The new year brought a sad parting with our 15yo husky-malamute, Pakak, the pup, the last of our original pack of seven dogs. The house sat quiet and empty for about a week while we allowed ourselves some time. Having spent the last 18 years with a family of four husky-malamutes, we knew we wanted another husky or malamute, a sled dog, a northern breed. We also wanted another rescue dog, so we started looking around our local humane societies and Colorado based breed specific rescues.
Pakak on the Chama River, September 2020
We had every intent of adopting a slightly older dog. We were open to about 2-5 year olds, thinking they may have tougher times finding homes. Through Taysia Blue Husky Rescue, we ended up on the puppy list and within about a week of that, we were notified about and jumped on the opportunity to adopt Juniper.
Her name with her foster family was Olive. She was the only girl in a litter of five named after taco toppings: Pico, Guac, Salsa and Queso. We still had to wait two weeks for her to be old enough to pick up over a weekend haul to Kansas City, at the beginning of February, traversing precarious highways, in snow and freezing fog.
Juniper and her littermates, photos courtesy of Taysia Blue and their foster family
It was so worth it, and she’s been the perfect match. She sleeps in the car yet is adventurous. She loves all the people we meet. We need more experiences with dogs. She was introduced to other dogs in her foster family. The few she’s met around town, she has mostly ignored. She has slept through the night and been the easiest pup we’ve ever had to house-train. To celebrate a month with Juniper and four months since her birthday, we took advantage of a small spring-like window in the weather to camp on the Chama River.
I’ve written about this camping spot before and painted it. We usually seem to visit over shoulder seasons. When we’re lucky there are boaters to watch. This weekend our only nearby neighbors were geese and cows, although we did hear owls and coyotes.
Friday, March 5th
Playing in the snow in the driveway in the morning while Dad hooks up the trailer.
By the afternoon, we were soaking up the sun.
Saturday, March 6th
Evenings are for gathering around the campfire.
Sunday, March 7th
River walks and afternoon climbing. Mud puppy!
Monday, March 8th
A girl could get used to this.
Tuesday, March 9th
Wednesday, March 10th
CHOMP!
Juni turned 4 months old today, and we all celebrated with blueberry pancakes.
Thursday, March 11th
Friday, March 12th
Squeezed in one more nap in Mom’s lap and a few more stick chomps under the rabbit brush before we had to pack up and head home.
I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart! A warm and wooly one. Thought I’d take the little bit of downtime this weekend to share with you my last knit projects of 2020.
I own a couple of pairs of commercially made fingerless mitts yet found if I wanted to use them while working on the computer, they were too bulky. Made this lightweight and warm pair that’s extra long up the arm and just the right length for fingers and thumb. Knit in Nico by Feza. The pattern is called Barn Swallow, and I’ve thought about finding barn swallow yarn colors to do a two-tone version.
Cabled Purse
Staying on the trend of trying things I’ve never knit before, decided to try a bag or purse. Free pattern by DROPS Design. Using two tones of Lion Brand’s Fisherman’s Wool, I modified the handles by continuing the cable pattern to form a tube with garter stitch on the back/flat side. Added a cell phone pocket by again repeating the cable pattern. Hand sewed a liner made from an old velour tank top. Made buttons out of acorn caps, but I’m looking to replace those as they’re a little fussy to open/close. I’m going to harvest buttons off hubby’s old flannels that he’s turned into garage rags to replace them.
CHIMNEY ROCK SCARF
And finally, the project that will take me into 2021, the Chimney Rock Scarf. I’ve started to document the inspiration behind this one pretty extensively on Ravelry—link to those project notes here. Need to update that page as I’ve finished the main body of the scarf and am about a quarter way through adding the border.
As promised, a post about my latest watercolor painting, The View from Our Place. If you’re here for another fiber project roundup, you’ll have to wait for the next post. I decided there’s too much to talk about to cram it all into one update.
This is my latest finished watercolor. The inspiration comes from my husband’s grandmother and our front yard. I’ve known Grandma Dollar now for over 24 years and since we’ve lived in Pagosa for nearly 20, she’s never had the opportunity to see our place. When we visit with her, we entertain her with stories about the wildlife that visits our yard, and she always asks about my garden.
At 91, she’s had some health issues over the last year or two that have dampened her spirit. When I started painting, Chris suggested she might like one of my artworks. Much like, Favorite Things, I chose some of the things that make me the most happy: summertime when young fawns are found bouncing along the hillside, the hollyhocks in full bloom, and all year round we celebrate visits from the most entertaining birds, comical gangs of pygmy nuthatches who defy gravity. I call them my minions.
Reference Photos
According to the progress photos I like to take while I’m painting, I started this one on Oct 8th with the hollyhock and finished by Dec 5th. I saved the trees and background for last. Even though all the leaves were gone for the season, I spent an afternoon on the deck, painting en plein air to get the best interpretation of the hillsides.
Nov 24 – Painting with my feathered friendsOct 28 – What’s wrong with this picture? Painting from the dog bed in front of the fireplace so as not to disturb the slumbering dog under my desk.
When it was finally completed, I peeled it off the Arches block and pressed it flat for framing. I placed my first order ever with Blick Art Supplies, including a pre-cut matte and wooden frame. There were some reviews saying their frames or mattes had arrived damaged, but my order was packed as carefully as possible and arrived in great condition. After mounting and framing the painting, I carefully packed it back up and shipped it on to Chris’s parents. I think they must be waiting for Christmas to gift it to her as I haven’t heard that she’s seen it yet.
Framed and ready to ship.
Since I recently opened a store @Society6, I’ve included this watercolor as a design available for purchase. You can order your own copy to hang on the wall, as an art print, framed or even as a printed canvas. Check it out @Society6.
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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.When you make a purchase using these links, we may earn a commission. We appreciate your support!
I did it! It’s been percolating for many years in my mind, about a decade. I finally decided on a platform to license our designs and jumped in. I’ve loaded in a half dozen photographs and watercolors and curated the best products according to the designs. I’ve got a million more ideas, and I already enjoy finding and being inspired by all the other talented artists.
There’s still time to shop for the holidays and with Society6’s Holiday Flash Deals, you can save up to 40% off everything.
Check out our shop. Expect more posts as new designs are released or follow @SubalpineDesign on Society6 to stay up to date.
Next post, I’ll catch you up on all the new textile projects and behind the scenes of my latest watercolor, The View from Our Place.
The last two months (August and September) have blown by, and here we are over a week into October. There’s been a lot going on. We took a week off to recharge in the mountains in August. I painted my first plein air watercolor there and finished the Lily of the West—more on those momentarily.
There’s been event planning and a design of a field guide and flyer for the Four Mile Ranch program after one of my fellow volunteers did the leg work of taking photos and drafting the copy. This year looks a little different with families signing up to visit on Fridays for a self-guided hike.
Flyers and field guide pages, Audubon Rockies Four Mile Ranch Program
Finally finished formatting the Volunteer Manual for this program, too. It’s now a 180 page Word Doc for all of the activities we normally teach that’s given to new recruits, printed in a binder. There wasn’t any recruiting this year, but I was eager to complete this one so that the content can be reviewed and updated to meet new standards and expanding activities.
There are also all the regular work requests going on from designing new essential oil product packaging and advertising for the holidays to running updates and some minimal website maintenance.
You better believe there is lots of crafting that has happened over the last few months, too.
Watercolor Updates
During our week long camping trip in the Southern San Juans, I continued my weekly practice of watercolor. This time was outdoors, en plein air. While the landscape wasn’t super inspiring, I was initially focused on the dark blue wildflowers and the jolly, fat spruce that sat near camp.
Back at home, I’d started the first in the Good Dogs Series. I’ve decided I wanted to create portraits of all of our dogs. All but one have passed away in the last eight years, and she’ll be 15 this year. I’ve read bios and advice from lots of artists and many talk about how much better their painting is when the artist loves the subject. This really seemed to be the case with my first dog portrait. I couldn’t get over the level of detail and realism, the love that I felt shine through when I started to paint.
My only criticism of this painting was in my choice of paint. I decided to try using my Crayola palette for its black paint and used that on the frame. For the rest of the blacks in the painting, I mixed them myself. The Crayola paint didn’t react the same way as my other paints. It seems to stay on top of the paper and re-wet and bleed much more easily. For a crisper detail, I should have gone with pen and ink. Oh well, I don’t think it ruins it. Maybe I’ll repaint it one day.
In the meantime there are six more dog portraits ahead, and they are being delayed as I have two other ideas in mind for paintings that I want to gift to people. I’ll come back and share more details once those are completed and gifted.
Detail of a hollyhock work in progress…
I also spent quite a bit of brainpower researching framing and portfolio ideas for protecting my finished artwork. Overall I’ve decided I don’t have the space to get the framing supplies and tools I’d like, so going forward I’ll plan paintings to fit pre-cut matts and standard frames. Eventually I’ll purchase some portfolios, but for now my art is sitting out on my desk. It’s not the best for its lifespan, but it brings me so much more joy seeing it every day—as art should—rather than hiding it away in a book.
Fiber Updates
This Percolator Koozy was first designed in 2016. I wrote about it back in February this year, and by our camping trip in August, I’d ended up crocheting a whole new one because I’m back on the tea drinking vibe. This one will match the color of our bus when we get it back on the road, or should I say back in the woods.
Percolator Koozy and wander mug from our friend Kim
I finished two different sweater patterns from Knitting for Breakfast—Fairy Tale (pictured at the beginning of this post) & Fiori di Loto or Lily of the West, documented them on Ravelry and had a few of my photos picked to be featured on the pattern designers’ pages!
Lily of the West
I’m now on a sock kick. I pulled out the Joy of Sox book and combed through the stash during a Virgo Sun transit and voila!
Virgo Sun Socks
I’m on to another design from the same book, but these are a gift so no photos till they’ve been gifted. Also on the upcoming list I want to make these gauntlets, and I have two more pairs of socks in mind to expand my hand knit sock collection: another pair of the leaf socks pictured below in red and a blue pair of these Lotus socks.
This spring as the pandemic hit, I was inspired to knit Andrea Rangel’s Dissent Pullover. At the time, I didn’t blog much about the project or the thoughts on naming my version Frozen Tears.
‘Frozen’ because the color-way reminds me of Elsa. The ‘tears’ came from many passing thoughts from the color turquoise making me think of the plight of indigenous people, especially women; and thinking of tears of sorrow and joy shed as the Notorious RBG fought for civil liberties and gender equality.
How often have we been convinced to hide or hold back our tears? Or how many of you feel like you’ve cried all the tears you have left?
As we descended into the unknown, I thought of all of the life events that people were missing or hardships they were encountering. …of how our lives were put on hold and how there wasn’t any time to mourn its loss. Frozen tears. Never did I think a few months later those tears would be welling in memory of the person who inspired the pattern’s design.
Dissent Pullover, Frozen Tears
Society is like a stew. If you don’t stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.
