Last Sunday we met in Calistoga to photograph the latest Autumn Cardigans ! It threatened to rain, but we got lucky and made it to our favorite sweater-modelling nooks in the town, with only a few drizzly drops to freshen things up. Above, on the corner of Lincoln & Washington Streets, outside of Bella Tootsie Shoes , this historical mint-green building is the back-drop for nearly every cover photo of Autumn & Spring Sweaters, for four years running.
This time, we added a tree to our usual spots . . .
Among several places, our favorite & final destination for photos is always the big mural across from Calistoga Coffee Roastery, so fun and theatrical, with two enormous walls lining both sides of a narrow alley, depicting Historical Calistoga. The mural has become our number one sweater photo shoot of all time.
There are a few other must-shoot spots , which you can see in the slideshow below, but it all starts outside of the Calistoga Coffee Roastery, where we meet for a coffee & chai, I give them their sweaters (always a surprise) , then we go out and start shooting photos. One can see my two nieces grow up over the years, on this very bench.
Compare with three years ago ~ Autumn Sweaters 2010 .
Demonstrated is the inside of the simple color stranding…
. . . showing the elasticity of stranding , which I achieved by weaving floats more often than what is considered ‘traditional’.
All in all, I was delighted to see how well the cardigans fit. This time I designed with a lower relaxed neck-line, but the blue one especially flirts with the shoulder a bit much and likes to fall off in a charmingly casual way, and because ( ahem ) the cuffs are too big, the result is that the sleeves are swallowing my niece’s hands! I did the whole photo shoot without even noticing my niece’s hands missing in many of the poses… LOL ! I was confident because the actual sweaters measured to specifications (yes, the sleeves too) and so I did not expect it. I am getting one of those blushing light-bulb moments where I understand better the relationship between neck-lines and sleeves.
Next visit, in a couple of weeks I will simply ‘take in’ the cuffs of blue cardigan with applied i-cord at the edge of the sleeves, and I think that will do the trick as there’ll still be some growing room in the length, but they’ll not slip over her hands. No problem with my younger niece’s fit, she’s growing like a weed right now anyway !
So folks, here’s the rest of the shots in a slideshow !
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In case you might be interested, you may have some fun looking through posts of past years nieces’ sweater shoots around the same spots in the town of Calistoga HERE
All posts of this project HERE
General details of this project on Ravelry HERE
Jenjoyce Design 
Those sweaters are gorgeous! And your nieces make wonderful models. It looks like they were having lots of fun while you were taking pictures!
Oh yes, we all had a lot of fun, even their mother who followed us from nook to nook… saying things like ” Hey, what about that tree there?” 🙂
So my first thought when I looked at the pictures was “what beautiful girls!”….then about 5 or 6 pictures in, I realized they were modeling sweaters LOL! (and very nice sweaters too!)
lol indeed, its difficult to notice the sweaters with their sweet smiles isn’t it? 🙂
Gorgeous girls, beautiful shoot, lovely cardigans – perfect!
Awww, thanks hen ! xx
What beautiful nieces you have…and what beautiful sweaters you made. Looks like they love them too. 🙂
Thank you, yes… I think everyone was happy with sweaters that day… now just to have some cool weather to wear them !
These are such great momentos! The pictures, the sweaters, the memories.
Thank you Kay , they are the greatest memories too ! I have been so busy and not reading up on the blogs… I’ve missed yours ! I’ll visit soon xx
I love Calistoga. I grew up in St. Helena, so the whole valley was my playground as a kid.
That is so interesting ! Stick around, I’m going to be doing some photo shots soon in Alexander & Knights Valleys ! 🙂
Such sweet sweaters for your darling nieces. They will tell their children tales about their dear Aunt Jen who made the most amazing sweaters. Both the girls and the sweaters are very beautiful.
You know what Carol? Their mom tells me they keep them all, so hopefully they will one day get passed on down to their kids too. I just think every stitch is worth it, even the ripped-out ones ! 🙂
Beautiful as always Jen. I bet they realize and appreciate all the love and hours you spend on these twice each year.
Hi Debbie, thank you so much. You’ve really seen them grow up as each year I commit to still another equinox pair of sweaters 🙂
Hi your cardigan is beautiful the one with and your niece hugging a dapples tree. Can I buy the pattern from you. All the best, Wini May
Hi Wini May, I am very flattered you love the cardigans. I don’t have that written into a pattern, it was made before I started writing patterns, but I will hope you keep a watch out for this site, as I just might replicate it in a pattern soon . 🙂
Yours truly,
Jen