Never far from a prayer.

Posted on April 7, 2019 by Jen

I have been going a little off the deep end hunting & sleuthing out the best finds on ebay of small vintage baskets, as well as made an order for a few more sets of Sunstruck dpns. Add to that the sox box I found only weeks ago, and my recent filling it with half-ball cakes of sock yarn. Can you guess where this is going? But first let me give you a little backstory; I have for a long time, even years, wanted to have a simple little knitting project in a small basket in every room of the house, like socks, so I am never far from a prayer. I suppose I aim to find peace in constant knitting. I have only to wait until the house is complete of course, before I can fully actualize this notion, but I am intending to start as soon as my first little baskets show up, filling them each with something simple like a sock project and setting them up everywhere about. I don’t know what’s happened to me, but in these last few days knitting with the beautiful birch wood double-pointed needles is nothing less than a sock knitting epiphany. I have been feeling rather spiritually lifted from it all. I know, strange how it is. So please hang around this space as I begin to transform and organize something deep within me which has been nothing short of lost, but now seems nearer to being found.

Knitting In A Room

Posted on January 26, 2019 by Jen

Knitting in a room is a theme I love to post about, because to me its as if rooms can speak silent nurturing words, or be as a listening friend, and even fill me with inspiration. Such was this original loft room, which is nearly half way built again. If I can ignore the dim light, the sprinkler system plumbing over the subfloor, the rough cut opening which will be a window again soon, then I can imagine how it will be.

Those of you who have been following my posts since long before the wildfire, might recognize this spot on the stairs, the most photographed spot for countless knitted things were on this shelf wall at the top of the stairs, with the bright southerly sunshine pouring in from a big skylight. But right now everything is quite dark for the (six) skylights have not been cut out of the roof yet, nor the windows uncovered from plastic to keep the rain out. I am hoping next time I post about rebuilding it will have the light pouring in that I was so fond of !

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Until then, I have placed a chair upstairs in my loft room to be, and I can walk up from the tiny house as often as I like (when the builders are gone) to climb the stairs and sit and knit in the room that I am swiftly falling in love with all over again.

Knitting on a bridge…

Posted on August 11, 2018 by Jen

jenjoycedesign© knitting on a bridge!

Jeff has built a bridge from logs he salvaged from the loggers’ waste, and he hoisted them cross across the small gully which heads over to the garden in now what I am calling “the path of least resistance” with planks nailed to the top from old boards, it is an excellent & rustic installment to the woods and I am super pleased with it! I helped only minimally, as I did the original “wedding bridge” which was burned in the wildfire. A new bridge & my sooty knitting trail has of this morning been improved inexpressibly for the better! Emma inspected & approved…

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There eventually will be builders at work making their presence felt in my quiet seclusion, and this lovely little bridge continues me my private trail out to the garden without having to walk up the road to the house where the chaos will be going on, and down to the garden from there. Planning ahead brilliantly! A short-cut to the garden, a bridge to bliss, a bridge across difficult terrain, so metaphorical. The garden is life, and inspires me in its quiet little way with bees bobbing about, fluttering butterflies, and small little birds bathing in various bowls and cups sitting about, as well as a fat wild dove flocks bombing about on occasion… tall seedy foxgloves still standing through the perpetual heat. I chase away the drought with my series of old-timey sprinklers, sitting beside them in the mist as I soak in the moist air and knit. It is a very rustic & secluded spot of calm, where one is really fairly hidden away.

I am trying to settle into a productive life of a busy recluse, and I have been thinking about things. Post trauma disorder has changed things a bit. I will very likely never get over that day of wildfire, for at that time forward is etched into the rhythm of how I experience life, and its injury as much a part of me now as anything could be. That blink of time when I hurriedly drove off in my car with Emma, my mandolin, recordings of my music compositions, a small box of photos, and a few clothes, my computer, and a tote full of my needles & favorite yarns to keep me busy in the days following — while instantly regretting other things which I forgot, so much from my life. Those things which seemed to define me were suddenly gone, especially those rooms, spaces which were integral to my happiness.

But let me tell you how I’ve been thinking about things, about feeling glad and comfortable with realizing that the only real thing I can ever own, and the only thing which defines me, are my accomplishments. So that is why I strive to live the busy life of a hermit in newly built hermitage, and the rooms will be far less cluttered and intriguingly sparse, so that I can build on my accomplishments. My family, and short list of close friends will allow me this reclusive life. I would like to add that I appreciate all of my pen friends from around the globe with whom I have kept company and shared my days in a more secluded way, I am ever so immensely grateful to my knitting fraternity!

♥ ♥ ♥

Knitting In A Room

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Jen

jenjoycedesign-knitting-in-a-room

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?

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Oh, perhaps more than just a sleeve, it looks like maybe three sleeves and two bodies, which means only one thing…

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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.