Installation Pictures

I have a few pictures of the installation of Identitatum Arborum at the Heritage Museum and Gardens in Sandwich, MA. So excited!

Identitatum Arborum patterns and ebook

I finally published all the tree bark patterns in an ebook as well as individually. You can see them all under the identitatum•arborum patterns tab at the top of the page. You can purchase them from Ravelry here. And as I have said before, I am hoping to have a real-world booklet soon with the patterns, too.

It has been an amazing project but I am so ready to move on to thinking about the Great Basin National Park artist-in-residency this fall!

Bristlecone and Black Locust

In all my hurry and excitement of getting the artwork done for the installation back in Massachusetts I forgot to post about the last two wearable art items I finished. The Bristlecone Stole was finished quite quickly because of the super bulky yarn (Shepherd’s Wool Worsted four strands held together) and I had help from my sister to finish the Black Locust Wrap because time was getting short.

Now that I am finished with the knitting part, I am working on getting all the patterns of the wearable pieces together in both an ebook and a real paper booklet. I have never published anything in the real world so the learning curve is quite high. But I am determined to figure it out because it was one of my goals on this project. I do have all the patterns written for the panels in the exhibition but I won’t be publishing those. I mainly wrote the patterns to help me in making them.

So I hope to have the individual wearable art patterns, the ebook and a real booklet finished in the coming week. I am excited about this project! If anyone is in Sandwich, MA this summer, go to the Heritage Museum and Gardens and then drop me a message on how you liked the installation. I hope to have pictures as soon as they send me some.

Information from the patterns:

Bristlecone Pine: Bristlecone pine is a hardy tree that is highly resilient to harsh weather and bad soils and is among the longest-lived life forms on earth. One of the oldest living individual trees, named Methuselah, is almost 5,000 years old. Its location is kept a secret for its protection. The tree's longevity is due in part to the wood's extreme durability. Rather than rot, exposed wood, erodes like stone due to wind, rain, and freezing, which creates its crooked forms and gnarled bark.

Black Locust: One of the heaviest and hardest woods in North America, black locust is a powerhouse of a tree. Early American settlers used black locust to build Jamestown because it is resistant to rot. It burns even when wet and tolerates pollution so well that it is planted along streets and parks in large cities. Although its bark and leaves are toxic, its seeds and pods are edible. Ironically the thoroughly un-American name 'locust' was given by Jesuit missionaries, who fancied that this was the tree that supported St. John in the wilderness, despite it being native only to North America.

Wasatch in Autumn

I have a friend who is moving out of the country and I wanted to design something for her. I was excited to work on something else besides tree bark so I put that project on hold for a weekend to create something different. She liked the neckwarmer with clasps I created for stewartia so I used that as my starting point. Then I asked her what she would miss the most. She said the mountains --our mountains near Salt Lake are called the Wasatch Range and they can be very beautiful, especially in the fall. I found this photo I took a couple years ago of the Wasatch Front in the fall to help with my inspiration.

So with those elements in mind, and taking into account her Norwegian heritage, I came up with this stranded color-work design. A nod toward Norwegian sweaters with an image of the Wasatch Mountains, including Mount Olympus’ twin peaks.

It was my first time steeking and I found it very scary but fun. The cowl is knit in the round using stranded color-work and then it is steeked or cut. The steeks are covered with grosgrain ribbon to hold them in place. Long bands of ribbing are added at the ends to hold the clasps.

I am publishing the patternon my Ravelry page and have graded it for three sizes. I made the small size to fit snugly around the neck but larger sizes will hang more loosely. I hope she likes the neckwarmer I made for her, and she thinks of Utah every time she wears it.