isn't necessarily a way out, but is often a flame thrower. As Terry Pratchett was fond of reminding us.
I used to think that growing old and reasonably healthy was a prize to be aimed for, and valued.
In the past week, after reading the shenanigans in DC and our apparent future as a new soviet satellite, I begin to wonder what prize that might be. I do now understand what that smile on
Putin's face means, the one you see it all his publicity-with-the-president photos, and I think it's exultation. He has found his perfect puppet, one who is too damaged to see the strings, and the puppeteer.
I also wonder at those people who cheer.
I think all anyone of us can do, at this point, is vote our hearts and our heads, and hope.
I am also busy re-learning a weaving loom (film at 11, but not yet) and it is both enlightening and disturbing, how much I have utterly forgotten, and how much memory muscle is involved. It really does become a meditation, on many things, including the act and art of weaving, and the satisfaction you get from it.
This house has part of an old ( REALLY old) 12 harness loom, up in the attic, in pieces. i have the 12 harnesses, and some of the remnants of the loom, but the rest is gone. Possibly for firewood, or shoring up a shed long after the original weaver died. One of the longer pieces, the cloth beam, perhaps, is too long to get out of the attic, and i finally realized this machine was taken down every winter and stored in this attic, and in the spring it was moved into the shed attic, through a very small connecting door at the north end. It gave her room to card, to spin, to weave, and possibly store her projects over winter. Judging from the pieces I have here, it was a huge, huge loom.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
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I do sometimes wonder if I'll live long enough for us to retrieve our country. Meanwhile I'm zooming ahead in hope, working at gotv, in the hope, that is, that the elections will actually work.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're still deep in the weaving review. I'm weaving and keep realizing stuff I'd forgotten and need to do. It's lovely,that absorption in making.
we've been due for a kerfuffle for quite some time, which I always think of as the Red Queen throwing all the cards in the air, and letting them land in new patterns. Serious changes came out of the 60s and 70s, some good, some not so good.
DeleteI like the idea of finishing one step in dressing the loom, and then moving to the next one. A new set of tools comes out, and you move forward.
But what fascinates me is how physical it is: a sewing machine is the end of the line, the gears are tucked away, you use the bits that work, but rarely ever see or even touch the innards. With a loom you are part of it, literally.
I have a wonderful book here from 1918, by Edward Worst, that shows the entire process, including how to put a loom together, and all the accoutrements. I even found the use for a 'temple', one of which I had, but had no idea about. It's basically a warp spreader, to keep your edges straight.
It's a wonderful discipline, too.
These are hard days and I fear even harder days could be our future.
ReplyDeleteI think you could be right and I so much want you to be wrong, but...
DeleteHey !!! Really Impressed by your weaving loom review and you are re-learning and you are investing your time in a productive way. I remember my aunt being so good in weaving looms and she used to make such an amazing piece of work for us, later stages she started her small business. I loved those colorful threads in the weaving process. I wish you Good Luck in your new learning process 😊
ReplyDeleteI've always been a textile kinda girl, since my mother taught my girlfriends and I how to knit when we were ten or so...Never could get stirred up by crochet, but I've made baskets, potholders, learned and forgot and relearned how to weave, did crewel until my thumbs protested: I've got a wonderful treadle sewing machine and a four harness loom, and I keeps busy...
DeleteThe idea of patterns utterly fascinates me, it's both mathematical and casual at the same time.
And thanks for the visit, Andrea...
Let's hope enough people get up to vote to send him home.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I wish I could remember doing is knitting.
Im not worried about people voting, Im worried that he might pull the same shenanigans as he did the last time, when the Electoral College somehow managed to vote him in.
DeleteI can only knit if I have something else to focus on, like TV. Without that, I'm lost. Beyond that, I'm as lost as you are, these days, when it comes to actually knitting anything. One of these days I may try it again, TV or not TV...
Life can sometimes be like a puzzle for which you any never find any answer. I have been trying to learn music at a music institute in Coimbatore . So far the effort is fruitful am not sure what holds in the future. Good that you are planning to relearn knitting. It will surely keep you occupied.
ReplyDeleteI envy you learning guitar: I have neither the patience, the willingness to practice, nor the money to go through all of that. although I do love the guitar, and the banjo.
DeleteAnd actually this is weaving, not knitting, but they are all in the same family, although weaving can be a far far more complex process. But equally satisfying, at the end.