a day in carmel

"If you should look for this place after a handful of lifetimes:

Perhaps of my planted forest a few

May stand yet..."

                      ~"Tor House," Robinson Jeffers

Image via Wikipedia

Hawk Tower at Tor House, Carmel, California

Our annual trip to Monterey changes up a little every year. This year we spent a full day in nearby Carmel, precipitated by the fact that S was now 12 and could finally join a tour of Tor House. Tor House is poet Robinson Jeffers' handbuilt home on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. We have been waiting years to be able to do this and were not disappointed. Unfortunately, cameras (and even handbags) are not allowed on the tour, so I only have a few outside shots to share.

It's quite amazing to think of Jeffers writing all morning in his Hawk Tower, a place S deemed "Harry Potter-ish" for its turrets and hidden staircase, then spending the remainder of the day hauling and setting huge pieces of granite as he extended the house from one tiny cottage to a walled compound with multiple additions. He also planted over 2000 trees (alluded to in the poem above) along the property's edges. This was a busy man.

The grounds also incorporate pool table slate, ship ballast, and discarded marble from a remodeled bank; as well as old statuary, a portion of the Great Wall of China, and other exotica from the Jeffers' and their friends' travels. These occasional insets of random material give the house a sense of surprise and wonder on top of its gorgeous natural beauty and cozy simplicity.

More surprises can be found in the town of Carmel itself, where Hugh Comstock's twee little cottages are sprinkled throughout the downtown neighborhoods. In fact, many of Carmel's homes are similarly designed to be quaint and original (and...expensive).

"Hansel"

We ended the day walking around Point Lobos, home to Monterey Cyprus trees and orange algae.

I'd miscalculated my knitting time on this trip and stopped by a yarn shop thinking I could start a new project. The store's ball winder was broken, so this did not happen; but I couldn't resist a skein of custom-dyed yarn the owner had commissioned to reflect the colors of the beach.

Why don't all local yarn shops do this? I'm thinking the colors here would be tomato red along with other agricultural colors like green, gold and deep brown. What are the dye colors of your area?

star quilt: 7 months later

The center is quilted! C has been watching, asking, encouraging the process. He's very happy to see it taking shape. It occurred to me that he has never not known me to have this quilt or its predecessor in an unfinished state.

Free motion quilting is still new to me, so the quilting is...well, I tell myself that it's meant to match the wild imperfection of the star pattern. And I learned as I went: how to adjust the height of the foot to better skim the quilt using a hair band, how to bend the straight pin coming out of the foot to make better contact with screw that holds the needle in, and how to add some shrink tubing to dampen the sound once that contact is made.

For the outer borders, I decided to quilt from the back, following some matching stars in the print. The next step is flipping it over, repinning from the backing, and removing the pins from the top. Then we'll take another run and be ready to bind.

dress to apron, part 2

One of the best things about homeschooling one's children is rediscovering how exhilarating learning can be. And when the prime homeschooling years are over, it's hard for a parent to shake the habit of going after that little joy fix—at least, that seems to be a trend among my friends whose children are grown. They begin to take classes in writing and mosaic, in nutrition and environmental studies; they travel, join wine clubs, start new businesses and take up serious cycling.

My own learning ambitions are more modest: in August, I enrolled in Alisa Burke's online class in fabric design, Beneath the Surface. It was a bit of an impulse move for me after a summer of poor health and stalled movement, but I can't recommend it enough. The class was inspiring, accessible to a non-artist, and truly a lot of fun.

It also coincided nicely with the apron project, which I'd always intended to color. I had painted fabric with the kids before, but this class introduced new techniques and more importantly, new ways of combining techniques for a more complex and colorful look.

There was some glue resist and painting with Setacolor:

Regular fabric paint spattered on with a brush tip:

Some stamping:

Some inking. I'm not entirely happy with the final look, but I can think of it as something new I'm learning—and that does make me happy.

Alisa's upcoming class is called Free Motion Graffiti. It looks to be every bit as unique and enjoyable as Beneath the Surface and yes, I'll be taking it. I can't wait.