Many, many, many moons ago, I announced a Juniper Moon Farm Photo Contest. Most of you are probably too young to remember the blog post about it, because it was so long ago, but you made have heard your grandparents speak of it and wondered if the contest would ever actually happen or if it was a myth. Well, at long last, I am posting all the entries and it’s time for you to vote.

I loved looking at every single one of these entries. We have some amazingly talented knitters, crocheters and spinners amongst us! Seeing a hat or a sweater made from fiber that was once walking around my pasture tickles me to death.

Here’s how you vote: Feel free to make as many comments as you like about any/all of the projects, but the LAST thing is your comment should be “Voting for _____”.  You must chose one project to vote for. This will make my life mucho easier when it comes time to tally the votes. Please vote based on the project, not the quality of the photos- we aren’t professional photographers here, after all.Knitters, feel free to lobby your friends and family for votes!  Voting will remain open until Friday, March 5th.

The stakes: The winners will receive a $50 JMF gift certificate. I have a feeling there might be a little something for the runners-up as well…

Without further ado, here are the entries.

Finished Objects:

Knitter: Deb Boyken

Weight/Colorway: Worsted/Saffron

Pattern: Original pattern called ‘Hoodwinked ‘

Knitter: Maggie Estrin of Little Grey Cat Designs

Weight/Colorway: Bulky/Blueberry Pie

Pattern: Original pattern called “Bounty”

Knitter: Andrea Beesley

Weight/Colorway: Various (from the September Surprise Sale)

Pattern: Earflap Hat Pattern Generator by Lucia Liljegren with Tessellating Skulls Wallpaper Chart is by Erssie Major.

Knitter: Ayelet Kuper

Weight/Colorway: Sock/Leaf Peepers “Cedar”

Pattern: Milkweed Shawl by Laura Chau

Crocheter: Janet Metzger

Weight/Colorway: Various (From ‘Widows and Orphans’ sale)

Pattern: Original pattern called ‘Glacier Rose’

Knitter: Tania Nuñez

Weight/Colorway: Sock/Maia

Pattern: Original

Knitter: Sara Barron

Weight/Colorway: Worsted/Blueberry Pie in our Kid Mohair/Cormo blend

Pattern:Claudia

Knitter: MJ Moriarty

Weight/Colorway: Bulky/Blueberry Pie

Pattern: Elfin by Wooly Wormhead

Knitter: Kat

Weight/Colorway: Bulky/?

Pattern:Based on the EDI Cowl

Knitter: BMarion

Weight/Colorway: Sock/Breezy

Pattern:Stephen Colbert Socks by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne, from ’Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside The Lines’

Knitter: Amanda Bock

Weight/Colorway: Aran/Farmstead

Pattern:#20 Cable/Rib Cardigan by Gayle Bunn, Vogue Knitting, Holiday 2004 (modified version)

Knitter: Joan Fernbach

Weight/Colorway: handspun and dyed from our Cotswold roving

Pattern: Jojoland Autumn Shawl

Knitter: Betsy

Weight/Colorway: Worsted/Hand-dyed by the knitter with help from Shelby B Designs

Pattern:Chinese Lace Pullover by Angela Hahn

Knitter: Hilary Detmers

Weight/Colorway:Sock/ Leaf Peepers Spruce and Leaf Peepers Aspen

Pattern: Original pattern called ‘Sock Yarn Faroese Shawl’

Knitter: Anna

Weight/Colorway:Sock/Verdant

Pattern: ‘Vog on by Aleta Fera

Knitter: Anna

Weight/Colorway:Sock/Verdant

Pattern: Breeze by Jennifer L. Appleby

Handspun:

Spinner:Maggie Estrin of Little Grey Cat Designs

Name: Cumulus

Fiber: hand-picked/combed kid mohair locks corespun around a commercial mohair DK weight yarn, wrapped in a commerical laceweight mohair yarn

Since Maggie was our only spinner to enter I herby declare her the winner of the Spinner’s Contest. Congratulations. Maggie! I love that yarn so much it hurts me.

Thanks so much to all who entered my Spinner’s Giveaway and for sharing your own fears and what you are doing to get past them. Please accept my apology for not posting the winners sooner- my internet access provider is conspiring to make me crazy ,and doing a fair job of it.

And now, without further ado, the winners of our Spinner’s Giveaway, choosen at random are:

and

Congrats to Fran and Little Miss S! You have 48 hours to email us at Paige AT fiberfarm DOT com to claim your 4 ounces of dyed Cormo Top. Please be sure to include your mailing address in the email.

We’ll be doing another giveaway this week, something everyone will be buzzing about!

I have always been terrified of dyeing roving. You hear all these horror stories about all the things that can go wrong when dyeing roving. Things like OH MY GOD FELTING!!! Our roving is super-nice and extremely expensive to produce, so I never want to take a chance on wrecking a lot of it during the learning curve.

But then I decided  it was time to man up and face my fears. Here is my first attempt:

I managed to dye about 12 ounces of our Cormo Top without any noticeable felting. The thing is though, I don’t spin. So I had no idea if I had done a good job with the dyeing or not. Luckily, my friend Kris came to the rescue. I gave her four ounces to spin up last Saturday and on Sunday she gave me this:

Isn’t it lovely?

The moral of the story: don’t let other people’s horror stories keep you from trying new things. I will definitely be dyeing more roving for our shop but I want to celebrate my initial success with a giveaway.

To enter to win 4 ounces of my inaugural roving, just leave a comment on this thread telling me something that you have been afraid to attempt, why, and when you are going to take a stab at it. Two winners will be chosen at random from all comments posted before midnight on Sunday, February 21, 2010. One comment per person please.

We spent the morning outdoors today while Erin, Paige and Paige’s friend Brad built a new sheep shelter and I groomed the dogs. It was a beautiful day and it felt great to be out in the sunshine without freezing to death.

Tired of puppy pics yet?

I have been poking around on ravelry and checking out the FOs (finished objects) made with Juniper Moon Farm/Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm yarn. It’s so cool for me to see the fleece off our flock’s backs all knitted up! So cool that it inspired me to have a contest.

Send us your pics of the coolest/prettiest/most lovely sweater/scarf/socks/whatever that you knitted up with Juniper Moon Farm yarn. We’ll chose a pool of finalist for all the blog readers to vote on and the winner will receive a $50 Juniper Moon Farm Gift Certificate.

The fine print: At least 75% of your project must be Juniper Moon Farm to qualify for entry. By sending us your photo you’re giving Juniper Moon Farm permission to publish your photo on our website. Send your photos to susie AT fiberfarm DOT com. PLEASE put “photo contest” in the subject line of your email. If you used a published pattern you MUST include the name of the pattern in the email so that we can credit the designer; if it’s an original pattern, indicate so. If you remember the name of the color and which yarn you used please include that info in your email as well. Also include the name you would like to be used with your photo on the site. You may enter as many FOs as you like but please include all the info above for each photo. All photos must be received by Sunday, January31st. (That’s to give you time to finish up any WIP.)

EDITED TO ADD: Spinners, you will not be left out! Send us pics of your finest JMF handspun. We’ll have a separate category just for you.

Questions? Post them in the comments.

Can’t wait to see what you’ve done with our yarn!

I’ll put up a longer, newsy post later today but I wanted to get the winners of our latest giveaway up sooner.

Before I announce the winners though, I have to say that I LOVED reading about your holiday traditions. I’m going to appropriate some of your traditions for myself. And we were pleasantly surprised by how many of you celebrate Solstice! Thank you all for sharing your families special holiday celebrations with us.

And now for the winners:

Congratulations Amy, Karen and Ellen! Shoot us an email at prizesATfiberfarmDOTcom in the next 24 hours to claim your prizes!

Thanks to everyone who entered! We’ll do another giveaway in a couple of days so check back soon.

Here’s a little something you don’t know about me: I get incredibly anxious opening gifts in front of the giver. I’m just not good at anticipation and surprises. I worry that my expression will be wrong or that it will seem like I’m not excited by the gift. And then I worry that I’m almost over-acting and not doing it very convincingly.

I also get incredibly anxious watching someone open a gift from me.  And I LOVE giving gifts, love trying to pick out the perfect little sussy that will make someone I care about feel happy and known. I just get panicky and nervous the actual moment of giving. Weird, right?

None of that changes the fact that I LOVE the holidays. Not the shopping- I don’t even like shopping on Super Bowl Sunday wheel the mall is a ghost town- but everything else I love.  Love picking out the tree and hanging wreaths. Love wrapping gifts. Love Christmas carols. Love those light post-mounted decorations that small towns put up every year. LOVE LOVE LOVE the crazy light displays in my neighbors front yards. And I especially love when friends with different faiths than the one I grew up in invite me to share in their traditions.

To celebrate the holidays I’m giving away three copies of the amazing Clara Parkes’ new book The Knitter’s Book of Wool: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding, Using and Loving this Most Fabulous Fiber. I can’t say enough good things about this book! You won’t believe the things you didn’t know you didn’t know about your favorite fiber.

To enter just leave a comment on this post telling me about your holiday traditions. When do you put up your tree? Do you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?  What’s your favorite part of  Hannukah? How do you celebrate Solstice? I can’t wait to read about the way your family celebrates!

Rule-y type stuff: One entry per person, please. Entries close at midnight on Thursday, December 17, 2009. The winners will be posted here some time Friday and winners will have 24 hours to claim their prizes by emailing Juniper Moon Farm at prizes@fiberfarm.com

Good luck!

Wow! I LOVELOVELOVED reading the entries for our Shepherding Camp Giveaway. I am honored that so many super-cool people want to come spend a weekend with us on the farm. And honestly? I’d love to have every singe one of you come for a visit.

But the one winner of the Shepherding Camp, chosen at random is…

Congrats Rachel! Email us at prizes AT fiberfarm DOT com to claim your prize and schedule your weekend.  If we don’t hear from Rachel within 24-hours, we’ll chose another winner at random and post it here Saturday.

I had planned to post a couple of my favorite holiday recipes tonight, but I am whipped! Paige, Erin and I had a lovely Thanksgiving Day at our friends’ Kris and Charlie’s house- the kind of wonderfully comfortable day that makes you feel all warm and dozy and loved. Hope your Thanksgiving Day was equally perfect.

XO

Now that Juniper Moon Farm is serenely settled in our new beautiful location, Erin and I are very excited to be starting up Shepherding Camp again!

Our Shepherding Camp is a six-day, five-night fiber vacation at our farm  You’ll stay at our farmhouse, help us take care of the flock, and knit and spin yourselves silly.

The price for Shepherding Camp is $1300 for up to two people. The accommodations are a private room with two twin beds, so it’s a great trip for two girlfriends or a Mother and Daughter. We can, in some cases, host a third person for an additional charge. While we encourage you to spend some time with our flock, you can do as much (or as little) farm work as you choose. If you’ve ever considered having a flock of sheep or herd of Alpaca of your own, Shepherding Camp is a great way to find out if shepherding is for you.

[2009 Shepherding Camper Kay snorgling Colorado]

When you’re not helping out on the farm you are free to explore the Charlottesville area. There are some lovely Vineyards nearby, as well as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello,  The fee for Camp includes all meals, served family-style with the farm staff, but we can recommend some amazing restaurants nearby.

Space at Shepherding Camp is very limited! We can only accommodate two people at a time and we will only be doing three week-long Camps this year. However, we will be offering several mini-camps this year for the first time ever. The mini-camp will be a shorter, long weekend version of Shepherding Camp, with arrivals scheduled for Thursday evening/Friday morning and departures on Sunday. Just like with the week-long camp, all meals are included and we will keep you busy while you’re here. The cost for the Weekend Shepherding Camp is $600 for two people.

We will only be booking six weekends throughout 2010 so reserve your weekend early. I highly recommend the weekends during our lambing and kidding season, although we can’t make any promises that you’ll get to witness a birth. (Although, I will say that one lucky camper this summer saw twins being born half an hour after she arrived!) Kidding will begin in March and lambing will hopefully start in April.

And now, for the giveaway! You can enter here to win a Shepherding Camp Weekend for up to two people, all meals included. All you have to do is leave a comment here telling me why you’d like to spend a weekend at Juniper Moon Farm and who you’d bring with you if you win AND help us spread the word about the giveaway. Post the info and link on Facebook, twitter, your blog, in your Rav group, everywhere you can think of, cause we have to have 1000 comments before I’ll pick the winner. Fair enough?

One winner will be chosen at random from among all the entries. One entry per person, please. The winner’s name will be posted on the blog- then winner then has 48 hours to email us at prizes AT fiberfarm DOT com to claim his/her prize. A second drawing will be held in the event of an unclaimed prize and the clock will start again when the new winner’s name is posted.

The winner will work with Erin to schedule a mutually agreeable weekend for the visit. The winner will be responsible for all travel expenses to and from our farm.

Hey! Thanks for telling me all your moving horror stories. You can’t imagine how grateful they made me. Grateful that my moving truck wasn’t stolen. Or filled with water. Or on fire. Seriously, y’all had some messed up moves.

I’m so glad so many of you entered our Spinner’s Giveaway- it’s great to know that the spinners are out there representing! We’ll do more of these giveaways in the future and we’ll have some new spinning fibers listed in our shop starting next week.

And the winner is…

Bobbie, who shared her worst move with me:

“Bet I’ve got the worst moving story ever: Coming back to the US after 5 years in Germany (ex was military). Stuff packed in Germany in February. Finally delivered to Alabama in July. They opened the doors on the SeaPak and . . . water came out. The whole thing, containing everything I owned, had been dumped into the ocean and fished back out. Lost it all – my baby books, diplomas, wedding album, kids’ baby books, family pictures from long, long ago, heirloom furniture, clothes, everything. I tell people now that I must be in the witness protection program ‘ cuz I have nothing to prove I existed before 1986.”

Congratulations Bobbie! On the giveaway- not the move. Email us at prizes AT fiberfarm DOT com to claim your two pounds of heavenly spinning fibers.

Completely gratuitous shot of Feenat.

As promised, I’m having a giveaway just for the Spinners this week. Why? Because we love our spinners and we don’t do nearly enough to celebrate them!

One of you lucky ducks is going to win one full pound of our luscious, buttery 100% Cormo Combed Top AND one full pound of our absolutely lovely Kid Mohair/Cormo Blend Roving. That’s enough premium spinning fibers to keep you busy for a good, long time.

Here’s the deal: Leave a comment on this thread telling me the best and worst parts of moving. Why? Because I am in hell over here people, and I want to hear stories that are worse than mine.

But there’s one more thing you have to do- tell your spinning friends about this giveaway. I don’t care how you do; email, twitter, facebook, blog, post on ravelry or tell your guild, but somehow you need to let them know that Juniper Moon Farm is giving away a spinners stash.

Entries close at midnight EST, on Sunday, October 11th, 2009. One winner will be chosen at random and the winner will be posted here. The winner has 24 hours to claim his or her (but probably her) prize. Sound good?

Good luck!