, which I want to read for comparison purposes - but first, I have to finish this week's assignment, and prepare my speeches for Wednesday's online production called "Pass the Skull" - I have two of Laertes' speeches, one of which involves quite a bit of movement.  That is hard to figure out with no cameraperson handy!

PS:  I have tried to remove the white highlighting over the text, without success.  UGH.

How Good it is to See.

After a week of rain, yesterday was sunny and today ditto.  So I was able to get out and do some proper walks.

A hungry bunny.  I don't walk for speed or distance,
necessarily, but try to pay attention around me.

Clear blue sky - verdant vegetation.

This tree fell over a long time ago, and I
enjoy seeing how new life springs from it.

There are some creeks and streams that the path
crosses, and I love to watch and listen to them a
bit when the water is like this.  Too bad I
haven't figured out how to upload a video.

One thing that I love about walking is just looking around and seeing things.  The bunny might have been overlooked by somebody who was just walking.  I also saw birds, earthworms, a fuzzy caterpillar, a feather gently float onto the grass - so many things.  And I revel in being able to see in part because my vision has been so terrible for most of my life.  As my mother often said, when two high myopes (extremely nearsighted people) have children, the effect is multiplied.  At least in our family it is.  Then add in astigmatism and cataracts, which show up very early for us, and vision is a challenge.  Hurrah for modern medicine and surgery - when my cataracts (first seen in my early 20's) were "ripe" for surgery a decade or so ago, it was a straightforward procedure.  What I did not realize beforehand is that when they put in the artificial lenses, they can correct your vision - or some of it.

At the time, my vision was around 14.5-15 diopters off.  I don't know how to explain that to a normally sighted person.  I'd first tested as legally blind in the second or third grade; my mother told the school nurse to have me retest with my glasses in place.  Most people talk about being "20/50" or "20/200", meaning that what you see at 20 feet, a normally sighted person can see at 50 or 200 feet.  There is no way to translate over about nine diopters into that sort of metric.  I literally could not see clearly anything beyond the end of my nose.

So they only corrected 12 diopters, which is the maximum possible.  I am now to somewhere between 2.25-3 diopters in each eye.  This means I have vision I cannot remember having.  I can move about my home without glasses, and actually see things.  There is a crispness to the world again.  And I still have the wonder and amazement at how much I can see, even well more than a decade after my surgeries.  It's a gift, it's a blessing, and I am forever thankful.

😎👀😎👀😎👀😎👀😎👀😎👀😎👀😎👀😎

Since it is very warm out, once I got home I mostly stayed inside.  I finished four scarves - all the knitting or crocheting was done, but ends needed to be run in and washing tags added.  These go to Warm Up, America!

The pink-and-purple one is a made-up design in seed stitch.  The turquoise one adapted a cowl pattern by not sewing the ends together, and it is reversible because the middle is K1P1 ribbing.  The four at the bottom are all from Caron Latte Cakes, and since only one of the rolls had a label, I copied it for the other three.  I've found it's very simple to take the washing instructions from the yarn band or tag or whatever, and attach that to the item, if there is enough information.  The Cascade Yarns "Swaddle" I used for the pink-and-purple had just two images, which isn't enough for those who don't know how to decipher them, so I printed a tag of some generic instructions (in three languages) that I've made and used in the past and attached that to the scarf.

I also returned to something started and stalled several years ago.  I decided to make a blanket in pinks and purples in honor of a fellow fiberist who succumbed to cancer.  These were her favourite colours.  So I had a bunch of yarns that I'd collected and put together with that in mind:

I had a few ideas but never got more than a bit done.  So I pulled out the yarns and figured I would just doodle and see where I got.  In the photo below, the pink square was all I'd had done, so I added another of the Bernat Stripes, then started an overall border with the Sweet Roll.  The photo shows it pulled apart when I decided to frog part of the border and add a bit more of the pink at the other end, on top of the inner border, to make the proportions longer:

I am now past the addition and have finished the rest of the Sweet Roll, and am working side panels of the Dark Horse yarn.  At the moment it is a very scrunched lump on a long circular, so not much to look at or figure out how it looks.  Current plan is to do the sides evenly, then corners of the Gedifra, then another border bit, then longways around with the Bernat Stripes, and then we'll see.

I also made some soaps:

I do just simple melt-and-pour, and was intrigued by a kit, which was on sale.  You put pinches of dried flower petals in the mould, add some clear soap, and then scented white soap for the majority.  A friend in Texas goes to a ladies' retreat with her mother each summer, and usually makes facecloths for their collective gift bags.  (Everybody makes or brings something to contribute.)  A few years ago I made a bunch of soaps for her to include with the facecloths, and they were popular.  So I've continued, even shipping a box when I wasn't ready to travel as the pandemic unwound, but they were holding a limited-attendance version.  I thought these would be a very pretty option.  I probably won't have enough of the scent to make soaps for everybody to have this type, or maybe I'll switch to a different scent.  I'm not much for floral scents but I think I have some carnation in stock.

Time for me to do homework.  I am taking a class called "The Emergence of Science Fiction" and we're finishing Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein".  One thing I didn't mention above about the surgeries is that when you get your cataracts removed, they can adjust for nearsighted or farsighted vision.  My ophthalmologist was very surprised when I said I wanted to be nearsighted because, he told me, almost every other patient wanted to be farsighted so they could see for driving and outside things.  No, I explained, I love to read, and I really wanted to be able to read without having to wear glasses or hold the book on the end of my nose.  What I didn't tell him was that part of the reason is that too often I would fall asleep reading and my glasses dented the side of my nose!

I love being able to read without glasses, and being able to hold the book far enough away that I can see the whole page, and not have to keep moving the book - or my nose!

My Father and His Brother

Today is Father's Day, so I spent a chunk of it at my parents' house helping my father in the garden, and pulling out books for him to sort (they have a donation appointment at the local Friends of Library shop on Tuesday), and of course making the weekly soufflé:

Somehow, one of the last dollops of the mix make a heart on top of the cooked soufflé.  At Dad's request it is accompanied by fresh green beans almandine, and I surprised my parents with a half-dozen banana muffins.

Yesterday we drove out to the coast to scatter my uncle's ashes.  I'd found a boat and crew that do it (unlike the Neptune Society, which did my grandmother last month, they are not full-service, so we carried the ashes) with the family aboard, which seemed important to us.  We'd originally planned to do this last autumn, but the chosen day was overcast and damp and really chilly, so we agreed to postpone it to this spring or summer.

The weather was glorious, wonderful for being on the water.  The boat was very comfortable.  We had a bonus of seeing a pod of dolphins on our way to the watery cemetery, which was lovely.  They have a basket that they and the family line with banana leaves, then put in some flowers and petals, add the ashes, and more flowers and petals to fill the basket.  When we reached the zone they let you have a few minutes for final prayers, and when ready the Mate scatters the basket's contents.  The boat circles for a while as you watch the flowers and ashes disperse, and when ready heads back to shore.  The photo at the top is one I took as we circled the scatter area.

They have beverages and some snacks aboard, but we stopped at the Stoked Restaurant, where the Stargazer docks to pick up the families (with parking rights - very kind of them!), and it's a very local place, with definitely commendable food.  If you're in that part of North Carolina, give them a try.

So, it's been an emotional weekend, but we were glad we could give Uncle Ben his final resting place.  Because he was part of NOAA's hurricane-watching crew for most of his career, we thought this would be an appropriate part of the world in which to scatter his ashes.