Glimpses From The Knitting Trail

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Jen

A big granite rock stack leads from our door out into the woods.

Recently Emma had a birthday ! She is nine. Every year on her birthday I take her for a long walk and follow her wherever she wants to go. There was a rather hesitant beginning as she contemplated what was down the road…

Emma’s 9th birthday walk.

Then after we walked all over the place, unexpected places she led me, and I followed without question. As our walk ended she found herself mesmerized in the sun beams of the forest, a little spellbound perhaps. There’s lots to think about when one is Nine.

Emma in woods.

For those of you who have been visiting Yarnings for any length of time, know about my Knitting Trail, I talked about a while ago in this post. I am gradually putting it all together, this spot and that, through forest and wood, through hilly and hollow lands.

Such a beautiful warm spring day! Some silly photos as I try in vain to get a portrait selfie photo of Emma & me, but Emma was reluctant …

And a little knitting happened too …

One of several rough-cut benches along the Knitting Trail.

Morning On The Knitting Trail

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Jen

Emma and I took off for a walk along the old road, and then on the knitting trail to visit the woods with the green moss which is now absolutely glowing from all the rain.

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I have to say, of the many oddities one can find in the woods, this was the most ! I intend to include it in a knitwear photo someday.

Well, it’s back to my knitting loft, with a new design adventure and happy pots of tea, for the sky is greying and rain drops are already plopping down on the roof again. Happiness is rain. Lots and lots of rain.

((And tea with home-made shortbread.))

Yarn Whisperer

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Jen

Hanging out with Emma, knitting a little something for Wool Box with Oropa 1ply yarn. This wool is a very rare thing, a ‘heritage wool’ as it can not be found anywhere else because the breed of sheep is indigenous to a border region of Italy in the foothills of the alps, neighboring France. The wool is so special in fact , that it requires particular methods of processing which make Biella’s very old mills unique. “The Wool Box” is a collective effort to promote traditions of these local heritage wools and wool industry ~ from shepherding to processing ~ all back to Old World basics. Just in case you missed it, I mention The Wool Box, and my project designing with Oropa 1-ply wool in my previous post.

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The other evening I was winding off the new skeins into balls (with two chairs and hand-wound ball method) thinking it has very much a hand-spun feel, with a deal of twist in it, and so I wondered what it would say, but I wouldn’t find out it’s secrets until casting on. Casting on numerous times on as many different sized needles, I found myself unsure how to do justice for it. Honestly, I am worried that I have become far too use to docile modern yarns and very unsure of myself designing with yarn having any kind of personality.

At the start, I held a strand of Oropa 1-ply next to a strand of some of my Superwash Merino sock yarn, and gave it a glance , thinking that they were “close enough” , and so I cast on with the same needles I’ve been knitting oodles of socks and gloves for an eternity with ~~ all because it looks similar in ‘weight’ (we all know that really means thickness). Merrily swatching away, with US 2’s, then 3’s I found that the stitches ‘sproinged’ into loops with tremendous energy it was *almost* wrestling with and twisting the swatch fabric. It was obvious that Oropa 1-ply was not going to make the 8-stitches-to-the-inch design I’d had prepared ahead with … um… right, with that docile superwash sock yarn. In fact, the two colors, Pearl Grey & Natural, of the same Oropa 1-ply yield different gauges with the same needle. I basically have to take the approach one needs with hand-spun yarn, and factor in a bit of inconsistency.

Swatching, wet-blocking, ripping, and starting again, finally my thoughts shifted as my idea of what I wanted to make needed to be surrendered somewhat. I tell you, I was convinced that words like ‘coarse’ described Oropa, until I realized I was literally forcing it to being smothered in tiny stitches, unable to breath and bloom and and show off it’s real personality. Now having knit it on larger needles ( US 4 – 3.25mm) it is anything but coarse, in fact, it is wonderfully resilient and alive, sturdy and with superior definition. It has a lovely fuzziness and halo , yet a bit hair-like too, and no surprise, as it is furthest from modern milled yarns that you can get. Having been shorn from Old World sheep, and spun from an Old World mill, it has a whole different feel, just in case you can’t imagine. It is not well behaved like a lap dog, no, it is more like a mustang in the training corral … sassy, stubborn, and smart … with real sturdiness and it’s own ideas of what it wants to do. I just didn’t know, couldn’t know, until putting down the reins and letting it tell me how to work with it.

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This design process is a lesson for me about paying attention to the yarn, and also patience, as well as a little compromise, but I’m enjoying myself immensely, and suddenly I wish winter would last forever so I could knit a whole bunch of these Little Somethings with Oropa 1-ply !

After The Rain

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Jen

It has rained for four days unending.

(A few glimpses from the knitting trail.)

I’m overjoyed because finally the moss on the mountain has drunk it’s fill.

Emma and I went out and soaked ourselves taking account of it all.

Now green can sprout from under last year’s brown . . .

Beautiful morning after rain . . .

The creeks are gushing and riverlets going in all directions.

Life is good.

Approaching A New Year

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Jen

In case you didn’t notice, I’ve changed my banner. It was really difficult to do it, for I think I’m a little obsessive about Things being In Their Place… and well, I just figured today…so close to the new year, I’m ready for some changes.

Looking back to this post when it was so hot out that I was so drawn to blue, and had unknowingly posted five times in a row having blue as a main feature. I was decorating Emma with yarn towers, playing around with a camera and the cooling powers of blue, when it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside . . .

(As it is now just after the winter solstice, I think it is interesting this post was just after the summer solstice.)

I believe I’m going to have some fun with yarn this coming year, in more ways than I have been. There’s no denying, yarn has gotten tangled up in my life in a way which has changed me (hopefully for the better), and I’m not kidding when I tell you that I wake each day thinking about something that yarn has to do with. Yarn is nothing less than a slow miracle for me.

I usually shirk new years resolutions, but this year I’m passionate about them! I want to get beneath the soil of things, yes of course, tending my garden to thrive, but metaphorically so too, in creative process and endeavoring from it. I am tempering my patience and my self-confidence like two razor sharp edges of a sword, and I am bettering myself through knitting. I so want to round up what little experience and confidence I have with pattern writing & design and put jets on the whole thing.

This morning I’ll admit to myself that I have come up with a few good ideas, and in less than a year have learned a lot. Well, there’s more to learn, more to knit, more to ‘math out’ and more to write. I will slowly inch along, with all of your presences & encouragement that ever-so-much appreciate, I really could not have progressed, nor continue further, without you. Thank you everybody, and here’s looking to a great year ahead in 2014.

What are your hopes and plans for the new year?

A Knitting Trail

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Jen

Emma and I have been working on our home trail in recent weeks.

It is to be a knitting trail ! ! !

Our trail begins right next to Jeff’s workshop…

And takes off into the woods, just follow Emma.

It goes upwards very quickly…

It meanders along old deer-trodden paths ,

which Emma and I have enhanced with our footsteps.

It passes by tall firs,

oaks & bays,

madrones & maples…

You will see my short rows of sticks on occasion,

they are trail markers in sections where the knitting trail goes one way,

while the deer may go another…

Emma is charged with purpose as she surveys the forest, and the wildlife.

There is at least one mountain lion which lives in the area, sighted many times, and I often wonder if it is the lion which she smells. I think I would like to put some places to sit (and knit) along the way. Just sit, knit, and listen to the wildlife.

Some small sections are getting the shovel treatment, like here at the trail-head.

(Yes, that is our house, and my car, which I try to drive as little as possible)

So you see, I have been working like an ox lately, for this is the time of year I love most to be outside toiling away, among the falling leaves of Autumn. There’ll be more photos later, as the Knitting Trail is honed to perfection !

* * *

Its the last day of October today, and that means it is Halloween! For the occasion I thought I’d post a photo of something remarkably ominous from the woods! The raven’s cultural and somewhat spooky symbolism is not to be debated, however here they are just a cheerful and welcomed presence, and flock about year round. They make themselves very comfortable, eating the berries in the native trees, and fruit & veggies from our garden, and pick from our compost pile too. I think they are fascinating birds, possessing a truly amazing regal intrigue and even sense of humor (they like to tease Emma every chance they get), and they are the stewards of these woods all the same. Here is a photo I took last week, zoomed into the branches of an oak while this fellow and his mate were making deep throaty chortling & clucking conversation…
jenjoycedesign©Raven

Seasonal

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Jen

This knoll of Autumnal vines above I photographed last year in late afternoon, as its leaves yellow’d and fell into the ground or floated in the gusty breezes. Where I live , on a mountain ridge which borders Napa & Sonoma valleys, the seasons show not only in the trees, but strikingly so in these mountain vineyards. But something very dismal has been taking place on the mountain very near by.

Change is difficult, but I suppose is necessary all the same, or we’d become rigid as logs in our outlook of the world. Well, one colossal change which has taken place in my life, is that the vineyard very close by, through which rows and roads Emma & I walked frequently for years (her whole life), acres of historic vines, has for the most part been ripped out of the ground, and are presently heaped in massive sad piles. They are gone, and yet,at least I am grateful that I have these photos to remember them by.

These vines which were plucked out of the rocky soil of the mountain only weeks ago, once produced wines which won ribbons in blind tastings in France in their glorious past. They were beautiful and they were as jovial friends I’d pass by and wave to so often, as I would also the friendly workers who tended them.

When they were colorful and turning gold to crimson in my favorite months of October & November, they spoke of the cooling marine air pouring over the ridge, and they reminded me how happy I was that it is indeed Autumn… finally !

When they were bare as we walked along their long shadows in January, with uncut branches like tendrils, they spoke in words wintery and woody, and they spoke of the promise of a new year ahead.

As they became cropped & pruned it was is they were led to the starting gate at the race, building excitement from within, in February, with thick grasses carpeting the earth.

Then to leap out at the blink of vernal influence, and their main branches sprouting new growth in March !

And in April & May, the poppies come…

I have in recent weeks mourned their death. These old vines as I walked by them almost everyday while knitting, were very important to me, a part of me. Ah but this life, death, and rebirth, and planting new is to be expected. I wanted to make acknowledgement to the changes in this post, and my bereavements too, and even Emma’s as surely she notices, and misses her meadow walk along the canyon cliffs….

Meadow desktop

* * *

But hey, let me cheer things up a bit I thought I’d mention a happy thing ! Kirra has won the giveaway from my book review & interview with Jean Moss, and I want to congratulate her !

((Kirra, I have sent your address to Taunton press , who have replied already that the book is on its way, and hopefully very soon the book will be in your mailbox, in time for you to make those great little gifts for your friends & family.))

Seasonal times indeed, with the gift-giving time of year nipping at crafters’ heels, time for us to leap for our needle cases and dig through our stashes and shop for more yarn as its officially 11 weeks until Christmas…yikes!!!

:: crack of whip echoes ::

Lets make tea and calmly collect our thoughts, shall we?

What gifts you planning to make this coming holiday season?

Prudence

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Jen

Third time is a charm as they say ! Well, as to be expected, my early start on my nieces’ Autumnal Sweaters has now become a late start. First I thought I’d use up a huge pile of yarn left over from a project last year, as it happens to be the perfect color for Niece Who Is Thirteen, who’s eyes are the very same milky aqua. Elation! I set to work knitting very deep wide ribs for a vest, and I knitted it for two days. Somewhere along the way I fell into throes of indecision and … blast ! … it was suddenly horribly wrong.

I ripped it all out.

Okay, so changing gears again, and with a very bad clutch, I had ordered some more of the same tweed yarn but in different colors, for Niece Who Is Ten , and in a completely different knitting mood I set to stranding two colors in stockinette stitch, sketching in an improvisational way I always have liked to do in the past. Seeming to be fun and colorful, I knitted for two days. It was fine outside of the fact that the combination of colors eventually started to melt into each other, be very muted and soft, which is very *moi* , but so completely mismatched for the spirit of Kid Of Ten.

Ripped it out.

Back to the Blue Tweed. A new vision came to me of a full cardigan but with just two stripes on cuffs and bottom, knit in plain stockinette stitch. As I knit on I just couldn’t stomach the second stripe, and then the voice of a simple 4-stitch repeat peerie just spoke to me from the ethers (I have a fondness for this particular peerie ) … so here , now, two days into knitting a third time. Prudently, I’ve established a simple stripe & peerie border to be the total decorative feature of the Cardigans To Be , outside of the very flecked tweed texture, which is in itself rather busy and well stands alone.

It seems that so often, with almost everything, I have learned that to temper my impulses with *prudence* gives me the most personal satisfaction. Played-down & modest is my new aesthetic. So I am naming this cardigan “Prudence” , to well mark the lesson I have learned.

Prudence : Caution with regard to practical matters; discretion; economy; frugality.

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So it’s a muggy and slightly less than a glaringly bright sunny day, and I’ve just given Emma a bath ! She was only minimally tortured ~ it was over before long ~ and she is now surrendering to the task of drying into a fluff. Here is a photo of her in her post-bath ambivolence…

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As I drafted the above about prudent knitting, two days ago, I am now almost ready to start sleeves and so I’m making a fresh pot of tea . Irish Breakfast Tea. In the static quiet vacuum of the afternoon, I feel compelled to ask, hoping I will make contact with All Who Read Yarnings ~~~ What are you all up to?

Summer Landscape In Morning

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Jen

Its been deliciously foggy down in the valley in the mornings lately , typical of later summer and Autumn around here. Emma and I set out early today, at 6:30 a.m. to get up to the peak and take some photos of the fog before the sun was too high. On the way up the ridge the light in the grass was just so entrapping , I couldn’t stop taking photo’s of Emma in the dried grass, she was just glowing !

At the peak about 7 o’clock the sun was already high, I’m so glad we didn’t set off any later than we did !

First shot, facing east. . .

However, the fog was dense and packed like a snow-covered lake, like I wanted to see it. In the next frame, you can see a division between of two ridges in a darkening foreground (actually I see a third very slight sillhouette)… our house is between them, down further at 2000 feet elevation, but it is not visible from where I am photographing, at 2600 ft. Its my guess the top of the fog must be around 1700 ft.

Emma surveys from the precipice at the top. . .

On the way down, a meadow bordering to the west of tall forest, the dried grass still not gilded golden by the morning sun’s rays seems as lifeless as you can imagine !

Next is the whole early morning hike in a slideshow ~~ going up to the peak, then coming back down, with the last shot in our drive. Arriving home from such an excursion before 8 o’clock in the morning makes me feel so invigorated, and so I celebrated as I often do, with another cup of fresh coffee, buttered toast & tasty home-made jam !

Staying Cool

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Jen

I’m in need of Cool Blues .

Triple digit temperatures in Northern California !

There’s just something about Emma sprawled out on the floor , sleeping out the heat, just makes me want to decorate her.

I personally think that yarn towers have magical cooling powers.

April Walking

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Jen

Emma and I have been doing some spectacular knitting-walking amongst the wildflowers recently. It’s been a bit windy lately . . .

but thoroughly lovely this April !

Thought you might like to take a walk with us . . .

(click first image to go to slideshow)

Lupinus Albifrons

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Jen

Lupinus Albifrons. Known as just ‘ lupine ‘, it is one of the more populated native wildflowers of Northern California, and in April fills the mountain meadows, between grape vines in the rows, and trail-sides with deep blue & purple variegation. A small woody shrub when mature, however, where grass is mowed annually (as in the vineyard rows here on the mountain) and where seed is planted from the wind, you’ll see it popping up everywhere as young single stemmed flowers . . .

I luckily had just the perfect yarn handy when I became inspired from my walk of last week. I had a bunch of green which I over-dyed from grey wool which perfectly illustrates the ‘silvery’ grey-green leaves of the plant. The rich deep blue and purple played illusive games however with the camera, which wasn’t able to distinguish the two, and both came out as blue tones in most of the photos. But here it is , un chullo, for my brother’s birthday tomorrow!

I absolutely go wild photographing still-life knitteds ~~ its just one of the things I love doing, in every light possible , which enables me to make an assemblage of photos that catches different tones and characteristics of the yarns and knitted shapes . . .

The detail with which I experimented for the first time on this chullo hat, was to add a running crocheted chain just inside the typically chullo-esque double-crocheted edge, to neaten up the edge.

I love to make my chullo hats a bit of a hybrid with gnome hats by decreasing into a point, then finishing with a braid extending off of the top . . .

They blossom into a hat with a lot of character and playful whimsy . . .

The crocheted edges tame the curling tendency of the stockinette stitch. . .

Braid finishes being made on both ear flaps . . .

(the purple really pops in this photo below !)

Un chullo, inspired from the lupine flowers in the fields of Northern California. To be given to my brother tomorrow, and there could be nobody more appreciative than he, who wears them everyday , and who is also a botanical wizard !

NOTE : I have taken notes as I knit this one, so if anybody is interested, I could assemble a pattern of sorts from it.

Details on Ravelry HERE

Well, I’m off to walk the mountain with Emma, but I will leave you with a little slide show of the early morning walk of last weekend, from which this chullo’s lupine photos were taken . . .

A Morning Walk On The Mountain

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Jen

I speedily uploaded photos from our walk up the ridge, and now I’m off to town !

Spinners Visit

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Jen

jenjoycedesignc2a9spinners-visit1

Three of my spinner friends ~ Morrie, Debbie, and Susan came up to spin yesterday! I met them down at the main road, and we managed to fit three spinning wheels, all the bags associated with toting for the spinning (lots and lots of those). . . and all four of us . . . in my Toyota Rav. It was quite the wagon load and I wish I had my camera!. We then shuttled up the rocky road to the house. . . and we nested together to spin for the day.

It was great fun to say the very least.

Emma was well behaved, giving up her chair for Susan (above), and having *only* thieved one of Morrie’s spools of yarn, and one of Debbie’s shoes…

(Debbie made a little post on her blog about the day over here folks ! )

Debbie, I’m honored that you posted and that you had a good time ! Emma does have a taste for wool, doesn’t she? You know why? Because she is a shepherd ! :: laughs :: I hope you don’t mind too much that I stole this photo here, from your blog , looks like you’ve captured a glimpse of your spicy chocolate and Schacht wheel in action . . .

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Thank you Spinners, for coming all the way up to my hermitage and causing a delightful commotion for Emma and I , from our otherwise quiet and uneventful day ! Such a room full to bursting with personalities !!! Lets do it again tomorrow , and the next day !

(( And I promise I will *not* try so hard to make the house too clean and tidy ))

Fog & Moss

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Jen

Emma and I out exploring the mountain for a good long knit walk on Sunday morning . Observing moss dripping off of branches, devouring the old oaks. So much fog and moisture from the coastal weather pounding this inland ridge which divides Sonoma and Napa counties, before sinking finally into the Napa valley.