A blissful golden sun-glow in the wild & wide open fields of late summer is signature to California, known as the Golden State. I love when a storm is brewing and there is the quivering sort of gold from the vines… … Continue reading
photos in archives: Long Shadows Of January
Last and lightest color in my geological series is the ash layer from volcanic eruptions, and which show up a couple of feet down, seen mostly where there is water erosion in the ditches along side of some of the vineyard roads next door …
It is a stripey design of very light grey to medium grey, depending whether it is wet or dry, so “Ash” perfectly names the light grey color in my Geological colorways.
The bulk of the color is silver — natural grey and natural white fleece — so the range from a warm silver to a cool medium grey is up to the mood, and a thing which invites a lot of personal touch.
In my three geological colors of dark Shale, medium Sandstone, and now light Ash, either natural grey or natural brown can be blended with natural white for the rock tones, because the distinguishing difference is dark-to-light variation more than it is color hue.
The other distinguishing feature of geological colors is that I’m using undyed natural colors for the all-over color, with a splash of the color-saturated neutral showing …
… which by the way, the “color saturated neutral” (primary and/or secondary triad mix) is the unifying element of ALL of my tweedy colorways !
Next time I will use less ratio of the color-saturated neutral, because when one is blending a light wool , like paint, the proportion of pigment actually is very little. Also next time I will use more white in the mix to make the all-over color a lighter silver (noted below). But for the sake of documenting my experiment, here’s what I did…
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Techy stuff for Ash…
In previous geological post I created a woolly colorway of Sandstone. Second in my geological series of the mountain, and underfoot quite a lot, is shale. A refresher of a quote from a reliable local vintners’ source, they who take the geology of this appellation very seriously…
Mount Veeder is primarily an island of ancient seabed, pushed up in the mountain’s formation five million years ago. This is the only Napa Valley appellation that can claim this unique geologic phenomenon. While the rest of Napa Valley was covered in volcanic ash 1 million years ago during the eruption of Mount Saint Helena to the north, Mount Veeder received just a sprinkling. Within the marine soils lies a complex tapestry of fractured shale, sandstone, volcanic (ash) dust, and other various constituents. — From Mt Veeder Appellation
This rock I have seen in some places mounded up into nearly hill-sized formations which I suspect to be left behind by an ancient volcanic upheaval. Hard and a bit brittle, this broken shale is generally dark charcoal grey, although sometimes a medium grey.
To achieve this color I use colors from the color-saturated neutral, blended with undyed wool shades of natural black and natural grey.
And as natural black and brown fleeces are amazingly varied in breed and color, so can be this shale colorway, ranging from medium grey to almost black, just as the rock is.
Stay tuned for geologcial 3, which will be a woolly colorway of yet another geological composite. Very pleased with the charcoal/black in my tweedy palette, I give you the recipe I have written for “Shale” …
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Techy stuff for Shale…
Note: This blend is 50/50 black and grey. For darker color blend more black and less grey, and for lighter blend more grey, and less black.
photo from archives: Paws
Inspired by the rock forms of the mountain, I have created three more colors in my palette, introduced in three parts. But first, let me borrow a quote from a reliable local vintners’ source, they who take the geology of this appellation very seriously…
Mount Veeder is primarily an island of ancient seabed, pushed up in the mountain’s formation five million years ago. This is the only Napa Valley appellation that can claim this unique geologic phenomenon. While the rest of Napa Valley was covered in volcanic ash 1 million years ago during the eruption of Mount Saint Helena to the north, Mount Veeder received just a sprinkling. Within the marine soils lies a complex tapestry of fractured shale, sandstone, volcanic (ash) dust, and other various constituents. — From Mt Veeder Appellation
In my observation the most prevalent of these three mentioned geological rock forms must be sandstone, ranging from a dull tan, to a rusty brown and sometimes sparkles with colors, sandstone is the color of everywhere …
Especially at the summit of the mountain these rocks are of rather large proportion, and an outstanding geological feature. Sandstone, with color-saturated neutral base, so like the true rock form created from a composite of many grains of colorful sand, blended with natural white and natural brown wool …
The nice thing is, using natural brown fleece, there is quite a variation of color, and as I blended with natural white, even more of variation of natural values & hues can be accomplished. Just as the rock itself is so varied in color, the Sandstone colorway is too…
Next , in Geological 2, I will produce a woolly colorway of another popular rockform, but as yet, I am waiting for my wool to come in the mail! Until then, here’s how I made “Sandstone” …
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Techy stuff for Sandstone…
photo from archives: A Storm On The Way
The blossoms of the Arctostaphylos (manzanita) on the ridge trail of the mountain ~~ one with pink flowers, and one with white ~~ are the first blossoms arriving in winter!
pink blooming manzanita
Nestled side by side on the ridge, the two varieties are perfectly complimenting of each other, and as fragrant as they are breathtaking in beauty.
white blooming manzanita
((You can read more about the manzanita in this post ))
Now looking at my latest tweed yarn colorway: “manzanita blossom” … it will be a pink, with a just a dusting of white.
A blush of pink against rocky volcanic landscape is one of the most beautiful things in the mountain landscape, and I do think I found just the right shade ( although I wished I put a tiny bit more white in the last blending layer) …
A shy pink.
A pink which is the color of mid winter … pale and fresh.
There in the pink is the saturated neutral too.
Now, let me show you how I do it…
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Techy stuff for Manzanita (pink)…
photo in archives: A Walk Among Wildflowers
There is absolutely nothing that I can think of as red in the wild landscape as the crimson clover which grows abundant in the meadows nearby on the mountain, the meadows where Emma and I have walked countless times, and forefront of my mind when I think of a name for the colorway of red. Wild, herbaceous gobs of crimson, are the trifolium incarnatum flowers.
Crimson is the color I am trying to grasp.
It needs a little improvement for next time (perhaps more red)
But this is it ~~~ my crimson clover .
I am looking forward to six months from now when the wildflowers will hopefully have returned from the burned topsoil, as the grass has already … shy little green sprouts everywhere ! Tomorrow morning is the winter solstice, and I am glad to see it finally come, and to see pass my huge disappointment of once favored ( oh how fickle of a season) Autumn. Winter come, o’ please be gentle, cast your sleepy spell on the landscape, and clean up the blackened death from the wildfire, soften it with rain and bring back the wildflowers and the moss, so that the landscape may wake anew with spring growth, restored and resilient and colorful. Autumn, to you I bid good bye.
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Techy stuff for Red Clover…
photo from archives: Shades Of Fog
Fog is a huge part of life on the mountain, for me, and I just love the fog show …
fog in January, 2015
I love to watch it pour over the ridge from the Pacific, fluid and volatile, and into the valley, or splashing up from it. I also love it just thickly hovering about …
photo from archives: Foggy
So naturally, my next tweed endeavor must capture the color of fog !
It is my basic white, well, a near white, where like fog, you see faint color of images behind …
Just a tiny bit of the color-saturated neutral to start, then blended several times with increasing amount of white wool, so you’ll see flecks of blue, red and yellow upon close inspection.
I really am enjoying developing a personal hand-spun color palette, and see no end to my combing wool in different combinations, racing obsessively from blending board to the spinning wheel, grabbing my camera to photograph, wash, dry, wind on swift, photogragh again …
… then on to the next !
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Techy stuff for Fog (white)…
(photo from archives Whisper In The Woods)
What I miss most right now, are the madrones , Arbutus Menziesii, a unique kind of tree native to the California Coast and mountain ranges, with an interesting rusty orange bark that sheds in papery sheets…
Madrones have an indescribable color if ever you were to witness, it turning at first shed a bright green, which changes in a matter of days to a greyish orange, then to browner rust.
( photo from archives… Gone Wild)
Among the madrones is a wonderful place to be; hidden, enchanting, and ever-so-quiet, and kept company right outside of the window where I loved to write, knit, or spin. I have tried to capture my madrones, blending color after color, overdoing the layers, but eventually I think I found close to the indescribable. A bit too much orange I think, but I have made notes of how to improve my next blending experiment.
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Meanwhile Emma seems to be perfectly happy in her new napping places…
I take her up nearly everyday to the woods, the place where the house was ~~ will be again~~ (which is as of last weekend a nice freshly excavated dirt area) , and she loves to sniff the air while riding in the back of the car with the windows down, and bark at the cows or horses she see’s along the way. I spoil her a lot these days, and we love our trip up the mountain to the ‘house’ … we meander as before, and I am knit-walking again!
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Techy stuff for Madrone …
Spinning by a window …
light flooding in to unwind my shadowy worries.
I cast my mind to a warm landscape of wild flax …
hoping to find the colors of the flowers in the wool blend …
I have been doing a lot of fiber blending, and a little spinning too, which is for now easing me slowly back into creative mood ( and am so grateful to “L” for the gift of a beautiful Ashford Traditional spinning wheel!)
Wild Flax; Linum perenne var. lewisii , Lewis Flax, blue flax or prairie flax, seen on the roadside along Mt Veeder road in July, and sometimes early August. Not the domestic farmed species for linen, but just one of the common beautiful wild flowers of Napa Valley that we all call “ wild flax “.
In closing, FEMA clean-up crews have been working rapidly in Napa & Sonoma counties since the wildfire of October, and by the end of December, maybe a clean slate for us? Impossible to forecast the rebuilding ahead, for now I find the cozy window here my joy of the afternoon.
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Techy stuff for my Wild Flax Blue …
( I was trying to get more blended base, with a ‘dusting’ of brilliant blue on the last blend…)
Jenjoyce Design 