presenting...
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 2:44PM When I was trying to decide what to make as a gift for King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway, I knew the colorways could not be inspired by any of the following things:
1. Meatloaf
2. Football
3. Sauerkraut
4. Sports of any kind
5. Especially football
I finally settled on the places and seasons that make the city of Duluth unique.
I hope they'll like them. If they don't, well, at least I'll be able to hold my head up knowing that my yarn was not inspired by sports or disgusting food.
I started with our current season. (Autumn, in case you were wondering. No, it doesn't snow here 365 days a year. No, we don't travel by dogsled [much].)
We've had a glorious fall. Bright colors, mild temperatures, brilliant blue skies and water. I wanted to capture that in a colorway.
Hawk Ridge is an overlook in northeast Duluth that hugs the Lake Superior shoreline.
In the fall, tens of thousands of hawks and eagles use this corridor in their migration pattern, leaving Canada and heading for warmer climates. Lake Superior is too large a body of water for them to cross without food, so they instinctively know to stay near shore.
You can read more about Hawk Ridge observatory here.
The view of the lake and the horizon from Hawk Ridge is especially beautiful in the fall, so I used blues and mixed in spruce green, orange, brown, yellow, and red.
I have a confession. I don't really care much for autumn-themed colorways. I don't know why -- maybe they seem a little too cliche, too formulaic, with their analogous color grouping of red, orange, and yellow?
So I had to create something that would make someone like me stop to look, and I'm now totally in love with this one.
I thought long and hard about what made this area special in the winter. Yes, we have snow and cold and frozen water, but visually, it's hard to make an exciting colorway from white, gray, and pale blue.
Then I remembered being twelve. I had a paper route, and had to deliver the paper even on Christmas, even when the temperatures were cold enough to freeze the inside of my nose the second I stepped outside.
The Christmas morning papers are thick and heavy, and we had just gotten fresh snow, so I brought a sled and pulled my bundle of papers behind me.
As I started walking my route in the pre-dawn hours, I noticed how still and quiet everything was -- not a creature was stirring. As if queued by the director of a made-for-TV home-for-the-holidays movie, the sky lit up with an amazing northern lights display.
I stopped to watch -- I'd seen the lights from a window before, but only briefly, and my view had always been obscured by neighboring houses and trees.
There was nothing obstructing the sky over Lake Superior that morning, and I still remember the goosebumps I felt knowing that I was probably one of the few people in the world awake and watching the display.
Goosebumps makes for good yarn, methinks.
Skyline Parkway is a 25-mile long scenic byway that traverses the city's highest points and affords amazing views of the lake. You can read more about it here.
In the spring, lilacs grow profusely throughout private yards and public parks. Lilac bushes love the cold winters and sunny days, and grow with abandon.
They seem to especially love the longest freshwater sandbar in the world, a portion of which is seen here.
(Yes, we have a beach here. Yes, the water is cold. Yes, it does warm up enough to swim a little in the summer. Yes, Lake Superior is delightfully salt and shark free. Can you see how shallow the water is on the right side of the picture? It's great for kids.)
We had lilacs in my yard growing up, and I don't recall my parents ever doing anything to them, other than give them an occasional pruning when the branches got too close to the windows. No fertilizing, no watering.
Lilacs know how to bloom where they're planted, a lesson many of us could stand to learn.
This colorway has several shades of purple and pink for the lilac flowers themselves, married with verdant greens and browns for the woody stems and leaves evident after the flowers have faded.
My mother lives and dies by the phrase Cooler by the Lake. She hates hot weather so much that she could not consider moving even ten miles further inland, where the summer temps are routinely 5-10 degrees warmer. Except in the winter, where the opposite is true. Lake Superior has a moderating effect on temperature.)
(Yes, the snow melts in the summer. No, we don't have permafrost. Yes, it gets to be in the 80s Fahrenheit, and sometimes even in the 90s. Yes, my mother wrote to her favorite weather man the week before my wedding begging for good news about the temperatures. It was still hot in the church in August, despite her request.)
The centerpiece of Duluth is its harbor and the surrounding neighborhood, Canal Park. Chances are good that if you've eaten grain, driven a car, or used electricity, you've used products shipped out of Duluth on one of these boats.
(For the curious, much of the midwest's grain destined for the eastern US or for foreign markets is shipped via railcar to Duluth.)
Perhaps I have mentioned the Aerial Lift Bridge a view times? Perhaps.
It lifts up and down to let the huge boats into the port, where they fill up with cargo and head to the far reaches of the globe. You can see more pictures of the bridge in action in this post.
Cooler by the Lake has the grays of our beautiful bridge, the blue of the water, the rust and white of the boats, and the browns of the rocky shore.
And finally, the reason for the Norwegian royal visit in the first place. The rededication of Enger Tower.
Situated more than 500 feet above Lake Superior on Observation Hill, the tower is a quaint stone structure with a green beacon perched atop it.
The colorway has the grays and reddish browns of the tower, and of course, it wouldn't be complete without a few touches of green.
You can read more about Enger Tower here.
I decided to let y'all in on the fun and make these special colorways available for a short period of time on our site. You can see more pictures and read more about them here.
They'll be up until October 22nd, at which point they'll head back into my vault until the next time Norwegian royalty comes to town.
I'd also love to see you this weekend (October 15th and 16th) at Amazing Threads in Maple Grove, MN. I'm teaching three workshops and will be hosting a trunk show all weekend.
You can read more about the workshops and trunk shows here.
I hope to see you!
Reader Comments (22)
Incredibly beautiful. Park Point Lilacs... Gorgeous.
Hello
Are these still available. I'd love some Hawk Ridge - -how can I order please?