Monthly Archives: March 2014

Glass Bottle Stopper …

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- by Joan -


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Probably something you would like…

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Way back in 2009, I was contacted by artist Lisa Congdon about using on of my photographs as the basis for a painting. Of course I was flattered, and delight to say yes.

Liberty

Painting by Lisa Congdon

Lisa sent me a print of her painting when she finished it and I absolutely treasure it, particularly since Liberty has since retired and gone to live at another farm where she will live out her days grazing sweet grass and lolling on the sunshine.

I’ve followed Lisa’s career since then and it’s been amazing to watch! In 2010, Lisa did a project called “A Collection a Day”. For 365 days in a row, the artist photographed, drew or painted collections of objects. Sometimes they were quirky and interesting but often they were everyday items that you wouldn’t think twice about. I don’t know quite how to put this but the very act of showcasing these items in the way Lisa did made them transcend their everyday-ness. I highly recommend going through the blog dedicated to the project. Lisa published a book of the collections but it is out of print and pricey pricey.

Lisa’s main blog is an everyday read for me because I find it so inspiring and uplifting, so I was super excited to see she has a new book coming out on April 1st.

Whatever You Are Be a Good One by Lisa Congdon

 

Whatever You Are, Be a Good One: 100 Inspirational Quotations Hand-Lettered by Lisa Congdon. I have pre-ordered my copy and will be waiting by the mailbox on April 1st!

Lisa also has a new video class available on CreativeBug called Line Drawing with Lisa Congdon. (If you haven’t taken any classes on CreativeBug yet, I highly encourage you to look into them. The technology is pretty amazing. I have the 12 month unlimited subscription and it lets me take any class I want, any time I want from some amazing instructors. The knitting and sewing classes alone are worth 10x the price.) Even if you are a non-artist like me you will love this class.

Joss Whedon says that, in order to be prolific and creative, we have to constantly be “filling our tank”.  I think that may be the single most important advice I have ever gotten and it’s something I remind myself of everyday. Following Lisa Congdon’s work is one of the surest ways I know to fill my tank!

I would love to know how you fill your tank. Please hook us up with links, book titles and whatever else inspires you to creativity.

 

 

 

 

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Resources for Beginning Designers

Posted on March 14, 2014 by | Comments Off on Resources for Beginning Designers

I’ve been designing since late 2009, and at that time, there were very few resources for beginning designers.  Association of Knitwear Designers was still around, and had a ton of info once you got in, but you had to already be designing to be considered for an associate membership.

Since then, though, there’s been, if not an explosion, a steady increase in the resources available.

Most new designers seem to be following the self publishing of PDFs route via Ravelry, Craftsy, Patternfish, and Etsy, with Ravelry being the prominent avenue.

Ravelry

If you’re on Ravelry, and you’re wanting to design, there are two main groups to check out for general designing info(and by check out, honestly, I recommend scanning the message threads & reading all the business-sounding ones) and one for resources (looking for an editor, etc).

Do check the various group pages for links to various groups, posts, etc.

Written Resources

Shannon Okey’s book, The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design, is also a must.

Alex Tinsley has a PDF, So You Want To Be A Knitting Designer, that’s more recent than Shannon’s book.  The amount of info isn’t as dense, but it’s also a great place to start.

Elizabeth Green Musselman has written an interactive style sheet, available through Cooperative Press.  (I just noticed there’s a crochet version by Lindsey Stephens, a fantastic crochet tech editor & designer.)

In Person Classes

Shannon Okey  occasionally teaches beginner designer classes.

I’ve taught several beginner designer classes: Becoming an Indie Designer, Pattern Pet Peeves, Creating Your Style Guide, and Working with a Tech Editor. 

TNNA has been offering more classes for designers with each show.  For the upcoming summer show in Indy, you can choose from the following: Technical Writing & Editing for Knitters & Crochets and Spreadsheet Savvy (basic spreadsheet info) by Edie Eckman; Magic Spreadsheet (setting up a reusable spreadsheet for grading) by Jill Wolcott and Jeane de Coster; and Pattern Writing Essentials by Therese Chynoweth.

Online Classes

Craftsy has several classes (on sale this weekend! Craftsy’s Endless Creativity Sale) that I recommend: Sizing Patterns for Knitting (Faina Goberstein), How to Say It (Edie Eckman) and Handknit Garment Design (Shirley Paden, general designing class, not grading, but has good info).

Craftsy

 

 

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WIP: Mitered Detail Cardigan 2

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At the moment, I am working on the second version of the Mitered Detail Cardigan.  This time, I'm knitting it in green!  I've also refined the instructions and I'm knitting it together with the folks over in the Ravelry Machine Knits group.  I had no idea we'd have so many folks sign up, so I had to cut it off after over 20 people showed interest!  Crazy!

Here's my progress so far...

1 skein, Wollmeise Lace Garn

add a knitting machine and some claw weights

measure twice, cut once (just kidding, there's no steeking in this one)

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Worming Day! (Part 1)

Posted on March 13, 2014 by | Comments Off on Worming Day! (Part 1)

The beginning of this week was just extraordinary in its loveliness. We had wonderfully mild temperatures for several days in a row, and we all felt the itch to get outside and stay there.

It seemed like the perfect time for worming the flock.

Since it’s been a wonderfully cold winter, we’re pretty optimistic that parasite levels will be lower over the warmer months this year.  Even still, with most of our ewes likely bred we want to make sure they are not carrying an overload of them in their gut, as the hormones and stresses of pregnancy and lambing tends to exacerbate the condition, and then things just get ugly.

Now, worming has always been a bit of a tricky chore; you want to make sure you catch it early enough to be effective, but you don’t want to overtreat them and build up resistance to the drug. However, to our great relief, a miracle seems to have been discovered in the use of copper.  You give one dose of copper to each sheep roughly every 6 months and the parasites (hopefully) never build a resistance to it.  It simply makes the sheeps’ guts too inhospitable to the critters.

In the past when Susan and I would use copper we had to break out the scales and empty capsules and very carefully measure out copper particles.  You can imagine how excited we were earlier this winter when we discovered THESE over at Jeffers.

Hello easy coppering!

The only drawback to this is that I can’t seem to get a solid answer on whether or not we can copper our ewes that are bred.  We decided, therefor, to err on the side of caution, and the ladies all get a dose of the chemical wormer we’ve always used until after lambing.  All the boys and goats get copper.

So, with copper and wormer in hand (along with hoof clippers just in case) Neve and I set out into the winter pen to get down to some serious work.

03.13.14a

03.13.14b

Neve’s a pretty big help for most of the flock; it gets a little more difficult with the big sheep like Alabama.  She is my shepherd-in-training though, and since she is responsible for evening feedings every day, they know her and trust her.

03.13.14c

Wren!

03.13.14d

03.13.14e

03.13.14f

We managed to get about half the flock taken care of, when Jerry and Alabama combined forces to knock the temporary fence panels over and everyone streamed out of the holding pen.  They knew better than to fall for coming into the worming pen again, so we had to knock off for the day.  We’ll finish the rest up on Saturday, and everyone who got copper should be satisfactorily protected until September.  If it works like it’s supposed to, Susan and I will be happy shepherds!

 


Tagged: Farm, Pets

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Worming Day! (Part 1)

Posted on March 13, 2014 by | Comments Off on Worming Day! (Part 1)

The beginning of this week was just extraordinary in its loveliness. We had wonderfully mild temperatures for several days in a row, and we all felt the itch to get outside and stay there.

It seemed like the perfect time for worming the flock.

Since it’s been a wonderfully cold winter, we’re pretty optimistic that parasite levels will be lower over the warmer months this year.  Even still, with most of our ewes likely bred we want to make sure they are not carrying an overload of them in their gut, as the hormones and stresses of pregnancy and lambing tends to exacerbate the condition, and then things just get ugly.

Now, worming has always been a bit of a tricky chore; you want to make sure you catch it early enough to be effective, but you don’t want to overtreat them and build up resistance to the drug. However, to our great relief, a miracle seems to have been discovered in the use of copper.  You give one dose of copper to each sheep roughly every 6 months and the parasites (hopefully) never build a resistance to it.  It simply makes the sheeps’ guts too inhospitable to the critters.

In the past when Susan and I would use copper we had to break out the scales and empty capsules and very carefully measure out copper particles.  You can imagine how excited we were earlier this winter when we discovered THESE over at Jeffers.

Hello easy coppering!

The only drawback to this is that I can’t seem to get a solid answer on whether or not we can copper our ewes that are bred.  We decided, therefor, to err on the side of caution, and the ladies all get a dose of the chemical wormer we’ve always used until after lambing.  All the boys and goats get copper.

So, with copper and wormer in hand (along with hoof clippers just in case) Neve and I set out into the winter pen to get down to some serious work.

03.13.14a

03.13.14b

Neve’s a pretty big help for most of the flock; it gets a little more difficult with the big sheep like Alabama.  She is my shepherd-in-training though, and since she is responsible for evening feedings every day, they know her and trust her.

03.13.14c

Wren!

03.13.14d

03.13.14e

03.13.14f

We managed to get about half the flock taken care of, when Jerry and Alabama combined forces to knock the temporary fence panels over and everyone streamed out of the holding pen.  They knew better than to fall for coming into the worming pen again, so we had to knock off for the day.  We’ll finish the rest up on Saturday, and everyone who got copper should be satisfactorily protected until September. If it works like it’s supposed to, Susan and I will be happy shepherds!

 

 

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March Lighthouse …

Posted on March 13, 2014 by | Comments Off on March Lighthouse …

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Edgartown Lighthouse ~ Martha’s Vineyard, MA

- by Joan -


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Agnes the Goose

Posted on March 13, 2014 by | Comments Off on Agnes the Goose

Agnes

Agnes is a feisty goose. She’s the only goose left on the farm, the others have died over the last few years. Geese are pack animals and you’d think that that this would mean that she she would want to hang out with the sheep or the ducks, but she has no interest. She’s decided that her job is to be a guard goose and she takes her job VERY seriously.

Pippa, Amy’s (indoor) dog refuses to go out the back door or past Agnes and must go out the front door to avoid her. She squawks loudly and will show an aggressive stance if she thinks you’re invading her space.

Case in point, while Tanya and I were dyeing sock club yarn and dumping out the excess water, she decided it would be more fun to attack us, so I had to keep her away.

Lately, she’s been taking to knocking on the back door at the farm with her bill, setting off the indoor dogs and amusing Amy and her family. (Well, until the indoor dogs won’t stop barking!). Amy caught her knocking during daylight hours:

If she were a woman, she might be called bossy, but as I say in the video, she is just doing her job. Granted, she decided that being a guard goose was her job, but she’s clearly just a go-getter. And no one likes go-getters more than the women at Juniper Moon Farm!

Thanks to Cris and Amy, respectively, for the videos. And for Tanya to brave the goose to dump out the dye water.

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Being Prepared

Posted on March 13, 2014 by | Comments Off on Being Prepared

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Another question raised by YA author A.S. King‘s blog post last week which touched on censorship—especially as it pertains to young adult books.

She writes:

If there really is [an ideal] town like this in America, I am happy about that. Really truly happy. But are your teenagers going to stay in that town forever? Don’t you want them to go to college? Or go out in the world and do stuff? And don’t you want them to be prepared for all of these real things that happen all the time in real life? Don’t you want them to know that they will make mistakes? Don’t you want them to learn how to make smarter mistakes?

Fiction can help. I write my books for one reason, whether they are for adults or teens. I write to make readers think. I write to widen perspective. I write to make readers ask questions and then answer the questions or start conversations. And I write sometimes to give voice to the throwaways, of which our society has many, but we usually hide them because we are still uncomfortable with what we see as our own mistakes. Make sure you say that in a whisper. Throwaways.

And so … this, right here, pretty much explains exactly WHY I like reading so much. Yes, it’s fun and entertaining and diverting, and all that, but ultimately, it TEACHES me things. It broadens my horizons and makes me look at ideas and people and life in general in new and interesting ways. Isn’t that what reading and art in general is SUPPOSED to do? How do you feel about this? Do you agree? Disagree? Discuss!


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!


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Being Prepared

Posted on March 13, 2014 by | Comments Off on Being Prepared

btt button

Another question raised by YA author A.S. King‘s blog post last week which touched on censorship—especially as it pertains to young adult books.

She writes:

If there really is [an ideal] town like this in America, I am happy about that. Really truly happy. But are your teenagers going to stay in that town forever? Don’t you want them to go to college? Or go out in the world and do stuff? And don’t you want them to be prepared for all of these real things that happen all the time in real life? Don’t you want them to know that they will make mistakes? Don’t you want them to learn how to make smarter mistakes?

Fiction can help. I write my books for one reason, whether they are for adults or teens. I write to make readers think. I write to widen perspective. I write to make readers ask questions and then answer the questions or start conversations. And I write sometimes to give voice to the throwaways, of which our society has many, but we usually hide them because we are still uncomfortable with what we see as our own mistakes. Make sure you say that in a whisper. Throwaways.

And so … this, right here, pretty much explains exactly WHY I like reading so much. Yes, it’s fun and entertaining and diverting, and all that, but ultimately, it TEACHES me things. It broadens my horizons and makes me look at ideas and people and life in general in new and interesting ways. Isn’t that what reading and art in general is SUPPOSED to do? How do you feel about this? Do you agree? Disagree? Discuss!


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!


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