Our Tiny House

Posted on May 17, 2018 by Jen

Greetings from our Tiny House in the Charcoal Forest!

Our Tiny House arrived here at the beginning of May, and now we have fully nested back in our charcoal forest. It was a major ordeal hauling it up the mountain with low branches over the roads, and a colossal stress, but things have calmed down now and we are getting use to two people and one large dog in a place that is very small. Our tiny house has frightfully few drawers, or closets, but very nice walls, surfaces, fixtures, and huge windows. It is tidy, efficient, artful, and crazy cozy! I even have plenty of blithe sunny angles to contemplate …

We’ve managed to get the bare essentials in as best as we could. Jeff made a counter extension into the stair landing so that there is a tiny bit more kitchen counter and a couple shelves for necessaries (ahem, those “drawers” in front of the sink, they’re fake, a tease, just for looks, but no complaints about the deep sink!) , and we still need to put up some shelves and cup hooks and such. There are two lofts, one with stairs going up to a platform with 5 foot overhead, it is our bedroom & has room enough only for our mattress ( restorative naps like from a nest in the trees !) and the other loft has a steep ladder going up, over the bathroom, with about 4 feet overhead and which serves as an attic. The saving grace is that Jeff built a shed, which is about 25 feet from the Tiny House, and where we have the luxury of temporary storage, all of our clothes, chairs & dressers I collected in last 6 months, and boxes etc… and… a washer & dryer which will be moved to the house when it is built one day. So that’s me trotting back and forth countless times a day, and with my knitting trail right at the doorstep, and all the wildness I am in need of ~~ ho hum, I tell you, this is “glamping” !

The outside paneling is torched & sealed wood , a method called shou sugi ban , which apparently has excellent preserving qualities, as well as fits right in with the charcoal forest ! Hunkering down for the long haul now, until our former house is rebuilt.

Knitting as usual…

And napping…

I’m so grateful that our Tiny House has super efficient heating & cooling, so I can close all the windows up and it becomes nearly sound proof, which is helping me cope with the loud noise of chain saws and bulldozers of the loggers at work nearby, and eventually the construction of the house. Eventually. Once in a while a huge tree lands with a thud and shakes the Tiny House, but here inside we are safe and far enough away not to be bothered too awfully much. Still trying to find my former manic wave, while adapting to the big changes going on, but I wanted to post this for our friends and family who have been wondering how our new living situation is. That’s us. Here. Now.

Everything in its place, and life is good.

♣ ♣ ♣

In closing, I just wanted to say that I’d love to hear more from you. I want to encourage some chattiness (plenty of space in the WordPress comments)…so please don’t be shy, and tell me about you!

Nifty ankle socks!

Posted on May 6, 2018 by Jen

jenjoycedesign© StAndrews Stroll 1

A fresh pair of St. Andrews Harbour socks ! I’ve been experimenting further with this fishermen gansey style, with a pair of short sporty ankle length socks. I also wanted to test the pattern in fine fingering sock yarn, and I’m so happy because I am finding this pattern to be ultimately versatile.

jenjoycedesign© StAndrews Stroll 3

Note: The pattern is written for sport weight yarn for adult sizes (womens med to mens large) but I wanted to see what size would result knitting the main chart in fingering-weight sock yarn. I find that what is lacking in circumference ease, I made up in length with an extra repeat, as knitted fabric is so extremely pliable & stretchy in all directions, they fit snugly and beautifully, and the toes still have room to wiggle.

Oh, I thought I’d mention that the yarn I used is Knit Picks Stroll in Dove Heather, and which I over-dyed with blue food coloring, resulting in a lovely variegated hand-dyed affect. Also, Knit Picks Stroll is a superwash merino wool/nylon fine-fingering sock yarn, and is oh so soft, but also tends to get a little fuzzy, which is more noticeable in this photo…

jenjoycedesign© StAndrews Stroll 2.JPG

I knit the yarn with US2 [2.75mm] needles with about 8 sts = 1″, and I am sure that if knit with smaller needles, getting 9 – 10 sts = 1″ , that these socks — in the Chart A– would be great for children. I am really happy with the experiment, and now I can confidently recommend this sock pattern for small sizes!

Pattern: St Andrews Harbour socks, in Chart A (56 stitches).

Size: Circ = 6.25″ flat, unstretched. Height = 5″. Foot length = 9″

Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll fingering weight sock yarn.

More details on Ravelry HERE.

Back home, in the Charcoal Forest . . .

Posted on May 2, 2018 by Jen

jenjoycedesign© Emma 13th BD 3

Do you know what day it is today?

jenjoycedesign© Emma is thirteen!.JPG

It is Emma’s birthday!

She is thirteen!!

Woof !!! :: shake ::

She is wearing just her sock now, and finally her inflatable collar & cone seem to be phasing out more because her old surgery wound which very mysteriously un-healed in the last six months, is beginning to heal again. I don’t know about you, but I really do think its stress related. Which brings me to mention we have moved back up to our Charcoal Forest! We are now living in a Tiny House which arrived April 30th, and what an unbelievable ordeal it was to get it up here !!! All I can say is that we three are exhausted and recovering from a load of stress, but ever so grateful that we are home.

Emma’s office

Since it is Emma’s birthday, I will give her a belly rub and a pat on the head from all of you! I had really meant to brush her up nice before her portrait shot, but did not happen, therefore the birthday girl is looking a bit scruffy & ungroomed. I thought in honor of her birthday I’d link to all Emma posts here.

♣ ♣ ♣

Now home, with a sense of belonging to a place, and I feel a great release of stress and sadness, so I will close this post as my old signature use to be, by saying even with all of its trials & tribulations…

Life is good.

jenjoycedesign© Emma's leash.JPG

Yarn Tasting: Kroy

Posted on April 13, 2018 by Jen

jenjoycedesign© Kroy St Andrews Socks 5

I have knit up a pair of St Andrews Harbour socks

in a new yarn I’ve never tried,

and I’m smitten!

jenjoycedesign© Kroy St Andrews Socks 1

This yarn was found quite unexpectedly in a maze of aisles , with shelves of acrylic yarns reaching nearly to the ceiling,

and I was so surprised to have to tame my yarn snobbery, for this yarn was found at our local Michael’s Craft Store!

Modest little balls of Kroy …
jenjoycedesign© Kroy Sock yarn

Yes folks, the secret is out, the yarn is Patons Kroy Sock; a washable wool & nylon 4ply sock yarn, and a surprisingly rustic feeling yarn, in a surprisingly rustic solid shade of “flax” … (see my post A Rustic Yarn to get the meaning ). The confusing thing is that on the label it says “super fine fingering” , don’t let that fool you, fine fingering weight is not at all what it is, this yarn is 166 yards per 50 gram ball, which equals 332 yards per 100g, definitely in the category of sport-weight. Other yarns with this same yardage are super popular Malabrigo “Arroyo” — which I believe would make the perfect soft sock for this design, and Cascade 220 sport (not the superwash one) which was the yarn I knit the cover prototype of the pattern, and one of my all-time favorite yarns. Kroy is sport-weight yarn, ignore the label.

jenjoycedesign© Kroy St Andrews Socks 4.JPG

This pair of fishermens socks were knit with option to switch to stockinette after gusset decreases are finished, which makes a little less bulky in the shoe ( see Ravelry project details here) Anyway, I think I have found a really affordable “vintage” feeling yarn for these fishermen socks; the yarn is a bit rough at first, but as I knit it it feels better and more compliant, and I just know its going to soften a lot in the wash. Crazy, as I’m such a connoisseur of yarn, but it behaves very well, knits up very stretchy & brings out wool’s best elastic properties, and with great stitch definition.

Oh and the color ” Flax ” is ideal for a rustic old-fashioned look, and I bet the Fishermen of olden days would have loved a pair of socks made from this yarn. Will try the “Gentry Grey” soon, thinking these two colors are the only heathered solids in this yarn. Afterthought: Um… well, folks, I figure now that I can over-dye the Flax color, and have just bought 4 more balls and ideas rushing to the fore!

A Rustic Yarn

Posted on April 9, 2018 by Jen

Image result for old painting of wool mill

Woolen mills of Stroud, Gloucestershire ,

A truly rustic yarn, made in a small scale production, is so wholesome it resonates history with each stitch. In a bygone era yarn was made for the locals, from the local sheep, with woolen mills scattered along rivers, because at one time before the use of electricity it was the power of water which drove the machinery. Those ancient days are gone now, but there are still a few yarn mills today, making yarn with very old machinery, in small batches.

Image result for old primitive painting of sheep

In small scale production, a whole fleece off-the-sheep, in its entirety, would be carded and blended, often with no ‘skirting’, and with all the varying shades a natural fleece can have, resulting in each batch being very individual, and creating what I call a rustic yarn. Today there are still a few old mills standing , where the end result of making yarn is nearly as it was done on the small holding farms. I might add how nice these small scale boutique mills are for the Indie Designer who wishes to produce a personal line of yarn to sell and with which to prototype their designs, and I am observing a growing number of such designers who are doing this that it seems to have become the fashionable In Thing.

This of course all is leading up to a Mill Tour, with a short film I recently discovered, about one of those few old mills still standing, Cushendale Woolen Mills, in Ireland…

I just love these films of old mills. Evidently I have begun to collect quite a few, so have created a category on Yarnings called “Mill Tours”, so click HERE to peruse them all ~~~ I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Un Chullo

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Jen

jenjoycedesign© D's chullo 1

Another birthday chullo for my brother. He just loves them so much, he wears them like hair. For this birthday I chose to make an anniversary of last April’s Camino Inca Chullo pattern release, knitting from the pattern. This one samples the Incan wave motif, and I knit it up in some lovely soft Juniper Moon “Herriot” yarn, which is 100% undyed baby alpaca, and this baby is soft! My brother likes the folk look of the ‘gnome’ crown, so I worked the option for slower decrease and it is just a bit gnome like…
jenjoycedesign© D's chullo 2

Its the tassels that my brother really loves, and with a brow/mustache comb that has needle-sharp brass teeth, I am able to comb through the pompom fringe and fluff up the fine hairs to a really fine furry puff …

jenjoycedesign© eyebrow comb

Voila! I even tied on an extra bit of yarn to comb into a tassle at the tip of the earflap.

jenjoycedesign© D's chullo 3

This being the last of the deadline knitting, I am now able to spend some time experimenting with the traditional “mens” chullo ~~ the varied regional methods of picot edges, and knit with needles traditionally made from bicycle wheel spokes! When time, opportunity & energy come together in the near future, I will continue where I left off, and embark on a new chullo knitting adventure ! But for now I will leave you with an artful & inspiring short travel ad film which gives glimpses of the wild landscape and colorful textiles of Peruvian Highlands that I have been so very drawn to …

From within a garden gate…

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Jen

gardening in the rain2

I am hopeful and ready to cultivate something verdant and lush, a wonderful secret garden, a tonic for a feeling of well-being and happiness wherein the garden fence I can be a caretaker of living things and feel at home, a place out under the sky where the nameless meadowy wild flowers and grasses thrive along side vines of berries, succulent sedums, herbs, foxglove, sturdy fruit trees. All together keeping time of the seasons together under the showers of the skies or sprinkler, and the comforting shade skips around in a merry frolic with the suns rays. In wet months miners lettuce explodes in edible clusters, and somewhere near, maybe a lucky mushroom pops up…

“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.” A. A. Milne

Foraging about in a garden, a secret garden, the kind only a few people visit (namely myself) … with a lovely and nice gate to keep the world out and the magic in. Garden gates utterly fascinate me right now… check out this beauty…

garden gate

The garden is like a favorite room in a house. In mornings of April through October there’s me holding a watering hose in one hand and cup of coffee in the other, with knitting bag slung across my shoulders. I am dreaming a thriving green oasis from within my Charcoal Forest, and garden with walls of pink jasmine (just planted, six plants!) to vine and cover the lower fence, and shield from vision the blackest of burn, and the apple trees trying to shake off the scorched leaves of last Autumn’s wildfire as their new leaves are determined to emerge soon, very soon, they must, because I just see them in my mind!

“Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.” Sigmund Freud

A place to go, to work hard and get dirt beneath my nails, a place where the soul meets life, and the worries of the world are forgotten. My thoughts these days are of knitting, and of a garden with knitting trail made new.

Petra’s Tam

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Jen

jenjoycedesign© StAndrews-Harbour-tam1

Pattern: St Andrews Harbour (Petra’s Tam)

Yarn: Alice Starmore’s Hebridean 3ply, in Golden Plover

Details on Ravelry: here

It was a lovely knit! I do recommend the tam in this pattern “set”, for it is so fetching, sporty, awesomely sea-worthy, and a totally essential accessory of one’s outdoor wardrobe. This one is made from worsted weight yarn, and it is a bit fashionably floppy, however, knit with finer yarn such as sport weight, it would be just right. If done in Starmore yarn, I would do better to suggest Starmore’s Hebridean 2ply. I want to knit another one or two from my handspun yarn, talked about in Tweed Chronicles which has so much meaning through a time of upheaval as was my obsession in the months right after the wildfire. So on to the next!

♣ ♣ ♣

Meanwhile, I’ve composed a little letter to all of you who follow Yarnings, a new category on Yarnings, entitled “Letter from the editor” , to let you know what is going on with us during this time of epic change.

Dear Everybody ~

On to new adventures, and news on every page! First, our stay at our first holding place did not last long, the landlords want to move back in, and that’s fine, because I’ve longed with a great ache in my heart to live back up on the mountain in my charcoal forest. Second, the county administration and engineers are making our getting a permit to (re)build hugely difficult and drawn out, adding insult to injury. I don’t really want to talk about details, but we have no real timeline as to when we will be rebuilding, or what we will be rebuilding, or when we will be living up there in our rebuilt house. So the original post I made right after the wildfire in October entitled “Ten Acres ….” written two days after evacuating our house, flames still smoldering, is now ringing in the rafters as we are in process of getting a Tiny House to park a few hundred yards away from the building site, nestled right near the trail head to my knitting track in fact. If I can try to be optimistic, I will tell you that this pleases me a lot, if choices are dreary and few right now, shifting around from city rentals, and not being able to walk in the woods properly has been detrimental to my attitude, and mental as well as physical health. Also Emma has been to the vet and back many times in the last months, her wound from her surgery last summer (posted here) never healed properly, and she is cheerily going day to day from stitches to staples, from cone to inflatable collar, but aside from all of that seems to be in good health. Meanwhile Jeff has suddenly been laid low from the stress of the whole ordeal of the county, the moving out (again) that he’s caught a bad bug and its developed into pneumonia, but worry not, he is of heroic constitution and never sick, and now on antibiotics will get well soon. As for me, I’ve thrown my back out and hobbling around, on pain killers, feeling taped together at best. Oh, but finally I managed to get a hold of some 90tpi carding cloth, and finally made another jumbo carding & blending board to replace the original , left behind in the wildfire, (colossal thanks to Adele for lending me your Ashford Blending board these past months! xoxo) … and so I am ready to get back into tweed-making, visualizing a tiny space in the Tiny House to be my new creative “loft” space. In fact, I plan on moving into the Tiny House with a good and positive attitude and stop feeling sorry for myself so much. Years ago we stayed in a treehouse, (posted here), and I enjoyed myself immensely tucked away up in a nest in the trees, knitting the hours away, a knitting retreat of retreats! I want to make this new Tiny House feel like that retreat did, and I am visualizing constant knitting & walking, as well as constant gardening. The garden was the one thing that (mostly) did not burn in the wildfire, so I want to be near it to nurture it and water, and make it an oasis where I can go be with living growing things, and to realize how great it is just to wake to another day. Wish us luck, and I’ll keep you posted

~~ xxJen ( aka ‘ the editor ‘ )

St Andrews Harbour Socks

Posted on March 20, 2018 by Jen

Go now fishermen of olden days, slip away into the blues and greys of dawn.
Find me, cast away, and draw me back in your nets of knotted flaxen twine, for I long to be caught and reeled back in to the world. O’ to be born into the day once again!

jenjoycedesign© stack of socks

St Andrews Harbour in Scotland, is an historic fishing harbor inspiring this classic ensemble of fisherman gansey style socks, mitts, and tam.

Historic St Andrews Harbour, Fife, Scotland

Remember my series of fishermen neck gansey posts from last year?

Well, I’ve returned, with a fishermens gansey for your feet !

jenjoycedesign© St-Andrews-Harbour-Socks 2

And for hands….

There’s an option for kilt-hose style turned cuffs ~~ adorned with kilt flashes or ribbons tied beneath cuff and folded down, this variation resonates the Scottish Highlands!

Option for legwarmers, anklewarmers, & boot cuffs….

jenjoycedesign© ankle warmers boot cuffs

boot cuffs ~ ankle warmers

Alive O’ !!

A bonus gift included of “Petra’s St Andrews Harbour Tam” !

Because nearing the end of my pattern writing for the socks, my good & dear friend Petra had been busy test-knitting the socks, but was also (secretly) adapting the sock pattern to a proper sea-worthy tam…

Thank you so much Petra for your tam contribution! ~ xx

So beautiful, easy to knit, and a Must Have! I am knitting one straight away ~~ but more on the tam knitting later. For now I am working like a team of knitting fisher lassies to get all this pattern submitted and sorted out.

SFM_144

Happy Spring everyone!

I have pushed to have this ready on the Vernal Equinox and and shared in short series of fishermen posts, and at last here it is ~~ done & dusted!

Pattern found on Ravelry HERE.

Washed ashore…

Posted on March 18, 2018 by Jen

washed-ashore-2

Washed ashore.

A poignant pause in a short series of sea fishing posts, reeling in sentiment for those fishermen who fight the sea, in love with the sea,

yet inevitably helpless in the incidences where the water, weather, and sea creatures dominate with harsh indifference.

Sea monster ready to swallow up ship and crew — drawing 1600’s.

” Humanity is always fallible, through every man individually or a crew collectively, (there is) a break in the chain of watch-keeping or good navigation, and there comes tragedy. Going to sea against those elements to take home that resource can never remain safe ” — as heard in previous post from Unknown Fisherman.

Fishermen Fact: In the face of tragedy, the fishermen gansey (guernsey) or sweater, its varied patterns on brave & broad shouldered men such as these, is a marker of identity…

“Each gansey has a unique pattern which varied from village to village and from family to family. If there was a shipwreck or accident the bodies washed up on the shore could be identified by their gansey as being from a particular village and family. In this way the fisherman could be returned to their family for burial”… read more

The sea is a dangerous place, and fishermen have had to work within its raw and elemental nature for as long as they’ve taken harvest from it, from centuries past to present. The sporting Fishermens Gansey as we know today, has survived its original purpose of rugged & essential gear, knit by mothers, wives, and sweethearts, to keep their fishermen warm and safe against the elements as well as they could…

“fisher lassies” knitting for their fishermen

But even so, the fishermens gansey has come into the spotlight of fashion as a genuinely attractive style of knitwear, and knitters have appreciated the cables, moss stitch and purl textures for generations already. As I have also been smitten by those timeless textures, at last I am bringing the spirit of the sea into a small collection of rugged and sea worthy accessories that I’ve been working on this winter like a team of fisher lassies …

Alive O’ !

jenjoycedesign© pile of knitting

A fresh catch ready to be sorted & groomed for photos (and with pattern forthcoming), saluting the iconic woollen fishermen gansey, in an assortment of knitteds that every fisherman or fisherwoman, should never be without !

Fishiness

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Jen

Things are getting fishy around here again!

Enjoy this mix of stories spoken from the mouths of Scottish fishermen accompanied by some old film clips of their lives at harbor and at sea.

blue things

Posted on March 14, 2018 by Jen

jenjoycedesign© cappuccino and knitting
In the last weeks I’ve been frequently knitting at the Oakville Grocery cafe to quell life’s blues. Just a quiet little deli & espresso place on the highway with vineyard views in all directions, and with picnic benches in the back where I can bathe in the morning winter sun while making progress toward the finish of a new pattern. And Emma and I are getting out a little bit for (mostly short) walks on the ridge.

Although it appears the walk up the ridge has lost it’s charm completely, I am trying to embrace it, hoping for better days ahead and the mysterious healing power of Spring. Other blues: An intensely blue sky over Oakville on Sunday. A blue balloon descended from the sky, tangled in the woods, omen-like. My blue knitting bag hung on a burned branch while walking up the ridge. Need I mention the blue knitting with cappuccino? I would like to see some blue wildflowers soon. Oh but hey, the vernal equinox is only a week away!

The Textiles of Cusco 2

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Jen

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I am very much enjoying learning about Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez and her life’s work establishing the Center of Traditional Textiles of Cusco , and keeping part of the past alive. She has fought an important battle bringing back the straying generation which nearly put an end to the skilled weavers of the Cusco region, and result has established institution and industry in Cusco, while bringing next generations back into the nest of tradition. Nilda, you go girl!

A message from Nilda…

I am deeply inspired by the imagery of the Andes mountains, and of industry in spinning, weaving, and knitting from the Cusco region. It is obvious that I romanticize their more provincial lifestyle, although I do consider myself very lucky that I can set my feet into a degree of provincialism while at the same time choosing what I like from convenience of the modern world. I know from my own that it is hard work refining a life in craft has nearly in itself become a novelty in the modern world. A work ethic in craft is to me all consuming, as I savor and enjoy growing the goodness of making.

Here are a few short interview films about Nilda and her work…

I have found and purchased out one of Nilda’s books and am looking forward to it arriving by mail, and of sharing it here forthcoming . I am fascinated in weaving, and the colors create from natural dyes (as well as natural un-dyed yarns) , but as I am committed to knitting, I hope the muse touches me and brings more ideas into the knit design that I do. More to come about my views of the richly exotic textile traditions in the nest of the Andes, so watch this space!

Center of Traditional Textiles of Cusco

Read more about Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez…

Nilda’s Wikipedia
Nilda’s books on Amazon
Interview with Cloth & Clay
Interview with World Strides
Smithsonian Folk Life Festival

The Textiles of Cusco

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Jen

Traditional Textiles of Cusco

What do you get when you bring together a remote and rugged high mountain range, herds of soft downy llamas, alpacas, sheep, and an indigenous people who’s thirst for artfulness is apparent in all they do? You get beautiful textiles steeped in ancient traditional, as in the Cusco region of Peru!

I’ve been watching this video over and over, fascinated in the weavings of the Cusco region, and life’s work of Nilda Callañaup Alvarez , while I knit and think about All Things Peruvian. So much that I’m feeling a deep inward shift in this direction. But that is all for now, more to come later, on Nilda and Traditional Textiles of Cusco!

Soon I will have to put everything down to make my brother a chullo, which I knit nearly every year around his birthday, and I am giddy because this year I will get to knit one from my own design.

♥ ♥ ♥

News: I am happy to say that we got the quote from the building contractors, and we’ll manage to build our house again! We will have to do some of the finish work ourselves, like flooring, and who knows what else, but that is nothing like when we built the whole house before. The timeline of starting date is still unknown, as is an estimated time of finish, and I suppose everything is getting queued up for a fast and furious build sometime this upcoming spring. I find it so difficult to blindly wait without knowing when I will go back home. Anyway, the very best-case scenario, if everything goes well, and which I am visualizing for dear life, is that we could very possibly be moving back into our rebuilt house this … coming … Autumn … ?

Finding

Posted on February 17, 2018 by Jen

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.

(not so) Grey Days

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Jen

jenjoycedesign© Oakville-grocery2

Knitting while enjoying some amazing coffee, at the Oakville Grocery , once a very small-town grocery just a blink along Highway 29, and now a roaring tourist stop with coffee bar & deli for those on their way upvalley. For me it is just off the Oakville Grade, when I come down off the mountain, one of my ‘going out’ places, and usually by myself. Lots of being by myself lately, as my days are in limbo and I prefer to sit alone on one of the outside tables like this to knit and ponder with yarn and a coffee connoisseur’s cuppa.

Oh, but about the knitting. I am in the midst of knitting a pile of prototypes, some made with Isager Tweed (previously posted in yarn tasting) , and some with other wonderful tweedy yarns, and I can only hope that I will surface with some evidence soon, nearer to the point when my pattern is ready. I am in no rush and presently can not set a lot of expectations upon myself. I am a snail in the race against nothing.

tweed sock

I just felt like checking in, and mention that it’s been like spring around here, and while I am under the impression that it is suppose to be winter, these oppressive blue skies and warm afternoons since late January are rather frightful. I only want nourishing rain and dark grey skies.

Bring it on rain clouds …

♣ ♣ ♣

Most of you know that I have a deep intrigue in films about old mills, and traditions of textile crafts, and especially traditions of weaving. Here is one I found that shows traditional Korean Ramie weaving. It seems so like linen but processed completely different. I am so in awe of the older more simplistic methods. It seems the more simple, the more elegant the cloth …

Yarn Tasting: An Irish Tweed

Posted on January 25, 2018 by Jen

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?

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.

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.

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.

♣ ♣ ♣

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 …

Golden State (of being)

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Jen

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…

photo from archives: Seasonal

Golden shades throughout the Autumnal landscape …

photo from archives: November Chill

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

photo from archives: Mountain Knitting

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

photo from archives: Golden

But mostly…

photo from archives: Summer Landscape In Morning

Golden fur of Emma’s, my favorite shade…

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 …

♣ ♣ ♣

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

The color of moss…

Posted on January 15, 2018 by Jen

photo from archives: Knitting In Nature

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 …

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 “…

♣ ♣ ♣

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

Geological 3

Posted on January 13, 2018 by Jen

photos in archives: Long Shadows Of January

Last and lightest color in my geological series is the ash layer from volcanic eruptions, and which show up a couple of feet down, seen mostly where there is water erosion in the ditches along side of some of the vineyard roads next door …
jenjoycedesignc2a9eroded-layers-of-ash
It is a stripey design of very light grey to medium grey, depending whether it is wet or dry, so “Ash” perfectly names the light grey color in my Geological colorways.

The bulk of the color is silver — natural grey and natural white fleece — so the range from a warm silver to a cool medium grey is up to the mood, and a thing which invites a lot of personal touch.

In my three geological colors of dark Shale, medium Sandstone, and now light Ash, either natural grey or natural brown can be blended with natural white for the rock tones, because the distinguishing difference is dark-to-light variation more than it is color hue.

The other distinguishing feature of geological colors is that I’m using undyed natural colors for the all-over color, with a splash of the color-saturated neutral showing …

… which by the way, the “color saturated neutral” (primary and/or secondary triad mix) is the unifying element of ALL of my tweedy colorways !

Next time I will use less ratio of the color-saturated neutral, because when one is blending a light wool , like paint, the proportion of pigment actually is very little. Also next time I will use more white in the mix to make the all-over color a lighter silver (noted below). But for the sake of documenting my experiment, here’s what I did…

♣ ♣ ♣

Techy stuff for Ash…

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 white with 15g natural grey, lift batt. (Note: For lighter grey, blend more white, less grey)
Layer color-saturated neutral batt with white/grey batt alternately.
Lift batt, and for lighter grey layer again with 15g more white.
draw off rolags.
Colorway blend: ” Ash” .
See ALL color blending experiments & recipes archived in Tweed Chronicles