BRUSHED MOHAIR RUFFLE SHAWL
3 SKEINS THREE WATERS FARM BRUSHED MOHAIR
SIZE 10 needles
Final size: Center panel without ruffles, 54 inches long, 21 inches wide. Ruffles are 4” wide.
kfb = increase by knitting in the front and the back of the stitch.
C/O 72 sts on size 10 needles. Work in stockinette for 266 rows. Put sts on holder.
With right side facing, pick up & knit 233 sts along one long side (7 sts for every 8 rows).
Row 1 and all odd rows: purl.
Row 2: k2, *kfb, k6, repeat from * to end.
Row 4: k2, *kfb, k7, repeat from * to end.
Row 6: k2, *kfb, k8, repeat from * to end.
Row 8: k2, *kfb, k9, repeat from * to end.
Row 10: k2, *kfb, k10, repeat from * to end.
Row 12: k2, *kfb, k11, repeat from * to end.
Row 14: k2, *kfb, k12, repeat from * to end.
Row 16: k2, *kfb, k13, repeat from * to end.
Row 18: k2, *kfb, k14, repeat from * to end.
Row 20: Bind off.
Repeat for other long side.
Return sts from holder to needle, and with right side facing knit 1 row. Work Rows 1-20 as above.
On other short end, with right side facing, pick up & knit 72 sts. Work Rows 1-20 as above.
Sew edges of ruffles together at corners. Weave in ends.
Enjoy!
May 2nd, 2011
The Bradford Pear is in full bloom today. All week, I’ve watched this tree mull over its options. We’ve had cool days and freezing nights, enough to induce a spring bloomer to reconsider its position. In spite of this, every day this heedless tree was a little more brazen and showing a little more bling than the day before. Yesterday, it simply threw caution to the wind and blossomed entirely. I enjoy the Bradford Pear, but I find it a little unrestrained.
Bradford Pear
I am partial to the Deciduous Magnolia, from its compelling pussy-willow like buds to its stately rose and pink blossoms. It typically demonstrates more prudence than the Bradford Pear. I like that, being in want of a little more prudence myself. I noticed a few timid buds opening this week, but the effect was more bashful-child-peering-through-the-fence-at-the-party than Baby-I’ve-got-something-outrageous-to-show-you. But with things in the neighborhood heating up the way they are, the Deciduous Magnolia decided to join in.
Deciduous Magnolia
Our young Keifer pear trees are showing some adolescent derring-do, but I am hoping that they reconsider. After all, if we get a freeze hard enough to shut down the whole blooming party, the Keifer’s will lose more than just their blossoms, they will lose their fruit.
March 13th, 2011
As close as she is to delivering her kids, Mae Mae has still made a point of steering herself into the milk room at every milking, even though she has no need yet to be milked. It is a surprise to me — she has not made the milking room her habit this late in her pregnancies, but whatever her reasons for doing so now, it is a pleasure to see her maneuver her great bulk with such spring and spirit into her place on the milk stand.
The great size of her takes up a lot of space and so I have been leaning back against her as I milk her grandaughter Tweedle. Mae Mae doesn’t seem to mind, intent as she is on her eating, and it is a comfort to lean up against so capable a mother as she. It’s cozy and milking can be so dreamy, especially first thing in the morning early in the spring; it’s cold, I’m sleepy, the day’s not yet begun, the season’s barely begun, but for just this moment, things are going just as I wish they would.
As the goats are peacefully eating, the rhythm of milking is my meditation and leaning against Mae Mae is my comfort. While leaning against her, I sometimes feel against my back a sharp tap, a swift kick, or a larger, more sinuous movement, and then, just as I turn my attention to savoring both the surprise and the pleasure of this, it’s gone and I’m left with the feeling that I am at the edge of a dream and something magical I’ve barely seen has vanished before I’m sure that I’ve seen anything at all.
Any day now….
March 8th, 2011
Pensively waiting,
She quietly counts heartbeats.
Spring will be here soon.
March 6th, 2011
I have been ruminating over the idea that within the barn is an ever-evolving landscape but then I decided that I did not really know what a landscape was. After visiting the Encyclopedia Britannica, I now know that a landscape endures “progressive changes in topography” towards an “altered form.” “The changes can only occur in response to energy available to do work within the geomporphic system in question…*.”
Sounds about right.
*http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/329343/landform-evolution
March 2nd, 2011
Coming in like a lion, our first spring storm brought us high winds, rain, thunder, and lightning, but it left us with crisp air, bright light and the other half of the proverb.
- Out Like a Lamb, March 1, 2011
March 1st, 2011
I would guess that the ancient genre of slapstick comedy evolved from the antics of people trying to outwit the animal who just wouldn’t be caught. If you are lucky, you may one day be entertained with stories about this adept and elusive animal, because anyone who has ever kept a few grazing animals on pasture has a story (or two) to tell.
We ourselves are tired of this story and so we decided to look for some help with the sheep. Beside the fact that it is really hard to get good help these days, it is admittedly difficult to find knowledgeable, intermittent, part-time help with sheep herding. But finally we found someone who was willing to work, willing to learn, and willing to be available around the clock. He’s small, but he has a natural gift for the work.
February 19th, 2011
He is handsome. I don’t like his perfume, though.
Hairy Potter, September 2010
September 28th, 2010
There is a spider in residence above my milk room door. I’m guessing that in this place the living is relatively easy; there are many, many small flying things in the barn. I’m not sure how the rules of real estate work in the spider world, but this space seems to be top notch — sheltered from the worst of the weather, a span across a large open space with good lighting. Things seem to be working out for this spider; she is fast and fat and her web is a thing of great beauty.
The biggest drawback to this exclusive space is that I walk through that door twice a day and my face goes right through the center of her web. This is not good for either of us. You can probably imagine why I don’t like it much and it is just as easy to imagine that my arrival is a great disappointment to her. She keeps her feelings to herself however, and in the intervening time between milkings, she repairs her masterpiece and continues to wait for what comes. Unfortunately, what comes is me.
Walking into her web twice a day has lost whatever charm it may have had and I have begun to ponder the intelligence of this spider. Why does she, day in and day out, continue to repair and rebuild this catch net in such a vulnerable space? Can’t she connect the dots, so to speak? Can’t she figure out that this piece of real estate is vulnerable to cataclysm every twelve hours? I wonder if her acquisition of this particular place was an impulse buy; after all, it should be pretty obvious to Everyone that I’ve been walking through this door twice a day for 21 years now. Maybe she moved here from out of town? Of course, the more I question her intelligence, the louder the shadow thought becomes: how can I, day in and day out, continue to walk smack through the center of her sticky web? Why haven’t I figured out that this piece of real estate is occupied?
I am relieved to report that, given enough time, she and I seem to be equally educable. The first day that I remembered that I was about to walk through her newly repaired glory, I looked up and found that she had altered the building of her web to include my entrance and exit from the room. It must have been the complicated building calculus that took her so much time. What took me so much time is still an open question.
September 15th, 2010
Three Waters Farm Bakery
It occurred to me last week during my Friday morning bake-in that I have made a lot of cinnamon buns. When my children were small, I would start a batch after dinner, let is rise overnight in the fridge and bake cinnamon buns for breakfast. It was fun and easy; the smell of rising dough and baking rolls improves the outlook on any morning.
This is our nineteenth year at the Market; for eleven of those years I have been baking cinnamon buns. Doing a quick calculation based on average sales, I have made more than 27,000.
June 16th, 2010
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