best photos – Page 4

offerings

Published on January 22, 2015March 11, 2019 by Jen14 Comments

A give-away of another sort. It is now the end of a knitting project and I a ritual of mine is to go around the house and pick up yarn littered about the floor, as there always is quite a lot, and it seems to just float about and mix in with dog hair . . .

It is entirely too wasteful to throw away the little piles of wool.

So I lately I’ve been thinking of ways to make use of these snippings of yarns, and can’t think of anything better than to entice the woodland birds of the forest to making use, perhaps to line their nests.

Times before I would scatter yarn trimmings on the ground, or leave in a basket hung from a handle off the brand of a tree, both cases there was very little taken of the scraps. Determined, this time I have chosen a more open basket (one that I made a while back actually) and just placed it snugly in the crotch of a dead tree.

There’s something just so magical living in the woods and in and amongst the wildlife, I am hopeful this time my offerings will be snatched up and line the nests of the woodland birds ~ of robins, woodpeckers, ravens, jays, junkos, chickadees. If I ever spot evidence of the yarn scraps being used by the wildlife I’ll be sure to tell you about it !

A Fresh Perspective

Published on January 1, 2015March 11, 2019 by Jen8 Comments

Looking forward to a year full of artful angles and new perspectives. For the moment I am feeling keenly drawn to the mundane, how could this be? Upping the ordinary seems to be my cause for the new year, I feel it in my marrow this transformation taking place.

Driving through St. Helena a few days ago, on my way home from a visit with my brothers family, I stopped in for a meditative cup of coffee with 2015 planner pages opened up, and as I pondered the mystery of empty calendar pages, imagining the notes I will scribble in between the bold numbers which represent a twenty-four hour portion of my life, I inhaled the aroma of cafe creme and also of hope for the year ahead ~~ how good and rich and wholesome it indeed did smell.

Back in my car to make the second half of the trip home, cruising along Oak Street this house just stuck out for me. It would not otherwise be noticed save for the time of day and the way the shadows played it up. How interesting ! It seemed to ask me to pull over, park, and dig my camera out of my stuff and take a shot. So I did.

In 2015 I strive to detach myself from distractions of consumerism, and instead to slow down and ‘do without’… to Mend & Make Do if you will. It just seems so attractive to me here at the onset of the new year, and before dawn, to contemplate true simplicity. I have always longed for the slower-moving vantage point.

I close this post of the first day in January to ponder this idea of Less Is More, and I wish you all a very good year ahead to set out for what you long for.

Foggy

Published on December 9, 2014March 11, 2019 by Jen6 Comments

I was out knitting & walking this afternoon and the fog was just floating in and around everything ,

it was a beautiful late Autumn landscape.

Oh how the last of the leaves are stubbornly hanging on to their twigs,

and they land sometimes seeming reluctantly so …

Tomorrow a huge rain storm is on it’s way, to hit in the night and thrash for a couple of days. I have a hill-walking date in the morning with a friend, and we’ll go come hell or high-water!

On the knitting front, all is going well, more photos in days ahead of finished happy endings of knitterly things, bathed in wintery light of day, but for now, a sneak peek of what appears to be a candy roll of some tasty tartan & tweedy thing…

Taking It In

Published on November 21, 2014March 11, 2019 by Jen9 Comments

I’ve been knitting an insane amount lately. This is a big part of my life, who I am slowly becoming, and I love how I’m involved in it. Just now I was feverishly working a swatch for a new idea, and I looked out the window to my beloved mist pouring over the ridge from the Pacific, and remembered that I promised myself to disengage after my last pattern (Penny Candy Winter)… to calm down and enjoy what is left of Autumn, and walk in it every single day. Well, today was one of those rare days I didn’t . Up here in the California Highlands we’re getting rain, oh yes…

… and now two months into Autumn in the mountains and we’re saturated in the mist and rain and the moss is vibrant and I am happy. So happy! One month left of delicious Autumn to wander and watch the turning of the trees.

My Autumn project is to overhaul a few of my earlier patterns and so I feel at a restless in-between place presently. I’m finished with the last pattern overhaul & update of Dicey Highland Hats, and now have a pause before starting the next big thing. I’m trying to be a good person and cook a nice quiche for dinner, while doing chores, and at the same time I just want to knit ! Knit!! Knit!!! But I must force myself to stop knitting, to quiet my mind and my racing ideas, and to look around me, because I find that the creative source does need to be rested and nurtured equally as much as it needs to be exercised and developed. Answers come in the void spaces most often, let the mist into the mind to obscure the sharpness, and to let my thoughts have a good rest.

Knitting In The Wild

Published on October 22, 2014February 7, 2026 by Jen8 Comments

Another glorious hike up to the ridge peak this morning. Shading the camera lens with knitting overlooking the ridge after ridge facing north-easterly.

Greeting the long shadows of morning as the sun’s rays shot through the pines on the crest of the ridge…

There was knitting the whole way, reknitting that is, of yoke of nieces’ Autumn sweater.

Capturing the sun streaming through black oak leaves soon to fall …Greeted the Sleeping Princess (Mt Tamalpais) as she lay like rolling blue ocean waves in the distance…
And Mt. Diablo as we started up, a stones throw from the house… and you can see the yellow patches in the trees where there is Autumnal color starting.

At the rocky top, another view across the ridges which frame the upper Napa Valley …

Most of all we enjoyed the contemplative early morning trek, with bright morning sun, mountain air, and knitting all going so perfectly together I think. Looking forward to another like it each day this Autumn, as we have been out nearly every single day . Turning of the season continues to be wonderful this way. Life is good.