I hate to jinx it by even mentioning it here (because every time I plan to start working out again, I get sick) but my sister Carrie and I are starting Prevention Magazine’s Three Week Kettle Bell Challenge on Monday.

Things I like about it:

• 3 weeks isn’t very long, so I can commit to it without worrying about what will come up
  
• Prevention Magazine is so reputable that I believe them when they say that I’ll see results in 3 weeks
• There isn’t a lot of equipment required- just one kettle bell or set of dumb bells
• It only takes 20 minutes a day.

Finally, I need to get on a regular fitness plan (those Michelle Obama arms I want aren’t going to sculpt themselves) and this seems like a very gentle way to start.

Anyone want to join us? I think it would be a lot less dreary more fun to do this as a group! We will have a dedicated thread in our Raverly group here where we encourage each other and share questions. And I will blog here about how it’s going. We can even come up with some yarn and knitting related prizes!

What do you say? Are you in? You can check out the workout here and get your weights over the weekend.

I just realized that I have been away from my flock for more than two weeks. My life had been such a blur of activity– moving from one farm to another, my birthday, driving to Texas, meetings, doctors appointments, pneumonia, more doctors appointments– that I only just now realized how powerfully homesick I am.

I thought that looking at pictures would make me feel better last night, but honestly? It just made me want to jump on the next flight home.

Miss Lyra

Cini

Churchill

Patmore

Roquefort the Pest

Gnocchi

Sam

Hughes

I will be heading back to Virginia in a few weeks, but the whole summer is jam-packed with travel and obligations, so I won’t be there long. I’ve got a photo shoot in Boston in June and then I leave almost immediately for Scotland. Then back to to Texas for more meetings and medical stuff, and then to the Pacific Northwest, where I will be throwing out the first baseball at the Seattle Mariner’s Stitch ‘n Pitch. (I still hope to get some practice, you know, touching a baseball between now and then.)

It is so nice having the opportunity to travel, to meet new people and try new thing. The only thing that’s better is coming home again.

I’m so pleased to bring you this lovely new pattern by Corrina Ferguson designed for Findley Dappled and in colorway #110 Wisteria.

Corrina knits and designs in Florida where there are only about three sweater days per year. But she keeps on knitting anyway and dreams of someday retiring somewhere where it snows. Corrina blogs at http://picnicknits.com/

Corrina designed a number of patterns which are available in our Findley Dappled 2013 booklet which can be purchased at a LYS near you. But the Chapman Shawl is available to you for the low, low price of FREE!

This shawl is knit sideways and is designed to use up a single ball of Findley, which makes this shawl affordable as well as long enough to wrap around yourself in the air-conditioned office or on a cool summer evening.

This shawl matches the Chapman Cardigan pattern, in case you just can’t get enough of this dainty lace motif.

You can download the Chapman Shawl right here, or on the Free Pattern Page for Findley.

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris. You know, the guy who wore the Herriot owl on his head. In addition to his fine taste in head gear, Davis Sedaris is an incredible writer, because he can make you laugh until you cry and then, suddenly actually cry. I think that’s because Sedaris has the ability to see the beauty and honesty in the most absurd situations and in even the most broken people.

My friend and book twin JellenP has apparently been urging me to read Denise Mina for ages but I have no memory of it whatsoever. So I am really happy Anna Quindlen wrote about her a few weeks ago in the New York Times. I have read every single thing Denise Mina has written, save a final book from one of her trilogies that I am nearly through with. Her books are smart, and suspenseful and the characters are so flawed that it’s difficult to love them, although you want desperately to love them. That is writing, my friends. I recommend you start with the Paddy Meehan series, which starts with Field of Blood, followed by The Dead Hour and Slip of the Knife. The Alex Marrow series is really good too. The Garnethill trilogy was Mina’s first and it is somehow more raw and, as a result, terrifying. It’s also super annoying because all Garnethill books but the first are available on Kindle, which is just weird.

Spice: The History of a Temptation is non-fiction but it reads like a novel. As one reviewer said, there was a time someone would have killed you for a handful of peppercorns. In fact, dozens and dozens of explorers risked their own lives and those of their crews to while search for The Spice Islands. Jack Turner tells a spell-binding tale and you’ll find yourself sharing anecdotes from this book with everyone who crosses your path.

What are you reading these days?

We are in high strawberry season here in Texas and, because I hate for any of these delicious gems go to waste, I’ve made it my mission to eat them all. We’ve got a big bowl of them on the kitchen counter but we can’t keep up with the garden. I swear I’m picking two for every one that we eat!

I know what you’re thinking; it’s a great problem to have. And you’re right.

In addition to Strawberry Goat Cheese Muffins, I’ve made a batch of Strawberry Curd. I’ll be making a big batch of Strawberry Balsamic Goat Cheese Ice Cream this weekend, but today’s recipe wins the prize for fancy-fancy.

Strawberry Champagne Gelee.

Gelee is basically a high-brow, homemade version of Jello. It’s dead easy to make, but the results are so impressive!

Ingredients: 

1 pint strawberries, sliced (plus a few more for garnish)

2 envelopes of unflavored gelatin

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 bottle sparkling wine, Processco or Champagne, chilled

Instructions:

Divide the strawberry slices evenly amongst the molds. (You can use almost anything as a mold– egg cups, tea cups, ramekins.) Put the molds in the refrigerator, alongside the sparkling wine. The wow factor of Champagne Gelee comes from capturing the bubbles, and in order to do that, everything needs to be as cold as possible when you assemble it.

Place 1/4 cup of water in a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin on top. This is referred to as “blooming” the gelatin. After five minutes, place the saucepan over low heat and add the sugar, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, and allow the mixture to sit room temperature for two or three minutes.

Working quickly, gently add the cold sparkling wine to the gelatin mixture and pour it over the fruit in the molds. Place the molds in the fridge and chill until completely set– four to six hours.

To un-mold the gelees, place the molds into a bowl of hot water, filled to a half inch below the top of the molds. When the edges are slightly liquidy (it only takes a couple of minutes), place an inverted plate on top of each mold and flip the gelee out on to the plate. Garnish with more berries and serve with the rest of the sparking wine.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Since the sparkling wine in this recipe isn’t heated at all, it retains 100% of it’s alcohol content. Fun, fun, fun for adults; not so much for non-drinkers and/or children. For a non-alcoholic version, substitute the sparkling wine with a 12 ounces bottle of ginger ale. You can also use whatever berries are in season.

*”Come quickly, I am drinking zee stars!” is a quote attributed to the monk Dom Perignon when he discovered champagne.

I am supposed to be making mood boards* for Juniper Moon’s Spring/Summer 2014 collection, but I keep getting distracted by hilarious things that pop up in my google search.

“In 1903 Dr. Julius Neubronner patented a miniature pigeon camera activated by a timing mechanism. The invention brought him international notability after he presented it at international expositions in Dresden, Frankfurt and Paris in 1909–1911. Spectators in Dresden could watch the arrival of the camera-equipped carrier pigeons, and the photos were immediately developed and turned into postcards which could be purchased.”

Delivering a dinosaur to the Boston Museum of Science. 1984

1. This is chubby?!? and 2. This is how you advertise to plus sizes?!?!

I am going to stop right here because I think we all need to take some time to reflect on this.

I’m going to try to get back to work now. It’s not going to be easy…

*This is for you, Nancy P.!

]]> http://www.fiberfarm.com/2013/05/probably-something-you-would-like-118/feed 36 http://www.fiberfarm.com/2013/05/yarned-by-you-david-sedaris-gallery http://www.fiberfarm.com/2013/05/yarned-by-you-david-sedaris-gallery#comments Wed, 15 May 2013 10:00:37 +0000 Lauria http://www.fiberfarm.com/?p=24046

This special edition of Yarned by You is brought to you by the letter O, M, and G. And by an awesome knitter named glasseggshells.

David Sedaris has a Herriot owl!

Okay, so the body was made with a different yarn. And the yellow iris she dyed. But still. It’s a Herriot Owl. And David Sedaris did this:

Click on the pictures to be taken to glasseggshell’s ravelry page where she tells the story. Even better, she has a postcard from him thanking him for the “crocheted[sic] owl.” And he posted a picture of him with it on his Facebook page while telling the tale of a writer on book tour. I’m pretty sure that Susie felt similarly during her trunk show tour. Except that she never took a $10,000 plane ride. Instead she put miles and miles and miles on her Saab. And was probably also “too sore to push an elevator button” more often than not.

And he drew a picture of the owl when he signed glasseggshell’s book:

Have you ever knit or crocheted anything for someone famous?? How did it go over?

In what can only be described as a flagrant act of plagiarism, I am swiping my friend Kris’s regular Tuesday Facebook meme. This will become a regular feature on the JMF blog as soon as I can con Lauria into making a graphic for it. (Hi Lauria!)

So come on, readers! Tell me something good. Have you had any personal triumphs this week? Gotten good news? Heard a heart-warming news story or found $20 in a bird’s nest? Stumbled on the most awesome cat video on you tube or discovered an  incredible etsy artist? Invented a new cocktail or the cure for a rare disease? No piece of good news is too big or too small for Tell Me Something Good Tuesday!

Share your bit of good here so the rest of us can enjoy it.

I had so much fun reading all of your black sheep moments! I laughed so many times I wished I could give you all a poster. But unfortunately there is just one to give away and the winner is:

Congratulations, LaNae! Please email Lauria (Lauria AT fiberfarm DOT com) with your mailing address and Susan Roth from Brainbridge Farm Goods will get it right out to you.

And if you didn’t win a Be the Black Sheep sign, you can find one right here.

It’s been a busy few weeks since I’ve shown off  my Hattie Cowl on blog. And my carpal tunnel has been flaring up. So I haven’t been up to much knitting. But when I was knitting, I was working on my Uma Cardigan that Tabetha Hedrick designed for this spring’s line of Sabine. I’m working it up in 12 Sirius because I thought that it would be great to have a black sweater to be able to throw on top of anything. Want to see it?

There you go! My work here is done. See you in a couple of weeks!

No? That doesn’t satisfy your curiosity. FINE. I’ll take another picture!

So the reason why my sweater was in that shoe box was yarn management. I decided to make this sweater in three separate pieces as written, instead of doing it seamlessly. I know that the designer believes in the structure that seams give a garment and I decided that I would follow that principal. But I sometimes get lazy in counting and what if I made a mistake in the cabling on one row and it was obvious because it was near another cable? I couldn’t live with that! So instead, I worked the sweater as three separate pieces, knit all at the same time!

I started working on this sweater in January or February and put it down for March and April. I only got a few inches done in the last couple of weeks. I don’t think I’m as speedy a knitter as Sarah and her OJAI Hooray sweater!

In order to make SURE I didn’t miss a decrease, I decided to mark each one with a removable stitch marker. It was great because several times I caught myself having finished off a row without making a decrease and the act of placing the marker reminded me. I had twice as many markers, I’d leave them all in until it was time to seam to give me an easy reference to line up the seams.

One last look at the cable! I’m pretty happy with it, despite that bit of pulling in the “><” section. Anyone have any great tips for preventing that?