Merry Christmas 2009

May your holiday be filled with sugar and spice and everything nice. My family and I wish you the happiest of Christmases.

Red and Green - Colors of the Season

For years, I always connected the color combination of red and green only with Christmas. As little children in our society, red and green is everywhere. It's hard not to think that the only way to use red and green together is in a Christmas related theme.

As my experiences with color developed and I learned more about it, I realized that red and green were complementary colors found opposite each other on the color wheel. I have always been drawn to complementary colors - they make me happy and smile. But for years, I avoided combining red and green in my work, thinking that there would be a Christmas connection.

Nature on the other hand combines red and green many different places and it is beautiful. In this dahlia from my garden on a chartreuse background.....


On this leaf I found on the road......


In the leaves that we eat from the swisschard "bright lights" plant we grow in our garden.


And then one day, I threw my red and green inhibitions idea out the window. I began working with red and green and making a success of the combination without it screaming Christmas. Most of the time, I tweak the green so that it isn't the bright kelly green associated with Christmas. I use a blue green, a chartreuse or an olive. The red I use is also not bright screaming Christmas red - it is a softer, more faded looking red.



On the walls of our study/t.v. room, I painted a red and green mosaic pattern.


In this room I have lots of objects with red and green on them. Most of them have other colors combined with the red and green.


These mittens I designed for Vogue Knitting also used a red and green theme.


I think that red and green makes people feel happy and cozy and warm, don't you?


May you and yours enjoy all the festive red and green this holiday season! Our best from our farmhouse to yours!

Take a Lesson

Take a lesson from our cat Annika Sue..... It will all be over soon.



Then we can all take a nap.

Julia's Finger-Knitted Bookmarks

Every night for the past few evenings, while I knit, Julia sits next to me finger-knitting. I’m not exactly sure how she is starting the knitting because she is no longer asking me for slip-knots. Somehow, she wraps the yarn around her finger and begins. It doesn’t un-chain itself. This project has turned into such a success. I can't tell you all how proud I am of her. Last night she made a chain at least 36 inches long! Wow.

With all these pieces of chained wool around the house, we decided to make them into bookmarks for Christmas gifts for all Julia’s teachers. I made the pom poms (she could have done them because she knows how to wrap yarn around the pom pom maker) but we were running out of time. I am such a last minute person and I'm afraid I am passing on my habits to my daughter.

She stayed up late, finger-knitting away until she had eight longish chains. (Julia has a lot of teachers who work with her!) I kept wrapping the pom poms and attaching them to the chains.

I won't tell you what time she went to bed but suffice it to say, it was late. I wanted to share the bookmarks with all of you before they were sent on to new homes. I set them up and tried the flash on the camera. Horrible, horrible, horrible - I must say. Then I decided to see what would happen with only light from across the room, no tripod and a bunch of shaking.


Wow, those bookmarks look otherworldly, don't they?


In the morning i snapped a few photos in daylight.

Then I ran a filter on one of them and here's what I got.


They are rather festive looking, aren't they?

Julia's bookmarks are off to their new homes. I hope the teachers like them. They all have been so wonderful to Julia and I can't thank them enough. All you teachers out there, and I'm sure there are some, know that you are so appreciated for what you do!

Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice - the shortest day of the year. It is also the day my Dad died five years ago. I can’t believe it is five years without him in my life. Although he is always with me and my sisters and my mom everyday. That is how it is with Dads.

My wise friend Diane sent me this poem by Robert Frost which I am now sending along to all of you. Enjoy.......

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING
By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Julia and Her Cozy Cap and Pullover

Thank you all for the lovely comments and support the other day. The concert went well and Julia didn't need any help getting up the stairs. There were a lot of tears before the concert and I think she was more anxious than I had ever dreamed possible. As Julia's aide Jackie said to me the other day, "It's hard to know what is swirling around in her mind." So now on to easier things ---- knitting!

Sometimes I just like to knit simple. I'm sure you all feel that need - maybe even more than I do. Although I am known as a designer who creates colorful and sometimes intricate patterns for magazines and books, there are days when all I want to knit is garter stitch! There are many times when life is so complicated that picking up a piece of complex knitting is the last thing I want to do. Thank goodness, I always have a few projects going myself, something difficult and usually something unbelievably easy that I can knit in the dark in the movie theatre. (Do you knit in the movie theatre? Much to the chagrin of my family, I do. I'm forever fumbling in the dark looking for the ball of yarn that starts rolling down the slope under other's seats! Ugh!)

Even if a sweater is basically simple to make, there is no reason that it can't have a little style to it, some frivolity that makes it fun to make. If I'm going to spend hours and hours on a project, I want it to be a project that stops traffic. I want it to look handmade and sophisticated, all in one fell swoop.


Last year, I started this pullover for Julia. She's been growing so fast that none of her handknit sweaters fit her. I knew I needed to make something loose and cosy and pink for her. With kids of her age (11), you really don't know what size they will be the following year, do you? Julia is still prone to really liking her handknits that her mom and our friend Cathy make her, thank goodness. What will I do when that stops? Oh, I guess I will adapt and knit for someone else!

So here you go - Julia's favorite sweater and matching cap of the winter and the only handknit that fits her at the moment! (She has sadly outgrown the beautiful "Best Friends Pullover" that she wore in my new book Color by Kristin). She has named it her Cozy Pullover and I agree. Looking at her dressed in the simple garter stitch in a lovely combination of Blue Thyme, Magenta, and Espresso Julia Yarn really makes me feel cozy too.


This is a project that a beginner can make. Both the cozy cap and pullover is knit entirely in garter stitch. If you like the projects you see on my blog and in my books but just aren't ready for Fair Isle Knitting, this sweater may be the project for you. For fun, I added some crocheted and embroidered flowers to the pullover yoke to make the design girly. It could just as easily be knit for a boy, just leave off the flowers. The cozy cap has a fun pom pom topping it off.

I've sized this design for toddlers to pre-teens. There are many variations I can imagine you could make to it:
•knit it in one color
•knit it totally in a two color garter stripe
•knit it in a mish mash of different colored stripes - sort of like a scrap afghan.
The basic premise is an easy to knit, easy to wear sweater made in comfy, warm wooly worsted weight yarn. You can find the pattern as a PDF download on my shop page. To learn more about the pattern, see my Julia Yarn page.

I know this isn't the most opportune time of year to be introducing a new pattern but it was finished! It is hard to hold back my excitement when a pattern is finally photographed, put into Illustrator, Indesign and tech-edited and up-loaded to my website. But then I also know that everyone is probably done (or almost done) with their gift knitting and you all are looking for a new project to knit at the new year! Or you could make the cozy cap over the weekend and give an IOU on the sweater!

Enjoy!

Julia is for sure!

Waiting To Work

Nessie on Sunday, waiting to work, at the breakfast table at The Farmer's feet.


Border Collies need work, every day, no matter what kind of work it is. The sheep are almost ready to move into their barn in Bernardston where the lambs will be born. They will stay there until about April or May when the grass begins to grow.

At this time of year, the dogs don't get much sheep time because there really is no fence moving to do. The ground is almost frozen and the grass is covered with snow. The Farmer is feeding the hay he harvested all summer. It will be the sheep's diet until the grass is long enough to graze next spring. Nessie and Phoebe will have to dream about the sheep and find entertainment in the daily chicken round up and the walks up the hill.

Julia's Chain

Yesterday I wasn’t having the best day. Not that many things were really wrong…. It’s just that sometimes you can’t be happy and chipper and upbeat. I don’t have many days like this and for that I am very grateful. The day started off by getting Julia to school late – unexpectedly, her insulin pump was low and she wouldn’t have enough to get her through the day. (We’re still working on predicting that one.) Since we were late and Sara, Julia’s Occupational Therapist, was going to be working with her, I thought I would sit in on the session and see what they were working on. Sarah was asking Julia to draw a series of straight and diagonal lines to connect dots and make a mirror image of an already drawn sample. I knew they had been working on this for a while. As I stood there watching Julia and seeing how patient Sarah was with her, my heart was breaking. Julia has a lot of trouble with anything spatially related due to her hydrocephalus. It took her a good ten minutes to do this one little drawing and lots and lots of patient coaching. It was good for me to see but that was the reason my whole day was thrown off.

Last spring, just before Julia turned 11, she finally learned to tie her shoes. It was a huge milestone for her. Something that you and I take so much for granted – passing a string under another string, making a loop with one of the strings, wrapping a string around the loop, and then pulling another loop through. It is automatic for me and maybe for you too. But learning this proved to be really, really difficult task for Julia. We were so happy when she could tie her shoes but let’s just say, it still isn’t easy. She wears slip-on shoes every day otherwise we would never get out of the house.

This past summer Julia told me she wanted to learn to knit. For a couple months, she had been wrapping yarn around two needles and imitating my arms and hands moving. I knew this would be really hard for her and I have never pushed her. I don’t want her to feel that just because I knit, she needs to. I want her to find something she likes and then tries to get good at and enjoy. I want her to find her own passion and successes, not Mommy induced torture.

So I tried to teach her to knit but it just didn’t work. I wasn’t surprised but if she wanted to give it a go, I was game. Then I tried a Knitting Nancy doll which I had bought when she was an infant, just hoping that one day she might want to learn to knit. We tried but holding the yarn with one hand tight against the upright pegs and trying to pull the loop over the yarn that was on the peg wasn’t possible for Julia.

I decided to try to teach her to finger knit. I didn’t hold out much hope for it either. We sat there on the couch, me slipping the slip knot on her finger and pulling the yarn over it, she watching. She said to me, “Mommy, let me try it.” “Okay, Julia, you go ahead,” I said. I held my breath and she struggled to pull the loop over the yarn on her finger. She did it. Then she did it again. We both were so happy. She kept practicing and finally she was able to finger knit on her own without any of my help. On our car trip to Maine this summer, she kept asking me to start her finger knitting. She still can’t figure out how to make a slip knot. I kept making slip knots on the pink Julia Yarn we had brought with us and passing them to the back seat. She kept making little chains, about 10 loops long and then stopping. But she was doing it. Inside my Mommy brain I was screaming and jumping with joy.

Julia is really proud of being able to finger knit. When we go to a knitting event, and we go to a bunch of them, people are always asking her if she can knit. I guess they figure if I knit as much as I do, then my daughter would be knitting too. I always respond to them, “No, not yet.” I know most people we meet don’t know that Julia has hydrocephalus and some pretty major learning disabilities. She looks like a regular kid. She is extremely verbal, a really good reader, cute as a button, kind and sweet. Now, Julia has a new response that makes her (and me) really proud, “No, I don’t knit but I finger knit.”


The other day Julia was sitting on the couch finger knitting away. I was engrossed in my own color work chart but I was paying just a wee bit of attention to her out of the corner of my eye. She kept sitting there, working with the yarn. By the end of the night, there was a jumbled up chain of gold (not pink, mind you) finger knitting starts and stops on the couch. I think most people would have looked at that mess and probably tossed it in the trash. But me, I looked at that knotted up, looped, jumbled bit of gold Julia yarn and thought about all that we have been through as a family to get her where she is now. It was a beautiful little pile of loops and yarn.

Yarn, knitting and stitching as a metaphor is nothing new. There have been essays written ad nauseam about how knitting got someone through rough parts in their lives. I think about this often, thinking I too should write an essay. But then I go off and knit a swatch or wash some dishes and the thoughts escape my head. I know knitting has gotten me through some really unpleasant periods of my life – through many hours sitting in a waiting room while my daughter was having surgery, through the days in recovery, through the hours and hours of watching my child sleep with bandages on her head, hoping that she would be okay, through the hours of physical therapy before she went to school. The list goes on and on. I’m happy I have knitting and stitching in my life to get me through all the twists and turns.



This little chain, as sappy as it is, seems to symbolize something about my life and every other knitter’s and stitcher’s life out there. The stops and starts to get somewhere, the nice even paths and the looped up jumbles of life. It makes me happy to look at it. My uber life-smart Farmer said to me yesterday when I was down, “Julia has come so far and is doing so good.” He’s right and for that I am eternally grateful.


Tonight we will go to the little holiday concert at the little Town Hall and Julia will climb up the three stairs to get on the stage. Jackie, her aid will be by her side, just in case she falls. I will be holding my breath the whole time, hoping she doesn’t trip. There will be many people in the audience who are new to the school, with young children just starting out in pre-school and kindergarten. They will look all look at her and wonder why there is an adult standing close to her. And The Farmer and I will be sitting there proud as punch because she climbed those stairs herself and she is singing her little heart out.

All about Pink Today

The other day I wrote about Julia's pink obsession. It was so much fun to hear about all the other girls and women out there who love or hate pink. It seems that every time I write a post about color, I get some really great comments. Color is such an important part of my life and so many other knitters, stitchers, quilters, and artists. It is great to be passionate about color because it just makes life so much more fun!

The other day, a couple of my good friends came over for our annual "build little birch houses" party. Let's just say it is now an annual event. Last year, on the day we were having our first "birch house holiday party" we had a massive snowstorm. After digging Clara's car out of the snowbank and having our neighbor Jason tow her up the hill, Kay decided to go home. Our first party was an event in its own. This year, the snow stayed away and we spent the afternoon covering little boxes with natural stuff. It was a great way to kick off the holiday season.


Julia wanted her house to be pink! What a surprise. Here's the house I made her which she glittered away in pink, pink, and more pink. (This isn't the easiest project for little kids - all the cutting and fitting of the birch bark is quite tedious.) I think the pink is beginning to grow on me!


And so to continue the Pink Talk, here's a project I've been knitting for Julia as a Christmas gift. The pattern is The Family of Slipper Socks from my new book Color by Kristin. Julia has been hinting that she'd like a pair. I knew they had to be pink or pink themed. I dug through my knitting bag and pulled out a bunch of pinkish Julia Yarn. Then I combined it with pink and magenta's complement (on the color wheel) green.


I just love complementary color combinations. I use them all the time in my work. Although many people find them garish, I think they are just so much fun! Think pink zinnias against their green leaves or magenta cosmos - just beautiful and so cheerful. Just what I want to knit on a snowy day in the midst of winter.

So here they are. I used lots of colors for the garter section. I kept mixing pink and green shades into the garter stitch. To avoid having all the ends on one side of the slipper, I used circular needles and kept slipping the work back in forth. Sometimes the garter stitch was regular Knit 2 rows. And sometimes it was Purl 2 rows. Get it?


Oh, wow, and all those ends to weave in, you say? I don't mind at all. I keep them by the telephone with a tapestry needle and weave in while I talk. It goes fast and the result is so pretty.


Here's the inside of the work.


And here is the outer side of the work.


I'll finish them up and post another photo next week once I get the edging on them.

There's still time to ship books before Christmas! Once again, I'll gladly sign them to you or a loved one. Hop on over to the shop, if you are interested.

Happy Weekend Everyone.

Caps, Caps, Caps for Sale - A Children's Story

The other day before the big snowstorm Julia's friends Bridget and Matthew came over for the afternoon. It gets so dark early (only a few more days until we go the other way, thank goodness!). I asked the kids if they would bring the Quarters Caps I made them last year so I could take some photos.

The kids asked me what I was going to do with the photos. I explained that I would be putting them on my blog as a sales tool for selling my Quarters Cap Pattern (the pattern is available here). They got it because their Dad Stuart is a musician and he is constantly trying to sell his own CD's and schedule gigs. I think my explanation made it all the more fun for them. (Julia knows about where her photos end up and I think deep down, she is pretty proud that she can be helping me out with the family business.)


Here they are dipping their heads so you all can see the swirly top of the Quarters Cap. (Their idea!)


Here's my favorite though. Matt's idea, I think although the ideas were spouting out of their 3 mouths at rapid speed so it's hard to remember......

Do you remember the book Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina? This was one of Julia's favorites picture books when she was little. Our friend Cathy gave her a tape of the story and she would listen to it over and over and over again in the car. I can still hear her little voice chiming up from the backseat "Again, Mommy, again!" When Julia was in First Grade, the kids did a play of this folk tale. It was priceless.


The cute thing the other day was that all three of these kids started reciting the lines from the book after I told them about my website sales of the pattern. It made me think about how important children's literature is to a child's development and what an impact it can have on them for the rest of their lives. But I guess you all know that....

Just when you think kids aren't paying attention, they astound you, don't they? Here's a really interesting "autobiography" of Esphyr Slobodkina that you might want to check out. Fascinating woman, talented artist. WOW!

The Odyssey and Jane

I'll be over down at The Odyssey Bookshop in So. Hadley tomorrow from 2 to 3:30 for any local knitters who would like a signed copy of any of my books. I'll be bringing some projects for touching and feeling. There will be other authors there and sounds like a festive event. Please come and say hi if you can! (Oh, my, I just found out who else is going to be signing - I'm soooo excited to meet some of these people I have heard about and read for years.)

I'm sure you all know and love Jane Brocket's blog Yarnstorm. It is one of my favorite reads. Jane is such a great photographer and writer. I admire all she manages to fit into her on-line presence considering she is also a mom to three, a wife and a writer of many books. Check out her blog if you don't know it. And her book The Gentle Art of Domesticity which was published here in the US by STC.

The other day Jane included my new book Color by Kristin on her Wednesday post. Thank you Jane! I love how she mixes in all kinds of things to her blog. I think that's what makes it so appealing to me. There is crafting, baking, and all that kind of thing and then she adds film, writing, poetry, and all kinds of other bits and bobs. Jane has a new quilting book coming out in January. Let's hope someone brings it into the States!

Introducing Kristin's Felted Farmer's Market Bag

I've been a busy little bee here at the farmhouse. Besides all the pre-Christmas brouhaha, I've been busy working on lots and lots of new patterns which will be available on my website in the upcoming months.

Today, I'm so excited to introduce to you all my newest downloadable knitting pattern! Here is my....

Felted Farmer's Market Bag!

Just in time for gift knitting, you'll find the pattern available on my Shop Page for instant download. It is knit, of course, in my Julia Wool/Mohair/Alpaca in 10 colors. For all you Julia devotees, this is a great stash buster. Find out more about the specifics on my Julia Yarn Page here.

This is one easy project - great to take along to meetings or when you just feel you have no concentration left for intricate colorwork and cabling. The bag is oddly constructed and magically becomes a great bag. Knit entirely of garter stitch and short rows, this project is easy enough for an advanced beginner. Instructions are given for machine felting.


If you are having fun knitting my Quarters Caps, you'll like working this project just as much!


Thanks to all of you who have been supporting my on-line shop by purchasing patterns and my signed copies of my books. You can't imagine how much it means to all of us here at this little farmhouse. Every sale counts and helps us keep our little place a-humming.

Farm Girls

When I was a little girl, I desperately wanted to live on a farm. I grew up in northern New Jersey in one of the towns along the Rockaway River. It was the big town for the local area - one where immigrants migrated to because there were good jobs in the form of factories making all kinds of things. The town was and is still dotted with brick factory buildings although sadly most of the manufacturing moved to the South in the 1960's, when I was a child.

A farm wasn't in the cards for my sisters and I and our dreams of having a pony in the back yard to ride quickly evaporated when The Mayor put the kabash on a letter my sister Lynn and I wrote to him. I still remember the headline that was in the local paper close to Christmas in 1970 - "Mayor Hedden Plays Scrooge." My sister Lynn and I were on the front page of the paper with our letter to The Mayor and the story told how Mayor Hedden had told us that even though we had a big enough yard for a pony, no livestock was allowed in Dover.

My pony dreams were demolished but one thing I did learn is that writing letters to important people sometimes....
A. Gets attention and an answer.
B. Can get you on the front page of the local paper.
C. Press releases still work.

I am still writing letters and I am constantly astounded when I do receive an answer from someone, especially in this age of instant communication that disappears into the ether. I am trying to teach Julia to speak her mind with the written word. By the number of fan letters she has written to Miley Cyrus, I think I am getting through.

I have once again digressed. So sorry. You are in for a treat today. On Sunday, my family and I went for a walk up the road. I had an ulterior motive - I needed a decent photo of an upcoming downloadable knitting pattern. I dressed Julia in her pretty pink coat, plopped the hat on her and off we all went. It was a slow walk because Mr. Hannah The Cat came along and as things go, there was a lot of chasing after him so that he would "continue the journey." The photos turned out great (thank you Julia) and I can't wait to share them with all of you whenever the pattern gets done. Don't hold your breath though.

We got about a quarter mile up the road..... and got way laid at our neighbors who were out in the yard doing chores and enjoying the sunny day and fresh fallen snow. Kayla is the daughter of our neighbors and she and her partner Tom are developing quite a nice herd of cows, both beef and dairy. I love to visit the cows - they are such large lumbering creatures - slow and steady and very photogenic.

I started messing with my camera and looked over at the cows. There was Julia and Kayla standing and staring at the cows, deep in conversation.

I was in hysterics (silent ones, albeit) because I thought they looked like a couple of old farmers talking about their livestock. Wouldn't you agree? The girls turned towards me laughing.

Kayla is 21 years old and one of the nicest people I know. She loves her cows and takes the best care of them. I asked her if she might like to be in a photo with "the stocking hat" which was the project of the day. "Oh, sure" she said, and on went the hat. Then she climbed under the fence and started conversing with her boy Ferdinand, who isn't a bull anymore.

Ferdinand was de-horned when he was younger so he wouldn't be too much trouble to be around. His horns grew back but only one has that classic curved shape to it. The other is a little stub.

Kayla asked me if I might want to have a photo of her riding Ferdinand. "Oh sure, that would be great." She climbed on up onto him via the bale of hay he was eating.

And then a sweet little lovefest ocurred - Kayla hugging and scratching Ferdinand. It was priceless and Ferdinand was in ecstacy.

Then Kayla asked me if I wanted a photo of her standing on Ferdinand. She said she had only tried it a couple times but she would be happy to try it again. "Oh sure, sounds like fun," said the girl from New Jersey. And on up she went. Isn't that just too much? How fun. Ferdinand just stood there, quiet and calm and barely moving as Kayla performed her trick of the afternoon, smiling the biggest smile she could.

We had a good little talk about what a great steer Ferdinand is. Not to be outshown, over came "Mama," Kayla's milk cow. By then Julia had climbed under the electric wire and was communing with the cows.

I was smiling the rest of the afternoon. It made me so happy that The Farmer and I are living where we are, giving this great farm and animal experience to Julia. I'm pretty sure she won't be living on a farm when she grows up but at least she will have these memories all her life.

When I was sorting through some folders on my computer the other day I found some photos of Julia with our first pigs back in 2003. I just love these.


They show Julia's joie de vivre and love of animals and her natural ability to be around them without the animals running off and being skittish.

Julia was five years old then and constantly covered with mud. Oh, how I would have loved to have a childhood full of farm animals living in my backyard. But now I seem to be living that dream through my daughter and sharing it here with all of you. We do not aim for perfection, we make it up as we go.

I feel so fortunate. Thank you Julia and thank you to My Farmer for bringing me here to this place on the planet and in my life.