Winter Solstice

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This morning at first light I took my camera out to photograph a few for the post, but when I tried to upload them, nothing happened, so borrowing photos from the archives . . .

Transition into winter excites me, when inwardly I build anew. This morning my thoughts drift back to a dreamscape I had more than a decade ago, a vivid dream that I was sitting, nested in an ethereal kind of place, on a snowy crag, an unreal pillar of rock jutting up into the stratosphere. I was comfortable and warm, in a place of incessant night yet with illuminating snow below and snowflakes softly blowing around me and  as if I were brought up into an existentialist heavenly place, and I was unafraid of the elements.  This dreamscape is ever present in my spiritualistic sense of myself, and although the dream was long ago the memory of it is etched in my conscience, at times reminding me to hold steadfast as I make my way through transition, unafraid, into new unknowns.

Today being the Winter Solstice the shortest and darkest day in the northern hemisphere, I ponder still that ethereal place in the highest of heights, and the creative territory ahead, landing me again in my wintery thoughts. I feel so calm this morning early as the rain begins again, softly hitting the roof, washing my worries away. So it is with a rain-fulfilled contented sigh that I feel a close of the year, while everything beds down for a nice winter nap. Happy Solstice to Everyone!

Christmas Knitting

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Dear Nora and Fin-ster,

I want to tell you a little story about the Christmas hats I made for you. I wrote the pattern for this chullo in Spring of 2017 when your PopPop, Papa & Aunt Zan were in the Andes Mountains of Peru, walking the Camino Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. I started when PopPop left, knitted a pile of them, wrote and submitted the pattern, and by the time he got back home a week later, I had finished everything! I named the design Camino Inca Chullo and there are many ways you can make them, but I knitted the improvisational variations for yours, making it up as I knitted along, from bits of yarn I had in a drawer, some that I overdyed with colors I thought you’d like. Nora, your Papa thought I ought to put kitty ears on yours, so I did, and positioned the ears where they worked best, as the top of the hat tends to slouch back. A soft slouchy chullo with cat ears sounds like a great hat I think , but the ears can be easily taken off if they’re not behaving. Fin-ster, I just want you to know that in the traditional dress of the Peruvians who live in the Andes Mountains, especially near Machu Picchu, only the men and boys wear these style hats, and usually have many very big fluffy tassels and pompoms, yours only has one rather small one by comparison, so wear it with pride Little Man! PopPop wanted me to make them for you, so I did, they are made of superwash wool, so they won’t shrink if you throw ’em in the washing machine, and also, the wool was grown from sheep in the Peruvian Mountains!  I better get them in the mail now, I hope you like them, and Happy Christmas! Love, Nanna.

All posts Camino Inca.

Out in Autumn

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Rain has soaked the earth in our neck of the woods since some time in mid October, so much rain in fact, that there were run-off streams rushing down the hill that I haven’t seen in a couple of years. The return of the rain season is at last on time, calming everybody’s nerves and we’re settling into a bit of a post fire season bliss. At present we’re having a spell of warm clear days after all that rain. So clear and mild out early this morning I was able to get out with my camera while Juno & Jeff went to dog class and I had a beautiful sunrise all to my self! Mid Autumn, and the golden oaks and maple trees are glowing, turning of the season in balance and everything in its place.  What is new: a thing showed up at the very end of October, and if you’re wondering what that odd photo of a small bit of machinery is, its an Ashford electric spinner folks! I write with exclamation and excitement, but to be honest, I’m not sure I’m so crazy about it. I much prefer spinning on my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel any day, but in recent months I have not been able to sit at the treadle wheel without a bit of back pain, or sitting for too long in general. So I couldn’t resist the temptation to try one, as my newly back pain caused a bit of a dilemma, the optimal plan in doing so is that I am able to spin and ply while standing! I must admit in its favor, that it is quite a thrill to ply off several hundred grams of singles bobbins at lightening speed, something that perhaps in time I will find a real benefit from. Until then, its in the closet while the beautiful Ashford Traditional is out of the closet.  And Juno is eight months old this week ! Although her behavior is full tilt puppy still, and lots of misbehaving and testing her humans, she’s getting an adult coat of fur and looking quite beautiful . . .

Abelene Appears

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Hi, its me Abelene. Its been a very long time since Jen brought me out of the closet, and I must admit, I was more desperate than I let on, when in fact, it occurred to her to give me a try for her latest Finished Thing. Whew, I was glad she did, because if you’re not appearing, you most certainly are disappearing! What she has me trying on here is another Fisher Vest, don’t ask her why she knit four of these beauties, she can’t tell you. I personally think its because she loves the design, because I’m not joking, she’s casting on for another!

Me? I just love the squiggles! Really, it was in order to officially test the latest armscye shaping. Right, she means armhole, and of course, she couldn’t resist another crew neck . Aren’t crew necks the greatest thing ever? But what I really love about the photos below are all the sweet Autumny things, like acorns and fir cone, and oak and madrone leaves, they all really gives me a sense of seasonal bliss. It is afterall, October still.

Jen says she is trying to make a date with her eldest niece who happens to be so very busy, so that she can model this Fisher Vest for some castle photographs, and be given her Autumn Thing which is the original prototype, and which has been folded up in a drawer waiting patiently through the scorching months of summer. Let me tell you fine people, I fully understand that feeling.

Talks are about to happen, dates penned in, moments fleeting and some more memories made. Hopefully very soon she’ll be here instead of me, but quite frankly I’m glad it was me today!

Ta ta for now,

Abelene

ps. Oh, I forgot to mention the techy stuff:

Pattern: Fisher Vest

Yarn: Lettlopi by Alafosslopi, color Ash Heather (0056)

Project details on Ravelry here.

A healing place…

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I discovered today is very special. Counting back seventeen days before the wildfire, insert 2 years away from original home, then 2 years back in rebuilt home, forward seventeen days, mirror-reversed, bridges today with the Autumn equinox 2017. How special that is to me, because on the equinox four years ago I was finishing up my knitting trail, posted A rustic place . Today, I feel in a calm peaceful hopeful mood, and with determination, bracing myself and imagining starting the knitting trail over again. The forest was badly burned, dead & dying trees falling everywhere, soot and little pockets of ash even still in some places. In 2018 the loggers tore into it and left big open spaces, and so many really old tall firs on the lower leg of the trail disappeared. Gone. Since then there has been Jurassic regrowth of bizarre tall weeds and thorny shrubs taking over, a few pine and fir saplings, and thousands upon thousands of baby madrones. All this new growth beneath a surprising number of big firs still standing, although torched badly at their bases.

It matters not when I will complete the knitting trail all over again, but this mirror-reversed day in the timeline of things is very healing, letting the forest show me how the time passed is longer back home than was away from home, and every day now that passes heals it a little more. Something in the archives of memory is willing it seems, to start forgetting the sad and the bad times.

So, sometime this Autumn, with Juno running wild as she will, I will begin again finding the path anew in that very unique place that is the knitting trail, through and among tens of thousands of madrone trees growing furiously, completely carpeted over the old trail. That is, as soon as it dries up a little from the torrential rain we’ve been having, and I’ve been loving every drop ~~ today I am hopeful and facing forward!

Out in Autumn

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Its been a while since I’ve posted Juno,

and now she’s already 7 months old!

We are desperately waiting for the first rain, due any day now.

Fields are golden and dry as parchment,

needing to be dampened down, to rest my worry. 

 

Thats us here and now, midway through October.

Where does the time go, hmm?

Tweed Chronicles: Odds & Ends Blends

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I have been in a binge of preparing fiber,  attempting to clear out and make yarn from all the little bits of  fiber odds and ends I have in my closet. With this batch I am refining my “one + one” blending method, where I blend a batt on my blending board, then blended that batt to another batt, and so on (original one + one tutorial)   Also, using hand mix method (original Handmix tutorial) to divide up the batts with new fiber helped me get everything fairly equally portioned, and I just kept adding while the batts were building and then the final brush strokes of accent.  Here’s how it all stacked up and blended together, pretty much exactly . . .

♣    ♣    ♣

Techy Stuff for Odds & Ends #2, entirely on blending board.

  1. Beginning with 21g of a BFL hand-dyed braid, I mixed together on the blending board, and the blue, yellow, green, orange, red all turned into a mix of dull dark brown = batt #1 — see color saturated neutral tutorial here.
  2. To the batt#1 color mix I blended with about 30g of some (what I think was) Rambouillet white wool that was in the mystery bag of fiber = 1+1 batt #2 = 51g.
  3. To batt #2 I blended with 97g white alpaca = [1 + 1] + 1 batt #3 = 148g.
  4. To batt #3 I blended with 80g part braid of blue-faced-Leicester/Shetland/Manx blend which was tan and white wools = [[1 + 1] + 1] + 1 batt #4 = 228g — shown in the big fluffy beige batt below. 
  5.  I brushed on to blending board 72g part braid of Malabrigo Nube (Merino) in colorway “Solis” (blues & greens) for a batt to mix in. 
  6. To batt #4 I mixed in the teal batt = [[[1 + 1] + 1] + 1] + 1 batt # 5 = 300g. 
  7. Last brush streaks of ‘turquois veins’ = topaz bamboo. 
  8. Pulled off rolags!

Notes:

  • Making batts of all the fibers first, which is kind of like combing them and making them easier to blend on the blending board with the next fiber, sequencing the process with another fiber, then another, instead of all fibers at once. This homogenizes the first fibers more and more throughout.
  • After batt #3 I decided to not blend in the 30g of white Cheviot or extra (much coarser) 72f BFL blue-green hand-dyed braid, and left it at the 300+ grams batt #5.  Batt #5 got two blendings on my blending board, in attempt to finer homogenize the colors, but it became and overwhelming project at 300g total, and I still had the last brushings of color to do, before drawing off rolags. I am considering getting a wool picker for future big projects! 
  • Final blend I added about 10g of bamboo in color “topaz” for the gold streaking affect, thinking I might end up with a look of veined turquoise. However, I can never tell until the final handspun is finished and plied before I can be certain.  

Watch this space for the spin-up of these lovely rolags. 

♣    ♣    ♣

Oh yeah…

the Odds & Ends #1 batch that is all spun up and I almost forgot about!

I actually did forget to post this, from weeks ago the finishing of the project, and it was the first of my Odds & Ends series of stash-busting projects. It is Early Morning Blend from inauguration day. has finally been spun & plied.   This also is the first on-purpose bulky weight yarn I have made that I can remember, in all the years that I’ve been spinning; that is, not accidental or “it is what it wants to be” kind of handspun. I have pretty much a default thickness of yarn I spin now, so, needing some bulky weight yarn to knit up a little something, it occurred to me to ply 3 together of the singles bobbins that were storing in my wool closet. I absolutely am raving about on-purpose 3-ply, as it makes a very balanced round yarn. Which incidentally, is ideal for textured knitting. Hmm, maybe next I shall cast on for the smallest size of my latest Fisher Vest, hoping I don’t run out of yarn!

reverie

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Pastel “Walking With Emma” by Mary Ann Prehn

A lovely piece of art reached me yesterday. The moment I saw the pastel, I was cast out into an intense longing, a reverie, washed over with love of what was before and what I profoundly miss . . . walking in the long shadows either sunrise or sunset, with Emma, with the beautiful healthy landscape of the oaks before they were assaulted by the wildfire, and Mary Ann has captured the true heart of it all in this pastel she made for me (perhaps after enjoying knitting some Walking With Emma socks?) Surely the artist is completely unaware of the fact that in two days it will be the four-year anniversary of the wildfire, for the timing is so mysterious, and although I am not sure why she has bestowed upon me such generosity, that aside, it is the miracle of the heart and mind and of strong emotions which have completely touched me. Thank you Mary Ann, I am so very honored to have this piece, and of course, I am certain Emma feels it too.

Socktober

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The month is Socktober as many of we knitters know it, a time where big projects get put aside and sock knitting gets the focus, and this year I too am running with the herd! Got the autumnal colors in all their glory . . .

One day casting on, and rattling off the leg.

Another day the heel turn, and a third day the toe.

Repeat and before I know it, I’ve finished the pair!

Pattern: Double Cappuccino Socks , variation “Basic Brew”

Project details on Ravelry here.

Yarn: Kroy Sock Yarn, in Copper.

This pair of blue socks was really easy, all I had to do was knit the second sock. Before the first sock which was knit over a year ago languished in perpetual one-sock syndrome, I promptly found it and matched it up with its duplicate, for another pair of Walking With Emma socks! And, as I write this, these socks are already in the post, in a birthday parcel to my youngest niece at her first weeks of university, she’s going to really love them I hope !

Pattern: Walking With Emma, with chart D rib.

Yarn: Berocco Ultra Wool Fine, in Ocean.

Project details on Ravelry here.

Sun Into Libra

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Sun has entered Libra, and I imagine rains coming, with a frantic sort of glee. Even though this year is like recent years, the dryest time, and most wildfire prone place on earth it seems to me, yet my mind remembers Autumn to be an awakening of moss, of first soft rains, of dewy grasses on the wayside of morning walks, and the papery leaves falling to the ground, speckled. I hope very soon a cooling trend, and I throw the memories of seasons passed into the compost as dried flowers. My mark of the equinox seems to be well expressed by the light & shadow in the posts & beams, and so I have gotten into an Autumn Equinox series I suppose, by recapturing the same scene every year. My favorite Autumn, and wishes for everybody a happy time!

Tweed Chronicles: The Hand Mix (2)

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Revisiting one of my original Tweed Chronicles recipes,  posted four years ago nearly to the day, before I even thought of doing a fiber blending series and calling it Tweed Chronicles.  But this time I wanted to expand the project up to at least 300g of fiber so that I could make something from the spun yarn (oh, like a small vest).   Admittedly this time of year brings heartful memories from that time of intense creative discovery I ascended to with fiber & color on my newly made blending board. The time was just before the wildfire, so I suppose that it feels good to return and pick up where I left off , celebrating Tweed Chronicles and the coming of Autumn. I am especially keen on refining ” the hand-mix ” recipe,  a preparation of multiple  fiber & colors and textures, which uses mostly hand manipulation and minimal work on the teeth of the blending board or carders. Its actually quite satisfying to split a color into halves, then half again, and again, quite relaxing, and works so well to homogenize everything. So from the original tutorial, which has the slide show and I recommend checking out, in this post I am merely refining the method.  Here is what I did…

Continue reading →

In the dappled sunlight . . .

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A little film we shot after we photographed Solo Sweater Success last week at the castle. The film is a little rough around the edges, and a bit too dark, but my niece is completely natural, totally unpretentious, and of course, so artful. I guess just like our photo shoots usually are. Enjoy our first little film! In order of appearance, she models . . .

Sol Inca cardigan,  Sol Inca pullover,   Calidez vest,  Fisher Vest with Aria Stole.

Solo sweater success!

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Youngest niece and I met at the castle today, we took some photos, and then had a picnic in the dappled shade of the oak trees. It was a lovely last summer visit before she leaves to college.  The Sol Inca sweaters have been tucked away for over a year waiting for the day both my nieces could model, but today only my youngest was able to make it. I hope to get another duo photo shoot of them over next winter solstice, but these shall have to suffice for now . . . just a hodgepodge . . . Sol Inca, Calidez Vest, and also a sneak peek at a brand new design that is not quite ready for it’s debut, that is coming just around the corner. Ok, now click 1st image in mosaic and go see the slideshow! 

Patterns: Sol Inca, Calidez Vest , Aria Stole, and Mystery Vest not yet identified.

SOL INCA design came from a well spring of curiosity, where from I researched culture and made many relevant posts in series “Gifts From The Sun”.

generous friends

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Virginia from Pennsylvania, generous friend and trekker (aka “Moab Walker) knit these for me, and I am ecstatic! Thank you Virginia, I am so grateful and can not thank you enough for knitting so many of my patterns, but I am pretty sure this is your 19th pair of Wild Wool socks alone that you have knit (so surprised that my socks have blown off!) The yarn colorway is a beautiful rich rust contrast color against a delightful hand-dyed yarn, these couldn’t be more gorgeous and am totally tickled that the colorway of the yarn is named ” Arches National Park”, where you were just visiting. Did you in fact, find the yarn in Moab???

Juno bombed the photoshoot, demanding an inspection; she has agreed with me that they are every bit as beautiful and comfortable and well-fitting as they look, and is crazy with excitement about all the hikes we’ll go on together involving these socks, and many sticks flying through the air for her to chase. I love…. WE LOVE …. these socks SO MUCH , and I will wear them a lot, and cherish them !!!

Pattern: Wild Wool Trail Socks

Details on Ravelry HERE.