The art of ‘cappuccino painter” Kazuki Yamamoto is spectacular.

I’m not much of a jewelry person but these wax seal rings are lovely and neat. $65-$80.

Zucchini Lasagna sounds great and just in time for zucchini-from-your-neighbors-garden-whether-you-want-it-or-not season.

These Rose and Ginger Cupcakes from Martha Stewart are lovely. I’ve never thought of pairing these two flavors!

ZOMG! How cute are these Estonian Sheep Puppets? Pattern from Interweave here.

I am completely smitten with this Copper Sugar Saucepan.

Someone Finally Fixed the Worst Tattoo in the World, Actually Made It Rather Stunning.

Check out the beautiful goods on offer at Olive Manna. I want to live there.

Have you watched The Mindy Project yet? Summer re-run season is a great time for you to catch up on the best written comedy on television. In the meantime, read this cute interview with Ike Barinholtz, who plays nurse Morgan.

Could some one in NYC please visit the MOMA’s Rain Room exhibit and tell me if it’s as incredible as it looks?

These are some of the things inspiring me this week. What’s making you light up?

One of the things I learned in culinary school is an appreciation for shallots. Like garlic, shallots are members of the genus Allium, but their flavor is much sweeter and milder. In fact, shallots are often mistaken for a type of onion. They aren’t, but they can be used in place of onions when you’re looking for a more subtle flavor.

Roasted shallots are one of my favorite ingredients. I like to keep some in the fridge for stirring into soups, filling omelets and topping pizzas. They are dead easy to make– you don’t even have to peel them. Just toss them in bowl with olive oil to coat them and tip them into a baking dish. I sometimes throw in a few stems of rosemary or thyme just for added flavor. Cover the dish with foil and pop it into a 350 degree oven for an hour or so. The shallots will be completely soft.

To use, just squish the delicious gooey shallots out of the skins (they same way you would with roasted garlic), drizzle with the left over oil and store in a covered dish in the refrigerator.

For a quick weeknight dinner, I topped a store-bought pizza crust with roasted shallots and their oil, sautéed mushrooms and fresh mozzarella. The shallots are so sweet and flavorful that I sometimes leave off the mozzarella and just give the pizza a good grated of parmesan. Sublime!

Last week’s TMSGT post was exactly what I hoped it would be. So full of optimism and wonder– I swear, reading your entries fueled my soul for the rest of the week!

Here we are again back at Tuesday and I want you to tell me something good! It doesn’t need to be or dramatic or showy; just a little piece of goodness you are willing to share.

My something good this week is starting the JMF 3 Week Kettle Bell Challenge and living to tell the tale. I’m proud of myself for doing it and even enjoying the dull ache of muscle fatigue that’s reminding me what a bad ass I am.

Your turn. Tell me something good!

Juniper Moon Farm has a whole lot of shareholders and friends living very close to Moore, OK, the site of yesterday’s horrible tornado. It looks as if we got lucky– I’ve heard from the people we love and they are all okay.

More than any other weather, tornados terrify me most, probably because I grew up in “Tornado Alley”, but also because tornados are so unexpected, so fierce, so capricious in their destruction. The come from out of no where with very little warning and tear people’s lives apart, smashing one house to bits while skipping over completely the one next door.

I have no words of wisdom when these things happen– I don’t know anyone who does — but I believe there is no greater reminder that it’s the people on our lives that matter. Not our possession or our plans. Just the people who we love.

There will be a whole lot of people hurting in Oklahoma for a good long time. In the meantime, where you live in the world, take a little time for grace this week. Be more gentle with the ones you care about. Show them your love every time you see them.

They say that life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. Well, a whole lot of life happened in Moore Oklahoma yesterday. And they are going to need a whole lot of help before they are whole again.

This link has lots of great contact information and  need info for anyone who if looking for a way to help. The need is great, and there are many opportunities to pitch in. If you hear of any specific needs, please share that info with us so we can help get the word out.

Tonight, my heart is breaking for Moore Oklahoma.

Hello friends! Sarah here with an Ojai Hooray Cardigan  update!

In my last post, I talked about picking up for the button bands. Since then I spent some relaxing time knitting an oasis of 2×2 rib!

(By the way, have you ever seen a more luscious green? The more of this sweater I get knit up, the more bananas I am about the colour. Every year it seems like the CSA yarn share dye options are more gorgeous!)

About halfway through the button band knitting, I took a break and knit the sleeves. I’ll explain why in just a minute. First, sleeves!

This sweater is a top down raglan construction. So, the shoulders and yoke are knit first, and then stitches for the body and sleeves are separated. When it’s time to knit the sleeves, those stitches are ready and waiting!

The Hooray Cardigan has shorter sleeves – sort of between bracelet and ¾ length.  I adjusted the sleeve length to fit my actual arm instead of the pattern measurements because I’m really, really short! This was easy to do – I just cut out length from sections without any shaping. Looking at other knitters’ project notes on Ravelry gave me the idea for another small modification: instead of working the sleeves in reverse stockinette, I just turned them inside out and worked regular stockinette. I knit faster than I purl, so it made the sleeves much quicker!

The sleeves also have deep ribbing at the cuffs.

The pattern suggests two different finishing techniques for the sleeve and button band edgings. I chose attached i-cord, which I am kind of bonkers about. It looks SO tidy and clean! I’m especially pleased with the attached i-cord edge on the sleeves, because it’s seamless.

Using a combination of this Purlbee tutorial and this Knitty article, I cast on provisionally, knit the attached i-cord bind off around the sleeve edge, and then kitchenered the two ends of the i-cord together! Voila, seamless edging!

Both sleeves finished! HOORAY!

Now, why did I take a break from the button band? I put it on pause because it was time to add buttonholes, and I like to choose my buttons before I decide on buttonhole placement. That way, I can place the buttonholes based on the size and number of buttons I choose, instead of having to narrow my button choices to work with existing buttonholes.

Here in Victoria, we have the BEST button store, the Button & Needlework Boutique. They have an amazing selection of gorgeous buttons, and I always have a hard time choosing! I very often go with buttons that match the colour of my sweater, but sometimes contrasting colours or textures catch my eye.

I narrowed it down to about five different buttons, some contrasting, some matching, and all made out of different materials.

Matching or contrasting? I think I’ll wait until my next post to show you which ones I bought!

By then, I should have a whole sweater to show you. Whoa.

Sarah hangs out with her cat, drinks a lot of tea, sometimes eats amazing muffins for breakfast and knits as much as possible in beautiful Victoria, BC.

Today is a very exciting day for me because today, Lauria comes to work for Juniper Moon Farm full-time!

Lauria Kincaid has been a great friend to the farm for last five years. She and our friend Suzy actually helped me ship some of the very first shares we ever sent out, back when the farm was located on Martha’s Vineyard.

Since then, Lauria has made herself indispensable by blogging a couple days a week, running our sample knitter program (with some help from my sister when she was unavailable) and stage managing our photo shoots.

Actually, stage managing is what Lauria was doing before she joined JMF. But the theater world’s loss is very much our gain. Lauria is a master of organization and a genius with a spread sheet! I have never known anyone with her particular skill set and it’s a great match for us.

Lauria will be telecommuting from Boston, so don’t be surprised if an order from the farm has a Massachusetts postmark!

Those of you who already know Lauria from our Ravelry group will understand why I am so excited to have this amazing woman on board. We haven’t quite decided on a title yet, so if you have any suggestions, post them here along with any messages you have for Lauria.

Sewing Sunday is something my friend Amy and I have been intending to make into a weekly event for ages and ages, but we’ve never been able to pull it off consistently. It seems like the more determined I am to absolutely without fail spend a Sunday at my sewing machine, the more likely it is that something will come up to stop me.

But this week I succeeded in making Sewing Sunday a priority and it was perfectly lovely. I cut out the Wiksten Dress in three different fabrics, two for me and one for my sister Carrie.

The nice thing about Wiksten patterns is that they come with a step-by-step tutorial, which is the next best thing to have the designer herself standing right beside you making encouraging noises. This particular pattern is for beginners. It’s nice, because you don’t need any notions and there are no buttons or zippers to complicate things.

Amy taught me to transfer patterns to freezer paper, rather than cutting out the pre-printed pattern, in case I want to make another version later in a different size.

Cutting is the scariest part of sewing for me. I kind of got over that today by cutting out the pieces for three dresses in a row. By the time I got to number three, I was speeding right along.

I was doing just fine until it came time for the top stitched hem. I had never done a hem with curves before and I got really frustrated before I realized that there is a trick to it. Lucky for me, my good friend Youtube had plenty of tutorials.

After dinner, I will tackle the hem, so all that’s left to do is to put the bias tape around the sleeve and neck openings. Hopefully I will have time to get at least one finished before next Sewing Sunday!

]]> http://www.fiberfarm.com/2013/05/sewing-sunday-2/feed 3 http://www.fiberfarm.com/2013/05/the-three-week-kettle-bell-challenge http://www.fiberfarm.com/2013/05/the-three-week-kettle-bell-challenge#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 23:07:06 +0000 Susan http://www.fiberfarm.com/?p=24130

I hate to jinx it by even mentioning it here (because every time I plan to start working out again, I get sick) but my sister Carrie and I are starting Prevention Magazine’s Three Week Kettle Bell Challenge on Monday.

Things I like about it:

• 3 weeks isn’t very long, so I can commit to it without worrying about what will come up
  
• Prevention Magazine is so reputable that I believe them when they say that I’ll see results in 3 weeks
• There isn’t a lot of equipment required- just one kettle bell or set of dumb bells
• It only takes 20 minutes a day.

Finally, I need to get on a regular fitness plan (those Michelle Obama arms I want aren’t going to sculpt themselves) and this seems like a very gentle way to start.

Anyone want to join us? I think it would be a lot less dreary more fun to do this as a group! We will have a dedicated thread in our Raverly group here where we encourage each other and share questions. And I will blog here about how it’s going. We can even come up with some yarn and knitting related prizes!

What do you say? Are you in? You can check out the workout here and get your weights over the weekend.

I just realized that I have been away from my flock for more than two weeks. My life had been such a blur of activity– moving from one farm to another, my birthday, driving to Texas, meetings, doctors appointments, pneumonia, more doctors appointments– that I only just now realized how powerfully homesick I am.

I thought that looking at pictures would make me feel better last night, but honestly? It just made me want to jump on the next flight home.

Miss Lyra

Cini

Churchill

Patmore

Roquefort the Pest

Gnocchi

Sam

Hughes

I will be heading back to Virginia in a few weeks, but the whole summer is jam-packed with travel and obligations, so I won’t be there long. I’ve got a photo shoot in Boston in June and then I leave almost immediately for Scotland. Then back to to Texas for more meetings and medical stuff, and then to the Pacific Northwest, where I will be throwing out the first baseball at the Seattle Mariner’s Stitch ‘n Pitch. (I still hope to get some practice, you know, touching a baseball between now and then.)

It is so nice having the opportunity to travel, to meet new people and try new thing. The only thing that’s better is coming home again.

I’m so pleased to bring you this lovely new pattern by Corrina Ferguson designed for Findley Dappled and in colorway #110 Wisteria.

Corrina knits and designs in Florida where there are only about three sweater days per year. But she keeps on knitting anyway and dreams of someday retiring somewhere where it snows. Corrina blogs at http://picnicknits.com/

Corrina designed a number of patterns which are available in our Findley Dappled 2013 booklet which can be purchased at a LYS near you. But the Chapman Shawl is available to you for the low, low price of FREE!

This shawl is knit sideways and is designed to use up a single ball of Findley, which makes this shawl affordable as well as long enough to wrap around yourself in the air-conditioned office or on a cool summer evening.

This shawl matches the Chapman Cardigan pattern, in case you just can’t get enough of this dainty lace motif.

You can download the Chapman Shawl right here, or on the Free Pattern Page for Findley.

A NOTE! There was a small error in the key for a previous version, but this updated version 05.20.13 is correct. Thank you!