Another sweater success! However we rather fell out of tradition this time not photographing in Calistoga , but yet again at the castle which is my niece’s favorite photo place. Few words this post , but I promise to be more talkative of details about the cardigan when pattern is ready, and it is forthcoming shortly!
I just took scissors to another thrift shop mens linen shirt, and made it into a loose draping toss-over shirt with the original cuff placket still showing after I cut off the cuff.
I simply cut off the sleeves about 1-1/2″ longer than I want, made a pleat, and then pressed it all into a half-inch hemmed cuff.
This time I tried popping off all the buttons on the button bands and simply sew’d the button band over the button-hole band, because as I don’t ordinarily iron, and loath gaping button bands in front, and at the bust-line especially. Its kind of funky an interesting detail,but worth the experiment.
And I left a little open at the bottom.
I was thinking I’d go over it with shell buttons and just sew them on for the faux affect, but then I will wait & decide later, for some shirts are nice to have just pure linen.
The learning curve on this one was, 1. never buy a shirt with front pocket flaps thinking they’re easy to take off (the seam ripping was torturous and long). Although the holes from the previous stitches show now, they’ll go away in the next few washings. Or maybe never.
And 2. custom bias tape rocks! With the same kind of fabric, and it can be made easily. (This I had to use some linen from my stash, as it must be on the bias), but it is a great way to finish a neckline which is curving, for one really doesn’t want a ripply rolled hem like I did on this one. This is the little bias tape tool (admittedly I don’t really know what that swiveling part on it is for)… pull the fabric through and iron and neaten the folds to the middle as it comes out~~ voila!
Then I simply sewed the raw edge of the neckline to it and folded it on the inside to sew down. Simple, tidy, and sews up so professional looking. I found a good video tutorial on how to make bias tape here
I didn’t have enough cut from the length to make the usual front insert or cuffs, so this is an experiment of how I can change the look minimally.
The nicest thing about white linen is the transparency so visible when held up against light. The warp and weft of flax threads speak a language I can understand, sort of like the neat pleats and double-folded hems are sharing with me their secrets, all which make the shirt feel crisp and just a little bit like a veiled treasure.
I’ve been on a trend lately of simple collarless shirts, for in cool weather they just invite a nice lace cowl, and I am slowly acquiring quite a few of those, more recently craving to cast on with some fine flax lace yarn.
To see all of my New From Old projects, click HERE.
And lastly, is it my imagination or are most of my photos in this post really fuzzy?
Happy Autumn Equinox everyone! It is in recent years, my favorite day of the year. This morning the equinox occurred at 7:21 in the morning, and I planned to get to my secret knitting spot on one of my trails, overlooking a vineyard and hazy Mt Diablo in the distance, only about a ten-minute walk from my door at the most. Here are some more photos of our little early morning walk out to greet the new season…
Emma enjoyed the scent of the fresh wildlife tracks from the night, and I enjoyed the brilliant angled light fuzzing through the trees. We then reached our secret spot on time, about 7:20, here standing on the big stump of a very large fir, gives a wonderful vantage point of the area we live in.
The light at sunrise had an amber glow and the air is cool. I thoroughly love this little loop in the woods next to my house, at first light. Tomorrow and often in the days following, I think I will come here to greet the sunrise and feel Autumn’s transitory beauty. Perhaps a thermos of tea and sit on the stump here, knit, and thoroughly enjoy the season as the leaves slowly turn.
I also have a little new knitting going on, but I won’t give details for another week or so…
Enjoy your first-day-of-Autumn and happy knitting!
Its a glorious time of year! Although the temperature is oppressively hot and a layer of dust covers nearly everything, there is an anticipatory glee happening all at the same time, for we are days away from the Autumn Equinox!
And perfectly on schedule, two cardigans come off the needles and sit folded, well-mannered and patient, waiting for the eventful day (hopefully soon) they meet their people~~ Miss Sixteen & Miss Thirteen…
I’ll not say a self-promoting word about what pattern these are knit from or anything like that, I’ll just say that I’ve spent the better part of 6 weeks merrily throwing stitches for these plain & simple sweaters. One last detail to do, the hand-made label…
And now they are indeed done & dusted. I always feel a huge sense of accomplishment at this point in the year, all ready for the rains to fall, whenever it will be, who knows, but I look forward to that first sprinkle like candy falling from the sky.
Next time you see these babies, they’ll be on my nieces in Calistoga, for the traditional annual Autumn Sweater photo session. Autumn is on its way, and life is good!
Mid day light seems to pour though windows, filtered through a mulberry tree and various shrubs, into this quiet warm room. There is my favorite knitting chair, **temporarily transplanted from its mountain home to this echoey clean & empty place, kept company by my knitting basket, cup of coffee-to-go, and myself. Oh, but is that a sleeve cradled in it’s seat?
Oh, perhaps more than just a sleeve, it looks like maybe three sleeves and two bodies, which means only one thing…
It is nearly time to join all the pieces together to make a couple of lovely cardigans to greet the Autumnal equinox. My usual first weeks in September are all about this stretch of frenzy knitting into my favorite season of all.
I also wanted to share with you something very fun I ran across on a series of internet clicks I wandered down this morning, ending up at an old mill in UK. Here is a room with spinning, and all the rhythms and sounds associated with milling yarn put to music, a lovely little video for you all to enjoy as I have, called ‘A Short Day At The Mill’…
And here is another similar, but with more footage called ” A Long Day At The Mill ”
** Knitting chair & basket is occupying a corner space in a room of the house Jeff has been renovating for nearly 6 months (with a little bit of my help) and finally, it is empty & glowingly ready to find a new owner, as I knit while waiting for real-estate agents to show intermittently. No worries, I am not moving, nor is Jeff, this is but his old house in town that he lived in when we met in the summer of ’94.
Bye bye old house, it was nice revisiting your rooms, and I will miss you.
Earliest morning light greets me as I go into the dark kitchen to make a pot of tea. Certain times of year the rising sun aligns and finds a tiny window through acres of trees and pierces through to light up this antique oak ice chest in our kitchen, a real stonehenge-like occurrence near the equinoxes. I really am fascinated with the play of light, and how it changes dramatically the perception of objects, and even emotions about them, or a room. Light moves swiftly as the colors that are created from it are a palette seemingly endless and varied.
A few minutes later you can see the light washing out a bit, and a shadow of a fir tree from the woods in front of the kitchen window…in a sort of woodsy magic shadow puppet show!
Okay, I’m on a roll, I fall asleep dreaming about taking scissors to over-sized and hardly worn shirts, and refashioning them into one-of-a-kind personalized shirts. The original, a Talbots brand women’s tunic, in gorgeous jet black in lightweight Irish linen, found at a thrift shop somewhere for a few dollars.
Refashioned into what is becoming my signature look, a boxy throw-over style inspired by my favorite brand FLAX, with practical as well as flirty finishes…
This style collar is hand-sewn inside of the edge of plain neckline hem, then folded over to make a very nice look. However, after I added the decorative length to the bottom, I felt that the sleeves were too short and I wanted to use those rectangular pieces in the end for cuffs, so I undid the collar and reworked the pieces into wide faced cuffs able to be folded up, with a single wide pleat into the sleeve.
I had a lot of length to work with , cut it in half widthwise, and from those I made; 1. the insert down the middle, having taken out the button placket, and 2. with left over pieces I sewed together into one piece , then worked to fit shirt body with narrow little pleats spaced out and pinned around 16 times around circumference (intentionally not too neat) to fit the bottom hem. Result is a slight charming skirty edging…I suppose this is officially called a ‘peplum’ finish.
Having decided not to cut off the existing narrow hem of the neckline, after cutting off the button bands, I just made a hemmed piece over the insert.
A very funky little bit, but that sort of detail is what makes each shirt one-of-a-kind, in that I must improvise with what little sleeve and body length I cut off. You will find this to be true also, when you begin to take scissors to old shirts to make new shirts.
More thoughts on the collar…
The really nifty thing is that collars are like shirt accessories, as are buttons, a separate collar piece hand-stitched to the inside makes a dashing old-fashioned finish, in white, blue plaid, or whatever, ( especially including some old lace ones I have ~~thanks Sorcha!) . Just switch them out like they did in the bygone era, for both women’s dress and men’s shirt collars in those days were meant to be replaced per occasion or just when worn out. Collars and cuffs took the beating of the wear, and were often replaced (as I learned from Morrie ~ thanks!)
Its always a bit of a gamble and some shirts just are ruined, but after doing it a few times, you’ll be surprised to find how easy it is. Much easier than sewing a whole garment from cut yardage, and far less spendy in many cases. By the way, if & when I make or find the perfect collar for this shirt, I will post it. If you can find this book by Odhams Press (dated 1930’s) there’s a chapter called ‘New Collars for Old Dresses’ and I highly recommend learning this old-fashioned skill of refashioning.
There was some discussion in the last post about making big brother/sisters outgrown shirts into refashioned ones for little brother/sister. I don’t have any kids clothes around, but would love to hear from any of you out there who are keen to try.
That about wraps it up for refashioning of Shirt Two, and now I ought to be knitting Autumn Sweaters.
See all posts New From Old , including my tips on what I have done ~~ HERE
I love making new from old.
Upcycling something from a $2 mens thrift linen-cotton shirt… into mine.
( I did get a little sloppy on the rolled hem at the neckline ~ I was rather in a hurry. )
I love simple utilitarian clothing, pleats, and especially lovely buttons. I have a jar of these natural shell buttons which have accumulated from years of thrift shop shirts, and I keep them just for this sort of occasion.
Only a few simple steps to transform from men’s button-up shirt to a rather casual boxy throw-over shirt, which I love in linen, because after several washings, the boxiness begins to drape and all the sloppy bits will blend in with the original shirt’s crinkled old hems.
This is how I do it: First I cut off the neck under the collar stand, the cuffs, and button bands, and as much length as you don’t need. From the cut-off length in body and sleeves, you can make middle insert in place of button band, cuffs, or other details such as a collar. This time I cut down a little from the stand in front so the neckline in front of the new shirt rests a little lower.
Note: How many extra bits you are able to make all depends on how long the shirt is and how much you can cut off length in body and sleeves after trying on and marking the length you would like it to be, plus hem allowance.
My thing lately is to take a strip off cut-off length (the length grain will have to be inserted cross-grain fashion, which is a nice contrast, and sew it on to cut front pieces raw edge, using French seams.
I made a collar and lined with some other cotton/linen I had handy, but ended up hating it, so ripped it off.
Finishes: The neck was way too gaping as the front insert was rather wide, as were the sleeves, so I pleated those loose areas after it was all finished, and sewed shell buttons on purely for aesthetic, not really doing anything, as you can see also on front pocket.
Over all it is a really fast way to upcycle and make a really nice shirt for myself in less than an hour. The best discovery I found in this make-over shirt is how buttons on pockets are really a lovely accent just sewn on, or to cover the opening of a pleat. I just love shell buttons & linen!
Edit in, per request : Link to all projects “New From Old”
August is such a stale time of the year. No cool breezes, no moisture, perpetual aqua blue skies, and a lot of anxiety about wildfire. The grasses stand crisp and golden, and so picturesque, but really it is just in suspended limbo until the rain comes, there in the bleaching hot sun day after day while even the moss in the forest turns brownish and, like the grasses, is frozen in lifelessness for months.
Mid August is even more stale than when the month arrived, and by the end of the month I am usually quite fried, dreaming of verdant countrysides in far off lands. I must snap out of these lazy wishful days of summer. I have been far too lazy and not working on my well-intention’d project of knitting trail. A knitting trail? What trail? Right. My point exactly. I did take a shovel to a stretch of woodland over the last year, and even though it’s only been a little more than some sticks along the way and a narrow bumpy path, Emma and I have been walking it on occasion ~~ thus far we have named it ‘the knit track’ , and which is about a sixth of a mile circuit, not including the distance to and from the track, which makes it about a half mile, and if one goes around the ‘track’ many times, it adds up. It is intended to be a mindless walk so I can knit-while-meandering and Emma can smell the wildlife in the quiet pause of the afternoons.
Although the knitting trail already has one or two benches, I’d like them to become delicious secret woodland spots, where one might carry out a pot of tea and accomplish quite a bit of knitting. That my friends, is what my vague design is. So how to sharpen those vague lines, and get this thing going? I have been taking pencil to paper and scribbling out ideas, and I really do want to make this thing happen, here & now, in the face of the suffocating Mid-August!
There are quite a lot of trees to limb up and brush to clear (trees keep falling too, this drought is wretched!) and general hard sweaty work to do within in the few acres which is the trail site, but nothing a woman (and her dog) can’t accomplish. This is something I’ve wanted to do since we built our house here and moved in 2005. So Emma will supervise, and I will work, and we will get this woodland Knitting Trail done & dusted.
But first I’d like to call upon you brilliant readers of this blog, and please don’t be shy, give me some ideas about what you think would make a Knitting Trail special. The sky is the limit… and plenty of space in the comment boxes too.
Wee Hearts in nine different Fair Isle Hebridean 2ply colors! Actually this hat is a study on one of Alice*Starmore’s colorways , a colorway from her design “Mary Tudor” from her 2013 second edition of Tudor Roses , using her own yarn, as sequenced in the chart. You could say this hat was a colorway test for Mary Tudor Cardigan, although I did change some colors around from the chart, because of a mistake I made. I really came out of the study with a better understanding of how the blending of foreground color changes against background color changes can be in modern Fair Isle.
Now I am wondering, do I have time for one more? Not really, I must be on to Autumnal Sweaters!
Knitting aside, I’ve been busy as a team of oxen this summer. Mostly running down off of the mountain every day to water or weed or do some laborious task associated with home-improvement (of another house). Only this morning I was scrubbing a bathroom of tile & grout for hours with bleach, oh joy. Not. Feeling rather tired in fact, and looking forward to Autumn with a great yearning, but it is … sigh … only the end of July.
Anyway, aside from the ‘town’ house project and my trying to keep the garden up here on the mountain alive through the hottest months of a Northern Californian summer, I am getting a little knitting done in spite of it all.
I am now done & dusted with Wee Hearts Tam, in Isager Tweed Moss & Pink ( from last post’s mention of pattern merge). Not bad I think. But I am thinking I am now ready to test this design for a full-on Fair Isle approach, with many color changes, and warm foreground colors play against cool background colors sort of thing. I’ve been studying the great Fair Isle designers, ready to make simple Wee Hearts sparkle with about seven different colors of Hebridean 2ply…
So thankful for my yarn stash, I am ready with what I already have, and off I go, on a major color adventure!
I have merged Wee Hearts Tam & Skier pattern with Wee Hearts Mitts pattern, now two patterns in one download ; that is a tam, ski hat, fingerless mitts and full mitten pattern all together! To celebrate the event, I’m having a bit of a promotion for my new ‘merge’, and you can (for an undisclosed number of hours or days) join in with the others for ‘Wee Hearts In July’ KAL…
EDIT IN: Pattern give-away for Wee Hearts In July KAL is now over, thank you to all of you who participated !
The knit-along is as always, informal, and no deadline, and no fuss…. pure enjoyment. I hope to see your Wee Hearts ! But hop on the pattern give-away, it will only run for a very short while.
Oh, and joining in with the others, I too have cast on for Wee Hearts In July KAL , making the tam with some lovely Isager Tweed, made in Ireland~~ a seriously beautiful fingering weight tweed, and I had bought the colorway of moss green and light grey, so evocative of Ireland’s mists on the bog, which I am seriously fantasizing . However, I somehow decided last minute to over-dye the light grey into a pink, which in scorching hot Northern California weather, dried in less than an hour hanging out on the clothes line, so away I went! Blasted through the Latvian Braid, and now already well into it.
Doesn’t the warm moss green look lovely next to the tweedy pink?
So here & now, knitting yarn from Ireland, listening to righteous Traditional Irish Music Sessions on Youtube, still fantasizing the misty Irish countryside, and warm room with stout beer and magical sound of good ol’ unplugged acoustic instrumental music.
My latest design “Highway 29” is named after the main road running through Napa Valley from Napa to Calistoga. This old highway is dotted with wineries and famous restaurants enough to make you dizzy, plus some added hot-spots where we locals trek to frequently, beginning in the north end of the town of Napa getting sweet around Yountville, then Oakville, Rutherford, St Helena, and continuing clear on up to Calistoga. As a local, coming down off the mountain from Oakville Grade when I am going upvalley, I often stop at the very unique Oakville Grocery , founded in 1881, just an old rural ‘backroads’ grocers of a bygone era, is now a highly trafficked stop-off for locals & tourists alike, with an exceptional coffee bar & deli for drinks, gifts & goodies-to-go. Until recently it doubled as the local post office, now it offers…. um…. wine tasting…
I believe my nieces and I were talking about Oakville Grocery & Post being the inspiration of forthcoming Autumn design, and second in the Napa Valley Collection.
After Oakville you pass a bunch of wineries, and then of course, St Helena where I often knit-in-public or meet friends at Napa Valley Coffee Roasting Company, as its the coffee shops I seem to be most familiar with, loving to knit and visit with friends. After that it’s a stretch of countryside to Calistoga with places such as Bale Grist Mill, founded in 1846…
a working renovated grain mill which is popular for historic reenactment parties and has old-time live music often (one of the bands is my brother & sister-in-law, my nieces dad & mom) , offers tours & grinds corn to sell. It is in front of the entrance to the Bale Grist Mill where these photos were taken for Highway Halter, on the old wooden fence,
The favorite photo spot in recent couple of years for my nieces is Castello Di Amorosa, a medieval Tuscan castle transplanted stone-by-stone in recent decades…
Ah, but it is here at ‘ The Castle ‘ where you’ll recognize the stone from merely the carriage house where we actually have many of our photo shoots…
Right off of Hwy 29, this carriage house is at the entrance to the castle gate, erected more recently I think to use some left over stone & brick perhaps, and it houses the ground-keepers tools & provides a place for the chauffeurs to park, and I think some offices devoted to castle business. Here some shots from this spot…
Passing more breathtaking scenery, one finally lands in Calistoga as if by accident.
This is the town from which you may recognize many backdrops to my nieces & my photo shoots. For example, the left on above photo is Brannans Restaurant, and right across Lincoln Street is the mint-green bank building we have included many times…
But there are many photo memories of Calistoga and not enough room to post. Anyway, enough of all of this Highway 29 – turned to- Memory Lane, and all the treasures found along the way… and now it is time for Highway 29 Halter which I’ve just written a pattern for, and which my nieces do real justice to ! In previous post I talk about the significance of naming the latest design “Highway 29” , which really is a possibility to start a collection…. I mean, if I’m going to really go through with it… anyway, my nieces seem to think we should. If not the name-sake for the design will stand on its own. We will just have to see what comes.
You can find the pattern for this design on Ravelry HERE .
… or click the Hwy 29 road sign to arrive at the pattern page.
California Highway 29 road sign in Napa Valley
Well folks, I was full of doubt about how the halters would work out , and I’ve been working on them for about a month, starting clear back from this post. I knit and reworked several times from the original. But, this morning I was transcended from any doubt when my beautiful nieces breathed life into them, I must say, I was completely taken by surprise~~swept off my own feet even!
Yesterday we met in Calistoga, at the Roastery early in the morning, and talked over our chai & lattes, and after warning my nieces that this design is surely not to fit or even look good, they finally disappeared into the ladies room to change into them, and emerged, beaming with relief as much as my own, and they actually loved them!
((Oh, and not like it needs mentioning, but have you noticed how Miss Thirteen has completely over-taken Miss Sixteen in height!))
We excitedly cruised Highway 29 coming back from Calistoga toward Napa, trying to race the sun before it got too high and hot, stopping at Castello de Amorosa, and then looking for very ‘California’ looking places along side the highway on the way back, we stopped to photograph from the roadside, on the old lichen covered wooden fence at Bale Grist Mill, and on the stone wall and in the vines of V Madrone Winery.
Here it is, Highway 29 Halter, Miss Sixteen & Miss Thirteen are very excited about this design and think its the best yet!
We decided to name this (yes ‘we’ , apparently they are as keen now on being a part of the design naming as I am) design after the main highway which ambles up northwest of the Napa Valley, and furthermore, it could possibly be the first of a collection. So here is Number One from Napa Valley Collection…. “Highway 29”.
The pattern is practically written already, so in the interim of showing off the photo shoot and presenting the pattern, will be a day or so of last minute pattern assembling.
See you with pattern and all the intricate knitting details next…
California Highway 29 road sign in Napa Valley
In a post in June, I shared my new yarn to taste, Rowan “Revive”, a DK weight yarn made from recycled clothing that is made from silk, cotton, and viscose.
Here it is now knit up into an Altitude Lace Cowl and it looks quite lovely.
Stripes in sand & peach tones, barely contrasting, for a perfect neck wrap to wear with natural linen clothing, I am going to keep this one for myself.
But can I be honest? I feel this yarn is a bit heavy, what I would expect from a cotton based yarn, but there’s a slight toughness to the feel, maybe also having 3 plies, each with 3 finer plies. Actually, this yarn may just be a great candidate for a sweater, or to unspin, for the single plies of this yarn are all unique and truly lovely and tweeded with bits of recycled fibers. I really do like the yarn a lot.
So this closes my jaunt of Summer knitting ~~ it is difficult to believe we’re already well into July! Although the hottest months are still to come, its time I begin to direct my thinking ahead to Autumnal ideas, and back to my un-spinning experiments which I abruptly paused, and of course, some non-knitting events going on too (mostly home improvement sorts of labor, which is not near as fun as knitting, admittedly).
Summer Stripes was certainly enjoyable taste of new summery yarns, and I must say I have made a couple new favorites!
Details for this project are on Ravelry HERE
Done & dusted with something I’ve been working on for a few weeks !
Striped lace cowls in cool blues and warm pinks, knit in a lovely summery linen blend yarn that is draping and soft. I am very happy they’re finished, and just in time for them to go to my Canadian nieces for their birthdays …
I love this pattern, a traditional lace motif called ‘feather & fan’ which is so easy it can be knit in my sleep. But these are the first striped versions of the pattern I’ve tried, and will try one more in stripes, with yarn mentioned on this post, before the summer is over.
As I dared myself to not make a peep until I finished these two, now there may be some chattiness! On my knitting needles, I have still some promised summer knitting for my two beautiful California nieces (whom all of you are familiar with ~ presently Miss Sixteen & Miss Thirteen ), and then its looking into a stretch of who-knows-what-may-come for a quiet spell of imminent lazy & hot summer weeks.
Pattern: my own Altitude Lace Cowl
Yarn: Classic Elite Firefly (posted previously)
Blue stripes project details on Ravelry HERE, and pink stripes project details HERE.
I’m going a bit crazy with linen blend yarns this spring & summer. I decided to knit up TWO striped summery cowls for my Canadian Nieces Molly & Maya. The yarn I’m ‘tasting’ is “Firefly” by Classic Elite Yarns; a sport-weight %75 viscose & 25% linen ( but I tell you, it feels like mostly linen.) Time is of the essence so I’m making no pretenses, I’ve just cast on, and I’ll see you on the flip-side.
I went into town this morning, and stopped into the local yarn shop, and there was a new batch of yarn in, which I just couldn’t resist. Rowan Purelife “Revive” : 36% recycled silk, 36% recycled cotton, and 28% recycled viscose. Beautiful apricot pink and clay tweeds, which will suit my coloring well, as I plan on making it into a ‘striped’ Altitude Lace Cowl, and for moi ! (Ahem… once bought and brought home, I can never resist a good ol’ yarn photo-shoot, as yarn makes such nice portraits.)
As of a few days ago we’ve had the presence of some interesting clouds hovering! Today I swear, it rained a few drops, a few gorgeous wet drops, and threatens to rain some more…
June is a lovely month. Transitional, mostly unpredictable, mild, beautiful, and cheerful. I even love the word, so cute, and yet rather ancient sounding… “joon”.
I have decided to not write a pattern for the halter tops I mentioned in last post. Just too much uncharted territory to deal with, as I have so much to get busy with in the knitting, and my non-knitting life too. So the cotton tops will be a pure & simple yarn tasting and summer treat for my nieces ~~ with no agenda. ( Wow, ‘no agenda’ sounds like I was let out on summer vacation! )
That is it for this post, more a clearing of slate and in a lovely mood as June unwinds into summertime, so soon to be here.
It is already the last stretch of Spring, and forthcoming is a little duo for summer! One in dark teal, and one in light teal, in Cascade Ultra Pima cotton yarn,to test my latest design, a summer top idea that I’ve been working on.
Other things going on, I will splash on to this post, as I am worried I don’t share enough non-knitting things here in general. So, here, a mountain woodland garden…
Where in I try to grow things which are sometimes a challenge, but this season, doing well enough.
Blossoming leeks,
my greens bed protected from the harsh sun beneath their sun-bonnet, grapes exploding into clusters fattening, beans beginning to climb, nearly 4′ high tomato plants, apples beginning to blush and swell, and very shy slow-growing zucchini…
Um….jeans ripening in the sun?
Well, not really, just foolin’ around! Thats about it for this post, and I surely hope to have made the two halter tops by the next post, sometime around the solstice, which will be June 20!
How are your last weeks of spring coming along?
An ‘American Viticulture Area’ is a designated wine grape-growing region distinguishable by geographic features, and one of these areas exists right under my feet, as I live smack dab in the middle of an appellation which sits at the tail end of the Mayacamas Mountain Range, in Northern California. The boundaries of this appellation include twenty-five square miles, with a thousand acres, planted on thin volcanic soil, and on steep mountain faces, some as steep as thirty percent! The steepness of the angle gives the vineyards benefits of more direct sunlight and better drainage, and well, as you know, that steep and rugged terrain personally means nice walking for me. Knit-walking in particular.
The unique sense of place of the mountain appellation, with a contributing factor that some of the oldest mountain vineyards are dry-farmed (that means without irrigation, that the only water the vines receive in the dry season are by their deep roots) produces wines that are ‘typically powerful in structure’. For example, cabernet sauvignon grown on the mountain commonly shows “briary flavors, moderate to bold tannins and herbal, floral aromatics ” … which translates into laymen’s words as ” Brace yourself, but oh boy is it tasty! ”
Near the Autumnal Equinox this year, at the beginning of chardonnay harvest, the mountain hosted its fourteenth annual Appellation Wine Tasting, and so it is, the grapes grown in this region are making wines that are gaining world-wide recognition for their unique sense of terroir, and sought after for connoisseurs’ collections. Might I add, the vineyards nearby where for years I have enjoyed walking, their historic chardonnay & cabernet sauvignon vines had produced wines that placed in Paris blind tastings that along with other Napa Valley vintners, turned eyes of the world (you simply must see the film “Bottle Shock” to get this historic pivot point) .
In the more expansive Napa Valley, wine is exalted to levels beyond passion, thoroughly infused into the culture of the area, and lifestyles of our greater population. Here we are visited year-round by those who flock to immerse themselves in wine, and to pair it with five-star cuisine, simply put, this picturesque countryside of vines draws ’em in, and the wine has them spending money.
To drive Upvalley along Highway 29, and along many a back road of this county, one can’t throw a stone without hitting at least a couple of vintners’ mailboxes, and there are many to be passed along the drive of endless vine rows. One might see new & old stone wall facades along the roads to emulate old Italy & old France, but really, these California neighbors know their stuff !
In 1800’s vintners claimed stake of this fertile valley & volcanic mountains and never let go. Why would they? Just look at it !
Now, you might be wondering what all this about a mountainous grape-growing region has to do with knitting ? Well, actually. . . I can’t wait to show you !
* * *
A California Highlands Bonnet if there were to be one . . .
“Vineyard Rows” Tam pattern is HERE
and,
all posts about vineyards (including this one) are here.
