Temporary Place – Page 2

Finding

Published on February 17, 2018October 20, 2024 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.

Yarn Tasting: An Irish Tweed

Published on January 25, 2018October 14, 2022 by JenLeave a comment

jenjoycedesign© Irish Tweed 2

My new wool love is Isager Tweed, made in Ireland and the most gorgeous commercial tweed yarn I’ve seen in my local yarn shop to date. Ever since Rowan discontinued their Fine Tweed yarn, I was not sure how to improvise a substitution for a rustic multi-color tweed single ply.

What is it about tweed that is just so utterly sensual, timeless, and tasteful?

jenjoycedesign© Irish Tweed 3 — Isager Tweed in Navy and Winter Grey

It must be color variegation which happens only when yarn is spun from pre-dyed fibers, blended together so that those little explosions of random ~~ sometimes quirky, sometimes quiet ~~ contrasting color flecks just pop out, and make the visual as well as tactile texture very distinctive.

jenjoycedesign© Isager Irish Tweed

Ireland and the British Isles have been for centuries steeped in the wool mill industry, its countryside once peppered with countless woollen mills during the Industrial Age, but in modern times there are only a handful of the old mills still producing, for major yarn companies (like Isager) as well as a growing number of indie knitwear designers who wish to have their own mill spun label.

jenjoycedesign© Irish Tweed

The yarn is fingering to fine-fingering weight, a blend of wool and mohair , in a beautifully rustic single ply. It has a very subtle coarseness , I am guessing from the goat hair, which gives it an old world feel and ever so like handspun with slight thick and thin variation in the yarn, but at the same time it is soft to the touch from being mostly a downy breed of wool to balance out and gives it a very versatile feel. Even though I am deeply involved in the spinning of my own tweed, and I actually aspire to produce a single ply tweed much like this yarn, but if hand-spun isn’t handy, I can’t go wrong with the real Irish spun. I must say how lovely it is that my local yarn shop has this great yarn, and in the best colors too.

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Oh! I found yet another wool film in the “Hands” series about how to make a Donegal spinning wheel! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have …

Tweed Chronicles: Golden State (of being)

Published on January 21, 2018May 27, 2024 by Jen6 Comments

oct-2-2016 — photo from archives: Fields Of Gold

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…

Golden shades throughout the Autumnal landscape …

jenjoycedesign© Autum Landscapes — photo from archives: November Chill

The sort of dried papery gold, from late summer wild peas…

The magical and beautiful golden rays of sunrise in my kitchen…

But mostly…

photo from archives: Summer Landscape In Morning

Golden fur of Emma’s, my favorite shade…

golden field — photo from archives: Walking In Autumn

So naturally, I would create my own woolly golden too.

A kind of gold that brings together a color-saturated neutral with natural white, amber & gold.

This colorway sings of the mountain in June thru October ~~ it is my “Golden”.

And here is how I made it …

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Techy stuff for Golden…

Began with Primary & Secondary Neutral recipe using approx 2.5g each of light shades of green, purple, and orange OR light shades of blue, red, and yellow, (see Blending For Tweed Simplified) , lift batt, set aside.
Layer 15g natural white with 5g each of amber and mustard, lift batt.

Layer color-saturated neutral batt again.
draw off rolags.

Colorway blend: ” Golden ” .
See ALL color blending experiments & recipes archived in Tweed Chronicles

Tweed Chronicles: The color of moss…

Published on January 15, 2018April 18, 2026 by Jen9 Comments

Moss is the most complicated color in nature that I can think of. Here in the mountains of Northern California, it is dormant through the dry season (most of the year if not half) during which it shrivels and turns an olive green to brown color. When the rains come, it is fat full of water, it glistens with nearly neon golden tips and has every shade of green present, plus a few other colors in there too …

jenjoycedesign©moss-dripping — photo from archives: Fog & Moss

I could never really quite figure out if real moss in nature is a warm or cool green, so I figure I’d just layer and layer and layer the colors until it seemed right, improvising as I went along …

which spun up to be as complex of a green in yarn form as I thought it should be …

but I do think in hindsight I should have added more dark green, which I didn’t have any of, so if I did, I would have added in the greens.

Anyway, this is how I did my ” moss “…

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Techy stuff for Moss…

Began with Primary & Secondary Neutral recipe using approx 2.5g each of green, purple, and orange, blue, red, and yellow, (or alternately 5g each of primary or secondary triad colors) blended thoroughly on blending board (see Blending For Tweed Simplified)

Lift color saturated neutral batt, layer alternately with 5g each of grass green, leaf green, and olive green.

Lift batt, layer alternately again with 5g each of grass green and mustard yellow.

Lift batt, layer alternately again with 5g each of grass green and mallard teal. (I think next time I will blend in more Mallard teal, perhaps along with the yellow in previous step).

Layer again on blending board and draw off rolags.
Improvement for next time: Add more mallard (teal) with yellow, as well as a dark green.
Colorway blend: ” Moss” .
See ALL color blending experiments & recipes archived in Tweed Chronicles

Tweed Chronicles: Geological 2

Published on January 8, 2018May 27, 2024 by Jen9 Comments

: photo from archives: Paws

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

shale

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…

Began with Primary & Secondary Neutral recipe using approx 2.5g each of green, purple, and orange AND blue, red, and yellow, (or alternately 5g each of primary or secondary triad colors) blended thoroughly on blending board (see Blending For Tweed Simplified) ,lift batt, set aside.
Layer 15g natural black with 15g natural grey, lift batt.

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.

Layer color-saturated neutral batt with black/grey batt alternately.

Lift batt, layer again. Layer once more for a more homogenized result, or go on to next step.
draw off rolags.
Colorway blend: ” Shale” .
See ALL color blending experiments & recipes archived in Tweed Chronicles