Category: Recovering From Wildfire

Finding

Published on by Jen17 Comments

jenjoycedesign© sunrise

After losing most of my things in the wildfire,   I am scouting again.

jenjoycedesign© drain

  Earlier this week I found this retro beauty in a local consignment shop of antique & vintage objects,   and we picked it up this morning.

jenjoycedesign© sunrise 1

A bathtub is not a delicate or graceful object, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to find one  while out scouting in the thrift & antique shops,  but the utmost in useful things in my opinion, something of daily life, and lifestyle.   I can’t express just how gratified it makes me feel to begin to find pieces of a home again,  which is in so many ways my identity.

jenjoycedesign© sunrise 2

This goes especially for used things,  sturdy and elegant old-fashioned  things that have already endured decades of use. I love, love, love old things, and am ready and eager to bring them into our new house, which likely won’t be any sooner than a year, but I can begin finding now.  We will have at least saved a fortune snatching up this one, and not waiting until later to buy new.

jenjoycedesign© sunrise 4

I suppose I am like so many other Nesters, completely taken in by the beauty of a utilitarian thing like an old bath tub.

jenjoycedesign© sunrise 12

My new finding does have me feeling pleased with myself,  even though for now it will have to stand patiently  next to a big window in our holding place, and I think it will come in handy as a giant yarn bowl, or laundry basket, until  eventually  the new house is built.

jenjoycedesign© sunrise 11

Frustrations over painfully slow rebuilding aside, and nature’s cruel black hand is far from getting use to, but admittedly life is seeming to feel good again as this particular finding brings my focus forward to what might be.  My time is filled with mostly looking for things, awkwardly filling a foreign house with new things I only have faith will feel good in my future home rebuilt . . . and some things I found from the ashes too. 

 

Into the mist …

Published on by Jen15 Comments

jenjoycedesign© mist 3

Went for a stroll out in the drizzling rain,  and took a few photos into the veil of mist.  jenjoycedesign© mist2

The mist softens the blackened soil, but the grass is growing up through it in the open spaces now, hovering over and caressing the wound of the wildfire.

I am feeling a nearly unperceivable whispering heartbeat of optimism …

jenjoycedesign© mist

… as if the landscape is tenacious, as much as it is vulnerable.

Tweed Chronicles: Madrone

Published on by Jen16 Comments

(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.

by the window
( 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.

♣     ♣     ♣

Meanwhile Emma seems to be perfectly happy in her new napping places…

Emma

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!

♣     ♣     ♣

Techy stuff  for Madrone …

  • Added 10g each of cinnamon, rose, and amber, layered again.

  • Lift batt, and layered again.  Too pink,  so decided to add 5g  of amber.

  • Not brown enough, so added 5g Hazelnut, and layered to have a bit of brown streaking in the spin.

  • Drew off rolags.
  • Colorway of blend “Madrone”
  • Note of improvement:  Next time more red instead of the amber step, and more brown on last blend.
  • See ALL color blending experiments & recipes archived in Tweed Chroniclesjenjoycedesign©woods

 

Spinning by a window.

Published on by Jen18 Comments
jenjoycedesign© spinning by a window

Spinning by a window  …
light flooding in to  unwind my shadowy worries.

jenjoycedesign© spinning Wild Flax

We have been staying in this strange temporary place, almost two months from the wildfire, and now spinning on a vintage Ashford Traditional spinning wheel that was brought to me very recently by L.

jenjoycedesign© 010

This color brings the summer to me, the warm landscape of wild flax …

 I’m hoping to find the colors of the flowers in the wool blend, not succeeding very well, but almost.

jenjoycedesign© 019

I have been trying to pick up where I left off in September in my fiber blending obsession, getting acquainted with this vintage spinning wheel too, which is for now easing me slowly back into creative mood. I am just so grateful to “L” for rescuing me from a mysterious group of spinners on Ravelry… for bringing to me all the way from San Francisco Bay Area, this beautiful vintage Ashford Traditional spinning wheel! I’m rather teary-eyed from a desperate sense of gratitude.

jenjoycedesign© spun

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, and for now I find the cozy window here my joy of the afternoon.

♣     â™£     â™£

Techy stuff  for my Wild Flax Blue …

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 “.

  •  2 g each of primary colors (6g tot) , for a base of color-saturated neutral ,  see this post; blend thoroughly on blending board 3 times Total 6g.    Note: for a more dramatic tweed, with gobs of color splashing through, blend only once , then continue.
  • 6g cornflower blue, layer very thinly one color at a time, with neutral base. Tot 12g.
  • Lift batt, layered again with 2g each of white, light green, teal. Tot 18g.

( I was trying to get more blended base, with a ‘dusting’ of brilliant blue on the last blend…)

  • Lift batt, and layered again with 2g  of cornflower blue. Tot 20g.
  • Drew off rolags.
  • Colorway of blend “Wild Flax Blue”
  • See ALL color blending experiments & recipes archived in Tweed Chronicles