Freeport and Yarn!

Not only are there THREE yarn shops in Freeport (maybe more?) but the place was yarn-bombed!

LLBean didn't turn me into a shopper.  The yarn shops:  Grace Robinson & Company, Mother of Purl, and Casco Bay Fiber Company.

Camp

The view!  The pond!  Lovely! Quiet!  Yarn!

Beach for Knitters

One day, our destination between yarn shops was Birch Beach State Park.  Sand, and lots of sun, and... DANG!  No needles.  I grabbed my knitting bag, and forgot that I had traded out needles.  Was I grumpy?  You bet!  

Made this a cache though.

I resorted to whittling driftwood down to size US1.  Gotta do what you gotta do!

The Shopping-Yarn-Wagon

What's life like in the Yarn Wagon?  Five of us, traveling around Maine, scouting out yarn shops, and is there room for purchases?  Of course!!

Here's K packed away in the third row with "everything".

In Camden: The Cashmere Goat

In Rockland: Over the Rainbow Yarn.  We stumbled upon Knit Nite at the shop! And free wi-fi!

In Portland:  Tess' Designer Yarn

All earned the 5-star rating!

Yummy Yarn

Swans Island seconds with "tonal defects".  I guess I like wool...

Natural Colors Merino Fingering

by Swans Island

Light Fingering / 3 ply

100% Merino

525 yards / 100 grams

Need?  No.  But I just read a bit of Yarn Harlot's book, "Knitting Rules" where she gives 5 reasons to keep a stash.  I feel SO much better.  Especially number... No, all five are equally valid!  

#2 for today:  It's from Maine!  It's sock yarn.  End of subject.

Caper Sock by String Theory Hand Dyed Yarn

Fingering / 4 ply

80% Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon

400 yards / 113 grams

This past summer I witnessed how much wear some of my garments get on a 4-5 year old. The dress I made for her has been worn and washed so much that it really needs to be retired. I was a bit disappointed to see the pilling and shaggy look of it, but my daughter pointed out that it has been worn many times, and in many daily (rough/outdoor) occasions, and washed ad infinitum, and it has every reason to look the way it does. And it is still loved! And worn!! So, I decided I should make a new one. In the same color, to encourage trading out. Here's the purchase, made at Halcyon.

Worsted Merino Superwash Solidsby Plymouth YarnWorsted / 10 ply
100% Merino
218 yards / 100 grams

Impulse?! Yes. Yummy? Yes!!

This is the biggest reason why I shouldn't be in Yarn Shops... I can't resist, let's see, colors, textures, all the senses...

From the time I walked into Webs, I had spied this hanging, Loose-Lady-Like, on the display towards the entrance. I fingered it, and walked around, and an hour later, I picked it up and took it to the counter. Easy! No ideas, specific, that is. I can think of all of creation being made with this yarn!

So I bought 5 skeins, and am hoping for the best.

tosh merino light

by madelinetosh

Fingering / 4 ply

100% Merino, 100% Wool

420 yards

I guess I like Merino.

Go ahead!  Make me an offer!  Better be a good one!!

Swans Island

Near our "camp" is the village of Lincolnshire with this picturesque gazebo, and a cache just behind me.  Little did I expect to be caught up with caching on my knitting retreat!  Turns out that hostess with the mostess was very eager and we, of course, were rewarded with experiences that we wouldn't have had sans caches.

Doesn't this just call out "New England"???

And further up the road, on the way to Belfast for the greatest lobster of all time, we stopped at Swans Island Company.  Click on their link only if you have a half hour.  I was SO tempted to buy their goods!  ALL of it.

In the back was the whir of fans and clacking and whirring of machines.  Hand-woven?  I think SO!

This young woman was winding bobbins.  I thought perhaps that was her sole job, but with bobbins in hand, she proceeded to another room and began weaving.

Fortunately for us, we managed to get away with yarn only.  Their seconds yarns were full of "tonal defects".  Tonal defects that we LOVE!!!

Maine Yarn Crawl

After teasing you with my travels, I think it's time to share the proceeds... so to speak.  

Here are some things that I didn't know would like a home in New Mexico:

First, a purchase from Halcyon Yarn.  What a wonderful experience in Bath, Maine.  Their catalog is enough to make you fall in love... but being there, and seeing and feeling.  It only makes me want MORE!  So, like a puppy wanting to sniff and nose everything, I staggered in a daze around the rooms, and I convinced myself that IF I was ever to get going on weaving, I needed a concrete plan.  And there it was...  These babies all packaged up with a pattern calling out, "Eat ME!"  And I did.

Homestead 8/2 cotton by Halcyon YarnLace / 2 ply
100% Cotton, 600 yards / 85 grams

AND I'm happy to announce that it works! I have the beginnings of towel number two on my loom today! (By the way, the Halcyon shop event was August 4th.)
Then, as knitters know, mistakes happen. Ripping out happens, and frustration, and sometimes, after repeated trials, you just can't take it anymore, and you...(Judy)... have a moment of insanity where you say to your neighbor, "Take it! I don't want it!" This happened to me, being the neighbor, and I put Judy out of her misery...NICE! Look at that color! Now, Judy, you may want it back, and as long as I haven't gotten it on needles, it's still yours! And to be fair, the color IS a bit darker than photographed, and remember, the reason you didn't like it was that it was too dark, and you "couldn't count". If you decide that the lighting at home is better than at camp, and there aren't four other chatty knitters to distract you at home, you are free to change your mind. (With the above caveat.)

Sigh!  

Fine Art by Rowan

Light Fingering / 3 ply

45% Wool, 25% Nylon, 20% Mohair, 10% Silk

437 yards / 100 grams

The LAST purchase, and the last one for today's blog... Something I never thought I would purchase, but the "high" of Tess' Designer Yarns put me over the edge...again. THIS time, we all agreed that going to Tess' on the last day of our 9 day trip was serendipitous. We wouldn't have appreciated the other shops as much, and we wouldn't have appreciated Tess' either!
The "yarn", or rightly referred to as "ribbon" was laid out on long tables with every wonderful color... undeniably understandably making the biggest knot in my stomach... So afraid I couldn't decide which color I wanted. It's like choosing who will live or die! Even three weeks later, I still envision all of those colors laying there, calling out...
Oh, yes, this purchase: I have two skeins of dark blue, and this one with blue and green-yellow for contrast. They have patterns, and models there to show it knitted... I was a goner. Hope I can do it justice!

Microfiber Ribbon by Tess' Designer Yarns

Sport / 5 ply  100% Nylon

333 yards / 150 grams

Note:  The patterns were knit tightly, with a small gauge.

After being in my suitcase, and handled, I hope it won't be impossible to roll into a ball.

Thanks for tuning in.  I'm off to my stash-busting!  Feel free to scold if you see me buying more yarn from September to May.

Knit tour in Rockland

Outside there was a downpour!  Umbrellas were needed, and left at the door of "Over the Rainbow Yarn".  

Inside, there were all sorts of delights.  If you click on the photos you can zoom in on those display hats.  In Maine motifs... think "lobster".

And, oh so much, to choose from.  There were glamorous yarn bowls of inlaid colorful wood which were on the shelves.  Maybe you can zoom in to see those, too.

What did I buy?  Hmmm.  So many shops, so many purchases...  Can't think!

A First To Find (FTF)

Some may know that I'm a geocacher.  I'm a wimpy geocacher, often giving up if I don't stumble upon the cache in a few minutes, or if it involves a steep climb or contact with wasps and such.
However, I seem to have to my credit several friends who have gotten the "bug" from me and taken off on their own with much more determination and persistence than I ever had.


I've also placed 4 caches which mostly rate as being very difficult and therefore generate very little traffic or interest.  Two of them were placed last summer in Maine while sailing on the Isaac Evans, and a few days ago I got word that someone found one of them.  That's a First To Find or FTF in our language.  But WHAT a story!!


Location: Maine, United States
darterkitfox found Brenda's Booty (Traditional Cache) at 4/19/2011

Log Date: 4/19/2011
This is certainly going to get a favorites icon from me, not only because of the view and the beautiful island but because of the experience I had of getting it.  Oh, and FTF too.  Cleaning up an oil spill under a business on Main Street, I was on the island for 3 days, staying at what appeared to be the only motel, The Tidewater.  The weather was great today and we got done with our work early.  I really wanted to try for this one but I couldn't find anyone with a boat to take me for less than $150.  I decided to rent a kayak.  Now I've only been on a two person, sit on top, kayak down in the Caribbean and wasn't expecting a kayak that was only as tall as I was.  My size 15 steel toed boots only fit sideways inside too.  Not being able to swim, I wasn't very inspired on my chances of survival.   My next problem was getting close enough to launch with my method of transportation being a 31 foot box truck.  I ended up driving down a road called Crockett something, which was only wide enough for my truck with both sides being mud.  When I finally met someone coming the other direction, she had to back up almost a quarter of a mile until she could pull off.  I got out to talk with her and luckily she wasn't mad but was surprised I was down there with that truck.  I told her what I was doing and she told me there was a place I could park and launch not much further up the road.  When I finally squeezed into the kayak in a foot of water, all I did was wobble back and forth.  I made several attempts at stabilizing it, but it just made it worse and I almost tipped over.  I decided I was out of my league and since the water is about 40 degrees I would cut my losses and go back to the motel.  Then I figured I'd just go along the shore in the inlet and if I fell out, it would only be a couple feet deep.  Then for some reason I got the hang of it.  With more confidence, I headed along the shore and then cut across a narrows to another little island.  GPS showed less than .3 at this point and I decided to cross the open water and go for it.  When I made shore, I had a harder time getting out of the kayak and ended up dragging myself up over the bulbous seaweed, getting myself wet and slimy.  Finally, on my feet again, I went the few hundred feet to the cache which I found almost immediately.  By the way, it's barely a small, and definately not a regular.  Signed the FTF but can't figure out why the note on it said it was placed last summer but it was only published recently.  When I got back to the kayak, I found out that the seat back pops out and I had been sitting on that instead of down in the seat itself.  What a much more stable ride when you actually sit down in the seat with the back behind you!  Who knew!  Well worth my $25 rental for the experience and my coworkers didn't have to come find my body either.


It warms my heart!  The reason it didn't get published for 7 months was that I wasn't allowed to place a cache so far from "home" because I couldn't maintain it.  In February, I found a local... Brenda, herself, to be the custodian.  Hopefully it will enjoy a few finds this season.

Still More Yarn in Maine!

After a good night's rest, with temperatures rising (heat wave in... Maine!! Who knew?) we primed ourselves for visiting 3 yarn shops in Portland.  Sonia, the car navigator, had us driving here and there, and sent us around in circles. Even when we could see the place we would hear: "Turn left in 200 feet."  ???  But nothing could deter us.  I admired P's handiwork (she wove these baskets for an exact fit under a window seat) and off we went in the yarn-mobile.

Day Four:Our first stop was Central Yarn in Central Portland.  An amazing button collection that covered a huge chunk of wall, and I sat on my camera! No, I didn't destroy it, just got carried away with looking with my eyes and feeling with my fingers.

Then, Sonia, sent us around and around the block until we tired of that.  On our own, we found Tess' but alas, no one was home. And no one answered the phone number on the door, so we continued on to KnitWit Yarn Shop.  We felt right at home, being Knit Wits ourselves.  This is where I found the lovely yarn jars!

And their own spun merino (without tags) which I found too yummy to resist.

I found that two yarn shops a day is my limit!  Especially since we would be traveling another (I say, ANOTHER) 2 days.

Day Five:

On the road again, heading west and home.  I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel... I've been away from my bed at home for 47 nights, so I was ready to move along.

We took some beautiful, undivided highways straight west into New Hampshire, carving a path to PatternWorks.  Beautiful New England setting, on a lake, with other craft stores in the same complex, white painted clap-board... sunny (hot) day and their "side-walk" sale made it a bit difficult to even enter the store!  Great bargains outside, and beautiful yarns, models and kits inside.  

I came away with the kit for Cable Tote in Purple.  Three interesting yarns are in the mix.

We asked for a recommendation of a place to eat and were sent around the corner to a lakeside restaurant called Canoe.  Still not too far from the coast, I treated myself to (another) Lobster Roll and Sweet Potato Fries. Yum!

P's tuna wasn't too shabby either!  Those are two long broccolini spears tempura'ed.  Rural New Hampshire!  I'll go back!!!

Making a Garden

We were on a mission to find something that would represent Rapunzel.  We transported her and she is on display in Portland, Maine.