Category: countryside

countryside · crafts & knitting · in the woods

the golden hour

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)24 Comments

The shortening days are making me appreciate how precious light is and I take time to notice how magical the daylight is at this time of year. Here at the beginning of December the sun only rises to around 16 degrees above the horizon and so even at midday there’s a low light shining through the windows (I am doing my best to ignore that this highlights the dust on all the surfaces).

Early in the day the dawn highlights droplets captured on spider webs, condensed from the early morning mists.  And on clear afternoons from 2-3pm there’s a wonderful honey gold light which glorifies the last of the autumn leaves still clinging to the trees and makes even the tv aerials shine as though burnished with precious metals.

This golden afternoon light glows through the hedge outside my window here at home and traces lacey patterns on the curtain. Out in the woods it is cut into thick lambent wedges by the tree trunks and illuminates the ferns and fallen leaf carpet to flaming tones, and the setting sun blushes great ships of cloud sailing across the autumn sky.

The colours that I see out in the woods prompt me to rummage out from my yarn stash all the colours of peaty earth, golden toadstools and sunlit leaves and I’m enjoying playing around with these colours in some gentle paced making.

I feel so thankful to live somewhere that has seasonal changes and contrasts and deeply appreciate how they give a rhythm to my year. At the moment that rhythm is encouraging me to slow down a little and conserve energy, a muted form of hibernation if you will and I’m planning on having a quiet winter, a much needed pause before the springtime planning that we need to do for Toby’s future. Today I’m curled up here by the fire, knitting and feeling grateful to be warm and safe, I hope there’s something making you feel grateful this week, J x

countryside · crafts & knitting · in the woods · wildlife

Autumn in the woods: part 2

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)17 Comments

 

There’s a line from a Mary Oliver poem, which resonates for me…

“If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much”

 ‘How I go to the woods’ from ‘Swan: Poems and Prose Poems’

For only a handful of people have ever come to the woods with me, and all of them are my most loved people.

Going to the woods is usually something that I much prefer to do on my own (except for walks with Toby of course), because being alone in a wood is a wonderful sensory experience which is greatly diminished if you’re chatting with someone else.

Alone you can walk quietly, listening to the forest sounds and concentrating on noticing small details: the curl of a leaf; the glint of a toadstool in the dark of a hollowed out stump; a leaf reflected in a small pool of silvery water cupped in the cap of a toadstool; the patterns in a decaying tree.

The woods feel safely enduring and impervious to the anguish and perils of the human world, and although this is of course a fanciful illusion, I am happy to embrace that feeling for an hour or two and let the woodland peace dissolve my disquiet.

Back home knitting is proving soothing too and I have a finished pair of socks and a few scarves still on the go.

I hope that you also have fortifying activities that gently reinforce hope, optimism and joy for you in these troubled times.

 

 

countryside · in the woods · wildlife

Autumn in the woods: part 1

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)18 Comments

Autumn has arrived here, with wet and windy weather and a sudden profusion of fungi out in the woods. I head there at every opportunity, savouring the soothing peace and quiet that flows between the trees.

It’s been a good year for the hedgerow fruits of hips, haws and berries and the woodland creatures will be well provisioned this winter. Tree nuts have been abundant too – chestnuts, beech nuts, hazelnuts and acorns have covered the woodland floor, though most are now hidden away in the winter larders of squirrels and jays. And now the holly trees present their harvest and are heavy with scarlet berries. I hope to see the first waxwings, but am not lucky this time.

There is such great beauty in the natural world, but sometimes you have to get dirty knees and elbows in order to see it. Luckily for me the woods are mostly deserted on week days, so there is no-one to see me lying on my tummy in a soggy patch of moss in order to capture the close up delight of a toadstool and home is only a 10 minute trip in the car so I’m soon warming up in a hot bath after getting damp and chilled on my adventures.

Then it’s back to knitting, for now just a little gentle-paced making rather than the more intense pattern writing. A pair of socks, a couple of Sophie scarves and quite a few pairs of very simple ribbed wrist-warmers are all currently on my needles and I’m enjoying just flitting between whatever takes my fancy at the time. And with each new project I begin to feel a re-kindling of my love of knitting, which I’ve recently felt has been ebbing away from me a little. Perhaps being so focussed on the end product, as is necessary when writing patterns, has diminished my enjoyment, and I just needed a little simple  ‘process knitting’ time to find my joy again.

Hope you find a little joy somewhere in your week, J x

PS: it’s been wonderful to see so many cows appearing on the facebook group and on ravelry, thanks so much for sharing pictures of your lovely projects 🙂