Tuesday

Tuesday was Town Day. I had two medical appointments in the middle of the day but nothing else, so it started out at a leisurely pace.

I took a picture of this fancy rubbish bin at the back of the PO Box station; (we no longer have post offices, just counters at the back of affiliated bookshops.) It has solar panels on the top part and compacts the rubbish x5 apparently. I'm glad it's there, but look forward to see non-fossil-fuel-generated power used in public places in a more meaningful way. 

This sign stopped me in my tracks; I don't know how to interpret it. A very well-dressed woman in her 40s (??) walked past, smiling; no, I'm a retired pensioner, thanks, but do you know what this means??

Out of habit, I check bookshops and their stationary/art supply section whenever in town. Luckily, I didn't desire anything on Tuesday, but I couldn't help being attracted to these covers that could be recreated on textiles.

I think of reworking my pebbles all the time, and maybe this was a sign. 

And then I saw this cover and good thing I didn't like the inside, or else I might have concocted a weak reason to need it. Coming out of the second bookshop feeling smug about my economy, I ran into Esther on Trafalgar Street. It turned out we were both free mid-afternoon so we intrigued an Afternoon Tea.  

The first appointment was my second Singles shot, the perks (???) of being over 65. As they advised I might, I reacted badly the first time, spending two days in bed, so I had cleared my already-empty calendar for the rest of the week.

These outside the clinic, I wasn't sure if they were alstroemerias; the leaves and flowers say they are, but I don't know if I've seen bulby bits on mine.  

Nelson doesn't have a lot of World Headquarters, so I had to record this for posterity. I then had lunch at Broccoli Row, a Vegetarian institution in Nelson with the same owner and at least two staff since they opened in the mid 90s. And they still do (Green Lipped) Mussel Chowder; we were hard-pressed to find a cafe in Nelson that didn't serve chowder when we moved here in the late 90s; these days, at the top of my head, I can only think of two other. 

 

Then I went to my second appointment: mammogram. What worries me in retrospect is, the appointment took such a short time, and without being indelicate, the technician didn't squeeze the living daylights out of my girls as they have as long as I can remember. The machine was new, so can they get away with it? Because I'm willing to do this only once every two years.

I went back to Broccoli Row in less than half an hour to meet up with Esther. We had some interesting talks about making, confidence, Internet-selling, and for want of better terms, instinctive-knowing vs experiential-knowing. I'm still digesting the words/ideas. 

One thing to think about, though, is when speaking to non-weavers, I assume they don't know much about weaving. It's worked while speaking with visitors to exhibitions, folks who bought my pieces, or to artists in other fields. But some of my friends, and Ben, have heard me bleat for ages, and from time to time I am taken aback by the depth of their understanding. I can't figure out how I should modulate myself.  

Marge in her 2024 colors, near the bottom of the Cathedral Steps.

On the loo door at Ben's work. Before going home, we went to the supermarket and bought dinner ingredients so I wouldn't have to "cook" for a couple of nights.  

* * * * *

When I go into town, I try to get maximum stimulus for my making, but it's getting harder and harder as independent shops disappear and everybody carry samey merchandises. I was going to go to a couple of galleries, too, but the day turned out inadvertently social, so that'll have to wait.

I threw out my old Delivery Slip pad with half a dozen forms left just a few weeks ago, thinking my Gallery Store days were over. But with a new manager at the Suter, and another possibility I've been thinking about for half a dozen years, I got a new one. 

It was early but I started walking towards my clinic for the jab, hoping something will grab my attention for a half an hour on my way. Fate did not disappoint: I saw in the corner of my eye the top left ball of yarn in the window of a yarn shop Cruella. (We also have a cafe called De Ville in Nelson, because I know you had to know.) 

These are Shoppel Zauberball in singles; 75% Wool/25% Polymide, two on the left, and 100% wool on the right. The company also produces two-plies, and together I believe they are sold as sock wool. If you're used to merino or cashmere, even the 100% feel impossibly "tight", and I really didn't want Polymide anywhere near me, even if the label says it'll biodegrade in 5 years. And they are expensive, (I'd say "very",) at NZ$36/100g; NZ$67-ish for two plies but I forgot the weight. But it was the colorway on the left, (the two balls are of the same colorways,) that caught my eye in the first place, because they felt like relatives of my cotton warp currently on my 16-shaft, so I went back four hours later and ooohed and ahhhed some more and got them. The gentler 100% is more in the image of a spring garden.

They have many more subdued colorways, and a few monochromes. I was taken by the yellow, brick orange, and the blue monochromes, but I can do those on my own, or at least I have to try.

What will I do with them? I'll look at them and handle them for a while, unravel and feel them. And when I've done enough, I think they will become cushion covers. Though single, I wonder if they can even stand to be in the warp on a table loom, because I don't like variegated yarns making strips in the weft. Oh, if they weren't so pricey, I have a perfect chair I pinched from the back of a girlfriend's car to cover.

Knowing I can only knit tubes and rectangles, do you have other weaving/knitting suggestions? I very likely have a number of single-color yarns I can match with either. 

And speaking of doing blues on my own, I've been planning a gentler but more interesting pale blue warp, in the usual looking-at-cones-in-all-lights-over-multiple-days/weeks/months method.

That was Tuesday. Came Wednesday and, not to mention it was hot and humid, I had the same post-Shingles-jab symptoms as the last: headache, sore throat, fever, and upper body that felt like I was beaten up in the back alley by a couple of thugs not exactly yesterday, but maybe a week ago. One paracetamol takes most of it away, but four hours later the body screams out for more drugs; I made the intervals five hours because I'm not a fan of pharmaceuticals. It's now late afternoon Thursday, the day felt much cooler, and I've needed only one. I still have the fever, but the muscles aren't driving me nuts. Tomorrow, I might be able to swing my arms and make another warp.