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Turning 8 pounds of blueberries into jam.

I used Marissa McClennan’s recipe from the Food in Jars cookbook for one batch, adding lime zest and juice instead of lemon for the second, and fresh ginger and honey in the third.   They are all delicious, although I should have cut the sugar back a little on the honey batch.  I’ll remember that next year.

I resisted buying more blueberries at the farmer’s market today, but only because one stand had fantastic looking pickling cucumbers, so I bought 3 pounds of those for pickles tomorrow instead.  I think I am going to try my hand at making half sours and some bread and butter pickles.

Did you know that raindrops on morning glories will take the color right out of them?

I didn’t.  Beautiful, aren’t they?

I woke up early this morning, miraculously before anyone else, giving me that most coveted of things – peace and quiet in my own house.

A-ha!  I thought, finally a few minutes where I can think and put up a blog post.  Of course, gathering all the tidbits took longer than I expected, so I’m left with a scant 15 minutes to write.

I would tell you how busy I’ve been, but I read this article in the New York Times a few weeks ago, and I’ve decided to stop telling people how busy I’ve been unless it’s actually true – and it’s not, in this case.  Lacking the ability to find 20 minutes in a block to write is just not busy – nor is an inability to pull myself away from my crossword puzzle or my Internet refresh loop.

That’s not to say, though, that nothing’s been going on!

There was a week of family vacation, where there was a lot of this and this and that. There was also a lot of spinning, as I re-learned how to use my spindle and a whole lot of jigsaw puzzling – turns out my sister in law loves puzzles even more than I do, so we had one going on the table in our cabin all week long.  It was great, but it really cut into my knitting and spinning and reading time!

Run one of my spindle spinning, which will become a three ply. Unknown fiber. And the puzzle it took us at least four days to finish.

Since we came back, there’s been snippets of knitting time.

That’s my current sock-on-the-go, which is my basic recipe sock; the yarn is Miss Babs’ Windsor yarn in the Cleopatra colorway. And we were stopped waiting for the drawbridge; I’m not enough of a multi-tasker to knit and drive!

There has been a lot of spinning, both more on the spindle and some beautiful fiber that I bought at Squam.

Bought at the Squam Art Fair from my cabin mate Renee**. She had lots of beautiful roving and batts – I picked this one because that blue is Miss H’s favorite color.

And in the few weeks since we got back, the morning glories have started trying to take over the entire planter bed, crowding out our poor marigolds and petunias.  But if we get lovely flowers every morning, I might just not mind.

*I started this Saturday morning.  Then it was time to wake up the family and go out and do stuff all day.  And Sunday, and yesterday.  So finally, on Tuesday, here I am finally posting.  But I’m not busy, right?

** She has an etsy shop right here and maybe you should go check out her delicious stuff.

Another Squam has come and gone, and now, four years in, I believe I can say I have had exactly the Squam experience I was looking for.  My classes were perfect, I had a fantastic mix of old friends and new faces in my cabin, a blend of class and downtime that felt just right.

There was so damn much good this year that I cannot even begin to figure out where to begin telling you about it all.

There was the yarnbombing.

Last year I was “in charge” of the bombing, but we didn’t collect much, and so it was mostly limited to a few little doo-dads at the main lodge.  This year, people sent me lots of stuff, so we had so much more.  My friend Kat made hundreds of pom-poms that we strung from the trees (and railings and eaves and knit i-cord garland), so that everywhere you went, the trees were wearing pompoms.  She and I spent hours in the woods on Wednesday decorating.  We flagged every cabin where there was a class with a bit of yarn-y goodness;  we marked some of the paths through camp to help people find their way through the woods, we decorated the hell out of those woods.  I loved it when people gushed to us about how awesome it was because they knew it was our handiwork, but I loved it even more when I overheard people charmed flat by it when they had no idea who I was.  Best of all was that lots of other people got into it, so even I got to be charmed and surprised when I came upon pieces that we hadn’t put up at all.  Stephanie made owls that she his all over camp for people to find.  Someone else made beautiful paint chip mobiles to float in the breeze.  I didn’t get a picture of my favorite wee tiny bomb, but OldScarf did.

There were my classes.

There were only two classes this year, and I was skeptical of that diminishment going in.  While we may have lacking in quantity, we got back in holy crap my brain just exploded RIGHT out of my head awesomeness.  I took a beginner’s photo class with Thea, who might be the most patient saint walking the earth.  She helped me figure out how to actually USE my wonderful camera that I was ready to throw in a lake because I could NOT get a decent picture out of the thing. (protip: the A on the dial was NOT the automatic mode.  Also, note to self: for god sake’s woman, RTFM.  Seriously.)  I walked out of class floating because I felt so empowered to start learning how to take great pictures now that I understood how to use my tools.

My second class was a design class with Fiona Ellis where we didn’t learn the mechanics of designing a garment but spent 6 hours in an exercise of using the world around us to spark creative ideas and turning those ideas into concepts that could be put into garment design once they had been wrangled into a useable form.  This was a re-inforcement of what I’d already been starting to do on my own, both giving it some guiderails and validating it as not-crazy.  Her discussion of her own process and her technical knowledge made me feel like I was on the right track with my own work.  When she gave us permission to swatch something 20 times before getting something we were happy with, my type-A perfectionist brain was thrilled; having thought that my inability was somehow a reflection of how I wasn’t cut out for this work, it was an immense relief to hear that it’s a completely normal part of the process.

In the Friday morning downtime, I took a yoga class (all yoga classes should be in front of a fire with the lapping of a lake in your ears), knitting for a bit on the four-knitter-at-once community blanket, and wandering in the woods with my camera.  Saturday afternoon was spent mostly on the dock and the porch, enjoying the perfect early summer day.  I almost made it to a nap on Saturday, but the lure of spending time with friends won out.  It was absolutely the right call, no matter how sleepy I was.  The art fair on Saturday night was full of wonderful things, which was not a surprise – it is ALWAYS full of beautiful things.  I left with some beautiful fiber (dyed by my cabinmate Renee, a beautiful seam ripper with a hand-turned wooden handle that fit my hand just so, a Christmas present for someone awesome and inspiration for two more presents for dear wee ones.

There were my cabinmates.

This year, I broke with my group of friends that I had cabined with in previous years.  While I still love them all dearly, I needed to open things up a bit and mingle more.  I ended up in a group that was half old friends and half new faces, and we had a great time together.  I got exactly what I wanted, and it was wonderful.  I sat with a different mix of people at every meal, and there was always room for someone new.

There was an amazing performance by Jonatha Brooke of her new musical play, telling the story of her journey caring for her mother through the late stages of her Alzheimer’s disease.  There was walking through the woods in an unexpected downpour.  There was dipping my feet in the lake and desperately wishing that *this* year I *had* brought my bathing suit.  There was laughter and tears and connection and peace.

Every year, this retreat get better.  It doesn’t seem possible that it could and yet.  And yet.  There is magic there that I lack the words to describe.  Where else might you find a wee knitted owl waiting for you in the wood?

• Leading with the awesome – I won second place in the Juniper Moon Design contest.  Thank you for your votes! The good news about winning:  Yay!  Yarn!  Yay!  Pattern getting published!   The bad news:  They get to decide when the pattern gets released into the wild, not me.  So, if you liked it and wanted a copy, watch this space, because I’ll be yelling from the rooftops when it comes out.
• I have signed up for another test knitting gig.  This will be bad for blog posts, because all my free time will be devoted to knitting like mad until the end of April who knows when, since I don’t have a pattern yet, even.  I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one – it’s a doozy!
• Just before I did that, I sat down at my wheel for the first time in a year and a half and I made some yarn.  That deserves its own post, really.  But I was so happy to get back to it, I need to include it!
• My office has started stocking soda in the fridge again.  This is really testing my no-more-soda resolve.  I gave it up right around the time that they stopped stocking it, it was a lot easier to say no when I had to pay for it in addition to finding the willpower.  It’s been a couple weeks, and so far, so good, but those Dr. Peppers are starting to look awfully good.
• Wednesday is over, we’re more than halfway to the weekend.  It is my anniversary today, and Hannah is in New York, so we are going out to dinner.  And we’re meeting her in New York on Friday (because it’s her birthday!) and doing fun stuff.  All these things are making me happy.
• I am still riding the high of my vacation last week and I bought tickets today to see Bruce Springsteen, which I have wanted to do since I was about Hannah’s age.

Because I am in such a good mood, I want to share some joy, and give someone some lovely luscious yarn.

Spirit Trail Fiberworks, 100% silk, crimson gorgeousness

That yarn, right there.  It is fantastic and wonderful, and I want to share it with one of my (few) blog readers.   Leave me a comment between now and Friday morning at 11 AM, tell me something that is making you happy right now, and it might wing its way to you.

We spent last week at the farm, sleeping in a yurt in the sheep pasture, and it was just about the perfect vacation.

By far, the best moment was watching triplet goat kids being born.  Susie asked Hannah if that was her first time seeing something be born, and sounded surprised that it was, but I realized later that other than Hannah, it was the first time I’d seen something be born – at least in live action.  Growing up in suburbia, dutifully spaying and neutering our animals means there’s not a lot of opportunities to see that happen.  The transformation from dead-looking floppy thing to frolicking bouncy goat was astonishing.

The funniest moment was when I learned just why the phrase “goat rodeo” was coined.  Hannah had to go out to feed the two bottle-baby goats.  I remembered that the three milk goats where shut in the same stall, and I went with her to make sure they didn’t cause her any trouble.  Because, clearly, it was just fine if they caused ME trouble, which they most certainly did.  As soon as we opened the stall door, all three of the big goats rushed the door and escaped into the barn.  I wrestled one back in, got the second one, opened the door to get her in, and the first rushed right back out.  The next ten minutes were like a Keystone Kops movie – one goat in, one goat out, around and around, all with Hannah yelling and jumping around in the background updating me on what the goats I wasn’t wrestling were doing.  For the record, it is remarkably difficult to convince a goat to go where you want her to go, but I finally managed to get ALL the goats back in their box.

The bummer was not having a camera for an entire week – because one of my bags got left behind at the hotel in Harrisburg.  We got it back on the trip home, but there are no pictures from our stay to share.

The farm is another place of profound soul quiet; long stretches of time to do nothing, but with the routine of caring for the animals that drawn you back into the world of the here and now.  Suffice to say, it was a deeply restorative week.

Re-entry has been easier than usual, probably because we came home on Friday night and had two days to get back into the swing of things.  And there are always good things about coming home from vacation – which brings us to this week’s Ten on Tuesday.

Ten Good Things about coming home from vacation

1. Sleeping in your own bed.  Even when the vacation spot has comfortable beds, nothing compares to mine.
2. Seeing your pets again, and laughing at their efforts to express their displeasure at your abandonment.  There’s little funnier than a cat desperate for loving, yet intent on making sure you know you’re a jerk.
3. Cooking for yourself again.  This trip had the benefit of delicious home-cooked meals for most of it, but I love meals I cook myself.
4. Having the proper space to store your stuff – I hate living out of suitcases.
5. Having all my stuff – while I have no problem with traveling light, after a week or so, I get tired of not having all the things I might want close to hand.
6. Not spending 13 hours in the car.
7. Surprises that came in the mail while you were away.
8. (Specific to this trip) Having a bathroom right next door to the bedroom, and not in the house that’s 100 yards away.  In general though, being back in a space where you know exactly where everything is and can navigate it in the dark.
9. Telling everyone about your awesome, wonderful trip, and sharing their stories that your tales bring to their minds.
10. Getting back to the normal routine.  I’m happiest when I know what’s coming and how things are going to happen.  Vacations aren’t conducive to predictability.

This starts with a story about Dave and some delicious yarn.  Dave is one of my co-workers, one of the guys I work most closely with every day.  Last summer, I was knitting a sweater for the JMF trunk show and whenever Dave would come into my office, if my knitting was on my desk, he would pick up the ball of Chadwick and pet it.  He loved it – how soft it was, the gorgeous color, how warm it seemed.  I was charmed, because most of my co-workers seem to regard my knitting as just a weird thing I do (and I don’t even tell them about the spinning!).

Dave really is an all around great guy, and his appreciation for my knitting told me that I had to knit him a hat, out of the Chadwick that he had spent all summer petting and admiring.  Because he was an artist in another life, I knew I wanted it to have some colorwork to make it interesting.  Since he’s a guy (obviously), I didn’t want it to be TOO interesting.  When I went looking for just the right pattern, I couldn’t find it, so I decided to make one up for myself.

Here is what I came up with:

Picket Fence on a Country Road

And he loved it!  He was so excited when I gave it to him, I was really touched – there’s nothing better than having your work really appreciated by the giftee, you know?  He wore it around the office, he told everyone I had made it for him, and the best part was that he was completely surprised.  I loved it.

I decided that I would write the pattern up and it is available from Ravelry as a free download, and I am really happy to be able to share it with everyone.

Fresh on the heels of finishing Dave’s hat, JMF announced that they were doing a design contest.  Folks in the group on Ravelry encouraged me to enter Picket Fence in the contest, but there was a catch – the rules said you could only use two balls of yarn.  Although I hadn’t used more than two balls worth of yarn, since I had three colors, it was out.

I’d had such fun designing Picket Fence, though, I decided I would try another design for the contest.   I just squeaked it in on the deadline and I learned a LOT from the process.

I was really pleased with how it turned out (there’s more pictures on its Ravelry project page:

Geometric Hat, modeled by Miss Hannah

And I’m pleased to say that tonight, when they announced the finalists for the contest, my hat was one of the ones they selected!  There are a lot of amazing, gorgeous patterns in the running, and you should definitely go and vote for your favorites.  Of course, I hope that one of them is my pattern, but I will not feel bad at all if I lose to any of the other patterns up there – they are all that good.  If I win, KFI gets to keep my pattern, and hopefully they will make it available.  If I don’t win, I’ll be publishing it myself and will let you all know when that happens.

It’s no secret that I might be am completely and utterly a fangirl for all things Juniper Moon Farm.  There’s a lot about the farm to be fangirlish about, after all.

The biggest reason, though, is the inspiration I get from Susan and the community that has created itself out of everyone else who has found a connection to the farm.  When Susan started hinting a month ago about big giant news on the horizon, I was  wildly curious, wondering what it could be.

She hared the big news this morning, and I was completely blown out of the water.  She’s launching a magazine!  She announced it this morning on her blog, and I’m going to steal some of her words to describe it:

Juniper Moon Farm is starting a magazine called By Hand. By Hand will be a lifestyle magazine for people who make, with departments for cooking, crafting, DIY, gardening, and do-gooding, with a bit of travel and profiles of makers every month.

The idea is to celebrate creating things with our hands, and to explore the motivation to make things in a world where there are cheaper and immediate alternatives. It will be both practical (patterns, DIY projects, etc) and thoughtful, with a lovely and gentle aesthetic.

I cannot wait to get my hands on this magazine.  .cannot. wait.

But before they can launch it, they need a little help getting it off the ground.  And that’s where you come in.  They’re running a Kickstarter campaign from now until March 23rd to raise the money they need to make sure that this project is as amazing as they want it to be.  They’ve got some fantastic rewards for their backers, so, please, go check it out!  I am thrilled to be able to back the project and be a part of its creation.

Or, as they became known around my house this fall, the baby blankets that would not die.

Twins, it turns out, make a lot more work for everyone, even the knitters in their lives.  This should not have surprised me, that knitting TWO blankets in the time normally allotted to one, would be a whole lot more work, and yet, I remained firmly in denial and happily planned that OF COURSE I would knit blankets for the twins and it was no big deal, really, I could sample knit and test knit at the same time.  NO problem!

Oh, the pride that goeth before a fall and that means the babies get their blankets at 5 months old instead of before they are born.  I do believe, though, that these blankets were totally worth the wait.

When Carrie’s older daughter Katie was born, we didn’t know if she was going to be a girl or a boy, so I knit her a blanket in bright, cheerful gender neutral colors.  It was one those fantastic patterns where the effect far exceeds the effort, and I loved it.  Katie loved it too, and she still uses it for her dolls.

Katie's blanket - it was slightly less eye-poppingly bright than this photo, but only slightly.

When we got the news of twins and then found out that she was cooking a boy and a girl, I had the inspired idea to knit two more of that same blanket, in coordinating colors for the new babies.  What I forgot from the first time around was just how long it took to knit and then sew down the binding on this blanket.  It takes a REALLY LONG TIME, and when you multiple it by two, it starts to feel like it will never, ever end.  The forgetting is why I should be forgiven for thinking that I could commit to sample knitting and test knitting projects in the same time frame as I needed to be blanket knitting, and the ENDLESS is why I should be forgiven for the overdue delivery.

But, finally, last week I finished them and gifted them, and they are as gorgeous.  I used the same green I used for the original blanket and then found two colors schemes I loved for the new ones – pink with a purple-y grey and  blue with a deep chocolate brown.

Ella's blanket on the right, Sam's blanket on the left

And as much work as they were, it was worth every minute to give these two dear babies gorgeous blankets to keep them cozy and warm. Even when I had to knit the border of the blue blanket twice.