Monthly Archives: December 2012

Records

Posted on December 6, 2012 by | Comments Off on Records

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Do you keep a list of the books you’ve read? How? In a journal? Through one of the online services? If so, WHY? To keep good records for future reference? To make sure you don’t accidentally reread? If not, why not? Too eager to move on to the next book? Too lazy? Never thought to bother?


Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

And also–don’t forget, folks–sometimes WordPress’s spam filter seems to decide that a lot of perfectly valid answers are spam. I periodically check throughout the day for lost comments. But, PLEASE–if your comment doesn’t show, don’t post it four more times in the hopes that one of them will go through. I get very, very tired trying to sort out the duplicates (grin).


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Yarned by You: Crochet Gallery

Posted on December 6, 2012 by | Comments Off on Yarned by You: Crochet Gallery

One thing that’s been missing so far in these Yarned by You posts is crochet. I’ve been saving up my very favorite ones for a crochet-celebration post! There were many projects to chose from and you’ll be sure to see more in the future. But enough talk. Let’s look at the pretties!

A father’s day present, doodlemuse stitched up this Crochet Ribbed Scarf in Yearling. My favorite tag is “oh-please-work.” Don’t we all have projects like that??

sparker crocheted this absolutely adorable Sleepy owl Hat with Yearling for Wildfibers in Mount Vernon, Washington.

Having only crocheted for a year, frogleg33 tackeled Gathering Leaves in Findley’s Fresca for a friend to use as a wedding shawl!

ihoot whipped up this Long Tailed Baby Elf Hat out of Sabine in colorways Sirius and Sea Glass.

Adding just a touchy of lacy crochet with Findley (colorway Bittersweet) to a neckline really perks up Laura Nelkin’s dress! She wrote a blog post on it here.

Lmstuart made this gorgeous Lace Canopy Cardi Wrap. It reminds me so much of Stippled Ink designed by Caroline Fryar for Findley Dappled; both are in Unical.

Who doesn’t love a handcrocheted basket to keep one’s eggs in? Spaz modified a Round Cushion pattern using Chadwick in Hannah. I bet those eggs feel very snuggled!

It seems that LuckyPenny didn’t have her luck with her after crocheting this gorgeous dress in Sabine based on Persimmon Pullover by Doris Chan (who does crochet at its finest!). I was bummed to read that she didn’t even get a chance to wear it before it was lost. I suppose it’s too much to hope that it will turn up in the darndest place (like under the TV cabinet)?

Pick up a hook and some JMF yarn and get hooking! I want to see what fabulous things you can come up with!

You can Juniper Moon Farm Yarns in a LYS near you by clicking here then clicking “find a store,” inputting your zip code and selecting Juniper Moon Farm as the yarn brand.

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Building My Handmade Weddding; Step One: Admitting it’s Happening

Posted on December 6, 2012 by | Comments Off on Building My Handmade Weddding; Step One: Admitting it’s Happening


A pretty picture of some wool because I don’t have anything else to share at the moment.

Last Tuesday, I woke up with a plan. I was going to whip the apartment into shape, make a schedule for the Christmas knitting, take photos of the hand knit goods I have for sale but not up on etsy yet, and finally finish my blog plans and business mapping that I always seems to be half-finished with. I was actually making good headway into getting there too. I sketched out a knitting schedule over my lunch break (that I have since misplaced and have not followed in the slightest), and my mind was working overtime on developing new projects and new promotions. I was going to take over the world with yarn.

Then I unexpectedly had to work Tuesday evening. By the time I left the Museum Tuesday night, I was sick. I had a raging headache, clogged sinuses, and that really horrible fuzzyhead that makes you stupid when you have a cold. It came out of nowhere and I was down. I could focus on nothing more strenuous than silly novels. (I am not complaining. The best part about being sick is that it is a perfect excuse to read as many silly novels as you can.) My plans for world-domination-with-yarn were washed away just as quickly as they had flooded in.

Sort of. I still have plans, and I have a lot I want to do, but I feel like I have been playing catch up for an entire week. I try to put an equal amount of time into Tiny Dino Studios as I do into my day job and last week that just didn’t happen. I am recovering my energy and mental clarity, and I have SO MUCH I want to talk to you guys about, but I’m about a week behind, so please bear with me if I bombard the blog a little bit over the next couple of days. For now, I will lay the ground work for something I have been dying to unburden.

Weddings…..blah
If you were paying attention a couple of posts ago, you probably noticed that I dropped a little announcement in at the bottom of a picture post. Now that it’s had a few days to simmer, I feel like addressing it more substantially.

I am getting married in August 2013. I am giddy about it. I can’t wait. I want to throw a big party for everybody and dance to Roxy Music (and maybe that song that Luke and Lorelai dance together to for the first time at the end of season 4–because I am a huge sap) and tell the world how much I love this man. Now, keeping all of this in mind, I have to confess that most aspects to weddings make me want to vomit in a Mr. Creosote from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life sort of way.

Anything that says “Mr. and Mrs.” or has cartoon birds kissing or anything that otherwise boils two complicated people who are also part of a nuanced relationship down to little more than the symbols on the door of public restrooms I generally abhor. I can’t eat cake, so there’s no fun in looking at them and Bridal magazines make me want to withdraw from society when they proclaim “Dream Wedding on a Budget: Under $10,000″

I think I choked when I read that. $10,000?! You have got to be effing joking! I was thinking closer to $1000, not including rings. If I can make that include the rings, I will be happy. I am cheap and not ashamed of it.

Now, I am not putting down anyone who has spent $10,000 on their nuptials, nor anyone who had one of those Save the Date cards that had a Mr. and Mrs. banner. You did the wedding you wanted, your way (I hope). I just know that these things aren’t representative of who I am, or who Brock (I have the impulse to start calling him The Professor on the blog, just for the hell of it. That might start now) and I are as a couple.

We are simple, build it yourself kind of people with big dreams. Both a little shy sometimes, but we make each other laugh. And we dance together all jerky and uncoordinated like because it’s fun. He makes Mr. Darcy jokes, because he is the perfect man. We are not above being sappy and romantic.

So, here I am, thinking about how to plan this wedding, not being inspired by just about anything I see on websites or Etsy or at the craft store. I did start a board on Pinterest which basically just reinforces that I like yellow and flowers–something that we all already knew. But nothing has struck a chord in me just yet.

By now, if you are still reading, I am sure you are wondering where I am going with this little rant of mine. I’ll tell you.

I want a simple, pretty, handmade wedding.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:
The wedding will be at Brock’s The Professor’s family farm.
The wedding will take place in August, in Kansas, in the country. That means there should be *fingers crossed* no shortage of sunflowers.
I will make decorations and favors myself, as well as whatever necessary gifts will be given.
The affair will be fairly informal.

Now, here’s the fun part: I am taking you along with me on the journey of figuring out all the niggling little details of this great big party. And I need ideas. I will be searching out and sharing what I find over the next 8ish months on the way to making this thing a reality, because I have no idea where to begin. And if you have any tips or tricks, I would love to hear them.

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Probably something you would like…

Posted on December 5, 2012 by | Comments Off on Probably something you would like…

It’s entirely possible that I am the last to know about Agricola, but I am making up for lost time because it has become my obsession!

Here’s how the game’s maker describes it:

“In Agricola (Latin for “farmer”), you’re a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you’ll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats? Agricola is a turn-based game. There are 14 game turns plus 6 harvest phases. Each player starts with two playing tokens (farmer and wife) and thus can take two actions per turn. There are multiple options, and while the game progresses, you’ll have more and more: first thing in a turn, a new action card is flipped over. Problem: Each action can be taken just once per turn, so it’s important to do some things with high preference. Each player also starts with a hand of 7 Occupation cards (of more than 160 total) and 7 Minor Improvement cards (of more than 140 total) that he may use during the game if they fit in his/her strategy. This amounts to countless strategies, some depending on your card hand. Sometimes it’s a good choice to stay on course, sometimes you better react on what your opponents do. Agricola can also be played without cards (family game) and can even be played solo.”

The game is beautifully produced, with truly lovely illustrations and even tiny wooden sheep, cow, and pigs. It’s impossible not to fall in love with it the moment you open the box!

It must be said that the instructions are a bit daunting at first and it definitely takes some time to get set up the first time. If you’re buying this game to play with kids, I highly recommend reading through the rules on your own during some quite time first before presenting them with the game, and maybe watching this video on youtube. (When I was a kid, I would have wanted to start immediately!). Speaking of kids, Agricola is rated for 12 and up, but I guess I just know a lot of bright kids because Neve (Amy’s 9-year-old) would have no problem with this game once she played through it once.

Now that I think about it, this would be an awesome teaching tool for all the home schooling moms I know. A commenter on Amazon described it as the game of real life, which is fairly apt. Each action has consequences, some of which can be unforeseen.

You can play with as many as 5 players but as few a 1, which rocks. It take about two hour to complete the game, but you can easily walk away and come back to it, so long as you set it up on a table where it can remain till your finished.

There are all kinds of expansion packs available for Agricola but I would recommend waiting until you’ve master the original before adding new decks and locations. There is a lot of depth here, and learning to master the game is a big part of the fun.

If you’re looking for a gift for the geek in your life, the home schooling mom, the board game lover, the husband who played seemingly endless (and VERY SERIOUS) games of Risk in college, you can’t beat this game!

Currently $46.95 on Amazon and if you buy it through this post, our affiliate dollars with go to Heifer International’s Gift of a Sheep program.

*This is not a sponsored post. I don’t know the game makers or anything like that. I just really, really like this game!

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Livestock Misconceptions

Posted on December 5, 2012 by | Comments Off on Livestock Misconceptions

My kids and my husband recently visited his family for Thanksgiving while I stayed behind to care for my animals and for the animals at Juniper Moon Farm while Susan and Emily were with family.  Don’t worry!  I had a lovely and relaxing dinner with my parents, who live nearby.

What is interesting about this set-up is that it was left to Paul to tell everyone all about our new animals and small farm.

Y’all, the animals and farming are aaaalllllll me.  Paul doesn’t know a whole lot about the animals or their care.  He just knows I love it and supports me however he can.

So it slipped past him (but not my kid) when a certain family member remarked that sheep are “stinky and gross”.

Now.

Really?

I would like to know how someone who has spent their entire life in cities would know anything about this.  My guess is that what she knows comes from factory farms and misinformation.  My other guess is that because this is the same family member who has done nothing but snub and insult me since marrying into the family that she was just being snarky.

Either way,  I am going to clear this up, right now.

Sheep are NOT stinky and gross.

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Sheep are sweet, friendly creatures that are happiest lounging in the grass, chewing on some hay, enjoying each other’s company. They will nuzzle you and follow you around the pasture if they know you.

Since all they eat is vegetable – based, their waste is pretty compact and odorless.  It makes fantastic compost.

You want stinky sheep?  You’d have to have them overcrowded in a muddy lot or barn with no fresh grasses or hay and not a lot of fresh air.  And even then, it’s the accumulation of their waste products that is stinky, not the sheep itself.  A healthy sheep (or any livestock) operation has none of the kinds of malodorous disasters that so many people seem to associate with  livestock these days. Trust me – we don’t want our animals in that kind of bad shape any more than you do!

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These kinds of misconceptions are harmful to us small farmers and hobbyists, because it is people with these beliefs that tend to want to live in the country but don’t want to be near any country animals.  In other words, subdivision dwellers who don’t like the small farm next door.  They are also the ones with the lobbying powers who push people like me out.

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This is also the reason why people can have as many dogs as they want – some the size of small horses, for goodness sake – but bring home a goat and people lose their minds.

Compared to dogs, most livestock are cleaner, quieter, and less prone to trouble.  When was the last time you heard of a pack of sheep roaming the neighborhood, tearing into your garbage?  And let me tell you – dog poo is far more foul than sheep’s and goats’.  Not only that, but can your dog provide you with fresh eggs, or milk or wool?  But for some reason, multiple dogs and cats roaming everywhere are okay.  I love my cats and dogs to the moon and back, but I understand they are not the only game in town pet – wise.

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The other side of this that is sad is that those same dogs are among the top predators of rural livestock.  And I don’t mean wild dogs (though they are a big threat, no doubt) – I am talking about peoples’ pets.  And because most people don’t understand that sheep can make just as lovely pets for a family as dogs, sympathy generally lies with a dog owner when tragedy strikes and someone’s roaming lab hurts some sheep.

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My point in all of this is that before you make an assumption, before you open your mouth or take action based on what you think you know: just double check.  It doesn’t hurt to be sure you are right before suggesting the rest of us follow along with you.

And one more thing: it’s the chickens that are the stinky ones.

Just sayin’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Tagged: Farm, food, Pets

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Rice noodles with Crispy tofu

Posted on December 5, 2012 by | Comments Off on Rice noodles with Crispy tofu
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This is a recipe we keep returning to. It’s quick and easy to make, healthful, and delicious. It’s easy to change up the veggies, the herbs, or the type of sprouts. This week I used brown rice noodles which were fantastic.

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Warm Winter Flannel

Posted on December 5, 2012 by | Comments Off on Warm Winter Flannel

That’s right.  I am in the midst of making everyone warm winter jammies in the midst of a freaking warm spell.  It’s been in the mid seventies for days now, and it isn’t going to get much cooler for awhile.  See what I meant about how you can’t predict the winter based on fall’s weather?  A week or so ago we were getting hard frost.

This is probably due to the fact that we just had a gigantic propane tank installed for the fireplace so we could be all cozy for school and for reading and knitting in the mornings and evenings. Now we’re just sweating in there, and the propane hasn’t been turned on once yet.

Of course, if I had my way the fireplace would be wood – burning……but you can’t win ‘em all.

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Oona gets a flannel nightgown, courtesy of this picture I found on Pinterest.

I pretty much just fudged my way through it.  The fabric is “Nordica” flannel by Robert Kaufman.

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She’s been pretty much living in it non – stop since I made it.  I think I may have to make her a whole week’s worth of them.  Especially as it goes rather well with a snappy pair of red cowboy boots when you’re sweepin’ the front porch.

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Book Gift Ideas, December 2012

Posted on December 4, 2012 by | Comments Off on Book Gift Ideas, December 2012

Looking for a good book for a gift? Or to find something to make as a gift (though I’ll admit time is getting tight for that)?

Here are some new books to inspire you.

100 Snowflakes to Crochet

Animal Hats

Boyfriend Sweaters

Crochet Noro

Creative Knitting: A New and Expanded Edition

Finish-Free Knits

Inspirations for Crochet

Knit a Monster Nursery

Knitologie

Knitted Farm Animals

Knitting Clothes Kids Love

Knitting from the Center Out

Knitting Masterclass

Literary Knits

Little Christmas Decorations to Knit and Crochet

Medieval-Inspired Knits

More Than a Dozen Hats and Beanies

Nicky Epstein: The Essential Edgings Collection

Nordic Knitting Traditions

Northern Knits: Gifts

November Knits

One + One: Hats

Shades of Winter

Short Story

Sock Yarn Shawls

Sock Yarn Studio

The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs

Step It Up Knits

Sweater Girls

The Twelve Knits of Christmas

Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Hat Book

Warm Little Knits

We Knit You a Merry Christmas

What to Knit When You’re Expecting

If you know of any books that are coming up that are not on the list, please drop me a comment. Though, of course, this list is not meant to be complete, so I’m sure there are plenty missing.

(And, please, if you’re thinking of buying any of these books, please consider using the links here at Knitting Scholar–I’ll get a couple dollars from Amazon.com to go toward the cost of this site. My grateful thanks go with every order!)

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Good Day, Sunshine!

Posted on December 4, 2012 by | Comments Off on Good Day, Sunshine!

If you were ever thinking about moving to Texas, do it in December. The weather is positively GLORIOUS here- sunny and 70 degrees. Like California weather.

What more could anyone ask for?

Wait, you want more?!?

Fine.

How about a picture of a goose eating pumpkin?

Done and done. I’m a big believer in giving the people what they want.

I do need to ask you for a favor today. I need you to cut yourself some slack. I need you to accept compliments with just a “thank you” and not a list of excuses for why you don’t deserve them. I need you to hush the judge-y, mean-girl voice in your head. Today, I need you to treat yourself the way you treat your very best friend.

If you’re having trouble, just think of the goose eating pumpkin. It will hereafter be our symbol for treating ourselves with kindness!

Can you do this for me, please? Can you try? And can you pass that request along to all the people you care about?

I would be most grateful.

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Halfway there

Posted on December 4, 2012 by | Comments Off on Halfway there

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Each of these blocks is from a set of four so that I’ve got about 36 blocks done so far.

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