Student Project - Cynthia

Cynthia is a "repeat offender" at my "Get Stitched on the Farm" classes. She was in the first session last July and couldn't wait to come back this year. Thank you Cynthia for coming back!

Cynthia chose a Trumpet Vine Flower to work off of. Trumpet Vine Flowers are exquisite things. They have a striped interior and light yellow pistils and stamens. They are little works of art in their own.

Cynthia is a knitter and chose to work her flower in the round. She made my "Pacific Socks" last year from Kristin Knits and was able to combine the technique from them with her flower.


(Photo from Kristin Knits by Kevin Kennifick.)

Cynthia chose to knit her flower in the round on double pointed needles. She combined the striping with the increases and ended the flower with some massive increases and a bobbled edge.

Here is the inside of Cynthia's flower.

Here is Cynthia's flower after felting.



Cynthia is going to combine this flower with her other felted flowers she brought and make herself a scarf. Fabulous job Cynthia! I hope you send me a photo of the finished scarf!

There is still one more space available in the October 2/3 Class at the Farm. You can check it out here.

Student Projects - Karin

Karin came from NJ to the "Celebration of Color and Flowers" Class at our farm this past weekend. Karin's Cockscomb Celosia inspired this colorway. You can see the flower she crocheted to the left. Karin is both a knitter and crocheter but she chose to crochet all her flowers. That was a good plan because they go much faster than knitting.

Here's the close-up of her crocheted Cockscomb Celosia. After this photo was taken, she added a stem, glued on a piece of felt and attached a pin. Her plan is to wear it as a brooch next winter. It is possible to knit a flower like this but would be much more time consuming than crochet.
Here is the pillow design she came up with. Her base yarn was Tahki's Donegal Tweed so every flower and the background felt has that nice tweed fleck to it.
Karin's huband came along too and he was driving home. I sent her off with sewing thread and needle and she was going to finish the pillow top on the way home on her 5 hour ride. I hope she finished it!

There is still one more space available in the October 2/3 Class at the Farm. You can check it out here.

Student's Project - Diane

Diane was the most local of students. She has an interesting crafting background and knows how to both knit, crochet, bead, sew and do all kinds of crafts. She too decided to crochet her flowers. Here is her "Moulin Rouge Sunflower" before felting.

Here it is after felting. Front view.....
Back view....
Diane left early and didn't stay for dinner because she wasn't feeling well. We missed her but understood. She didn't sit idle at home though. Look what she brought back - a crocheted coleus leaf.
Diane's pillow design is based with a periwinkle blue wool felt. She will probably add a few more leaves to it.

Diane's skills blew us all away! There is still one more space available in the October 2/3 Class at the Farm. You can check it out here.

Student Projects - Deb

Deb came from Ohio to the "Get Stitched on the Farm Classes." She has a varied crafting background and said she spent many years as a sewer. She told us she has not been knitting for too many years. She brought with her felted strips of handknit garter stitch fabric and a white pillow top. She was able to cut up much of her fabric and sew it quickly into her chosen flowers. She made a beautiful Calla Lily that somehow I didn't get a photo of.

Here's the cosmos she found in the garden with a ruffled edge.


Here's her felted and sewn cosmos. Awesome.


She also made a bunch of knitted petals which we felted and then she sewed into multiple flowers.


Here's the pillow design she roughed out and was going to finish when she got home. How pretty.

What a great job Deb! She had to run off early to get a flight back to Ohio but I'm so glad I got to spend some time with Deb and learn more about her background and how she got involved with yarn and knitting.

There is still one more space available in the October 2/3 Class at the Farm. You can check it out here.

Fall is A-Coming - The Knitting Mags are Arriving!

We interrupt the on-going report from my "Getting Stitched on the Farm Classes" for a little Fall Knitting News. Have you seen the new Fall Vogue Knitting yet? It's packed with some beautifully designed knitting projects in a great range of sizes and styles.


Here's a sweater I did for them for their "Home on the Prairie" story knit in my Julia Yarn, of course (from Nashua Handknits). The shape is an easy-to-wear raglan pullover with a very deep rib at both the sweater and sleeve edge. It is sized in a large range of sizes and the neckline is a very deep turtle which can be folded over or not. This is the kind of sweater I could live in all fall and winter long. Of course I would find it a bit difficult to be wearing a skirt like that working around the farm but I do love the patchwork look of it. That's what is so great about VK - they style their sweaters in an out of the ordinary way - making them "fashion-y" but then when you actually look at them, you can imagine them in your real life. At least that's the way I look at it.

I love the way it turned out, so much that I had trouble sending it off for photography in April. Here's a close-up of the colorwork stitch pattern I used for the central section on the sleeves and body. You can see the little bits of duplicate stitch embroidery and cross-stitch that I added to dress up the colorwork.


Here's a flat view of the sweater before I sent it away. Sometimes it makes it easier to see and imagine on "you" if you have a flat view.


Vogue Knitting has a great preview of their Fall Issue here. You can click on my sweater (towards the bottom of the page) and see some alternate views. I love this Vogue Knitting 360 feature. You can follow VK on Facebook. I do!

Thank you Trisha & CO. for including one of my designs in your very fine magazine. I am honored.

Student Project - Debi

This is the fourth or fifth class Debi has taken from me this year. She is a passionate knitter, very precise and totally in love with her craft. She also has a passion for antiques. Over the past few months I have watched Debi grow in her knitting skills. It has been a pleasure to help her gain more confidence.

Debi arrived with a massive collection of handknit and felted flowers and a henna colored Julia pillow top.


While she was here at the farm I wanted to make sure she also stretched her skills and learned to think on her own. She loves to follow directions but I wanted to see if I could get her to break free of it. She was inspired by a little geranium flower and knit up a single petal which I unfortunately don't have a photo of. She wrote down the directions as she went along and will hopefully finish it up sometime soon.
Debi's goal was to actually finish something and although she didn't finish her pillow top she was way on her way to completion. Here is how we laid out her flowers.

It is going to be a beautiful project to have in her home. Thanks for coming Debi! I'm sure I will see you again.


There is still one more space available in the October 2/3 Class at the Farm. You can check it out here.

Flower Weekend on Our Farm Day Two

I've got so many lovely photos and knit and crochet flowers to share with you. I've decided to split the post up into individual student's work and spread it out over several days. There are just too many incredible photos to blow on one post!

By Day Two, everyone was in sync with my design methods. They were all ready to get going on their work and kept creating flower after flower. I was amazed at the confidence they had developed overnight. It was kind of like they slept on it and understood it all and they just couldn't wait to get going.

Here we all are - happy with our creations and happy creating. From left to right: Debi, me, Karin, Deb, Diane and Cynthia in front.


Diane had left early Saturday evening because she was local and wasn't feeling well. She actually went home and knit and crochet all evening. She blew us away with her crocheted coleus leaf she brought back to us.


I just can't sit around and watch people knit and crochet. I decided to take up my needles and see what I could make. Here is a pile of work from my workspace.

(Thanks Alice for taking many of these photos!)

I stayed up very late on Saturday evening so I could actually become a class participant. Here's the "trumpet vine flower" I knit and then felted.


Over the next few days, you will be treated to all the student's beautiful work they created. I am very happy with how the projects turned out and I will definitely run this class again next year. The farm setting, the flowers in the garden, and the new studio all added to the "creative vibe" we all felt. It would be impossible to run this class in a hotel room and get the same results. At least that is my feeling!

Here's photo of Diane, Cynthia, Karin and Julia just as they were leaving. Oh, I miss you guys! Thanks to everyone for coming to The Farm.

Flower Weekend on Our Farm - Day One

Finally getting to posting about last weekend. I had a wonderful group of guests who were motivated to absorb the farm atmosphere and learn about color. We began the day with a tour of the farm led by The Farmer and then headed on down to the new studio.


The title of the class was "A Celebration of Color and Flowers." It was a new class I had planned and I wasn't sure how it would go. I had a schedule in my mind and goals on what I would teach the students but so much of throwing a class like this depends on the individual students. I was so pleased with how they responded to my ideas.

We began with a color exercise that everyone had lots of fun with. We all plucked flowers from the garden and brought them back inside.

Each student made up several colorways using my stash of Julia Yarn inspired by their flowers. Here's the table in disarray full of beautiful colorways and natural inspiration.


Here are some more of the student colorways. This is an easy exercise to do but also very enlightening and a visual learning experience that everyone understands and learns from.


The rest of the afternoon was spent knitting and crocheting and creating individual flowers inspired by the student's choices from the garden. By the end of the afternoon, everyone had finished their flowers. Here they are all laid out and ready for felting. Some of the flowers were brought from home as "homework." The students were provided with Olympia's Felted Flower Pattern and asked to do as much as they could depending on their schedule and life.


It was finally time to stop work for the evening. The Farmer arrived with the tractor and haywagon and we all climbed aboard. Here's the view from the top of the hill where you can see forever.

We continued on - in the distance you can see Mt. Monadnock.


Then we stopped at the blueberry field to see how the low bush berries grow.

On the way back to the farm, our neighbor Debbie gave us some blueberries for dinner.

We ate a fabulous dinner prepared by my friends Linda and Alice who wowed all of us with meals throughout the weekend. Unfortunately I have no photos of their amazing meals. The dinner was a lovely end to the first day of the weekend. The guests went back to their B&B's and we all collapsed into bed.

Pooped but Pleased

Hope to be popping back in soon with photos from the fabulous weekend with my class at the farm. For today, enjoy a photo of Annika Sue dosing on the porch in the morning sun.

Beautiful Flowers on Fabric, on a Dog, on a Gift, and for the Weekend

There are only two weeks left in this Summer of 2010. I can't believe where the time has gone. It's always like this. Where have those lazy days of summer gone when I was a kid and summer seemed to last forever?

I thought I would share some of my felted flowers with you today as modeled by my sister Jenn's English Bulldog Oscar. Oscar is 8 years old and has turned into the loveliest dog. He is a real lovable guy. When I was working on my Felted Flowers Pattern, I thought it would be fun to show the lei on some other creatures besides Olympia. Oscar is a great model and sits well for the camera!


Looking over the shoulder....

Hoping the heat will cool off...


Waiting for his moment in the spotlight to end....


If you are looking for an "end of the summer" knitting project, check out Olympia's Felted Flowers Pattern on my webpage here. There are all kinds of fun uses for them including decorating gifts. Don't you love the background fabric I found for this photo? It is actually a "bedspread" from Urban Outfitters. Great flowers and motifs and makes a fabulous tablecloth.


This weekend we'll be sharing our farm with the guests at my second "Getting Stitched on the Farm" class in 2010. It is a floral themed venue which will be full of colorful inspiration, beautiful flower inspired ideas, and knitting and crochet. I can't wait to meet all the guests.

Our Daily Bread Turns TEN - 7 South Bakery in Bernardston

We moved to our farmhouse eleven years ago. Julia was ten months old and although I had spent days and weeks in this area, actually living in the Pioneer Valley was brand-new to me. I look back on that time now, with an infant exploring a new area to live in as a rather exciting time in my life. I had to find a grocery store, a new pediatrician and generally figure out the rhythms of daily life. You know how it goes... finding a favorite post office, choosing a bank, deciding which grocery store will be yours. All the things that make life real and give it a routine.

Finding a grocery store was easy. My choice was Foster's Market in Greenfield - only 6 miles down the hill from our farm and packed with lots of beautiful veggies, fruits, and local products. I love Foster's so much because it is small and easy to find things. The prices are excellent and there aren't any wacky temptations for small children (i.e. stuff they beg you for that they don't need).

A few months into our life here, my sister-in-law told me about a new bakery that was opening in Bernardston, the town next to ours and our go-to spot for the post office and library. I was really thrilled that the old real estate office my mother-in-law had worked in was being turned into a bakery. And so it was early on that I started visiting 7 South for bread, coffee. and other sweet things.


It turned out that the owners, Kay and Mike Dougherty, were new to the area too. The Farmer and I struck up a conversation and after many visits, we discovered we only lived 1/2 mile from each other. Kay and Mike are veterans of the food and restaurant industry and have really great insight into how it all ticks. I am forever learning things from them about food, baking, and an industry that I have always been an on-looker. We have shared many a good meal and even raised several pigs together over the years. I have given up on the pigs but they continue to raise them at their place and use their home-grown meat in many of the Bakery's products including country pate, tortieres, and ham and cheese croissants. Theirs is a friendship I really value.


And so today, I'm taking this spot to wish Kay and Mike and their 7 South Bakery a Happy 10th Birthday. It's such a special place - a jewel in the hills of the Pioneer Valley which is still undiscovered by many.


Kay and Mike work so hard baking bread and all kinds of cookies, cakes, and more that is of the highest quality. Mike's passion is the bread and it really shows. He bakes a fabulous "dutch crust sourdough" which is our family's favorite. It is a true sourdough with a crunchy rice based coating that gives the bread a lovely texture. We like it especially for toast and paninis. There is always a rotating selection of other breads too including an awesome "cider bread" full of dried fruits and nuts.

Around any holiday, Kay and Mike always pull out the stops and do something special. Kay makes an incredible selection of cookies including these little molasses gingerbread people. I love to watch her decorate. Her speed and skills have been honed over several decades. She is fast and precise and creative.

Last winter, they were making "bread cornucopias" for special display at a new local farmstand. Bread as art.


Here's the mold Mike built to bake the cornucopia on. Chicken wire and tin foil - how clever.


It's not every town that is lucky to have such a special bakery as 7 South. Thank you Kay and Mike for making our lives fuller in both food, spirit and friendship. If you are local, take a drive to 7 South. You'll also find their bread on the menu at The Rendezvous and the new Holy Smokes Barbeque in Turners Falls.

Happy Birthday 7 South Bakery Cafe!