Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Debbie Klann!!!

Debbie Klann (#770) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning a Beginner, Intermediate & Expert Level Knitting Merit Badge!

“I have been knitting since I was in grade school. I found this cute wrap scarf and some beautiful, silky yarn with beads and thought they would make a good pairing.

I worked on this on a 2-day trip with my husband to get some seed for the farm. It was an easy pattern to do and went quickly. It was nice to bring home a finished project.

My daughter found this Hunger Games-inspired cowl on Pinterest and asked if I would make it for her for Christmas. I had to research to find the right yarn … I ended up with some super-chunky baby alpaca … SO soft and warm! It was made on size 35 needles. I had to learn to do the herringbone stitch to make this. It was super-easy once I got going and I love how the stitch looks.

I was pleased with how it turned out, and so was my daughter! She wears it to work on really cold days and stays perfectly warm.

This shawl almost made me lose my mind a few times … but I learned SO much! I had to learn a new way of casting on so that I could later add the lace edging. When a pattern tells you to use a contrast yarn to do so … DO IT!!! I did not! There was no way to see the cast-on chain, so I ended up unravelling the shawl and reknitting that part. The lace edging was knitted separately and added on with a 3-needle bind-off … another new technique.

It took a lot to finally finish this, but I am so happy that I did. I love how it turned out. I know that it took at least 50 hours from start to finish. In my years of knitting, I have spent many hours knitting with my mom and friends, and have taught at least five other people how to knit. I think with knitting, you are always learning and you are always teaching each other. That’s one of the things that I love about it. And the relaxing click, click of my needles at the end of the day!”

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … CJ Armstrong!!!

CJ Armstrong (ceejay48, #665) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning an Expert Level UFO’s Merit Badge!

“For a variety of reasons, I just don’t have many UFOs left sitting around waiting to be finished. That generally isn’t my style anyway, but because of health challenges and other things I’ve been purging, recycling, and cleaning up my project room.

During the summer of 2011, my daughter and I had the privilege of going on the “Women of the Wild West” road trip which took us through Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. We met many farmgirls along the way, enjoyed a lot of activities and adventures, and ended our journey with a stay at MaryJanesFarm B&B and a Farmgirl Tea Party.

I had made memory books for both of us to take along. We asked each farmgirl we met to write a short note in the books and we also made notes, etc. I had taken a lot of photographs, had some prints made, and have been carrying this project around in my project case while glamping or traveling, hoping to get time to work on it. I also had included scissors and adhesive products and other embellishments to finish the book.

This project required sorting, selecting, and cropping photos as well as mounting them in the book and making journal notes to correspond with the photos.

It has taken well over the required 30 hours to complete.

Photos of this project are included in the UFO thread in the Stitching and Crafting section: www.maryjanesfarm.org/snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=71440

I’m so glad to have this project finished and be able to enjoy the book, looking back at the photos, reading the notes, and smiling at the fun and fond memories of this wonderful trip with my daughter.”

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Wendie George!!!

Wendie George (#6918) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning a Beginner Level UFOs Merit Badge!

“This is a great badge to earn. It’s a real feel-gooder. It feels great to finish a project that has been nagging at you.

The first part was a bit intimidating. Organizing and putting all my UFOs each into their own container or bag was a bit of work. It has started the whole process of cleaning and reorganizing my entire craft room. This is also a good thing. I purchased a bunch of clear plastic totes and placed one project into a tote/box. I then made the list of any supplies still needed to finish it and put the list inside the box on top of the supplies. I had a bunch of chalkboard stickers, so I put one on the front of each box and labeled the box with the project inside. While cleaning, I also made a box labeled “donation” for projects I no longer had interest in doing.

The second part was to finish one of the UFOs. I chose to finish a baby quilt for a coworker that I started about a month ago. The quilt top was pieced together, but that’s as far as I had gotten.

I feel I have succeeded in bagging and tagging all my UFOs. I also made a quick list of them all so I could start to cross it off. I am not going to admit the total number of UFOs on the list. I will just steadily work at finishing them while not creating more. Today I mailed the box of donation items to my Aunt. She is heavily involved with the church and many other quilters and aspiring quilters. I will let her spread out the projects to others who are willing to complete them (most were never started).

I started to finish the quilt by sandwiching the top to the cotton batting with a teal minky backing. I chose a quick method of quilting the layers together, “stitch in the ditch.” I used my machine for this. I added the pieced binding onto the front by machine, and hand-quilted it to the back. The final step to complete the quilt was to embroider a tag for the back. I have a Viking machine that kindly embroiders the words for me. I then hand-sewed the tag onto the back. One UFO down, a “few” to go!”

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Connie Bergstrom!!!

Connie Bergstrom (#6861) has received a certificate of achievement in Garden Gate for earning a Beginner Level Backyard Farmer Merit Badge!

“My first chicken was Burt, a Rhode Island Red rooster. I have had him for about 5 years. He has several lady friends, as we own around 50 hens and 3 roosters, including him and his son, Willie. We also have a Barred Rock rooster named Farmer who has a flock of his own Barred Rock and Cuckoo Maran hens.

We also have Orpingtons, Black Australorps, Buff Brahmas, RIR, Americanas, and New Hampshire Reds, and currently are raising up some Banties, Favorelles, Sexlink, RIR, and Orpington pullets. We feed organic cracked corn and hen scratch, occasionally free range, and they love scraps from the garden and the kitchen.

I absolutely love it. I sell our eggs; we get approximately 5-15 eggs a day when they are not on strike because of the Texas heat.”