After The New Year and Lambing At Full Speed

I’m really enjoying this after New Year time of the year. Julia is back at school, lambs are being born, and The Farmer and I are working on lots of plans for our farm, the farm classes and my design business, both jointly and separately. It is exciting to dream up ideas and hopefully we can put some of them into work. There are always way more ideas than I can ever carry out and afford to do.

My friend Lori and I were talking the other day and I was telling her how I was enjoying producing the downloadable patterns for sale on my blog. She does all my tech editing and is a real pro, besides being one of the most amazing lace knitters I know. We worked together at CEY for a few years and she knows me really well. She was reminding me of my working style. Procrastinate to the max until just before the deadline and then churn out a bunch of work. Her term was “erupting like Vesuvius.” I know she is right…… From now on in, I am going to put that image in my mind as I create. It’s a good one I think.

When you work at any way in the creative arts, project concepts build upon each other. Ideas simmer in the back of my mind constantly. Sometimes I act upon them and sometimes they sit there dormant until the perfect project comes along. I’m pretty sure most artists work this way. It is part of the creative process. Artists always have way more ideas than time and money, wouldn’t you agree? But it is that way with everyone, not only artists.

After the first five lambs were born just before New Year’s, there was a lull in the barn. That happens every year and we expect it. Usually about a week later, the ewes start lambing at record speed. It’s happening now…. As we speak.

Which leads me to these photos of a lamb being born yesterday afternoon. I was at the barn early in the afternoon and this lamb was in labor. I had to run to the school to pick Julia up. When we arrived back at the barn, the ewe had delivered a nice healthy lamb. She was still acting a bit distracted, pawing at the ground, indicating that there might be a second lamb. Julia and I decided to wait. We waited and waited and waited some more. Julia was really fascinated with all the stuff that was coming out of her backside. This is the first time she has asked a lot of questions about birth. Other times she has just watched and not known really what kinds of questions to ask.


All of a sudden the ewe started straining and a foot appeared. Then it was sucked back into her body. A minute later it appeared along with the nose....


You can see the first lamb at the left, a bit covered with dirt from the barn floor. Then the head....


the neck.....



and whoooooosh.....



out popped the lamb onto the dirt and hay covered barn floor.


In an instant, Mama started cleaning.....


and licking all the wet fluids off the lamb, no help necessary from us.....

A picture perfect birth.


The twins are doing fine today. It promises to be a very busy weekend in the barn and the temperatures are not very favorable to lambing. But that is life and nature and we will cope as we always do.

Home Dec Color by Kristin Preview

I've always had a serious love affair with ethnic textiles since I was young. I love their colors, their warmth, their crazy patterning, and the atmosphere they add to any situation you put them in. I've been collecting ethnic textiles since my college days. I'm always on the look-out for any odd piece of embroidery, weaving, or knitting. They don't have to be perfect and I even buy pieces. My budget isn't ever very large and I've passed up a lot because they were out of my price range. Suffice it to say, I've got a closet full of saris, Eastern European embroideries, Indian block prints, Andean weavings, Indonesian ikats, San Blas molas.... the list goes on and on. Whenever the seasons change - or I am throwing a party - I dig into my closet and bring out some different pieces and swap everything around. It's amazing how warm and cosy a house looks when you fill it with handmade textiles from around the globe.

The photo below is our dining room. On the table is a sari from India and layered over it is a runner from Uzbekistan (I think). The chair seats are covered with a sari woven with metallic thread. If you visited my house right now though it doesn't look anything like this - it is covered with books, packing supplies, address labels. You see, the dining room doubles as a shipping room for my retail book and postcard sales!


My ethnic fabric collection has been inspiring my color sense for years. About fifteen or more years ago, I started knitting pillows in the Fair Isle technique for my house. They were easy to carry around and work on and didn't take long to finish. I only knit the front side of the pillow and I used fabric to cover the back side. Here are a couple designs that I made many years ago - you can find the patterns for sale on my website here.

This design is called Turkish Motifs Pillow:


And this design is called Field of Diamonds Pillow:


Many years ago, they were both featured in House and Garden Magazine (January 2003). You can buy the patterns on my website. Sadly you can't buy House and Garden anymore. Boy, I miss that magazine coming in my mailbox.

And so now, onto the next preview from Color by Kristin. I'd like to introduce you to my newest collection of pillows - The Marrakesh Market Pillows.


These FOUR pillow designs are featured in my new book Color By Kristin. They are all worked in Fair Isle technique in the round with a steek and knit in my Julia Yarn. After cutting the steek, I pick up around all four sides and work a small border. Most of the pillows have embroidery added on top of the knitting - although not too much. There are four different sizes so you can choose how much knitting you want to do.

I love this photo. It was taken in our library where we spend most of our winter evenings. That's The Farmer's Chair he sits in and reads at night. You can see our stacks of magazines on the side of the chair. Julia added the deck of cards to the photograph. I think the cards and their colors added a great touch to the photo.

You can buy signed copies of my book on my website here or at your local book or yarnstore. I've got plenty in stock if you want to give them to a knitting friend for a holiday gift. And I'll be happy to sign it to them or not.

Kristin's Peruvian Ch'ulla Julia Yarn Hat in Fall 2009 Vogue Knitting

The new Fall 2009 Vogue Knitting is out. There is a whole section on hats which I contributed a project to. It's a Peruvian Ch'ulla style hat with pointy earflaps and multi-colored pompoms. Here's the photo they took on the pretty model.


Here's the photo I took on the sidewalk at the Fedex office before the hat raced off to their NYC offices. I think the flat view gives you more to knit from. Feel free to print this photo out as your knitting guide if you decide to make this project. It is, of course, knit with Julia Wool/Mohair/Alpaca.


This is a relatively easy hat to knit (I made it in less than a day). The flaps are made by decreasing at the center of the cast-on stitches to form a V-shaped earflap. The Fair Isle Patterning is knit in the round and the shaping is made at the garter stitch pattern dividing rounds. There is minimal embroidery on the hat. After completing, I sewed on the earflaps and attached multi-colored pom poms.

I use a Clover pom pom maker to make my pom poms. They turn out thick and squishy and I waste less yarn. I have a very old one which I treat with extreme care because the plastic is easily broken. I know there is a newly redesigned Clover pom pom maker out there now that I have yet to try.

The nice thing about this hat is that besides being a quick knit, it also works for boys and girls and men. I frequently see teenagers wearing this style hat walking around town.

Which leads me to a question... Do you ever knit a project shown in a magazine or a pattern leaflet for a man if it is shown on a woman? Or vice versa?

I'm still working on the weekend wrap-up post. Taking longer because of all the photos. Turner's Falls Farmer's Market this afternoon! Hope the thunderstorm holds off!

On a Bit of a Break

Julia and I are away for a couple of days visiting my sister and her family. She has broadband and I have my computer with me so I am trying to find things to learn from that I wouldn't be able to at my dial-up location. I have stumbled upon some great things and Julia has discovered Hannah Montana on YouTube.

If you sometimes wonder about the back-story as to how clothing and home decor get into stores, you'll love this page on the Adobe website. At the bottom of the page you'll find links to creative people and companies including a behind the scenes at Anthropologie. I have used Adobe products for years and really count on them. Thanks to Decor8 for the link.

Granny Possibilities

After a life time of working with color, it is still amazing to me how much more there is to learn. The way colors combine can make me feel happy or sad, melancholy and introspective, excited and adventurous. Color is one of the world's greatest marvels. I can't get enough.

After years of designing colorful knitwear, I recently rediscovered the joys of crocheting – a craft I learned from my grandmother when I was ten. My reawakening to crochet began with a vacation to Maine and a bag of assorted broken balls of many colors of Julia yarn which were left over from editorial projects. I quickly grabbed the bag of scraps as I ran out the door. A quick stop at a northern Maine yarn store just before boarding a ferry to Swans Island yielded me a size H crochet hook. With those two things I was off.

On Swans' Island, amongst my good friends and family, I crocheted away. During breakfast, during cocktails on the ocean, during dessert of apple pie, I kept crocheting. I was obsessed. I couldn't stop. Each little square became a color exploration. Every piece was different than the last. On the car trip home I crocheted. At home, I would pick up my hook and yarn and whip out a few squares when ever I had a free moment.

Little did I know that my little foray into crochet would turn itself into a television appearance. Last week on PBS stations airing Knit and Crochet Today (Season 2), my vacation folly made its t.v. debut. How cool is that? Here's the link to my free Granny Pattern which is available on the Knit and Crochet Today website. From there you can download the list of colors and how I made the afghan I demonstrated on t.v.
I'm still grannying away - making more squares because I'm hoping to make this a double bed size afghan. It will take me a few more years, I'm sure. I find grannies soothing to knit and mindless to make but rewarding in their own little colorful way. You should try it one day. You might be hooked too!

Our new litter of kittens have certainly enjoyed the afghan. It's amazing how kittens and cats appreciate good fibers - if there's ever a swatch of mohair, cashmere or wool lying around, they will take a little nap on top of it. When I'm looking for a missing swatch, I always have to remember to look under the snoozing cats.