Oonapais Vineyard

Dimensions: 12" x 8"
Materials: #4- and 8-cut wool on linen
Adapted from a personal photograph and hooked by Laura Pierce, Petaluma, California, 2009.
Featured in: Celebration XX

"I was on a kick about hooking quick little landscapes: small canvas and wide-cut hooking! Taking a class with Diane Stoffel at Cambria Pines Rug Camp, I showed up to class with five little 8" x 10” landscape designs based on photographs I’d taken at Benziger Family Winery. When I told Diane my plan to hook one a day, she said I shouldn’t be so hard on myself and asked me to pick one to start with.  This pattern of the Oonapais Vineyard is from a high part of the Benziger Family Vineyard, on the eastern side of Sonoma Mountain. (Jack London’s place is just up the road.) 'Oonapais' is the Pomo name for Sonoma Mountain, and the Benziger’s named a vineyard and its wine for the mountain. I loved the sunshine in the autumn grape leaves! With a dark forest background, three striking tree trunks and the mountain top behind, it makes a dramatic landscape.  

Diane showed me a great stitch for making a raggedy edges and multi-coloured bushes, pulling two fine-cut strips up at a time. This new stitch slowed me down, and I finished only this one landscape during our fun week."
- Laura Pierce, Celebration Hall of Fame 2018