First Rain

jenjoycedesign©rain-kitchen-window

Finally we got some rain, making it a lovely break from the dryest Autumn in many years. Emma and I just got in from a little knit-walk as it drizzled, but I didn’t bring camera in case it started to downpour. So here I am, taking photos of the wetness from inside our house.  From the kitchen window above.   Just look at the moss, just drinking it in . . .
jenjoycedesign©moss

From where I sit & knit by the window,  and if you look closely  you’ll see some stones placed in a path. That is actually the path down to the garden, but also it is part of my knitting trail, which goes off into the woods from the garden in a northerly direction . . .

jenjoycedesign©knitting-trail

On the knitting front: I have been preoccupied with a new yarn ~ here winding off 440 yards of a  ‘Botticelli Red’, variegated, 3-plied, hand-dyed hank of finest sock yarn I’ve had the pleasure to knit with to date. I am smitten with Malabrigo sock yarn!

jenjoycedesign©winding-off-malabrigo

Au Naturale

jenjoycedesign©Shetland-yarn-bag Last week I went to my LYS to buy some Jamieson’s Of Shetland Spindrift yarn , for I have been ruminating a sort of tribute design and I want this one to be made with exceptional palette of natural shades of yarn.  I came home with colors Shetland Black, Shaela, Mooskit, and Easit.

jenjoycedesign©Jamiesons-Shetland-Spindrift While we were out walking yesterday, from one of these massive sad piles (there are many, these are only two) I took one of the gnarled twisted  historic  vines destined to be burned,  and Emma helped me carry it home, gladly, for her it was just a big stick to play with!

jenjoycedesign©piles After a week of sketching ,

 I have got it ready to knit up. . .

and now I have cast on !

 It will have checked ‘dicing’ in the band and through the colorwork motifs . . .

jenjoycedesign©diced-band-on-vine

So folks, in the days ahead, I am letting needles fly, and my world has turned into shades of natural wools,  grey-black to grey-white, and I won’t emerge from my Autumnal Hermitage until it is complete, mark my word ! ((The pink strand will not be one of it’s attributes, that is merely part of the provisional cast-on.)) I’ll be seeing you on the flip-side.

Autumn Ahead

jenjoycedesign©blue-cream-cardigan

A welcome sign to me is the first Big Leaf Maple leaves just beginning to fall, and I believe I saw a few on the road-side today, while driving up the mountain !  And it appears as though Autumn Cardigans are well on their way too !   I thought I’d be really thrifty and frugal (and prudent) to use up a pile of about six skeins of light turquoisey tweed left over from a project last October, and well, it only got me this far !  Blast.. that’s the last ball of that, right there on top, with only the body and one sleeve finished (minus yoke & second sleeve and button bands). So no problem, I’ve ordered more, 3 more skeins for Niece Of Thirteen’s cardigan.

Here is the yarn for  Niece Of Ten’s cardigan will be this deep coral pink with mossy green peeries… won’t that be fun?

jenjoycedesign©pink-and-green

Blue

jenjoycedesign©blue-malabrigo

Blue beckons.  It calls to me, and it says ” Hey you who has avoided me for so long, I know you’re secretly in love with me ! ” So I am.  What to do?  I bought blue yarn yesterday from town,  I mean really blue yarn , and I have it propped up on the top of the loft wall, so as I pass by it, I can’t help but to see it and think ‘ what on earth … that is buh-looo ! ‘   Here it is, a single skein of Malabrigo Yarn (from N.Uruguay, which makes me happy) …lace weight, 100% Merino wool, and in color “marine”. It is variegated from medium to really deep indigo tones. Blue is so Me now.  It is my mood and my desire, it is a field of linen flax at dusk,  it is eyes of a new lover that I can’t resist, it is a soothing drink of color that quenches my thirst  while all around me fields of grass are as dry and white as parchment. This beautiful yarn cake of lace weight is not going to be made into anything  remotely lacy or frilly or superfluous. It shall be old-fashioned and practical.  Casting on . . .