Snowy Mountain
Baby Blanketscape
Square patterns can be found in the book "The Art of Landscape Knitting"
I had to delve into my photo collection for inspiration for the Snowy Mountain blanket inspiration. I’ve been really fortunate to do a lot of travelling both for holidays and for work.
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Back in 2004, I spent 3 months at Penn State University as part of my PhD. At the end of the trip in December, I travelled with a friend across the US on a train, to a conference in San Francisco. The train took us through the Rocky Mountains - stopping briefly before entering the Moffat Tunnel. Smokers were allowed off the train briefly, so feeling a bit miffed about this, I jumped out too and quickly took so photos before being told off and told to get back on - just because I wasn’t smoking 🙄. I took a lot of photos on the trip, but this ended up being one of my favourites.
We broke our journey in Chicago and Denver, travelling to Boulder to visit some friends. We hired snow shoes and walked some of the trails around Bear Lake, walking up to Emerald Lake shown in the photo here. I still remember how cold it was, with the wind whistling down the valley.
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When we got to the lake we had to shelter behind a large rock, as it was too uncomfortable to be exposed to the freezing wind. To get the photo, I briefly ducked out from behind the rock and took it, before ducking quickly back out of the biting wind! When I was looking for inspiration for the Snowy Mountain blanket, I went back to find this photo - in my mind it was a beautiful snowy scene - but when I found it I remembered just how bleak it actually was!
Both these photos go to show how much a camera can lie, and how our experience of the landscape is about more than the visual. It is about the context, outside of the bounds of the photo. The challenges that were faced in getting to the location, and in the taking of the photo itself. Plus, the weather conditions and the other senses that are engaged when we are "in" the landscape.
I used the combined pine tree & mountain squares to make a single colour baby blanket called ‘Snowy Mountain’. I used Sirdar Snuggly baby bamboo. It knitted up quite loose, but tightened up a bit after blocking to show off the texture really well.
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The instructions and patterns for this blanket can be found in the book "The Art of Landscape knitting" available via bookmarkedhub or any good book store.
Final blanket photos credit: David and Charles
Please tag @blanketscapes on Instagram or Facebook for your final creations, I'd love to see what you make.
Happy knitting!