Tag Archives: Features

Weekend Reading

The Massive Iceberg That’s Thisclose to Breaking Off of Antarctica from The Atlantic Wire.

A Simple Fix for Farming from The New York Times

Things Holly and I have argued about this week from 27B/6. This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read in my whole life but BE WARNED: there are swear words. Lots of ‘em. Mostly the one that starts with F. (If you click on that link, you are forever forfeiting your right to send me an angry, self-rightous email about the language therein. This is a legally binding contract. You can tell because I used “therein”.)

The Island Where People Forget to Die from The New York Times.

Do Restraining Orders Work? from Slate.

Mad Dash from The New York Times. As a frequent user of dashes- and a grammer snob- I enjoyed this article.

Twenty-Five Pieces of Basic Sartorial Knowledge So You Don’t Look Dumb from Put this On.  Send this to every man in your life, please.

Russell Means, Who Clashed With Law as He Fought for Indians, Is Dead at 72 from The New York Times. This is my Obit of the Week.

How the Blind Run Marathons from The Atlantic.

Tiny Condos And Houses For Sale from The Huffington Post.

The Spoon Theory. My friend Joelle linked to this on my whiney rant post last week and it is definitely worth a read. It’s a little over-written but it does a pretty good job of describing what it’s like to be in pain all the time.

What are you reading this weekend? I’m home sick and very, very bored, so I really want to know.

Probably something you would like…

Martians at the Halloween Sock Hop: Photos of Bizarre Vintage Costumes

18 Visual Brands For U.S. Presidents. This is so great!

30 Ways to Die of Electrocution in the 1930s (via my friend Amber) These are pretty funny.

Possibly the best Tooth Fairy letters of all time

Recipe: Chicken with Morels

Recipe: Pumpkin Dream Cake

Just A Polar Bear Frolicking In A Flower Patch

I am quite smitten with this Mini Arrow Embroidery Kit.

Emergency compliment. My friend Jellen sent me this link this morning and I’ve been playing with it all day.

This made me laugh like a madman.

15 Cool Ways to Tie Your Shoelaces

Pattern: Comfy Cowl Neck Pullover. I would wear this sweater always.

What’s making you smile this week?

Yarned by You: Findley Gallery

Last Wednesday just completely got away from me! But this week has been a little less stressful, so I hopped right back on the horse for this week’s Yarned by You. We’ll be taking a peek at Findley. This was a really hard gallery to put together because HOLY COW there are so many lovely things made with Findley! Here’s a tiny sampling…

Ripen, knit by GimmeCoffee, looks like  the perfect thing to toss over my shoulders.

The leaf motif really makes me happy! I’m very into leaves lately!

I’ve wanted to make a lace weight cardigan for a super long time. atlkaren made a Breezy Cardigan in colorway Bittersweet that is all sweet!

I love the color and drape! I could see how this light cardigan could complement many outfits in my wardrobe!

This Whisper Wrap in colorway crocodile was knit with perfectly even stitches by malteseparakeet.

The clean geometric lines are worth the miles and miles of stockinette!

Below is a knit that was designed by Caroline Fryar called Theme & Variation Tee. This one was knit by oregeoncharknits as a store sample.

 

Don’t you agree that this Tee in Renaissance looks so good on her that she needs to make one for herself?

This was made as a wedding shawl for jdcrowson’s pastor. She’s doing a series of 12 shawls in 2012 and it looks like she’s right on target!

The Aeolian Shawl was knit in Fresco. Findley really lends itself well to lace and wedding shawls, as this was by far not the only wedding shawl to choose from!

This is a novel sweater concept – a stockinette stitch fingering weight sweater with a laceweight lace sweater on top of it! The top layer is Findley in Fresco again.

17Q17 definitely did a lovely job knitting this! The stitch pattern on the laceweight reminds me a lot of Finch’s Wings designed by Caroline Fryar for the Findley Dappled book.

The ubiquitous Rockefeller knit in part with Findley. The dark purple solid is Renaissance. Rockefeller is designed for fingering weight yarn and both yarns used are laceweight.

I love that SkyBlueKayak took a risk using laceweight yarns and I love how it came out! The yarns compliment each other nicely!

That rounds up this week’s Yarned by You. As always, if you click on the pictures you’ll be linked to the Ravelry project page. What’s your favorite Findley knit? There are lots and lots of them, so you can be sure that I’ll feature more soon! (I haven’t even started on Findley Dappled!)

You can find Findley and the rest of the 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.

This Morning in Pictures

I had so much to do this morning but the light was so lovely that I finally couldn’t resist grabbing my camera.

Sabine is absolutely the happiest creature I have ever encountered in my whole life. She is just filled with joy all the time.

Lyra, one of our Colored Border Leicester ewes.

Charley the Wonder Pig

Buster & Charley

Charley and Buster

Young Adelaide

Churchill

Cini and Lucy

Lovely Hannah

Cosmo

Camouflage sheep!

The Weekend in Pictures

McPhee

Clark

Luna & Stella

Gnocchi

Madison

Buster & friend

Bennett

Alabama

Cassiopia

Jack

Feenat

Daisy & Coconut

How was your weekend?

Be sure to check out the BY HAND blog where I’ve posted a step-by-step photo tutorial for making fresh pasta without any special ingredients or equipment.

I really like this Kickstarter campaign!

The Big Picture: A continuous wall calendar.

This is definitely Probably something you would like…

I don’t know this guy from Adam but I love the idea of this calendar and I want him to succeed. You know, so I can have one. It’s a pretty inexpensive project to fund- $16 to get your own calendar.

He’s only got 4 days left to get his project funded but I think we can help! If you’d like the calendar, consider funding him. You can also tweet, facebook or just otherwise help us spread the word.

UPDATE: AND IT’S FUNDED! That’s how we it, people. Y’all are awesome.

Weekend Reading

Ramjeet Raghav, 96-Year-Old Dad, Claims He Is World’s Oldest New Father from The Huffington Post. For reals, y’all.

Wines Worth Dropping a $20 Bill as Easily as an Autumn Leaf from the NY Times.

The Snail Wrangler from the NY Times. This article about a snail rancher kills me.

Empowering Women With A Wriggly New Industry: Worms from Co.Exist.

Making Sleep a Childhood Priority (or Not) from the NY Times.

A Second Act, Stuffed With Pie from the NY Times.

Cost to Prevent All Future Extinctions: $11 per Person? from Mother Jones.

Where Will The Next Pandemic Come From? And How Can We Stop It? from Popular Science.

BOSS RAIL:The disaster that exposed the underside of the boom from The New Yorker. “A high-speed train crash in China unravels years of corruption in the building of the world’s most expensive public-works project.” A Home at the End of Google Earth from Vanity Fair. “Separated from his older brother at a train station, five-year-old Saroo Munshi Khan found himself lost in the slums of Calcutta. Nearly 20 years later, living in Australia, he began a painstaking search for his birth home, using ingenuity, hazy memories, and Google Earth.”  This one is my pick of the week.

The Greatest Fake-Art Scam in History? from Vanity Fair.

What have you read this week that made you wonder?

 

Probably something you would like…

27 Reasons Why Kids Are Actually The Worst Some of these are so funny that I nearly wet my pants!

I don’t want to live in a world where these Melting Wicked Witch cookies by Jennifer McFadden of Death by Cupcake don’t win a Nobel Prize for Pastry.

Softball-sized eyeball washes up on Florida beach Yup. It’s real.

Oh Lord! I have a mad crush on an astrophysicist.

This is the best thing ever from a really funny blog.

Out of Place: Photos of Accidents Waiting to Happen. Very clever.

Variations on Normal. This charming little book is on my wish list.

10 Words You Literally Didn’t Know You Were Getting Wrong.

Jesus Christ, How Many Famous Actors Have Appeared on Law & Order? A fair few, as it turns out.

From the blog Once Upon a Time in War, as is the following pic.

Despite having his restaurant destroyed by German bombs, a Bristol chef continues on.

What is knocking you out this week?

Yarned by You: Spinning Gallery

Since Susie just shipped the Spring 2012 Spinning Shares, I thought I’d focus this week’s Yarned by You on Spinning! This is literally yarn by you!

When I first touched a Spring (pure Cormo) Spinner’s Share, I understood why spinners spin and I knew that I had to become one. I’ve just started on that path, with help from my fellow Aunties on the JMF Ravelry Group (I don’t know what I would do without these women in my life!). The cormo fiber is so buttery and melt in your hand delicious!

You can see some of the loveliness in this photo by luci99:

As part of the Ravelympics 2010, she spun up this Spring cormo share into this lovely yarn:

Such lovely spindle spinning! I love the cleanness of undyed, farm fresh yarn.

Of course, many people can’t resist having it dyed, or dying it themselves, and when the results are like 60SpriteGal’s Spring 2010 Share (dyed “Kitty Nose Pink by FatCatKnits), you can see why:

The pink and cream swirling together are just so soft and inviting. If there were a baby precious enough (and a mother with enough time to gently handwash!), this would make a perfect little girl’s sweater.

muppetfeet dyed this Cormo Share herself using Wilton’s Cake frosting dyes:

I love the delicate hue. The joy of working with food-grade dyes is that you can use all the materials you have in your home already to do it! No special pots or utensils.

The fall shares are a mohair / cormo blend. I haven’t had a chance to play with the roving, but the mill-spun yarn has a delightful halo and feels very close to the farm. This yarn, spun by wickedphysic in colorway (day lily) is a Fall 2008 share:

As I’m looking out a rain-streaked window, the lovely autumnal tones feel like the perfect thing to knit or crochet while sipping some tea.

woolkitty spun this lovely JMF Cormo / Mohair top that was dyed at the farm in the colorway Through the Looking Glass.

woolkitty Navaho plied it to keep the color changes preserved. Navaho plying is chain plying (much like making a chain in crochet) and then adding twist.

Finally, this is QualityChick’s  handspun. She spun one single of MVFF Cormo/Mohair blend and one single of Mulberry Silk and then plied them together. The silk added gorgeous sheen!

QualityChick turned this yarn into a lovely shawl (198 yards of Heaven):

That wraps up this week’s Yarned by You! If you’re interested in buying a Spinner’s Share, you can do so from the JMF shop here!

This Morning in Pictures

This morning while doing chores I noticed that every time I walked the bale of hay in the back pasture, there was a different configuration of animals around it. The round bale is clearly the farm version of a water cooler.

DUCK MEETING!

Lucy found an egg yesterday (one of the young hens has been laying out) and she has been carrying it around with her ever since, treating it like her baby.

She is the most perplexing, precious dog I’ve ever known.